The cataphoric use of the indefinite this in spoken narratives

Are concepts that were introduced with the unstressed, indefinite articlethis, as opposed to the indefinitea/an, more accessible from listeners’ mental representations? Subjects heard and then verbally continued each of a series of informal narratives. The last clause of each narrative introduced a new noun phrase that began with either the indefinitethis or the indefinitea/an (e.g.,this egg oran egg). When the concepts were introduced with the indefinitethis, the subjects referred to them more frequently, often within the first clauses that they produced, and typically via pronouns. In contrast, when the concepts were introduced witha/an, the subjects referred to them less frequently and typically via full noun phrases. Thus, concepts introduced with the indefinitethis were more accessible; therefore, the indefinitethis appears to operate cataphorically to improve referential access.     

Plans for balancing work and family life: Do women pursuing nontraditional and traditional occupations differ?

Work-involvement plans of women pursuing training in three fields are compared. Three approaches to the connection between gender and work are reviewed: an occupational, a differential gender socialization, and a role conflict approach. Data from 173 female students in traditional (nursing) and nontraditional (engineering and veterinary medicine) fields are used. The work plans of women pursuing these traditional and nontraditional occupations were similar. A minority in each field expected to work full time when their children were of preschool age. We obtained modest support for the structural and differential gender socialization approaches, and substantial support for the role conflict approach. Plans to pursue nontraditional professions do not appear associated with plans for nontraditional family life.     

Long-term retention of information about presentation modality by children and adults

A mixed-modality continuous recognition task followed by a final recognition test after 0 h, 4 h, 1 day, or 7 days was administered to third- and fourth-grade children and adults. Subjects gave recognition responses and reported presentation modalities. Forgetting rates for both words and input mode were invariant with age. The decay functions for presentation modality were affected, however, by the initial input mode, with modality identification declining more rapidly for words heard first than for words seen first. Information about whether a word was seen or heard remained in memory for at least 4 h. The results demonstrate that long-term-memory representations contain a great deal of information about input mode and suggest that the theoretical distinction between automatic and effortful processing may be a useful one.     

Compensatory neoplasia: Chronic erythrocytosis and neuroblastic tumors

There are a large number of exogenous biological and chemical substances with known neoplastic or carcinogenic potential. However, it has also been postulated that external stimuli can influence the body's internal milieu, and thereby induce compensatory excessive growth of cells in the form of hyperplasia or neoplasia. In a recent study, we observed a strong association between chronic hypoxic states and the occurrence of peripheral neuroblastic tumors, a relatively uncommon group of neural neoplasms. In this report we review those findings and formulate an hypothesis to explain why conditions which lead to chronic erythrocytosis may also cause compensatory neoplasia of neural tissues.     

Analysis of pairwise preference data using integrated B-splines

Pairwise preference data are represented as a monotone integral transformation of difference on the underlying stimulus-object or utility scale. The class of monotone transformations considered is that in which the kernel of the integral is a linear combination of B-splines. Two types of data are analyzed: binary and continuous. The parameters of the transformation and the underlying scale values or utilities are estimated by maximum likelihood with inequality constraints on the transformation parameters. Various hypothesis tests and interval estimates are developed. Examples of artificial and real data are presented.This investigation was supported in part by a research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Canada.     

Intergroup relations and nursing

The applicability of Tajfel's social identity theory of intergroup relations was tested within a field situation of nursing, where high and low status trainee nursing groups are undergoing social change in status relations through a merger. The status relations of the two groups were assessed by examining advantages, disadvantages and subjective characteristics attributed to the groups. Close contact between groups may account for the unexpected reduction in intergroup differentiation when explict comparisons were made. No greater illegitimacy in perceived status relations was reported by the low status group, although more dissatisfactions were evidenced in terms of attributed disadvantages, a less positive ingroup identification, and a high proportion of the low status group who want change either through movement into the superior group, or by dissolving status relations through the merging of the two groups. Attempts to merge are geared towards increasing similarity between groups by gaining recognition for those high status characteristics the group believes it has acquired. With a view to social change, the non-mobile low status subgroup are evolving a new and positive social identity for the group, perceiving little difference between groups. Strong intergroup differentiation by the high status group reflects the perceived threat of social change to the high status group.