The overtraining reversal effect in rats: A function of task difficulty

Two experiments were conducted with rats. The first study showed that in the T-maze a brightness discrimination learning problem was more difficult than a spatial learning problem, but in a Ross-maze a brightness problem was less difficult than a spatial task. T-maze brightness and Ross-maze spatial tasks were found to be of equal difficulty.

In the second experiment rats were trained either on a brightness or spatial discrimination reversal problem in the Ross-maze. It was found that overtraining facilitated reversal performance in the spatial task but not in the brightness problem. The theoretical implications of these results were discussed.     

NORMAL PEER MODELS AND AUTISTIC CHILDREN'S LEARNING

Present research and legislation regarding mainstreaming autistic children into normal classrooms have raised the importance of studying whether autistic children can benefit from observing normal peer models. The present investigation systematically assessed whether autistic children's learning of discrimination tasks could be improved if they observed normal children perform the tasks correctly. In the context of a multiple baseline design, four autistic children worked on five discrimination tasks that their teachers reported were posing difficulty. Throughout the baseline condition the children evidenced very low levels of correct responding on all five tasks. In the subsequent treatment condition, when normal peers modeled correct responses, the autistic children's correct responding increased dramatically. In each case, the peer modeling procedure produced rapid achievement of the acquisition criterion which was maintained after the peer models were removed. These results are discussed in relation to issues concerning observational learning and in relation to the implications for mainstreaming autistic children into normal classrooms.     

The interaction of semantic memory with storage and retrieval processes

A procedure for separating storage from retrieval (R. Chechile & D. L. Meyer, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1976, 14, 430–437) lead to the conclusion that memory development involves changes in both storage and retrieval. Nevertheless, these changes resulted from the interaction of storage and retrieval mechanisms with the age-related elaboration of the semantic memory system. This study shows that the memory improvement with age, between kindergarten and second grade, vanished when the meaningfulness of the materials were equated. The most plausible interpretation of the results is the hardware invariance hypothesis. According to that hypothesis, the memory apparatus for information processing is constant across ages, but the hardware is used more effectively if there is a better-developed semantic memory system.     

Ambient Sexual Harassment: An Integrated Model of Antecedents and Consequences

Research on sexual harassment as a prevalent job stressor has focused primarily on outcomes for the direct targets of harassment; the antecedents and consequences ofindirectexposure to sexual harassment have not been explored. Ambient Sexual Harassment is proposed as an assessment of indirect exposure to sexual harassment. Ambient Sexual Harassment is defined as the general or ambient level of sexual harassment in a work group as measured by the frequency of sexually harassing behaviors experienced by others in a woman's work group. The integration of Ambient Sexual Harassment into the model of sexual harassment developed by Fitzgerald, Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, and Magley (1997) proposes that indirect exposure to sexual harassment will have similar antecedents and job-related, psychological, and health outcomes as direct exposure. An empirical test of the model, using samples of female employees from a public utility company (N= 455) and a food processing plant (N= 194), generally supports predictions.     

Identifying operant functions for tics in children with mental retardation

Functional analyses were used to assess the effects of environmental consequences on occurrences of repetitive vocal behavior that had been diagnosed as chronic vocal tics in two adolescent males with mental retardation. The functional analyses indicated that one participant's tics were sensitive to positive reinforcement in the form of caregiver attention, while the second participant's tics occurred independent of social consequences. The results are discussed in terms of using functional analysis methodology during assessment, diagnosis, and treatment selection for suspected tics. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.