Effects of clausal structure and word frequency in sentence processing

A phoneme-monitoring task was employed to test the effects of clausal structure and lexical ambiguity on sentence processing. Results supported the hypothesis that the clause serves as a psychologically real unit of sentence processing, with the semantic interpretation of each clause being assigned at the clause boundary. The frequency of the ambiguous or control word preceding the critical item in the phoneme-monitoring task was also found to affect the results obtained, with higher frequency words leading to longer mean reaction times.This research is based on a thesis submitted by the first author as partial fulfillment of the M.A. degree at The University of Iowa. Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, San Antonio, Texas, 1978.     

DINING OUT WITH CHILDREN: EFFECTIVENESS OF A PARENT ADVICE PACKAGE ON PRE-MEAL INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

The effectiveness of an advice package designed to restructure the restaurant environment and encourage parent praise was examined. Experiment 1 assessed the usefulness of the package when used with experimenter assistance. Videotapes were used to record the target child's behavior. Pre-meal inappropriate behavior decreased an average of 51% across target children. Mealtime inappropriate behavior and parent praise and disapproval were also measured. Experiment 2 was designed to determine whether families could implement the package without experimenter assistance and whether effects obtained would generalize to a different restaurant. Data were taken in vivo. Nine families were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Group assignment determined the order in which families went to two restaurants, the number of dinners each family participated in, and the point at which parents received the advice package. The order in which the families went to the two restaurants as well as the number of baseline meals was counterbalanced. Results of Experiment 2 showed that, when using the advice package, parents in all sequences were able to decrease pre-meal inappropriate behavior of their children, and that these effects generalized to a second restaurant.     

Sex typing and the perception of body outlines

Does sex typing influence one's direct perception of gender from physical body cues? To answer this question, a study was conducted in which 47 female and 39 male subjects, after filling out the Bem Sex Role Inventory, viewed 24 body outlines varying in waist and shoulder width. Subjects were asked to indicate whether each body was female or male, or whether they were uncertain about its gender. Subjects also selected what they judged to be the most attractive and most typical female and male bodies from among the 24 body outlines. Finally, the actual shoulder, waist, and hip widths of 66 subjects were measured as a normative comparison to subjects' judgments of “typical” and “attractive” body proportions. Analyses indicated that sex-typed subjects used the “uncertain” rating less than did non-sex-typed subjects, and that males used that rating less than females did. Thus, sex-typed subjects and males showed a stronger tendency to classify stimuli by gender. Sex-typed subjects also tended to nominate more physically divergent male and female bodies as attractive than did non-sex-typed subjects; however, there were no effects of assessed masculinity or femininity on nominations of typical male and female bodies. In addition, the data provide evidence that subjects judged there to be greater physical differences between the sexes than actually exist. The results are discussed in terms of recent research on gender schemas and prototypes in person perception.     

On unpredictability as a causal factor in “learned helplessness”

In two replications, two groups of dogs were exposed to a series of uncontrollable, electric shocks. For one group the shocks were preceded by a tone (i.e., Paired). For the other group the shocks were randomly related to the tones and hence unpredictable (i.e., Random). Each replication also included a third group; in the first it was exposed only to the series of tones (CS-only), while in the second, it was exposed only to a series of shocks (Shocks-only). Then, all dogs were required to learn a discriminative choice escape/avoidance task in which the required response was to lift the correct paw in the presence of each of two visual S^Ds to escape or avoid the shocks [($\text{S}{}_1{}^{\mathrm{D}}\text{?R}{}_1\text{)}\text{(S}{}_2{}^{\mathrm{D}}\text{?R}{}_2$)]. Dogs preexposed to random tones and shocks were least successful in learning the task relative to those groups which experienced either predicted shocks, only the tones, or only the shocks, which in turn did not differ from each other. These results permitted the inference that the proactive interference with choice behavior following random tone CSs and shocks was attributable to a learned irrelevance generalized with respect to CSs.     

Accommodation fatigue and dark focus: The effects of accommodation-free visual work as assessed by two psychophysical methods

Past studies of accommodation fatigue have yielded inconsistent results, partly because they have not used direct measures of accommodation, and partly because they may have been based on a misleading conception of the nature of accommodation. The dual-innervation theory of accommodation suggests that the resting position of accommodation may be neuromuscular rather than just muscular, and that it lies not at optical infinity, as assumed by older conceptions, but at some intermediate position (dark focus). Among the predictions that may be deduced from this theory is that long-term visual work not requiring active accommodation will not induce fatigue. The present study involved continuous measurements of dark focus for 10 young adults over a 3-h period, using the laser optometer with two psychophysical procedures Ibracketing and staircase. Consistent with the prediction, no changes in dark focus were found, in spite of the demanding visual task. Furthermore, it was found that both psychophysical methods yielded essentially identical results. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations are given regarding situations in which each of the psychophysical methods is likely to be most useful.     

Duplex perception with musical stimuli

Duplex perception, a phenomenon previously demonstrated for speech stimuli, is demonstrated here for musical stimuli. In the first experiment, major and minor chords are produced by dichotic fusion of two simultaneous piano notes presented to one ear (perfect fifth) with a “natural” or “flat” single note presented to the opposite ear. Musically trained subjects perceive simultaneously both the single tone and a fused (major or minor) chord. The chords are labeled more consistently than the single notes, even though the fused chords differ solely in terms of the contralateral notes. In a second experiment, using pure tones in place of piano notes, other musically trained subjects individually exhibited categorical perception for either the fused chord or the single tones, but never for both types of stimuli. The duplex phenomenon is discussed in terms of its implications for its specific component modes of perception.     

Categorization reaction time,category structure,and category size in semantic memory using artificial categories

This study examined the effects of category structure and category size on categorization reaction time, artificial categories being used to obtain greater experimental control than is usually found in semantic memory research. Four artificial categories varying in structure (hierarchical and nonhierarchical) and size (8 or 16 instances) were introduced to 20 adolescent subjects over a 12-week period by means of stories, exercises, and discussions. Significantly longer categorization reaction times were required for instances from the hierarchical categories, but no set size effect was found. The application of clustering and multidimensional scaling procedures to subjects’ free recall data revealed that subjects had acquired the hierarchical structures but imposed their own structures on the other categories. These findings were interpreted within a spreading activation framework.     

Social networks,information-seeking,and the utilization of services

Voluntary participation by low-income and/ar high-risk populations in prevention-oriented human service programs is minimal and dropout rates are high. Examination of social networks as they relate to information-seeking and utilization behavior may provide a source of understanding. Two investigations are reported. The results of Study 1 indicate that high-risk referred women with denser networks attended fewer parent group sessions than did those whose networks were less dense and that the more contact a woman had with her kin, the fewer parent group sessions she attended. The results of Study 2 indicate that in a sample of low-income women participating in a supplementary food program, those women whose networks were characterized by lower density and less frequent kin contact were more likely to pursue professional child-rearing information and advice than women in denser, more kin-involved networks. In addition, a significant interaction between one's sense of competence as a parent and the structure of one's network was found to determine the overall frequency of information seeking.