Oculomotor adaptation to wedge prisms with no part of the body seen

When S looks at a visual target through prisms, adaptive shifts in reaching behavior occur even though he sees no part of his body through the prisms. These shifts are caused by a change in the judgment of the direction of gaze (oculomotor change), which in turn is caused by two secondary prismatic effects: (a) asymmetry of the visual display and (b) apparent rotation about a vertical axis of a panel or wall facing S. The “asymmetry” factor contributes 22% of the total oculomotor change, and the “rotation” effect contributes the remaining 78%. Oculomotor change is not facilitated by eye-movzment activity. The adaptive oculomotor change induces a non-adaptive proprioception change about one-tenth as large as the oculomotor change. These findings are capable of accounting for the previously unexplained results reported by Wooster in 1923, and also for the current controversy about the role of reafferent stimulation in sensorymotor adaptation.     

Binocular summation in the perception of form at brief durations

Visual form identification at brief durations was studied under: (a) monocular presentation; (b) dichopic presentation where the same form was presented successively on noncorresponding areas; and (c) dichopic presentation where the same form was presented on corresponding areas simultaneously and successively. Form identification for noncorresponding area dichopic presentation was at the level to be expected from 2independent chances to perceive. Both simultaneous and successive dichopic presentation on corresponding areas gave identification accuracy significantly above the level predicted by the assumption of independence. However, the binocular summation was not complete. When the same amount of energy entering the visual system in a binocular presentation was given in a monocular stimulation, the latter condition gave significantly better identification.     

Cognitive behavior modification: ‘Motivated learning’ reading treatment with subprofessional therapy-technicians

A method of treating reading deficits based upon an extrinsic motivational system previously employed successfully with a single subject was extended to eighteen additional subjects. The junior-high age subjects included retarded children in special classes, several emotionally disturbed children, and culturally deprived children. The method of training used in the original study was designed to be simple to administer and simple to record the performance of the child. Thus, it was hypothesized that subprofessional personnel could be employed to administer the treatment. Adult volunteers and high school seniors were used as the therapy-technicians.

The eighteen Ss were given 38.2 hr of training in daily half-hour sessions, during which period the average reinforcement earned was $22.29. The mean number of single word reading responses was 94,425. The rate of reading accelerated over the period of training even though the reading material became more difficult. This occurred during a period when progressively less (about one-fourth as much) reinforcement was given per reading response. A mean of 593.5 new words were learned and 70.9 per cent of these were retained in a long-term test. The attention, attendance, cooperation, and diligent work behavior of the various children were maintained in good strength throughout the duration of the study. The results suggest that research be conducted to develop methods for treatment of behavioral deficits that can be widely applied by subprofessional therapy-technicians supervised by clinical psychologists.