Lexical complexity and fixation times in reading: Effects of word frequency,verb complexity,and lexical ambiguity

Two experiments investigated whether lexical complexity increases a word’s processing time. Subjects read sentences, each containing a target word, while their eye movements were monitored. In experiment 1, mean fixation time on infrequent words was longer than on their more frequent controls, as was the first fixation after the Infrequent Target. Fixation Times on Causative, factive, and negative verbs and ambiguous nouns were no longer than on their controls. Further analyses on the ambiguous nouns, however, suggested that the likelihood of their various meanings affected fixation time. This factor was investigated in experiment 2. subjects spent a longer time fixating ambiguous words with two equally likely meanings than fixating ambiguous words with one highly likely meaning. The results suggest that verb complexity does not affect lexical access time, and that word frequency And the presence of two highly likely meanings may affect lexical access and/or postaccess integration.     

Southern Appalachia: Analytical models,social services,and native support systems

Conclusions The model of ethnicity has been applied in this paper to Appalachian natives. The problems suffered by Appalachians in terms of high dropout rates, institutional discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping are familiar to other ethnic minority groups. Yet because the majority of the population in Appalachia are racially indistinct from mainstream Americans, there is resistance to the notion of ethnic difference. This has significant repercussions. Ironically, service providers and others in the region often recognize the distinctive nature of native Appalachians while, at the same time, reaffirming that they are white Americans like anywhere else. This is often said with good intentions. The result, however, justifies a lack of action taken to improve services for native Appalachians. If they are perceived as no different, inequalities go unrecognized and unredressed. If, on the other hand, differences are perceived only on the basis of socioeconomic class and/or rural residence, social services may miss the cultural dimension that may be all-important in identifying problems and potential means of improvement. It is hoped that application of the notion of ethnicity to mountain people will be helpful in the structuring of human services in the region.I am indebted to Mae Reck and Gregory Reck who have greatly contributed to my thinking on Appalachian ethnicity. I also thank two graduate students, Mildred Dunevant and Stephanie Perrin, who read and commented on this paper.     

Correlates and predictors of hyperactivity and aggression: A longitudinal study of parent-referred problem preschoolers

Forty-six parent-referred problem 3-year-olds and 22 comparison children were assessed with parent report and observational measures; 54 were followed up at age 4, and 53 were followed again at age 6. Lower social class and greater family stress were associated with higher symptom ratings at initial referral and age 6 follow-up. Negative and directive maternal behavior and negative and noncompliant child behavior observed in the lab at age 3 were associated with higher maternal ratings of child aggression and hyperactivity; these observed behaviors continued to be highly predictive of maternal ratings of persistent problems at ages 4 and 6. A laboratory index of inattention and overactivity at intake also predicted hyperactivity ratings at age 6. These findings suggest that externalizing problems identified in early childhood are likely to persist when they are associated with more family disruption and a negative mother-child relationship.This research was supported by Grant No. MH 32735 from the National Institute of Mental Health to Dr. Campbell. We are indebted to the children and families who have participated so enthusiastically in this study over the past 5 years. The help of Deborah Baldwin, Patricia Cluss, and Diane Gluck is gratefully acknowledged. Many additional people participated in various phases of this study as independent observers and data coders. Their contributions are also recognized.     

A DIRECT PROMPTING STRATEGY FOR INCREASING RECIPROCAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HANDICAPPED AND NONHANDICAPPED SIBLINGS

We investigated the effects of a sibling training procedure, consisting of direct prompting and modeling, on the occurrence of reciprocal interactions between nonhandicapped and handicapped siblings. Data were obtained for training, generalization, and follow-up. Results of a multiple-baseline design across three pairs of siblings showed that: (a) direct prompting of interactions was an effective strategy for increasing reciprocal interactions between handicapped and nonhandicapped siblings; (b) the training procedure resulted in increased levels of initiations and responsiveness to initiations; (c) reciprocal interactions between siblings generalized to larger play groups or across settings; (d) reciprocal interactions between handicapped subjects and untrained, nonhandicapped peers increased without direct training; (e) the siblings' levels of interactions were maintained at 6 mo follow-up; and (f) these findings were judged socially valid by the siblings' parents.     

Empty nest,cohort, and employment in the well-being of midlife women

Whether the empty-nest experience has positive or negative consequences for women's well-being at midlife may depend on their historical cohort membership and employment status. In this study, it was posited that the empty nest was likely to be a negative experience among the particular cohort of women (Cohort II) who reached adulthood during the period of strong societal emphasis on women's maternal role known as the feminine mystique, would be experienced positively among the earlier cohort (Cohort I) who as young adults were encouraged to enter the labor force during World War II. Analyses of covariance tested the relationships among empty-nest status, cohort membership, and employment status, and three measures of psychological well-being, adjusted for age, education, and marital status. The results of this study show that cohort and employment each have important independent associations with women's well-being at midlife, but that the experience of the empty nest depends on these two factors, especially cohort experiences.The authors wish to thank Joseph Veroff, Elizabeth Douvan, and Richard Kulka for the use of the data from The Study of Modern Living, and Joseph Veroff for comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

The importance to males and females of physical attractiveness,earning potential,and expressiveness in initial attraction

In an experimental study, male and female university students were asked to indicate how attracted they were to an opposite gender stimulus person after being presented information about the person's physical attractiveness, earning potential, and expressiveness. As hypothesized, subjects were more attracted to a physically attractive person than to a physically unattractive person, more attracted to a person with high earning potential than to a person with low earning potential, and more attracted to a high-expressive person than to a low-expressive person. Of these three characteristics, physical attractiveness had the greatest effect on attraction. Contrary to sex role stereotypes, males and females were similarly affected by these partner characteristics. Gender differences, however, did emerge in the subjects' estimates of the effects of these characteristics on their attraction. Consistent with sex role stereotypes, males placed greater emphasis than females on physical attractiveness, and females placed greater emphasis than males on earning potential and expressiveness. The discrepancy between the experimental results and the subjects' perceptions of how the factors affected their attraction were interpreted to indicate that people may not be aware of what attracts them to another and may use “implicit causal theories” provided by the culture to explain their attraction responses.     

Sex differences in reactions to evaluative feedback

Two studies tested the influence of various types of verbal evaluative feedback men's and women's self-evaluations of their performance in achievenment situations. We tested a theory that women perceive evaluative feedback, particularly negative feedback, to be more informative about their abilities than do men. Because of this, women's self-assessments of their abilities are more straightforwardly influenced by evaluative feedback than are men's. In contrast, men take a more self-promotional approach to evaluative situations, and therefore are more selective in their responses to feedback. Results from our questionnaire study showed that women's self-evaluations were influenced by both positive and negative evaluative statements. Men allowed positive feedback to influence them more than negative feedback, and were less influenced overall by negative feedback than women. Furthermore, women reported that evaluative feedback, particularly negative feedback, contained more information relevant to their abilities than men. Our laboratory study showed that women's actual self-evaluations were impacted differently by positive and negative feedback, whereas men's were not. In addition, we found some evidence to indicate that women were more negatively influenced by feedback that was positively toned, yet irrelevant with respect to their performance, than men. This finding underscores the fact that the focus, and not just the valence, of evaluative feedback plays an important role in men's and women's responses to it.     

Feminist and medical ethics: two different approaches to contextual ethics

Feminist ethics and medical ethics are critical of contemporary moral theory in several similar respects. There is a shared sense of frustration with, the level of abstraction and generality that characterizes traditional philosophic work in ethics and a common commitment to including contextual details and allowing room for the personal aspects of relationships in ethical analysis. This paper explores the ways in which context is appealed to in feminist and medical ethics, the sort of details that should be included in the recommended narrative approaches to ethical problems, and the difference it makes to our ethical deliberations if we add an explicitly feminist political analysis to our discussion of context. It is claimed that an analysis of gender is needed for feminist medical ethics and that this requires a certain degree of gener-ality, i. e. a political understanding of context.     

Comparing interventions to motivate work-site collection of home-generated recyclables

Compared the efficacy of eight different intervention strategies to increase the work-site delivery of employees' home-generated recyclables. The interventions incorporated appeals, reciprocity, goals plus feedback, and raffles. Results indicated that relatively few employees participated during any phase of the 25-week program. Raffles of prizes donated by community businesses were the only effective intervention, motivating substantial deliveries of aluminum cans. This suggests that low-cost, impersonal interventions targeting employees' delivery of recyclables to work are not effective. Reasons for the low participation rates are discussed as well as suggestions for improving future corporate-based recycling programs. This report is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation research, supervised by the second author, and conducted at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Parts of the research were presented at the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Atlanta, Georgia. We thank the other members of the dissertation committee for their helpful input, specifically, W. David Conn, Jack W. Finney, Thomas H. Ollendick, and Richard A. Winett.