A developmental study of the auditory Stroop effect

A pediatric auditory version of the Stroop procedure was developed and administered to 48 normal children from 3 to 6 years of age. Our purpose was to define the developmental course characterizing interaction between auditory and semantic speech dimensions in young children. The procedure was a reaction time (RT) task that required children to respond as quickly and as accurately as possible to words spoken by a male or a female voice. Children were instructed to ignore what was said and to push the "Mommy" button if Mommy was talking or the "Daddy" button if Daddy was talking. Performance was obtained for words with neutral, congruent, and conflicting semantic content. Preschool children manifested processing dependencies that were similar to those observed in adults on the visual Stroop procedure. Conflict between semantic and auditory dimensions significantly increased RT and congruence between the two dimensions significantly decreased RT relative to the neutral condition. The pattern of results indicated that the meaning of words was processed automatically in the normal children. The magnitude of the Stroop effect reflected developmental change with increasing age.     

Self-esteem of adolescent girls as related to weight

The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale was administered to 550 14- and 16-yr.-old (+/- 6 mo.) girls. Self-esteem scores were categorized by weight and weight by height. Scores on the Quetelet Index for obesity were correlated with self-esteem scores. Mean self-esteem of the low- and middle-weight by height group was significantly higher than the mean of the high-weight by height group. In analyzing weight alone, the self-esteem of the middle-weight group was significantly higher than the self-esteem of the high-weight group. The correlation of the obesity index and self-esteem indicated that as weight increased self-esteem decreased.     

Visual Elaboration Scale as a measure of imagery

We studied the correlation of one measure of imagery ability, the Visual Elaboration Scale, with two others, absorption of image and effort required to form a mental image. Significant correlations were obtained between the Visual Elaboration Scale and the other scales, with the exception of Absorption for women.     

A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice (Mus musculus): III. Behavioral mediation by heightened reactivity or immobility?

This research was designed to investigate development and behavioral mediation in lines of ICR mice that have been selectively bred for aggressive behavior. General behavioral reactivity and behavioral immobility have been implicated as potential mediators by prior analyses of preattack interactions. To evaluate the separate roles of these dispositions, the emergence of attacks in genetically selected lines was tracked for 11 years by three levels of analysis: over successive generations, over development, and over dyadic interactions. Convergent outcomes were observed in all three levels with respect to two findings: (a) Robust line differences were obtained in attack behaviors, and (b) strong associations were found between line differences in attacks and line differences in behavioral immobility. Conversely, all three levels of analysis indicated a weak and inconsistent association between line differences in attacks and measures of social and nonsocial reactivity.     

Solving the rod-and-frame test in a tachistoscopic presentation: Effects of stimulus size and perceptual style

This research was undertaken to demonstrate, with correlational evidence, that presenting the rod-and-frame test (RIT) with either limited (tachistoscopic) or unlimited (Oltman’s, 1968, portable RFT) exposure time does not significantly affect the ranking of subjects. The underlying hypothesis is that the intersubject variability of performance on the portable RFT is due essentially to differences in sensitivity to the optostatic vection that appears automatically and almost immediately. Results of the tachistoscopic test show that the effect of angular size of the stimulus is similar to that described in the literature for unlimited time situations, and that subjects’ ranking is very similar regardless of the exposure time (W = .80). However, although a difference is observed between the means of low and high achievers in both types of RFT, intraindividual intertask homogeneity (correlation coefficient) is not verified in each of these subgroups. From these results, one can distinguish two processes in the RFT: the first, vections, has to do with the subject’s postural orientation and seems to playa great role in organizing interindividual differences. The second process, a more cognitive one, has a less striking effect and has to do with the selection of reference frames in perceptual organization.     

From Monroe to Moreau: an analysis of face naming errors.

Functional models of face recognition and speech production have developed separately. However, naming a familiar face is, of course, an act of speech production. In this paper we propose a revision of Bruce and Young's (1986) model of face processing, which incorporates two features of Levelt's (1989) model of speech production. In particular, the proposed model includes two stages of lexical access for names and monitoring of face naming based on a "perceptual loop". Two predictions were derived from the perceptual loop hypothesis of speech monitoring: (1) naming errors in which a (correct) rare surname is erroneously replaced by a common surname should occur more frequently than the reverse substitution (the error asymmetry effect); (2) naming errors in which a common surname is articulated are more likely to be repaired than errors which result in articulation of a rare surname (the error-repairing effect). Both predictions were supported by an analysis of face naming errors in a laboratory face naming task. In a further experiment we considered the possibility that the effects of surname frequency observed in face naming errors could be explained by the frequency sensitivity of lexical access in speech production. However, no effect of the frequency of the surname of the faces used in the previous experiment was found on face naming latencies. Therefore, it is concluded that the perceptual loop hypothesis provides the more parsimonious account of the entire pattern of the results.     

PROBLEM SOLVING TO PREVENT WORK INJURIES IN SUPPORTED EMPLOYMENT

A problem-solving strategy was used to teach three groups of 3 individuals in supported employment how to prevent work-related injuries. The problem-solving strategy was taught in two training phases. The first training phase involved the use of cue cards, and the second involved the withdrawal of the cue cards. Interviews and staged generalization assessments in the participants' natural work environments were conducted before, during, and up to 12 weeks after training. In these assessments, situations were presented that were either similar or dissimilar to situations presented in training. Results of both the interviews and staged assessments indicated that the participants' newly acquired problem-solving skills generalized to similar and dissimilar situations.     

Misremembering a familiar object: Mnemonic illusion,not drawing bias

It was reported by Jones (1990) that the design of British coins is systematically misremembered. Although the Queen's head in fact faces right, most people draw it facing left. It is possible, however, that the origin of this phenomenon does not reside in memory but instead in a leftward drawing bias. Two experiments of the three reported here tested this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, British participants attempted to recall the direction of the Queen's head but responded verbally instead of pictorially. The results were similar to those of Jones and thus contradict the hypothesis that misremembering of the Queen's head is caused by a leftward drawing bias. In Experiment 2, Canadian participants attempted to draw a Canadian coin. Leftward misremembering was not observed in this case. Thus the hypothesized importance of a leftward drawing bias was again not supported. Instead, the results provided support for the schema explanation of the Queen's Head memory illusion proposed by Jones. The results of Experiment 3, which compared memory for British coins and stamps, further bolstered this conclusion.