Modeling effects of rhythmic context on perceived duration: a comparison of interval and entrainment approaches to short-interval timing

Relative merits of interval and entrainment conceptions of the internal clock were assessed within a common theoretical framework by 4 time-judgment experiments. The timing of tone onsets marking the beginning and ending of standard and comparison time intervals relative to a context rhythm were manipulated: onsets were on time, early, or late relative to the implied rhythm, and 2 distinct accuracy patterns emerged. A quadratic ending profile indicated best performance when the standard ended on time and worst performance when it was early or late, whereas a flat beginning profile (Experiments 1-3) indicated uniform performance for the 3 expectancy conditions. Only in Experiment 4, in which deviations from expected onset times were large, did significant effects of beginning times appear in time-discrimination thresholds and points of subjective equality. Findings are discussed in the context of theoretical assumptions about clock resetting, the representation of time, and independence of successive time intervals.     

Community College Advising Model

Traditionally, community college advisement of new students has taken either a group or individual approach. An appropriate advising model affords the opportunity to draw from the assets of both approaches; that is, if grouping is done, individual attention may be given to students by using pertinent student and curriculum factors. The model presented prescribes a specific course of action for a particular kind of student but remains flexible in its application.     

A test of interlingual interaction in comprehension by bilinguals

This study tested bilingual subjects' interaction of knowledge of both languages in comprehension. Spanish-English bilinguals and English monolinguals heard 36 sentences, all spoken in English. Twelve were normal English sentences, 12 contained Spanish word order, and 12 contained word-for-word translations of Spanish idioms. The dependent measure was performance on a phoneme-monitoring task; subjects pressed a button when they heard a particular phoneme within each sentence. Immediately following each sentence, subjects wrote down as much of that sentence as they could recall. Results showed that bilingual subjects pressed the button equally quickly for all sentences, but monolinguals were faster for control sentences than for idiom-translations, which was interpreted to mean that a knowledge of Spanish helped the bilinguals in processing the test items semantically.This research was based on a master's thesis presented by the first author and supervised by the second author at Kansas State University. Data were presented at the Psychonomic Society meeting, San Antonio, November 1978.     

Sensitive caregiving and reward responsivity: A novel mechanism linking parenting and executive functions development in early childhood

Sensitive caregiving is an essential aspect of positive parenting that influences executive functions development, but the mechanisms underlying this association are less clear. Using data from the Family Life Project, a large prospective longitudinal sample of 1292 families residing in rural, predominately low-income communities, the current study examined whether sensitive caregiving impacts executive functions development by shaping behavioral reward processing systems in early postnatal life. Results indicated that higher levels of sensitive caregiving during infancy were associated with heightened reward responsivity at age 4, which in turn predicted superior executive functions ability at age 5. Notably, children's reward responsivity partially mediated the relationship between sensitive caregiving in infancy and executive functions ability at school entry. These findings add to prior work on early experience and children's executive functions and highlight caregiver scaffolding of developing reward processing systems as a potential foundational mechanism for supporting adaptive behavior and self-regulation across the lifespan.     

Myths and misconceptions about hypnosis and suggestion: Separating fact and fiction

We present 21 prominent myths and misconceptions about hypnosis in order to promulgate accurate information and to highlight questions for future research. We argue that these myths and misconceptions have (a) fostered a skewed and stereotyped view of hypnosis among the lay public, (b) discouraged participant involvement in potentially helpful hypnotic interventions, and (c) impeded the exploration and application of hypnosis in scientific and practitioner communities. Myths reviewed span the view that hypnosis produces a trance or special state of consciousness and allied myths on topics related to hypnotic interventions; hypnotic responsiveness and the modification of hypnotic suggestibility; inducing hypnosis; and hypnosis and memory, awareness, and the experience of nonvolition. By demarcating myth from mystery and fact from fiction, and by highlighting what is known as well as what remains to be discovered, the science and practice of hypnosis can be advanced and grounded on a firmer empirical footing.     

Effects of self-control training for elementary students with emotional and behavioral disorders

Progressive delay training (PDT) has been used to promote self-controlled choices (i.e., selecting a larger, later reward over a smaller, immediate reward) for people with a variety of developmental characteristics. However, the efficacy of PDT has not been evaluated in children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), who often have co-occurring symptoms of impulsivity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of PDT with a rule-following requirement on the impulsive choices of 6 elementary students with EBD using a modified changing criterion design. Results indicated that PDT alone did not improve self-control, but a modified version of PDT with a rationale and rule for selecting the delayed reward promoted self-control for 3 participants. The remaining 3 participants continued to make impulsive choices despite further modifications to the PDT protocol. We discuss implications of our results and directions for future research on treating impulsivity in children with EBD.     

The emergence of psychopathy: implications for the neuropsychological approach to developmental disorders

In this paper, I am going to examine the disorder of psychopathy and consider how genetic anomalies could give rise to the relatively specific neuro-cognitive impairments seen in individuals with this disorder. I will argue that genetic anomalies in psychopathy reduce the salience of punishment information (perhaps as a function of noradrenergic disturbance). I will argue that the ability of the amygdala to form the stimulus-punishment associations necessary for successful socialization is disrupted and that because of this, individuals with psychopathy do not learn to avoid actions that will harm others. It is noted that this model follows the neuropsychological approach to the study of developmental disorders, an approach that has been recently criticized. I will argue that these criticisms are less applicable to psychopathy. Indeed, animal work on the development of the neural systems necessary for emotion, does not support a constructivist approach with respect to affect. Importantly, such work indicates that while environmental effects can alter the responsiveness of the basic neural architecture mediating emotion, environmental effects do not construct this architecture. However, caveats to the neuropsychological approach with reference to this disorder are noted.     

Impaired reversal but intact acquisition: probabilistic response reversal deficits in adult individuals with psychopathy

The performance of adult psychopathic individuals on a novel response reversal task involving 2 reward-punishment contingencies (100-0 and 80-20) was investigated. In line with predictions, adults with psychopathy presented with impairment on the response reversal component but not on the acquisition component of this task. This selective impairment for response reversal was seen for both reward-punishment contingencies and was related to the tendency of individuals with psychopathy to be less likely to stay with a rewarded correct response to a stimulus on the subsequent presentation of that stimulus. Results are discussed with reference to current models of the development of psychopathy.     

Rimes are not necessarily favored by prereaders: evidence from meta- and epilinguistic phonological tasks

This article explores young children's facility in phonological awareness tasks requiring either the detection or the articulation of head, coda, onset, and rime subsyllabic units shared in word pairs. Data are reported from 70 nonreading children and 21 precocious readers attending preschools. Prereading children were able to articulate shared heads, codas, and onsets, although rimes rarely were articulated. Precocious readers were able to articulate shared rimes, but articulation performance was still most accurate for onsets and codas. Rimes and heads were equally accessible in the detection task and were identified more often than onsets and codas (nonreaders) and codas (readers). It is concluded that the articulation advantage for nonrime units cannot simply reflect early reading instruction. This disjoint pattern of phonological awareness in detection and production tasks does not support Goswami's phonological status hypothesis. Results may instead reflect quite distinct influences on epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological development.