Children's perception of certain musical properties: scale and contour

Children's perception of scale and contour in melodies was investigated in five studies. Experimental tasks included judging transposed renditions of melodies (Studies 1 and 3), discriminating between transposed renditions of a melody (Study 2), judging contour-preserving transformations of melodies (Study 4), and judging similarity to a familiar target melody of transformations preserving rhythm or rhythm and contour (Study 5). The first and second studies showed that young children detect key transposition changes even in familiar melodies and they perceive similarity over key transpositions even in unfamiliar melodies. Young children also are sensitive to melodic contour over transformations that preserve it (Study 5), yet they distinguish spontaneously between melodies with the same contour and different intervals (Study 4). The key distance effect reported in the literature did not occur in the tasks of this investigation (Studies 1 and 3), and it may be apparent only for melodies shorter or more impoverished than those used here.     

PROMPTING ONE LOW-FAT,HIGH-FIBER SELECTION IN A FAST-FOOD RESTAURANT

Evidence increasingly links a high-fat, low-fiber diet to coronary heart disease and certain site cancers, indicating a need for large-scale dietary change. Studies showing the effectiveness of particular procedures in specific settings are important at this point. The present study, using an A-B-A-B design and sales data from computerized cash registers, replicated and extended previous work by showing that inexpensive prompts (i.e., signs and fliers) in a national fast-food restaurant could increase the sales of salads, a low-fat, high-fiber menu selection. Suggestions also are made pertinent to more widespread use of the procedures.     

Television Food Commericals' Effect on Children's Resistance to Temptation1

This study investigated the effect of television food commercials on children's self-control within a resistance to temptation paradigm. Commercial type, food stimulus type, and the child's sex provided the three independent variables in a 4 × 4 × 2 factorial design. Behavioral and self-report indices of temptation and control were measured. Children were significantly more tempted to transgress for the low-nutrition food, regardless of the commercial shown. Sex differences in reported degree of temptation were found. However, the television commercials did not affect the children's latency to transgress.     

A survey of celiac-sprue patients: effect of dietary restrictions on religious practices

Celiac-Sprue Disease, also referred to as Non-Tropical Sprue, is a dietary disease. Celiac-Sprue patients were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding the effect of dietary restrictions on participation in the Passover meal and reception of Communion. A pilot study suggested that subjects made changes in their religious practices because of dietary restrictions. A second, more detailed survey, was performed in which 58 subjects participated and 14 religions were represented. The results indicated that many subjects made changes in their religious practices (p less than .01), made changes on their own initiative (p less than .01), or violated diet prescribed for the disease under the religious setting versus other settings (p less than .05).     

The relationship of undershooting (anticipation) error in space localization to spatial dimension and spatial category width

In this study I explored whether the degree of anticipation/habituation (undershooting/overshooting) varies with the dimension to be localized, when the method of adjustment is used in space localization. In this study, undershooting occurred for both the vertical (Group 1) and the horizontal (Group 2) dimensions, but was significant only for verticality. The magnitude of undershooting observed for verticality was significantly greater than that for horizontality. A secondary issue regarding the possible relationship between spatial category width and undershooting/overshooting was examined. It was hypothesized that greater degree of spatial category width would be associated with greater undershooting. The opposite was found: Spatial category width was negatively related to undershooting. Finally, within each group, very high consistency of magnitude of spatial category width was observed (rs greater than .90), despite the fact that spatial category width showed shrinkage over the course of the study.     

Preventing Substance Abuse Among American-Indian Adolescents: A Bicultural Competence Skills Approach

Tobacco, alcohol, and drug use are problems for American-Indian people. We reviewed these problems and the explanations for them and described a bicultural competence skills approach for preventing substance abuse with American-Indian adolescents. Data from a study of that approach suggest its efficacy with American-Indian youth. At posttest and a 6-month follow-up, American-Indian subjects who received preventive intervention based on bicultural competence skills concepts improved more than did American-Indian subjects in a no-intervention control condition on measures of substance-use knowledge, attitudes, and interactive skills, and on self-reported rates of tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. Our findings have implications for future substance-abuse prevention research with American-Indian people.     

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOLLAND'S TYPOLOGY AND COGNITIVE STYLES

This paper combines the results of two studies across different cultures which included an investigation into the relationship between field-dependence-independence and vocational orientations within the framework of Holland's theory of career choice and Witkin's theory of psychological differentiation. The samples included 179 Canadian senior high school students and 376 Pakistani college and university students. Both samples were administered Self-Directed Search and Group Embedded Figures Test. The results indicated a significant relationship between cognitive styles and vocational orientations. It was evident from the findings of these two studies that the theories of Holland and Witkin dove-tail nicely with each other.     

Robustness of normal theory methods in the analysis of linear latent variate models

The structure of the covariance matrix of sample covariances under the class of linear latent variate models is derived using properties of cumulants. This is employed to provide a general framework for robustness of statistical inference in the analysis of covariance structures arising from linear latent variate models. Conditions for normal theory estimators and test statistics to retain each of their usual asymptotic properties under non-normality of latent variates are given. Factor analysis, LISREL and other models are discussed as examples.