Pupillary responses to syntactic ambiguity of sentences

Pupillary responses have proven to be reliable physiological correlates of cognitive effort in a variety of tasks, including language processing. To investigate the relation between psychological and syntactic complexity 20 syntactically ambiguous sentences, balanced for bias, were presented to 16 subjects, while their pupil size was continuously measured. These sentences could be read as verb oriented (syntactically more complex) or object oriented (syntactically less complex). Principal components analysis of pupillary movements revealed that verb-oriented readings, resulted in greater pupillary dilations than object-oriented readings, indicating that syntactically more complex sentences, as determined via a formal grammar, require greater cognitive effort in processing. This is viewed as further evidence for the notion that syntactic and psychological complexity are related. High- and low-bias sentences did not induce comparable differences in pupillary movements, indicating that the "multiple meaning theory" may have to be modified.     

Lateralization of lexical codes in auditory word recognition

Three experiments examined the lateralization of lexical codes in auditory word recognition. In Experiment 1 a word rhyming with a binaurally presented cue word was detected faster when the cue and target were spelled similarly than when they were spelled differently. This orthography effect was larger when the target was presented to the right ear than when it was presented to the left ear. Experiment 2 replicated the interaction between ear of presentation and orthography effect when the cue and target were spoken in different voices. In Experiment 3, subjects made lexical decisions to pairs of stimuli presented to the left or the right ear. Lexical decision times and the amount of facilitation which obtained when the target stimuli were semantically related words did not differ as a function of ear of presentation. The results suggest that the semantic, phonological, and orthographic codes for a word are represented in each hemisphere; however, orthographic and phonological representations are integrated only in the left hemisphere.     

Incidental learning,distraction, and sustained attention in hyperactive and control subjects

Thirty-two children designated as hyperactive (ADD) were compared with an equal number of control subjects who were matched for age, sex, and verbal IQ. The subjects were tested on (1) a component selection task, measuring serial memory and incidental learning and (2) a cancellation task, assessing attentional variables and distractibility. No straightforward group differences were found on the component selection task, whereas hyperactive subjects made more omission and commission errors than controls on the cancellation task. It was concluded that a deficit in sustained attention and impulsivity best described the group differences. Age was also found to influence performance on a number of variables, including incidental learning on the component selection task and response rate and omission errors on the cancellation task. Because subjects in the hyperactive group were rated as extreme on a number of subscales not necessarily related to hyperactivity, the data were reexamined by multiple regression analyses. Subscales considered to be related both to hyperactivity and to conduct disorder were associated with different performance variables, indicating that each of these subscales provided some unique information.This study was supported by a grant from the Medical Research Council of New Zeland to the first author. The authors would like to thank the pupils and staff of Mt. Eden Normal Primary School and Newmarket School for taking part in the study, and the Auckland Education Board for granting approval for the study. We also thank Prof. J. S. Werry, Dr. J. Reeves, and Mrs. G. Elkind for assistance in locating some of the control subjects. Special thanks goes to Gail Elkind for assistance with the statistical analysis.     

Impact of a preventive social problem solving intervention on children's coping with middle-school stressors

Children receiving 1 year or 1/2 year of a preventive social problem solving program in elementary school were compared with each other and with a no-treatment group upon entry into middle school. One year of training was significantly related to reductions in the severity of a variety of middle-school stressors. Most importantly, a clear mediating role for social problem solving (SPS) skills was found. Children lacking in SPS skills were more likely to experience intense stressors; however, possessing the skills was not necessarily predictive of adjustment to stressors. The results are discussed in terms of the implications of this asymmetry and the strong support given to the value of social problem solving as a preventive intervention for children.     

Ulysses contracts

ABSTRACT 'Ulysses contracts' are an instrument through which a psychiatric patient may prearrange involuntary commitments to be put into effect if the patient satisfies certain diagnostic criteria in the future. Proposals for Ulysses contracts typically impose numerous safeguards. This paper argues against the intuitively plausible safeguard which permits only presently remitted patients to contract. Instead of requiring a patient's remission, it is argued that the appropriate safeguard is the patient's ability, whether remitted or not, to offer good reasons for wishing to contract. In short, what matters is not an executive's character, but an executive's reasons, and a bad executive may have good reasons. Attempts to deny the accessibility of good reasons in unremitted patients are rejected on the ground that psychiatric diagnosis requires psychiatrists to be able to distinguish between good and bad reasons in both remitted and unremitted patients. If psychiatrists cannot do that, psychiatric diagnosis is impossible.     

A note on modulation of gait in man: Effects of constraining stride length and frequency

In this study, our aim was to investigate the effect of an imposed stride-length on walking speed and stride-frequency, and the effect of an imposed stride-frequency on walking speed and stride-length. These variations were determined in relation to the values obtained by analysing the subject's preferred pace. In the first case, the subject had to step on transversal stripes on the floor; in the second case, he had to synchronize his stride with a regular auditory signal. The results obtained with 8 subjects show that speed was the most variable factor. Variations in speed were correlated with variations in the imposed parameter: whenever the subject lengthened his stride or increased his stride-frequency, his walking speed increased proportionally. These results point to a relative independence between stride-length and stride-frequency, and a strong correlation between each of these parameters and speed.     

The influence of emotional meaning on the recall of words processed for form or self-reference

Summary How much does the recall of affectively positive, negative, and neutral words that differ in their emotional impact depend on the conceptual processing of these words? To answer this question one group of subjects were requested to rate the pronounceability of these words (formal orienting task), but were later tested for recall. Subsequently, they were asked to judge the intensity of the emotions aroused by the words. Another group of subjects received the latter, self-related task prior to the first exposure to the words. In both conditions the highly affect-arousing words were better recalled than the less emotional words. The affectively positive words were particularly well recalled, but only by those subjects involved in the formal orienting task. It is concluded that words are evaluated for their emotional content at an early stage of information processing as defined by Craik and Lockhart (1972).Extended version of an earlier paper delivered at the 34. Kongreß der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie in Vienna, 1984     

Interaction of emotion and cognition in word recall

Summary Previous research has demonstrated that the emotional properties of words and their imaginability affect their recallability and that verbal material is recalled better when it is related to subjects' current concerns. This study investigates the extent to which this effect of emotion on recall varies as a function of cognitively controllable inference processes and examines the relation of the effects of emotion to those of imaginability and concern-relatedness. Forty different words were presented visually under one of six orienting conditions that varied according to what the subject was asked to rate: their length, pronounceability, concreteness, defineability, the strength of emotion elicited by the word, and the relation of the word to personal concerns. Subjects were then asked to write as many words as they could recall. Words that aroused stronger emotion and were easier to represent in imagery were recalled better than emotionally less arousing and imaginally less evocative words, regardless of the nature of the orienting task. The evidence suggests that the emotional properties of words are evaluated automatically in an early processing stage, without requiring subjects to reflect on word content. Emotional arousal appears to mediate the effects of current concerns on recall. It is correlated with but appears to function independently of word imaginability.