Context effects: Classroom tests and context independence

Contextual dependence has been hypothesized to influence classroom test performance such that taking a test away from the lecture room should lead to lower test scores (Abernethy, 1940). We studied the performances of students who took typical college tests in rooms different from the lecture rooms and made comparisons to classmates who remained in the lecture rooms. No statistically reliable effects were found in 21 such comparisons in seven courses. Although contextual dependence has been produced under laboratory control, college classes induce students to decontextualize information. The theoretical utility of contextual associations is based on simpler, more tightly controlled conditions, and generalization to representative situations is an empirical matter.     

Inferences of mental illness from noninvolvement

These studies continue the exploration of variables related to a person's use of the mental illness categorization. The central concern in the present studies was the effect of perceived variation in a target person's level of involvement in a social situation. While a low level of involvement, as portrayed in videotaped scenarios, prompts attribution of mental illness, other features of implicit personality theories also relate to greater or lesser attribution of mental illness. Those participants who gave evidence of having attributed lower levels of involvement, regardless of filmed information, also attributed higher levels of mental illness. Social workers, compared to general population participants, attributed higher levels of mental illness at all levels of target involvement. We discuss the implications of these findings for dissemination and assignment of the mentally ill role.     

TV heroes: The impact of rhetoric and deeds

Two experiments examined the influence of children's cartoons and their prosocial messages on the behavior and judgments of kindergarten, second, and fourth grade children. Three conditions or types of programs were used: purely prosocial (moral lesson but no aggression); and purely aggressive (no moral lesson). Behavioral, evaluative, and comprehension measures were taken. All children were able to distinguish the protagonist and antagonist. Older children grasped the implications of the stories but younger children, especially those in the prosocial/aggressive condition, did not. Scores of children in the prosocial/aggressive condition were significantly lower on message comprehension than those of subjects in the purely prosocial condition. Implications for the relationship of behaviors (prosocial actions) to judgments, portrayal of aggressive heroes on television programs, and the acceptance of aggression as normative behaviors, are discussed.     

Sex differences: A study of the ear of the beholder

Male and female adult Ss, while performing an unrelated task, heard a single infant awakening. The infant was labeled a girl or a boy. The dependent variable was how quickly Ss responded to the crying infant. Females responded more quickly to the girl than to the boy. Males responded equally slowly to boy and girl. A questionnaire on sex differences in fragility showed that females and males tend to disagree with the proposition that girls are more fragile than boys. Thus, the females' faster response to a crying girl cannot be accounted for by a belief in sex-differential fragility. Correlations between fragility beliefs and response times to an infant indicate that sex-differential belief-behavior relationships are not the same for males and females.     

A computer-oriented task analysis method for mathematics instruction

Components of a computer solution for fraction problems in arithmetic have an analog in a new approach to educational task analysis. The components may be called goal-setting or planning elements, in contrast to the goal-satisfying or behavioral steps emphasized in much contemporary task analysis. A hypothetical tutorial dialogue in which a student is asked to tell a tutor what step to perform next is presented as an example of the emphasis of the planning side of computation. Explicit identification of goal-setting elements of a task is illustrated by analysis of the task of converting a pair of fractions to a new pair with a common denominator. The decomposition thus produces is simulated with two computer programs: (1) a LISP program using a set of production rules consisting of conditions to be met and subsequent actions to be taken and (2) a PROLOG program stating goals and solving goals explicitly.     

Changes in orienting and habituation in the rat following administration of chlorpromazine

Chlorpromazine (0.5-3.0 mg/kg) significantly reduced orienting to a novel auditory stimulus, but subsequent habituation after repeated presentations of the stimulus was not prevented nor significantly impaired. These results support the suggestion that the mechanisms underlying orienting and habituation are independent.     

Perceived Success and Competence of the Opponent,or the Laboratory Dien Bien Phu1

The effect of information relevance and information availability on perceptual differences between Chinese and American nationals was investigated. Subjects participated in pairs as decision makers in a complex experimental environment. Participants' perceptions of success, failure, and competence levels for their own team (under conditions where judgments could be based on varying levels of relevant information) and for a supposed opposing team (under conditions where perceptions had to be inferred in the absence of information) were obtained. It was found that Americans and Chinese did not differ in ratings of their own team. Chinese, as opposed to Americans, perceived the opposing team as having more success, less failure, and more competence. The perceptual errors of the French and Viet Minh which led t o the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu were replicated in the laboratory for Americans and Chinese. Areas in which such potential cultural (oriental versus occidental) differences might be important are mentioned.