Contingency management and human relations workshops: A school intervention program

Because there will never be enough school psychological personnel to handle adequately the number of currently existing school adjustment problems, the Broward Country, Florida, school psychological service is developing preventive and positive mental health programs. This paper describes one such program, an in-service training workshop offered to school personnel. The workshop is based on the rationale that classroom management techniques and interpersonal relationships are two key variables in promoting optimal academic progress and personal-social development. Two psychologists conducted three-week workshops in one school at a time, spending about 50% of their working time in the given school during the three-week period. Evaluation of the program is discussed in terms of tangible evidence of implementation of ideas and techniques presented in the workshop, and in terms of demand for the workshop.     

Mechanisms of aural encoding: IV. Hear-see,say-write interactions for vowels

Six vowel sounds were presented in rondom orders for recall from short-term memory. Four groups of 25 Ss each in a2by 2 design either heard or saw the words, and either had to say them or write them. In general, accuracy was greater when the sounds were seen rather than heard, especially when they were verbatty reported. The major concern was the degree to which the major distinctive feature systems could predict the intrusion errors in each of the four conditions. The best prediction occurred in the auditory-input/verbal-output condition, as would be expected from the models on which distinctive feature specifications are based. However, as in a previous study by these authors, the most accurate predictions were not always made by the same combination of distinctive features. It is concluded that distinctive features are identifled in the initial encoding bef ore any retrieval processes are activated and that further errors made at the time of retrieval are aho related to distinctive features. Most importantly, however, both at initial registration and at retrieval, different features are implicated, depending upon the sound presented for recall and the input-output modalities involved.     

Processing of sequentially presented letters

The effect on the number of letters S can report of the duration of each sequentially presented letter was compared with that of processing time, defined as the time from the onset of a letter to the onset of the next letter. Four Ss were each shown 1250 common English words, from four to eight letters long, one letter at a time. Each letter acted as a visual noise field for the preceding letter. The duration of each letter and the interval between letters was varied independently. The S reported the letters he saw after each word was displayed. It was found that the processing time (onset to onset) predicted the number of letters correctly reported, regardless of the partition between on time and off time. A calculation was made of the number of milliseconds of on plus off time that are needed to ensure correct report of each letter. This time was independent of the duration of the processing time, but was positively correlated with the number of letters in the word. This correlation is probably in part artifactual, so that no claim can be made that it takes longer to process a letter of a long as compared to a short word.     

Response-times at different positions within a sentence

Response latency has often been used to draw inferences about scanning operations in serial lists. Different models have been employed and this experiment tests their predictions when a sentence replaces a serial list. Constituent analysis is used to predict an increase in latency when responding involves crossing a constituent boundary. This prediction is confirmed, and it is found necessary to revise those explanations derived from studies using serial lists to include reference to the syntactic structure of the linguistic material used.     

Reminder-induced recovery from blocking as a function of the number of compound trials

Conditioned lick suppression in rats was employed to examine changes in the associative status of a blocked stimulus as a function of the number of compound stimulus conditioning trials. In each of two experiments, prior tone-footshock pairings produced similar blocking of conditioned responding to the light element of a tone-light compound when either two or six compound trials were used. In experiment 1, two exposures to the light alone in a dissimilar context during the retention interval, i.e., a reminder treatment, resulted in a restoration of responding to the light which was complete and similar for animals receiving two or six compound trials. This indicated that latent acquisition with respect to the blocked stimulus was largely complete after two compound trials. Because of a potential ceiling effect for reminder-induced recovery from blocking, Experiment 2 employed an attenuated reminder (one light exposure). This reminder reversed the blocking when six, but not when two, compound trials were used. These results suggest that, after latent acquisition to the blocked stimulus is complete, the blocked stimulus continues to be processed during additional compound stimulus conditioning trials, with a consequent latent facilitation of retrieval of associations to the blocked stimulus.     

The roles of contour and luminance distribution in determining perceived centers within shapes

Two sources of visual information that likely could be employed by the perceptual system in locating the centers of bounded shapes—boundary configuration and luminance distribution—have been perfectly confounded in every study thus far aimed at investigating perceived centters. Observers, using either a revolving or stationary x-y plotter, made judgments on the location of centers within either revolving or stationary shapes of both uniform and varied luminance distributions. Results indicate that the location of perceived centers depended predominantly upon boundary contour and was affected by the distribution of luminance within these edges to a much lesser degree.     

Effects of imaginal exposure to feared disasters in obsessive-compulsive checkers

The combined effects of imaginal exposure to feared catastrophes and in vivo exposure to external stimuli were compared with the effects of in vivo exposure alone in 15 obsessive-compulsives with checking rituals. The first group received 90 min of uninterrupted exposure in imagination, which concentrated mainly on disastrous consequences, followed by 30 min of exposure in vivo to stimuli-situations which triggered rituals. The second group was given 2 hr of exposure in vivo only. Both groups were prevented from performing rituals. Treatment consisted of 10 daily sessions within a 2 week period.Assessments were conducted before and after treatment and at follow-up ranging from 3 months to 2.5 yr with a mean of 11 months. At post-treatment both groups improved considerably and did not differ. But at follow-up those who received imaginal and in vivo exposure maintained their gains, whereas the group who were treated by exposure in vivo alone evidenced partial relapse on four of the six dependent measures. The results tend to indicate that a closer match between a patient's internal fear model and the content of exposure enhances long term treatment efficacy.     

Structuralism and experimental aesthetics: Bridging some gaps

Structuralism in psychology has much to do with what Berlyne called his rival tradition in aesthetics, the speculative and interpretative approach. Berlyne's concern with motivation can be retained while structuralism's emphasis on understanding is accepted.This paper was originally presented at the Berlyne Symposium, American Psychological Association Meeting, San Francisco, August 1977. Support from the Connaught Development Grant to Scarborough College is acknowledged.