A developmental study of the pragmatic communication rule for prenominal adjective ordering*

First-, fourth-, and eighth-grade children and college undergraduates indicated preference for either normal or inverted orders of prenominal adjectives (for example,the large red car or the red large car, respectively) to describe a pictorial referent. Preference for the normal order of adjectives first appeared with the fourth graders. When communication context was vaxied by presenting a nonreferent that required a color adjective for discrimination from the referent, college students increased their preference for the inverted order. This separation of the acquisition of a linguistic rule from its utilization in communication was discussed.     

The role of contextual cues in mediating transfer

An experiment was conducted with sceond-grade children to test the hypothesis that contextual (task format) changes limit the transfer of learning. The Ss learned two problems employing different formats concurrently and were then given a single transfer problem similar in format to one of the training problems. The transfer data were predictable from a consideration of the similar format training problem and independent of the different format training problem. This indicated that contextual cues were stored during training and played a role in determining transfer.     

Target distance and adaptation in distance perception in the constancy of visual direction

Hay and Sawyer recently demonstrated that the constancy of visual direction (CVD) also operates for near targets. A luminous spot in the dark, 40 cm from the eyes, was perceived as stationary when S nodded his head. This implies that CVD takes target distance, as well as head rotation, into account as a stationary environment is perceived during head movements. Distance is a variable in CVD because, during a turning or nodding of the head, the eyes become displaced relative to the main target direction, the line between the target and the rotation axis of the head. This displacement of the eyes during head rotation causes an additional change in the target direction, i.e., a total angular change greater than the angle of the head rotation. The extent of this additional angular displacement is greater the nearer the target. We demonstrated that the natural combination of accommodation and convergence can supply the information needed by the nervous system to compensate for this additional target displacement. We also found that wearing glasses that alter the relation between these oculomotor adjustments and target distance produces an adaptation in CVD. An adaptation period of 1.5 h produced a large adaptation effect. This effect was not entirely accounted for by an adaptation in distance perception. Measurements of the alteration between oculomotor cues and registered distance with two kinds of tests for distance perception yielded effects significantly smaller than the effect measured with the CVD test. We concluded that the wearing of the glasses had also produced an adaptation within CVD.     

The behavioural treatment of sexual inadequacy: A comparative study

Thirty-six couples complaining of sexual difficulties were treated with one of three methods: (1) systematic desensitisation plus counselling. (2) directed practice—based on that of Masters and Johnson—plus counselling. (3) directed practice with minimal contact. Both members of each couple were seen together, but half in each treatment group were treated by a single therapist and half by a therapist pair. Differences in outcome among the groups were not highly significant, but consistent trends were found which suggested that the combination of directed practice and counselling was associated with most change, particularly when two therapists were involved.     

Children's sex-role preferences: Stronger among girls than boys

Criticisms were raised about methods used in previous studies which have led to the conclusion that, compared to boys, girls have weaker preferences for their own versus the opposite sex role. In addition, it was argued that if children's own conceptions of sex roles — rather than an a priori adult definition — were investigated, girls would prefer their conception of femininity more than boys would prefer their conception of masculinity. This argument rested on evidence that for children, masculine traits often meet with social disapproval. Results indicated that both boys and girls judged their own sex role as more desirable than the opposite sex role. Results were stronger for the girls; and girls judged traits they assigned to the feminine sex role to be, on the average, more desirable than boys judged traits they assigned to masculinity. The difference between present findings and previous findings in regard to children and adults was discussed.Dennis Quintana assisted with the initial selection of items for the questionnaires described below. Elizabeth Bates, Ph.D., offered helpful suggestions for rewriting an earlier draft of this paper.     

Effects of noun imagery and awareness of the discriminative cue upon differential eyelid conditioning to grammatical and ungrammatical phrases

Two differential eyelid conditioning studies employed grammatically correct and incorrect adjective-noun phrases as conditioned stimuli. For different groups of subjects, the nouns were either high or low in imagery. The hypothesis that congruency between grammatical correctness and reinforcement consequences (i.e., the aversive stimulus contingent upon presence of incorrect rather than correct grammar) would facilitate conditioned discrimination was not supported, but the hypothesis that high noun imagery would facilitate differential response to syntax received strong support. Cognitive awareness of the syntactic discriminandum was also related to effective differential responding, as well as being implicated as a mediating mechanism in the imagery effects. Finally, performance was also significantly related to conditioned-response topography, with better conditioned discrimination by voluntary-form (V) than by conditioned-form (C) responders, and also evidence of more effective utilization of contingency awareness by Vs than by Cs.     

The role of noun imagery in the speed of processing the grammaticality of adjective-noun phrases

This experiment investigated speed of processing the grammaticality of phrases consisting of the adjective “one” or “two” followed by a singular or plural noun. The subject’s task was to press one of two keys, depending upon whether the phrase was grammatically correct or incorrect. There were eight types of phrases, formed by the factorial combinations of singular or plural adjectives, singular or plural nouns, and high or low noun imageD’. These served as within-subjects variables. Between-subjects variables were the factorial combinations of sex of subject, duration of stimulus phrase (.2 or 2.5 sec), and hand assigned to the correct-grammar key. A fourth between-subjects variable was whether or not the subject reported using an artificial phrase-scanning strategy to determine grammaticality. Correct grammar, singular noun form, high noun imagery, and reported use of the strategy all produced highly significant reductions in reaction times. Only 1% of the interactions were significant. A multistage serial processing model that could be based upon Sternberg’s additive factor paradigm or even Donders’ subtraction method was found to be highly successful in describing the results.     

The acquisition of the label “stuttering” by primary level schoolchildren

Two groups of primary level schoolchildren were asked to listen to recordings of a familiar story. One recording was of fluent speech and the second of stuttered speech. Group I, composed of 30 children in the first and second grades, was able to differentiate between stuttered and fluent speech, but did not label disfluent behavior as “stuttering.” Group II, composed of 30 children in the third and fourth grades, not only differentiated the samples, but showed a tendency to label the disfluent behavior “stuttering.” Both groups indicated a preference for the fluent sample.     

Sexual arousal,situational restrictiveness,and aggressive behavior

Eighty male college freshmen participated in an experiment designed to investigate the hypotheses that enhanced arousal will facilitate subsequent aggressive behavior and that an increase in aggressive behavior will be more likely to occur in a setting of situational permissiveness rather than situational restrictiveness. Subjects were either angered or not angered by a same-sex confederate, then told to imagine either a sexually arousing or a nonarousing situation during relaxation, and finally provided with an opportunity to aggress against this person by means of electric shocks. For half of the subjects, a setting of permissiveness was created, while for the other half the setting was one of situational restrictiveness. The results indicated that, even in a permissive setting, sexual arousal may inhibit aggressive behavior mediated by self-consciousness or anxiety. For nonaroused men, however, situational permissiveness tended to facilitate subsequent aggression. The investigation was considered a replication and an extension of the Baron (1974) study on the aggression-inhibiting influence of heightened sexual arousal.