Efficiency of arithmetic operations in bilinguals as a function of language

English-Spanish bilinguals solved simple arithmetic problems and were required to respond In their preferred (P) language. the language In which they originally learned arithmetic, or In their nonpreferred (NP) language. Each arithmetic problem required one. two, or three addition operations. Reaction time was a linear function of number of operations. The intercept for the P language was lower than that for the NP language. but there were no differences In slope. The intercept difference was interpreted In terms of translation time. either as translation of the sum from the P to the NP language or as translation from an abstract representation to the NP as opposed to the P language.     

Autonomic learning

Academic achievement was resolved into its intellectual and motivational components. IQ, personality variables, and parameters of operant and classical conditioning of autonomic nervous system controlled variables were examined in 99 black inner-city high school seniors. Six physiological variables(respiration, heart rate, finger plethysmogram, frontalis muscle potential, palmar skin conductance, and palmar skin potential) were analyzed by computer using analog-to-digital conversion and a Points of Interest (PI) program. Psychological measures were full WAIS IQ, Edwards Personality Inventory(EPI), Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire(16PF), McClelland need Achievement test(n Ach), Object Sorting test, Minnesota Counseling Inventory(MCI), Level of Aspiration Board, and Rotter—Miller Locus of Control. Achievement(Ach) was defined as the residuals of total grade point average(GPA) regressed on IQ. Each of 19 variables which discriminated significantly between high and low achievers was employed in step-wise regression analyses for GPA and Ach separately. In a regression analysis of variance of GPA, IQ=20.44%, EPI=9.08%, and physiological measures =21.37%(operant conditioning =18.70%; classical conditioning =2.67%). Combined measures of motivation(psychological and physiological) =30.45% of the variance in GPA. The entire psychological and physiological test battery, including IQ, contributed a total of 50.89% of the variance in GPA. In a regression analysis of variance in achievement, psychological measures, other than IQ(six EPI and one 16PF), =11.0% and physiological measures =30.3%. As a replication, this study demonstrated significant correlation between autonomic conditioning and school achievement.     

Attribution of behavioral intentions to obese and normal-weight stimulus persons

This study examines the relationship between the attribution of traits and the attribution of short-term, situation-specific intentions and probable behaviors, with particular reference to the perception of obese persons. College students performed one of four tasks: (1) Rating photographs of obese and normal-weight female faces for likeability and attractiveness; (2) attributing short-term intentions and probable behaviors to these stimulus persons within the context of briefly described social interactions; (3) judging the situationally determined demand characteristics of the intentions and probable behaviors; or (4) judging the ‘meaning’ of the intentions or behaviors in terms of trait scales. The results demonstrate that although the obese faces were consistently rated significantly less likeable and less attractive than the normal-weight faces, these judgments were paralleled by only a few differences in the situation-specific intentions or behaviors attributed to the two groups of stimulus faces. It is suggested that impression-formation measured in terms of global, dispositional characteristics such as traits cannot be assumed to directly predict many differences in behavioral expectations in specific interpersonal settings. On the basis of the few attributions of intention which did discriminate, an ‘obese personality’ stereotype emerged, consisting either of socially undesirable traits or traits of ambiguous social desirability. The implications of the relationships among traits, intentions and situational demand characteristics for an interactive model of situational vs. personality determinants of expected behavior are discussed.     

Failure of selective attention to phonetic segments in consonant-vowel syllables

Subjects performed a two-choice speeded classification task that required selective attention to either the consonant or the vowel in synthetic consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. When required to attend selectively to the consonant, subjects could not ignore irrelevant variation in the vowel. Similarly, when required to attend selectively to the vowel, they could not ignore irrelevant variation in the consonant. These results suggest that information about an initial stop consonant and the following vowel is processed as an integral unit.     

Sex and marital status in relation to the treatment and outcome of alcoholic patients

This article focuses on gender and marital status differences in the treatment process, posttreatment experiences, and outcome of 332 alcoholic patients and explores the utility of several sex-role models in explaining the observed findings. Among men patients, being married is related to better treatment outcome, but the marital status difference is negligible among women patients. Participation in group therapy is related to better outcome for men relative to women; exposure to educational materials on alcoholism is associated with better outcome of women relative to men. Men and women patients also differ in the way in which their perceptions of the treatment environment are related to outcome. After discharge, unmarried women and married men are most likely to receive aftercare outpatient treatment, which is also related to better outcome among men patients. The findings underscore the importance of gender and marital status factors and of patient-program congruence effects in the treatment outcome of alcoholic patients.This research was supported in part by NIAAA Grant AAO2863 and by Vetrans Administration Medical Research Funds. The authors wish to thank Ruth Lederman for her valuable assistance with data analyses, and John Finney and Deborah Shields for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Improving visual acuity in a myopic child: Assessing compliance and effectiveness

Improvements in visual acuity following vision training were evaluated for an 11$\text{1}\text{2}$-yr-old myopic male. Initial increases in the distance at which the S could discriminate letters were found. However, performance began to deteriorate as training progressed. A negative-reinforcement procedure was employed in order to rule out motivational factors potentially related to this decreased performance. Using a changing criterion within an ABCBC reversal design, the distance at which the S correctly discriminated letters increased by more than $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}$ times and was clearly related to the reinforcement procedure.     

Philosophical conceptions of rationality and psychiatric notions of competency

Psychiatrists are frequently called upon to make assessments of the rationality or irrationality of persons for a variety of medical-legal purposes. A key category is that of evaluations of a patient's capacity to grant informed consent for a medical procedure. A diagnosis of mental illness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a finding of incompetence. The notion of competency to grant consent, which is a mixed psychiatric-legal concept, shares some features with philosophical conceptions of rationality, but differs from them in a number of important respects. This article describes the actual practice of psychiatrists when making such judgments, along with the standards of competency they employ. A comparison is made between those notions of competency and predominant philosophical conceptions of rationality.     

Writing nonwords to dictation

Two experiments show that the spelling of a nonword that is heard (i.e., /prein/) is influenced by the spelling of a word that is heard earlier (i.e., “brain” > prain and “crane” > prane). This is a robust effect and inspection of the pattern of results suggests that, under these conditions, both words and nonwords are lexically analyzed. A patient with an aquired reading disorder characterized as surface dyslexia was unaffected by such lexical influences in his spelling of nonwords. Moreover, his spelling suggested a defective ability to generate phonemically acceptable spellings of nonwords. Taken together with other reports of neurologically caused spelling impairments these results suggest that skill at assigning letters to sounds never becomes independent of lexical skill in adult readers. An analogical, lexically based parsing system for the reading and spelling of new (nonwords, as suggested by Marcel (1980) appears to be the best fit to these data.