Emerging views of the role of theory

Offers a few broadly evaluative observations about what we have learned from the articles and commentaries contained in this special section. We discuss how--although the contributions contained in this special section might be viewed on one level as suggesting a lack of consensus concerning the role of theory--on a metalevel the contributions are suggestive of movement toward consensus. The emerging consensus seems to be that not only is theory alive and well but it is unlikely that we will ever be able to do without theory. However, our ways of thinking and talking about theory appear to be undergoing change; that is, the trend is in the emergence of theory as a guide for action or action-based epistemology. We conclude with ideas about future directions, including the call for methodological pluralism, theoretical pluralism, and metatheoretical development.     

Minority influence and social categorization: A replication

The effects of ingroup and outgroup minorities upon public and private levels of influence was examined. The results show that whilst ingroup minorities have greater influence in public, outgroup minorities can have as much, if not more influence than ingroup minorities when responses are made in private. These results are consistent with previous research and support the social identijkation model of social influence.     

Task complexity and age differences in working memory

This study investigated age-related differences in working memory using a modified version of the Daneman and Carpenter (1980) working memory task. The subjects were required to verify a series of sentences, and then at the end of each series recall the final word of each sentence. Each series varied in length from one to five sentences. Performance on this task was compared with performance in a word-alone condition, in which the subject had to remember an equivalent list of single words but without sentence verification. When sentences of positive grammatical form were used in the sentence-span condition, age differences were no greater than in the word alone condition; however, the age decrement increased when sentences of negative grammatical form were used. There were no interactions between age and pacing or between age and the number of sentences in each set. These results are discussed in relation to theories of age differences in working memory.     

Early receptive and productive language skills in preterm and full-term 8-month-old infants

Early receptive and productive language skills were examined for preterm low birthweight infants and full-term normal birthweight infants from middle-class homes. Nineteen preterm infants and 19 full-term infants were observed in a laboratory setting at the gestationally corrected age of 8 months. To avoid the frequent confound between prematurity and low socioeconomic status, mothers of the two groups of infants were matched on educational levels. Regression analyses were used to assess the relative influence of infant cognitive skills, infant sociability, infant birth status, and the mothers' language input as possible predictors of infant receptive language and vocal behavior. Receptive language skills were associated with higher cognitive performance, greater sociability, and preterm birth. Productive language skills were associated with higher cognitive performance. On the basis of this research, the prognosis for language development in preterm infants raised in middle-class homes appears to be excellent.This research was aided by Social and Behavioral Sciences Research grant No. 12-11 from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation and supported by DHHS Grant HD03352. Computing was provided by the Waisman Center Computing Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Donna Boylan, Sue DaPra, Maria Kleczewski, Michal Rubin, Susan Silverber, and Paula VanLaanan assisted with data collection.     

The role of callosal connections in speech prosody

A 39-year-old right-handed woman suffered an aneurysmal hemorrhage damaging the anterior four-fifths of the corpus callosum as shown on MRI. Computer-aided acoustical analyses of fundamental frequency (Fo) contours and durational patterns were performed on emotive and nonemotive utterances at 4 weeks, 4 months, and 1 year postsurgery. The patient read sentences in each of five tones (happy, sad, angry, neutral, questioning) or with emphasis on certain words. She showed little Fo distinction with intended mood at 4 weeks, but her performance improved over time. This improvement in speech production was accompanied by an improvement in perceptual judgments of her intended tone by six normal listeners. Fo patterns characteristic of emphatic stress and question forms were found at all test periods, but again improved with time. Durationally, the patient showed appropriate emotive and nonemotive distinctions on most sentences. These results provide acoustic evidence that interhemispheric connections via the corpus callosum are important to proper Fo programming, especially emotive distinctions. The results suggest that the right hemisphere contributes to Fo programming but, following callosal damage, such programming can later be performed by the left hemisphere.     

Factor dimensions across different measures of sex role ideology

The development of sex role ideology is an important part of the maturation process. Numerous means have been used to measure sex role ideology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dimensionality of the construct of sex role ideology. Participants, 180 undergraduate volunteers, completed four multiitem measures of sex role ideology, a social desirability scale, and three single-item questions previously used to assess sex role ideology. Scale internal consistency estimates, correlation coefficients, and a factor analysis were computed. Results of the study suggested that the construct of sex role ideology is unidimensional.     

A microcomputer-controlled system for measuring reactivity in small animals

A microcomputer-controlled system has been designed for measuring reactivity in small laboratory animals. This system uses a microcomputer to trigger an acoustic signal, which is fed to a loudspeaker through an audio power amplifier. An animal’s acoustic startle response is recorded using a moving-coil loudspeaker as a movement transducer. The transducer output is coupled to a peak-hold circuit that records the maximum voltage generated by the animal’s response. After conversion to digital form, the data for each stimulus presentation are stored and then printed when all trials have been completed.     

Sex differences among partner preferences: Are the sexes really very similar?

The question as to what type of individual we prefer in a “romantic” partner has stimulated a long history of research, with much of the present debate centering around the issue of the sex differences in partner preferences. In the studies described in this paper, two groups of participants completed a variety of different questionnaire schedules indicating their preferences for a partner. In study 1, 216 single students demonstrated a prevailing desire for a kind, considerate, and honest partner who displayed a keen sense of humor. Consistent with the hypothesis, there were no clear sex differences evident in these results. In study 2, 76 dating agency members completed a similar schedule examining partner preferences. Here again, preferences were similar across the sexes, although men preferred the submissive and introverted partner and stressed the importance of physical appearance in a mate. The general discussion considers the implications of these findings in the light of previous research on partner preferences.     

Sexual experience and recall of sexual vs. nonsexual information

The effects of both sex guilt and sexual experience on the ability to remember sexual and nonsexual information were examined Male and female subjects were asked to read and then recall facts from vignettes that concerned sexual and nonsexual dilemmas As expected, the sexually inexperienced subjects made more mistakes than did the experienced subjects when recalling sexual information There were no differences between the groups in recall of nonsexual information, and there were no differences associated with the sex guilt variable In addition, one subgroup of the sample was singled out as being particularly interesting from an applied perspective Previous research has identified high-guilt, high-experience women as being an at-risk group for unwanted pregnancy In fact, these women did have difficulty in remembering the sexual information Moreover, there was a clear bias in their recall pattern toward remembering information in favor of being sexually active Results are presented in terms of the relationship between sexual experience and sexual schemata, and between sex guilt and emotionality