Weak stimulus generalization using sinusoidal gratings: A cautionary note in animal psychophysics

Psychophysical techniques involving operant and classical conditioning are used commonly to determine the visual thresholds of nonverbal subjects. Typically, subjects are conditioned to respond to a particular stimulus, and once trained sufficiently, the subject’s sensitivity to this and similar stimuli can be determined by decreasing the stimulus intensity until the animal no longer responds. However, this assumes that the animal’s tendency to respond correlates with its sensory abilities. Stimulus generalization to sinusoidal gratings of different spatial frequencies was examined in goldfish. Subjects were classically conditioned to suppress respiration upon presentation of a sinusoidal grating. Animals’ learning curves to each spatial frequency grating were compared in order to determine whether the animals generalized across stimuli. Results indicate that fish show weak stimulus generalization across spatial frequencies. Also, the shape of the contrast sensitivity function, a common measure of the animal’s visual capabilities, is distorted by insufficient training. We conclude that when the goal is to obtain accurate data on visual capabilities, either subjects should be trained to each stimulus to be tested or their generalization gradients should be measured.     

Antecedent exercise and its effects on self-stimulation

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of physical exercise on the self-stimulatory and on-task behaviors of an 8-year-old with developmental disabilities. For 10 min prior to a structured play session, the subject engaged in roller skating. This antecedent activity resulted in a decrease in the subject's self-stimulatory behavior and a corresponding increase in his on-task performance. Applications to educational programs and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

VRS—A programming system for visual electrophysiological research

VRS is a system of separate routines programmed to perform one or more of the functions for mapping neuronal receptive fields and determining neuronal response characteristics. The organization and use of the programming system are described along with the details of the routines.     

Instrumental escape behavior with extended training

Four groups of nine Ss were run in a straight alley shock situation for 240 trials, 30 per day. Ss received either 180- or 300-V shock and interval intervals (ITI) of 30 or 120 sec. On Day 1 of training, the 300-V groups first started faster than the 180-V groups, but then showed considerable adaptation, resulting in approximately equal performance at the end of Day 1. Over all 8 days, the 180-V group started significantly faster than the 300-V group when a 30-sec ITI was used, but the converse when a 120-sec ITI was used. Over all 8 days, the 300-V groups continued to increase in performance, while the 180-V groups showed a decline after Day 4.     

Construct validation of the dependency and self-criticism scales of the depressive experiences questionnaire

S. J. Blatt (Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 1974, 29, 107–157) distinguished between two types of depressive experiences, one characterized by strong dependency needs and the other by self-criticism and guilt. This paper reports a series of validation studies of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ), which was developed to measure individuals' vulnerabilities to these types of experiences (S. J. Blatt, J. P. D'Afflitti, & D. M. Quinlan, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1976, 85, 383–389). The Dependency and Self-Criticism scales were shown to be stable in the face of both a 13-week interval and the receipt of midterm grades. Dependency was associated with conflict concerning the expression of hostility and, in males, feelings of helplessness. Self-Criticism was associated with low self-esteem and high levels of morality-conscience guilt. In a study of behavior in dyadic problem-solving tasks, Dependency in males was found to be negatively related to task leadership, and Self-Criticism in females tended to be negatively related to judged likeability. On the other hand, little support was found for the hypotheses that Dependency would be related to field dependent cognitive style and to the use of primitive defense mechanisms. The results were viewed as supporting the utility of Blatt's distinction between the two types of depression, but a number of anomalous findings indicated a need for further study of the DEQ. The question of the developmental level of the two types of depression, possible sex differences in the correlates of the scales, and the possibility of situational specificity in individuals' responses were identified as the areas most in need of study.     

Assessing variability in circumplex models of personality

This paper describes a new methodology for assessing variability in circumplex models of personality. Leary's (1957) method for assessing such variability within his system of interpersonal diagnosis is discussed and critiqued. The authors then propose a new methodology, which is (a) consistent with assumptions underlying circumplex orderings of variables, and (b) generalizable to other circumplex models of personality and/or interpersonal communications.     

The validity of the Crites model of career maturity

To test the validity of the Crites model of career maturity, career maturity and noncareer maturity measures were administered to 312 ninth graders and to 200 technical college students. Scores on all measures were intercorrelated and factor analyzed. The results show that, as predicted, most of the Career Choice Competencies have more in common with each other than they have with Career Choice Attitudes; Career Choice Competencies are fairly highly positively related to each other; Career Choice Attitudes and Career Choice Competencies have more in common with each other in grade 9 than they do in the post-secondary grades; and there is a relationship between career maturity and sex and race of ninth graders and technical college students. The results do not support the hypothesized multidimensional structure of the Crites model or the hypothesis that variables in the Crites model have more in common with each other than they have with noncareer maturity variables. Discussion includes several possible explanations for failure to support the Crites model, and suggestions for further research.     

Factor and discriminant analysis of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory

Several studies have recently recommended that items which fail to load substantially (< .40) on one of several primary factors characterizing the Bem Sex-Rote Inventory (BSRI) could be deleted without substantial loss of interpretability. This recommendation is questioned on the basis that the extent of interrelatedness of the items is an insufficient indicator of the contribution each item makes towards the classification (identifying sex-types by Bem's median split technique) efficiency of the inventory. Empirical support of this contention was provided by conducting several discriminant analyses (predicting sex-types) on a sample of 1117 BSRI protocols and excluding the various items suggested by the earlier research. These results were then compared with the results of a discriminant analysis using the 40 masculine and feminine items. The analyses using less. than all 40 items produced substantially poorer discrimination than when all 40 items were included. The results Suggest that decisions to exclude items on the basis of factor analysis may be inappropriate and risk serious loss of power in classifying individuals by sex-type.