Sensitivity to Levels of Importance in the Logical Memory Subtest

The performance of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and neuropsychiatric patients was examined using the Logical Memory (LM) subtest of the WMS-R, utilizing a levels of importance methodology described by Haut et al. (1990). Although patient groups were matched for dementia severity, we found the expected differences between groups in terms of absolute level of performance. There was considerable variability, however, in the AD patients' performance. AD patients' recall and sensitivity to levels of importance depended on the story (Anna or Robert), and when the passages were recalled (immediate or delayed recalls). Results suggested that AD patients were able to utilize semantic information in their immediate recall, though this was dependent on individual story characteristics. AD patient's delayed recall was essentially absent. Thus, no conclusions could be drawn with respect to the level of importance factor. NP patient's recall performance was similar to patterns observed in other clinical samples for both immediate and delayed memory.     

A spirituality for the long haul: Response to chronic illness

This article outlines a spirituality appropriate for those whose lives are affected by chronic injury or illness. Spirituality may be defined simply as a sustained and lived-out vision of life. An emerging spirituality of the whole person in relation to self, others, society, the earth, and a divine presence that pervades all that is acknowledges: (1) the basic dignity of the person, and (2) the drive to growth, wholeness, and fullness in every person. It implies a respectful assistance toward whatever human growth is possible for the chronically ill, while summoning a caring presence that remains faithful despite limitations or impending death.     

Confusions about context in the judgment of facial expression: A reply to “the contempt expression and the relativity thesis”

A recent study of the effect of context in the judgment of contempt facial expression (Russell, 1991) was flawed by several confusions about what constitutes context. We argue that the context used should have ecological validity, through the use of many, rather than a few, facial expressions, which are spontaneous rather than posed, and which are judged by carefully selected judgment tasks, using clearly defined or well-understood emotional terms. The confusion in Russell's work between accuracy studies and agreement studies is also addressed.Paul Ekman's work is supported by a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 06092). David Matsumoto's research is supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 42749).     

Intellectual,academic, and adaptive functioning of Tourette syndrome children with and without attention deficit disorder

The intellectual, academic, and adaptive strengths and weaknesses of 30, medication-free children (M = 10.5 years) with Tourette syndrome (TS) were assessed with a battery of standardized psychoeducational measures and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Results indicated significant relative weaknesses in mental and written arithmetic, and relative strengths in reading achievement and abstract, logical thinking. Socialization skills emerged as a significant weakness in adaptive functioning. Comparisons between TS children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD-H) (n = 19) weakness in both groups in all areas assessed, but significantly lower performance IQs in TS subjects with ADD-H. These findings are discussed in relation to future research with TS children.     

TEACHING A PARENT TO TRAIN A SPOUSE IN CHILD MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

This study analyzed several aspects of the training of a mother and father in child management techniques for use with their 6-year-old severely developmentally delayed son. The mother received clinic training in procedures for increasing her son's independent dressing skills; subsequently, she was asked to teach the same procedures to her husband with no assistance from the trainer. For both parents, procedures were introduced sequentially across two components of parent behavior in a multiple baseline design. Examinations were made of (a) the effectiveness of initial child management training on the mother's behaviors, (b) her ability to teach the same techniques to her husband independently, (c) the generalization of both parents' skills from the training setting (a dressing task) to two untrained activities (eating and toy use), and (d) the impact of training on the child's behavior. Results showed that the mother learned to implement the trained procedures and successfully communicated them to her husband, as evidenced by substantial positive changes in both parents' behaviors after being introduced to the child management skills. Both parents showed some generalization to the untrained activities, and their written comments following training indicated they understood the procedures. Clear-cut improvements were observed in the child's attending and independent performance of dressing and toy use skills concurrent with parent training. A 2-year follow-up report indicated that both parents retained their knowledge of skills taught, continued to use the procedures, and rated the training as very helpful in teaching the child self-help skills.     

INVOLVING INSTITUTIONAL STAFF IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF SIGN LANGUAGE SKILLS WITH PROFOUNDLY RETARDED PERSONS

A program to involve institutional staff in developing manual sign language skills with profoundly retarded persons was evaluated. In Experiment 1, six direct care staff, with close supervision, taught a small repertoire of signs to six profoundly retarded residents who had not benefited from previous training in vocal language. Training was conducted in a group format using instructions, modeling, manual guidance, contingent reinforcers, and feedback. During training, all residents learned to identify pictures of objects with manual signs. Generalization observations during unstructured times on the residents' living unit indicated that staff used their signing skills with the residents in addition to their vocal interactions but the residents did not increase their signing or vocalizing. In Experiment 2, the residents' skills in signing with real objects on their living unit as opposed to pictures of objects were evaluated and provided with additional training where necessary. Results indicated that all participating residents learned to communicate with signing during structured interactions on their living unit, and the skills maintained during follow-up assessments ranging from 39 to 49 weeks. Results are discussed regarding the variable generalization effects noted as well as the general benefits and disadvantages of teaching manual signing skills to profoundly retarded persons.     

Written language acquisition after left or right hemidecortication in infancy

When written language is acquired in only one hemisphere because of hemidecortication in infancy, the left hemisphere is superior to the right at using morphophonemic rules to read and spell unfamiliar words, and at exploiting the structure of sentence units to achieve rapid reading of meaning in prose. The ability to learn names for logographs, however, is better in the right hemisphere than in the left. The greater mastery of written language in the left hemisphere is a result, not of an enhanced facility for making cross-modal associations between sounds and signs, but of a superior access to the morphophonemic rule system and the higher-order textual constraints of English.     

Effects of hue,brightness, contrast with background,and observation time on figural dominance in ambiguous patterns

Ambiguous patterns composed of two alternate crosses of different hues and brightness on two different brightness backgrounds were viewed for 120 sec by 10 female college students. Each subject observed 92 pattern presentations (23 patterns, each pattern presented in 2 orientations and on each of 2 backgrounds). Effects of hue and brightness contrast with background were clearly demonstrated: blue was the most dominant, red the least, and green and yellow located in between. Brightness contrast of patterns with background accentuated figural dominance of the darker figures. The number of alternations increased over the observation time for hues of equal brightness; however, the relation of this measure to total duration of seeing a figure in studies of figural dominance is unclear. Theories of neural satiation, fatigue, and interaction were used in interpreting the results.     

Sentential structure and the perceptual span in normal reading development

An eye-voice span paradigm was adopted to determine whether children use different aspects of sentence structure to facilitate decoding early in the course of reading development. Eightyfour Grade 1 and Grade 2 children, representing four levels of early reading competence, and 15 skilled adult subjects read from four textual conditions; materials varied in the extent to which the texts were semantically and/or syntactically constrained. The more precocious the young reader, the longer his reported span. The better readers' and the adults' advantage was greater the more linguistically constrained the reading material. These data support a continuous model fo reading development and are compatible with an interactive definition of early reading behavior.     

What is the role of affect in the spacing effect?

In Experiments 1 and 2, after studying a list containing connotatively neutral words that were presented once or were presented at various spacing intervals, subjects either attempted free recall or made affective judgments of the study-list targets along a pleasant/unpleasant dimension. Spacing effects occurred in recall, and massed items were judged to be more unpleasantthan once-presented and spaced words. In the third experiment, subjects studied homogeneous lists composed of either connotatively good words or connotativelybad ones. Spacing effects were absent in the recall of both types of words because massed-practice words were recalled at a high level, one that was about the same as that for spaced-practice words. Affective judgments were unrelated to presentation condition, and both good and bad massed words were judged to be positive in affect. Although the data suggest that different study conditions can lead to different affective reactions, the results are moot with regard to the relationship between affect and the magnitude of spacing effects.