Perceptions of speakers with minimal eye contact: Implications for stutterers

One hundred and thirty-three college students responded to percentage definitions of “good,” “minimal,” and “no” eye contact. They also judged their perceptions of a speaker with “little or no eye contact” on a semantic differential scale containing 60 polarized adjective pairs regarding personality traits. The majority of the student respondents defined an individual with “good” eye contact as looking at his/her audience/listener 90–100% of the time. This is a more stringent definition than other literature has indicated. Furthermore, speakers with little or no eye contact were judged less favorably on 70% of the items, which indicates that low eye contact adversely affects perceptions of a speaker's personality. Therefore, stutterers need to be made aware of the importance of and determinants of effective eye contact in communication. Also, the development of effective eye contact needs to be incorporated as a major goal in stuttering therapy.     

Effects of aging and task difficulty on divided attention performance

We report two experiments that compare the performance of young and older adults on perceptual-motor tasks involving division of attention. Previous studies have shown older people to be especially penalized by divided attention situations, but the generality of this finding was recently challenged by Somberg and Salthouse (1982). The present study was conducted to investigate the possibility that age differences in dual-task performance are amplified by an increase in the difficulty of the constituent tasks, where difficulty was manipulated by varying the central, cognitive nature of the tasks (Experiment 1) or the degree of choice involved (Experiment 2). With the present tasks, strong evidence was found for an age-related decrement in divided attention performance. Contrary to our original expectations, however, it does not seem that division of attention presents some especial difficulty to older people. Rather, division of attention is one of several equivalent ways to increase overall task complexity. In turn, age differences are exaggerated as tasks are made more complex.     

S-R compatibility between response position and destination of apparent motion: evidence of the detection of affordances

In choice reaction time, stimuli and responses in some combinations (e.g., based on spatial arrangement) are faster than in other combinations. To test whether motion toward a position yields faster responses at that position, a computer-generated square in front of one hand appeared to move either toward that hand or toward the other hand. Compatible responses (e.g., motion toward left hand/left response) were faster than incompatible responses, even when that opposed traditional positional compatibility. In Experiment 2, subjects responded to the same stimuli but with both hands left, right, or on the body midline. Medial responses were the fastest, showing that destination, rather than mere relative position, was a critical variable. It was suggested that spatial compatibility effects are not unique to position but apply to a variety of task situations, describable by J.J. Gibson's theory of affordances, in which he claims that one perceives the actions (e.g., catching) permitted in a situation.     

Interactions between area and numerosity

Summary The concept of filled area, i.e. the impressionistic ensemble of parts of a stimulus field occupied by dots, is used to account for various kinds of numerosity illusions due to perceptual interaction between a number of dots and their spatial arrangement. A measure of filled area is derived from a model for the perceptual clustering of dots on the basis of relative proximity. It is shown that the quantified concept of filled area successfully predicts illusion data from earlier studies. Subsequently, a two-alternatives forced-choice numerosity experiment is reported, the data of which gave further evidence of the predictive power of the filled-area hypothesis. Our approach is discussed with respect to spatial features of dot stimuli that might be in rivalry with the filled-area factor in numerosity-estimation tasks.     

Emotional sequelae of abortion: implications for clinical practice

For women in therapy who have had abortions, an exploration of the context and aftermath of each abortion has been suggested. This inquiry should include: characteristics of the woman herself before and at the time of the abortion, the nature of the interpersonal and cultural milieu at the time, characteristics of the medical environment and procedure, and any events subsequent to the abortion that may evoke regrets about the earlier decision.
Whether or not such an inquiry results in the identification of unresolved issues surrounding the abortion, it is likely to enhance one's general understanding of the client. Exploring a woman's decision to have an abortion can bring into relief developmental and family issues, relationship conflicts, and her aspirations for education, work, and family. A woman's approach to establishing and asserting her priorities and values in making difficult personal decisions becomes clear as does her ability to tolerate and resolve the ambivalence inherent in making difficult decisions.
In psychotherapy, it is important to understand and address those aspects of experience that women have difficulty resolving. Hence, the emphasis on categories of experience that may have a negative impact on a woman's emotional well-being after abortion. Nevertheless, the clinician should remember that even women who report negative post-abortion sequelae overwhelmingly report that they feel that the decision was the right one for them. Having ambivalent feelings to resolve does not necessarily mean that one has made a wrong choice, only that one has made an emotionally significant choice with far-reaching personal implications, in a sociocultural environment that reinforces the ambivalence inherent in such decisions.     

An evaluation of the Garren-Edwards diet and behavior modification program

This study evaluated the efficacy of the Garren-Edwards Behavior Modification Program, which uses the Garren-Edwards Gastric Bubble as an adjunct to treatment. Group therapy sessions were conducted with 23 morbidly obese subjects for 6 months on a biweekly basis. Each therapy session used a five-stage problem-solving sequence designed to facilitate adaptive behavioral alternatives. In evaluating weight change, a multivariate analysis of variance was conducted along with two preplanned orthogonal comparisons. Patients lost significant amounts of weight between initial to 3-month (p<.0001) and 3- to 6-month intervals (p<0001). A similar treatment effect was noted in an additional sample of 24 morbidly obese subjects following 3 months of treatment (p<0005). The findings support the value of longer goal-oriented programs in promoting continued weight loss. Implications for treatment process and therapist interventions prompted by this new format are discussed.     

Reversal of genetic homeostasis in laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster under long-term selection for geotaxis and estimates of gene correlates: evolution of behavior-genetic systems

Among Drosophila melanogaster, divergently selected for geotaxis intermittently over 600 generations (28 years), about 80,000 animals have been analyzed behavior-genetically. Each major chromosome pair from two lines was isogenized on an unselected isogenic background. Measurement of their behavioral effects revealed the relative magnitudes II greater than III greater than X for the negatively geotactic (high) line and X greater than III greater than II for the positively geotactic (low) line. When reversing selection for the now phenotypically stable high and low lines and then repeatedly relaxing the reversals, a new genetic homeostasis in the low line was indicated by the return of the reversed-line average scores towards the low extreme; that is, the low line has attained a stable equilibrium for positive geotaxis, an uncharacteristic behavior and an effect not seen before 1979. This change suggests the recent evolution of a new coadaptation among genes. Although not as conclusive, a similar genetic interpretation is suggested for the high line.     

Confidence in judgments based on incomplete information: An investigation using both hypothetical and real gambles

This study assessed how confidence in judgments is affected by the need to make inferences about missing information. Subjects indicated their likelihood of taking each of a series of gambles based on both probability and payoff information or only one of these sources of information. They also rated their confidence in each likelihood judgment. Subjects in the Explicit Inference condition were asked to explicitly estimate the values of missing information before making their responses while subjects in the Implicit Inference condition were not. The manner in which probability information was framed was also manipulated. Experiment 1 employed hypothetical gambles and Experiment 2 employed gambles with real money. Expressed likelihood of taking gambles was higher when probability was phrased in terms of '% chance of winning' rather than '% chance of losing', but this difference was somewhat less with real gambles than with hypothetical gambles. Confidence ratings in each experiment were actually higher on incomplete information trials than on complete information trials in the Explicit Inference condition. Results were related to the general issue of confidence in judgments.     

Effect of social support on the stress-burnout relationship

Business organizations have become interested in recent years in the role of social support in reducing the negative effect of stress. The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of two types of social support (i.e., job and life support) on the relationships between job and life stress and burnout. Participants consisted of 270 males and 254 females. For both males and females job stress and life stress correlate positively with burnout, while job and life support were negatively correlated with burnout. The hypothesis that social support would moderate stress-burnout relationships was not supported. Neither job support nor life support moderated job stress or life stress-burnout relationships. Females exhibited significantly higher levels of burnout, job stress, and life stress than males; however, there was no difference between males and females in the amount of social support received.