Movement as an emergent form: Its structural limits

The purpose of this paper is to view the structure of goal-directed movement as an emergent property of a system interacting with its surround. Principles of the genesis of form are presented and arguments offered to extend these concepts to the analysis of human movement. Movement is viewed as a dynamic form having structural limits which define its functionality or its potential in solving a particular motor problem.The morphology of the system, and its experience with external objects and the field of external forces are considered to be the primary factors determining the emerging form of a movement. These interacting factors and their influence on the structural limits of a movement are discussed in detail. While the degree of effectiveness may vary, it is suggested that the structure of the movement tends towards efficiency and represents the current problem-solving capacity of the individual at any one point in time. Coordination of a system is thus viewed as a reflection of the individual's ability to integrate its internal states and processes with external demands.Lastly, goal-directedness, as a characteristic of living systems, is believed to provide the basis for defining the morphological, biomechanical and environmental constraints which are relevant to the task. The role of the task and the intentionality of the system in its goal-directedness and organization of movement is explored.The framework for viewing movement offered in this paper is enhanced by philosophical arguments and supported by evidence from the arts and the physical, biological and behavioral sciences. It is intended to encourage the reader to re-examine ideas, reflect on movement in a unique way and to generate questions regarding the underlying mechanisms and synergies supporting the emergence of movement in compliance with the factors that constrain it.     

TRAINING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN TO RECRUIT NATURAL COMMUNITIES OF REINFORCEMENT1

Four normal and four deviant children aged four-to-six years were taught to judge the quality of their academic work in a preschool classroom, and to prompt or cue their teachers to comment about the quality of that work. When these skills did not generalize spontaneously to other teachers in concurrent natural situations, generalized responding was taught by the experimenter, in multiple-baseline design across subjects. This generalization programming enabled the children to contact a sometimes dormant, but readily available natural community of teacher praise and reinforcement, i.e., to recruit an increase in cued praise and schedules of praise for their good work. These behaviors may be important to young children who find themselves bereft of attention in classrooms.     

More on the measurement of spontaneous alternation

Still and MacMillan (1977) suggested the negative of the Phi coefficient (- φ) as a measure of free-trial spontaneous alternation. This new index is compared with the Adjusted Alternation Ratio (AAR), previously developed by Manning (1973b). It is concluded that there are many situations in which the AAR is a more useful measure. Other issues in assessing spontaneous alternation noted by Still and MacMillan are discussed.     

Cognitive changes associated with social skills training

Changes in locus of control and self-esteem during social skills training and at 6 month follow-up were investigated. Forty-four adolescent, male offenders were randomly assigned to a social skills training, attention-placebo, or no-treatment control procedure. The results showed that pre- to post-training increases in self-esteem were produced for both the social skills training and attention-placebo control groups, but not for the no-treatment control group. These increases did not continue during the follow-up phase; the social skills training group, which showed the greatest improvement during training, displayed a decrease in self- esteem during follow-up.The locus of control measures showed a statistically significant shift towards internality for the social skills training group during training, which was not found for the attention-placebo and no-treatment controls. During the follow-up phase, all three groups showed a statistically significant shift towards externality, suggesting a tendency for boys to view their behaviour and consequences as being under the control of chance factors or powerful others, during institutionalization. This effect was partly reversed during training for the social skills training group, but the effect was not long lasting. It seems therefore that social skills training is effective in producing an increase in self-esteem and a shift towards internal locus of control. These changes are, however, of short duration and the self-esteem shift may be the result of increased staff contact or other non-specific therapy factors.     

Developmental trends in distractibility: Is absolute or proportional decrement the appropriate measure of interference?

Since baseline performance varies with age, diminished interference effects found with increasing age do not provide evidence for a developmental trend in distractibility unless their relationship to baseline performance is known. In the present study, baseline difficulty was varied in two speeded classification experiments to investigate whether interference effects due to irrelevant information could best be characterized by absolute or proportional decrement models. In Experiment 1, first graders, third graders, and adults sorted cards on the basis of square size, both in the presence and absence of extraneous stimulus information. In Experiment 2, first graders and adults sorted cards on the basis of the density of a regular array of dots and two kinds of irrelevant information were used. Robust interference effects were found which declined with age. Manipulating discriminability of the relevant stimulus dimension resulted in large changes in sorting time, but interference effects did not vary with baseline difficulty. These results were interpreted as strongly supporting both an absolute decrement model and a developmental trend in distractibility.     

Occupation,Competence, and Role Overload as Evaluation Determinants of Successful Women1

In order to determine what variables contribute to or detract from the inter- personal attraction of a successful career woman, 80 male and 80 female introductory psychology students at a large western state university viewed one of eight different videotapes of a female stimulus person discussing aspects of her career and homelife. Two levels of occupation (traditional vs. nontraditional), two levels of competcnce (high vs. low), and two levels of role overload (high vs. low) were factorially varied for each videotape. The Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) was used as a covariate, thereby equalizing attitudes between the sexes. A multivariate analysis of covariance was performed on the data. Results indicated that all main effects-competence, role overload, occupation, and sex of subjects-were significant. Also significant was a sex of subject by occupation interaction and two three-way interactions. These results were discussed in the context of how they increase our understanding of college students' perceptions of successful career women.     

Tactual and visual alphanumeric suffix effects

Two experiments tested the effects of suffixes on the recall of tactual and visual sequences of alphabetic characters presented at 19 letters per min. Scoring techniques allowed for the differentiation of losses of item and order information. In Experiment I performance decrements were found for both modalities, which were mainly caused by item loss at the more recent part of the serial position curve in the suffix conditions. In Experiment II, these effects were replicated and a non-alphabetic suffix led to greater decrements for both modalities than an alphabetical suffix. While a suffix effect based on the loss of item information is consistent with a sensory trace interpretation of the suffix effect, the presence of a visual suffix effect with slow stimulus presentation is not. Additionally, the greater effect of the non-alphanumeric suffix challenges attentional interpretations. Some possible explanations are proposed.