Some Implications of a Behavioral Analysis of Verbal Behavior for Logic and Mathematics

The evident power and utility of the formal models of logic and mathematics pose a puzzle: Although such models are instances of verbal behavior, they are also essentialistic. But behavioral terms, and indeed all products of selection contingencies, are intrinsically variable and in this respect appear to be incommensurate with essentialism. A distinctive feature of verbal contingencies resolves this puzzle: The control of behavior by the nonverbal environment is often mediated by the verbal behavior of others, and behavior under control of verbal stimuli is blind to the intrinsic variability of the stimulating environment. Thus, words and sentences serve as filters of variability and thereby facilitate essentialistic model building and the formal structures of logic, mathematics, and science. Autoclitic frames, verbal chains interrupted by interchangeable variable terms, are ubiquitous in verbal behavior. Variable terms can be substituted in such frames almost without limit, a feature fundamental to formal models. Consequently, our fluency with autoclitic frames fosters generalization to formal models, which in turn permit deduction and other kinds of logical and mathematical inference.     

Actual Reports and Perceptions of Body Image Concerns of Young Women and Their Friends

The present study was conducted to examine the role of friends in women’s body image concerns. Self and peer reports were completed by a convenience sample of 75 pairs of same gender female friends (N?=?150) from a small undergraduate university in Eastern Canada. In a conceptual replication of previous research, we first showed that self-reports of perceived pressure to be thin significantly predicted women’s own body image concerns when controlling for body mass. Of interest was the finding that body-related talk between friends that focused on exercise significantly predicted less body dissatisfaction. Additionally, by examining the relationships between self and peer reports, we showed that women’s perceptions of their friends’ body image concerns aligned to both self-reports and to friends’ actual reports suggesting that women likely projected their own self-views when perceiving friends. Moreover, using multiple regression analyses, we demonstrated that perceptions of friends, and not friends’ actual reports, predicted own body concerns. Besides the suggestions for future research stemming from limitations of the present study, we suggest that researchers interested in similarities between friends on women’s body image concerns include both perceptions of peers and actual peer reports.     

Working memory: A developmental study of phonological recoding

A cross-sectional study using children aged 3 to 7 years and a cross-sequential study using children aged between 5 and 8 years showed that the development of phonological recoding in working memory was more complex than the simple dichotomous picture portrayed in the current literature. It appears that initially children use no strategy in recall, which is proposed to represent the level of automatic activation of representations in long-term memory and the storage capacity of the central executive. This is followed by a period in which a visual strategy prevails, followed by a period of dual visual-verbal coding before the adult-like strategy of verbal coding finally emerges. The results are discussed in terms of three working memory models (Baddeley, 1990; Engle, 1996; Logie, 1996) where strategy use is seen as the development of attentional processes and phonological recoding as the development of inhibitory mechanisms in the central executive to suppress the habitual response set of visual coding.     

Hierarchical elaboration in the conceptual structures of vietnam combat veterans

Abstract

Sixty male Vietnam combat veterans, 30 hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 30 with no PTSD or other psychiatric disorder, sorted and labeled their life events into numeric matrices (repertory grids). Through hierarchical-classes analysis of a subject's matrix, we could compare the hierarchical level (elaboration) of the subject's constructs of a negative combat event with the hierarchical levels of other subjects' constructs of negative combat events and with the subject's precombat life event construction. As predicted, the level of construct elaboration was virtually identical for the two groups for precombat non-trauma-related events but was reduced in the PTSD group for the negative combat event. In addition, the Pythagorean distance scores of the PTSD group indicated less conceptual distance between the negative combat event and negative life events after Vietnam compared with the non-PTSD group's scores. Patients with PTSD rated negative life events more extremely (fewer “shades of gray” ratings) than did the non-PTSD group, especially life events that occurred after Vietnam.     

Similarities and Differences in Semantic and Phonological Processing with Age Patterns of Functional MRI Activation

Abstract

In a study modelled after Hashtroudi, Johnson, and Chrosniak (1989), young and older adults were examined in two conditions requiring reality monitoring (i.e., discriminating between one external and one internal source) and two conditions requiring source monitoring (i.e., discriminating between two external or two internal sources). Results indicated age-related deficits in internal source monitoring, although the two age groups did not differ in reality monitoring or external source monitoring. Explicit instructions to remember the source of information had no effect on performance. In addition, performance on putative tests of frontal lobe functioning (i.e., the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and tests of verbal fluency) was unrelated to source memory performance. the results are discussed relative to the view that aging may affect the ability to encode perceptual information in a distinctive manner, as well as the ability to reconstruct perceptual information and its relationship to item information.     

Masked stimuli modulate endogenous shifts of spatial attention

Unconscious stimuli can influence participants’ motor behavior but also more complex mental processes. Recent research has gradually extended the limits of effects of unconscious stimuli. One field of research where such limits have been proposed is spatial cueing, where exogenous automatic shifts of attention have been distinguished from endogenous controlled processes which govern voluntary shifts of attention. Previous evidence suggests unconscious effects on mechanisms of exogenous shifts of attention. Here, we applied a cue-priming paradigm to a spatial cueing task with arbitrary cues by centrally presenting a masked symmetrical prime before every cue stimulus. We found priming effects on response times in target discrimination tasks with the typical dynamic of cue-priming effects (Experiments 1 and 2) indicating that central symmetrical stimuli which have been associated with endogenous orienting can modulate shifts of spatial attention even when they are masked. Prime–Cue Congruency effects of perceptual dissimilar prime and cue stimuli (Experiment 3) suggest that these effects cannot be entirely reduced to perceptual repetition priming of cue processing. In addition, priming effects did not differ between participants with good and poor prime recognition performance consistent with the view that unconscious stimulus features have access to processes of endogenous shifts of attention.     

Koffka's Rorschach Experiment

A factor analysis of responses to a temporal experience questionnaire from 110 Ss, and related intensive personality assessment research with 17 of them, extracted four bipolar temporal experience factors and investigated their personality correlates. An Immediate Time Pressure factor (harassed lack of control vs. relaxed mastery and adaptive flexibility) was correlated with high emotionality and nervous tension, imaginative fantasy and self-absorption, and sensitivity. A Long-Term Personal Direction factor (continuity and steady purpose vs. discontinuity and lack of direction) correlated with happiness and elated mood levels, and self-esteem and identity. A Time Utilization factor (efficient scheduling vs. procrastination and inefficiency) correlated with precision and orderliness, and confidence and initiative. A Personal Inconsistency factor (inconsistency and changeability vs. consistency and dependability) correlated with affective lability and low repression, and impulsiveness.     

Abstract: Genome-Wide Complex Trait Analysis of Shared Genetic Effects Between Brain Electrophysiology Measures and Alcohol Dependence

Multilevel analysis is an appropriate tool for the analysis of hierarchically structured data. There may, however, be reasons to ignore one of the levels of nesting in the data analysis. In this article a three level model with one predictor variable is used as a reference model and the top or intermediate level is ignored in the data analysis. Analytical results show that this has an effect on the estimated variance components and that standard errors of regression coefficients estimators may be overestimated, leading to a lower power of the test of the effect of the predictor variable. The magnitude of these results depends on the ignored level and the level at which the predictor variable varies, and on the values of the variance components and the sample sizes.     

Situational,Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal Characteristic Associations With Adolescent Conflict Forgiveness

Given the voluntary nature of adolescent friendships, forgiveness of interpersonal transgressions has been identified as a critical aspect of maintaining these relationships. However, transgression forgiveness is related to a range of situational (e.g., transgression severity), interpersonal (e.g., friendship commitment), and intrapersonal (e.g., victim's empathy) factors. Data from 161 adolescents were used to examine the nature of the relationships between these factors and forgiveness and to examine the differential association patterns for adolescent boys and girls. Results for the overall adolescent sample indicated both situational and interpersonal factor associations with forgiveness (R ² = .52, p < .001). Examination of separate female and male forgiveness reports indicated similar interpersonal factor associations and differential situational factor associations with female (R ² = .46, p < .001), and male (R ² = .60, p < .001) forgiveness. Findings suggest the likelihood of forgiving may be contextually dependent, and that researchers should consider transgression, relationship, and intrapersonal characteristics when examining forgiveness. Further, the present study suggests the contextual factors associated with forgiveness may be further differentiated by gender.     

Etiological Contributions to the Covariation Between Children’s Perceptions of Inter-Parental Conflict and Child Behavioral Problems

Prior work has suggested that inter-parental conflict likely plays an etiological role in child behavior problems. However, family-level measurement of inter-parental conflict in most traditional child twin studies has made it difficult to tease apart the specific causal mechanisms underlying this association. The Children’s Perception of Inter-parental Conflict scale (CPIC) provides a child-specific measurement tool for examining these questions, as its subscales tap multiple dimensions of conflict assessed from the child’s (rather than the parent’s) perspective. The current study examined (1) the degree of genetic and environmental influence on each of the CPIC subscales, and (2) etiological contributions to the covariation between the CPIC scales and parental reports of child behavioral problems. The CPIC was completed by 1,200 child twins (aged 6–11 years) from the Michigan State University Twin Registry (MSUTR). Parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to assess child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Multivariate models were examined to evaluate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to both the CPIC scales and to their overlap with child behavioral outcomes. Modeling results indicated no significant moderation of sex or age. Significant environmental overlap emerged between the CPIC conflict properties scale and child internalizing and externalizing problems. By contrast, significant genetic correlations emerged between the CPIC self-blame scale and externalizing problems as well as between the CPIC threat scale and internalizing problems. Overall, findings suggest that the subscales of the CPIC are somewhat etiologically diverse and may provide a useful tool for future investigations of possible gene-environment interplay.