Effect of concurrent visual feedback on acquisition of a weightlifting skill

Practice in front of a mirror is a common procedure for activities such as dance, gymnastics, and other sports. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect that performing with concurrent visual feedback from a mirror had on the acquisition of the power clean movement. 18 college-age males who had no prior experience with the power clean movement served as subjects who were assigned to one of two groups. One group had use of a mirror during the practice trials and the other practiced without the mirror. All subjects viewed an instructional videotape and had practice trials. All subjects were evaluated for proper technique on a pretest, a posttest without the mirror, and a posttest with the mirror. Analysis showed a significant difference between pre- and posttest performances for both groups and a significant difference between groups on the posttest performances with the mirror. Evidently the videotaped instruction was sufficient to allow both groups to improve in performance of the power clean. Differences in posttest performances with the mirror reflected the type of feedback (with or without the mirror) available during training.     

Attitudes toward sex, arousal, and the retention of contraceptive information

Previous research has suggested that women with a negative emotional orientation toward sexuality (i.e., erotophobia) have difficulty learning and retaining sexually relevant material such as contraceptive information. It has been hypothesized that these women become aroused by this material and that this arousal interferes with their ability to learn it. The importance of this issue led us to conduct the current study. Erotophobic and erotophilic women viewed presentations about contraception while their physiological responses were being monitored. In addition, they were tested on the information contained in the presentation before, immediately after, and again 4-6 weeks after the presentation. The results indicated that the erotophobic women knew less contraceptive information before the presentation and were more aroused by the presentation. This arousal, however, did not interfere with retention of the material. These results are discussed in terms of individual differences in reactions to sexual material and the ability to learn, retain, and use contraceptive information.     

The association between intelligence level and brain volume measures: a negative finding

Ratings of pre-morbid intelligence level, derived from the hospital charts of 26 chronic schizophrenics, were correlated with the post-mortem brain volume measures of cortex, white matter, central grey matter, and ventricles. Contrary to hypothesis, no significant correlations were found.     

ISSUES CONCERNING THE USE OF REGRESSION ANALYSIS IN SALARY DISCRIMINATION CASES

Twenty-nine salary discrimination court cases were examined to determine ways an organization can refute a regression analysis that leads to the inference of discrimination in compensation. It was found to be equally effective for the organization to introduce its own regression, other statistics, or no statistics. The plaintiff won all of the cases when discrimination was proven in promotion. The defendant won all cases when discrimination was not proven in promotion. Defendants also won all cases when plaintiffs inappropriately treated jobs as fungible or when they failed to include important variables. Market variables may be included in regressions if defendants can show they were applied consistently to determine salaries. The implications of the courts' acceptance of some regressions for comparable worth is presented, and a list of recommendations is made for organizations that may be faced with results from regression analysis in court.     

IES Arrow Dot performance and success in a cocaine detoxification program

The IES Arrow-Dot was administered to 41 cocaine detoxification patients. This group's scores indicated lower ego functioning and higher impulsivity and superego functioning than other clinical samples. No significant differences were noted between the Arrow-Dot scores of patients who successfully completed the program and those who did not.     

Sample size determinations for the two rater kappa statistic

This paper gives a method for determining a sample size that will achieve a prespecified bound on confidence interval width for the interrater agreement measure,. The same results can be used when a prespecified power is desired for testing hypotheses about the value of kappa. An example from the literature is used to illustrate the methods proposed here.