Comparatives,logical structures,and encoding in a transitive inference task

Four- to five-year-old children were asked questions on length involving single or double comparatives in a transitive inference task. The number of comparatives varied within or across pairs. The pairs of sticks were colorcoded. Initial pair-wise discrimination training on four adjacent pairs from a five-stick array with only verbal feedback was followed by tests, without feedback, on all possible pairs. When both comparatives were used, Ss learned adjacent pairs faster and more often reached criterion than when only one comparative term was used in training. In testing, Ss were successful on transitive inference tests only when the double-comparative relation was used within pairs during training. Retraining with visual feedback increased the number of Ss solving the inference test only in this condition. The findings are discussed in terms of how children may use processes other than logical operations to make transitive inferences.     

Effects of a poverty-clients agenda on resource allocations by community decision makers

A coalition of human service agencies in one city used the Concerns Report Method of Basic Needs and Vital Services to obtain information on the concerns of their poverty clients. Results were disseminated to local decision makers of the United Way agency, city commission, and county commission during their annual budget deliberations. Two standard accounting methods were used to compare budget allocations to agencies serving low-income people before and after dissemination of the Concerns Report, to other items in the three budgets, and to allocations to similar agencies in a second city. Allocations to agencies serving those most in need in the experimental community grew 17% faster than the total budget, increased 3.96% in share of total budget, and gained 22% over other allocations following dissemination of the Concerns Report.     

Acute neuropsychological consequences of coronary artery bypass surgery

This study examines a series of coronary artery bypass patients (CABS) for neuropsychological and regional cerebral blood flow (RCBF) changes at 8 days and 8 weeks post surgery. Seventy-three percent were found to have moderate or severe neuropsychological deficits at 8 days post operation and 37% at 8 weeks post surgery. A comparison group of major vascular and thoracic surgery patients was also found to have a significant proportion of neuropsychological deficit following surgery. The RCBF assessments indicated a significant drop in mean RCBF at 8 days post surgery in the coronary artery bypass group which did not persist to 8 weeks. The comparison group showed no changes in RCBF following surgery. The findings suggest different patterns of recovery and origins of the neuropsychological deficit in the two groups and emphasize the need for appropriate control groups in studies examining the cortical effects of extracorporeal circulation. In addition, the project received generous support from the special trustees of the Middlesex Hospital.     

Effects of phenobarbitol on aggressive behaviors in a program of required relaxation: A case study

A naturally occurring experiment of the effects of two dosage levels of phenobarbitol on aggressive behaviors in a program of required relaxation is described. A required relaxation program was initiated as a consequence for throwing and hitting by a 13-year-old developmentally disabled male resident of an institutional cottage. The resident had been receiving 50 mg of phenobarbitol twice per day to control seizure activity for two years prior to the introduction of this program. Aggressive behavior decreased from an average of 7.2 incidents a day during baseline to 1.7 per day after six weeks of the required relaxation program. Following several reported seizures, medical staff increased phenobarbitol dosage to 100 mg twice per day and hitting behavior increased beyond baseline levels. After five weeks at this dosage, medication was returned to 50 mg twice a day and hitting behavior returned quickly to the lower intervention levels, while seizure activity remained stable. All observations of behavior were collected during unstructured and regularly occurring events of the individual's daily life. These data suggested that changes in medication influenced observed changes in behavior.     

Fully automated psychiatric diagnosis: Some new possibilities

A fully automated psychiatric diagnostic system is outlined that would rely on picture-preference items rather than verbal ones and that would involve a tailored approach rather than conventional “brute-strength” testing. The conditions under which such a system can diagnose patients in a way that might arouse their interest and cooperation are discussed. These include a set of diagnostic categories (perhaps a subset from DSM-III), availability of a single-frame video disk unit allowing random access to each frame, a microprocessor system with a memory capacity of about 32,000 bytes, known base rates of the population of interest, and known probabilities of a particular response to the items for each diagnostic category. Some futuristic extensions of the proposed system are suggested.     

Communicative gestures of the hand and arm when 4-year-old sons and their mothers interact

This study investigated a wide range of communicative hand/arm gestures of 4-year-old males when interacting with their mothers. The types of gesture categories observed were in keeping with the predicted encoding ability of this aged child. Pantomimic and deictic gestures were observed in significantly greater numbers than semantic modifying and relational gestures. Although it was found that the mothers' gestural usage reflected the type of gesture categories seen in the children's group, no correlation was found between gesture usage of individual mother-child pairs.     

Mechanisms of aural encoding: VIII. Phonetic interference and context-sensitive coding in short-term memory

In previous experiments Ss were presented for ordered recall with sequences of five consonant phonemes paired with /a/ in which the middle three consonant phonemes shared the same manner of articulation (voiced, unvoiced, nasal), the same place of articulation (front, middle, back), or neither the same manner nor place of articulation (control sequences). Compared to performance in control sequences, the middle consonant phoneme was always more difficult to recall in manner of articulation sequences but not in place of articulation sequences. The results suggested that for these sequences consonant phonemes were not remembered in terms of their place of articulation. In the present experiment, sequences of consonant-vowel (CV) or vowel-consonant (VC) syllables were presented for recall in which each consonant phoneme was paired with a different vowel. When consonant phonemes in the different sequence types were presented for recall with different vowels, phonetic interference was observed for the middle consonant in place of articulation sequences as well as manner of articulation sequences, and the effect was observed in both CV and VC groups. It was suggested that vowels are encoded in short-term memory in terms of their place of articulation and that presenting consonant phonemes for recall with different vowels caused Ss to use this dimension to code consonant phonemes in short-term memory.     

The effects of physostigmine during the acquisition of avoidance behaviour as a function of the intersession interval

Rats were trained and tested on an avoidance task in a shuttle box. The change in the performance of the control rats over two sessions was found to be a U-shaped function of the interval between the sessions. The change in performance of rats injected with physostigmine prior to the second session was also found to be a U-shaped function of the intersession interval, although the drug was shown to impair avoidance behaviour. These results are consistent with those of Hamburg (1967) and of Biederman (1970), and support the general contention that cholinergic mechanisms in the brain are involved in the control of avoidance and escape behaviour in the rat. They do not, however, necessarily support the hypothesis advanced by Deutsch (1969, 1971) to describe a biochemical basis of learning and memory, especially if it is used to explain the effects of cholinesterase inhibitors on avoidance behaviour in the shurtlebox.