Temporal compatibility in dual motor tasks II: Simultaneous articulation and hand movements

Simultaneous articulation did not interfere with hand responses if the responses shared the same time period. Otherwise there was marked interference even after performance had stabilized with practice. These results generalized previous findings for simultaneous left-and right-hand responses (Klapp, 1979) to show that even highly distinctive responses can be generated in parallel only if they have compatible timing.     

Vicarious reinforcement: Expected and unexpected effects

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects on one child of observing another child receive direct social reinforcement. In the first part of the study, pairs of same-sex children worked on puzzles for three sessions spaced 2 to 3 days apart. One child was praised on a continuous schedule for performance, whereas the other received no praise. Although children who observed other children being praised increased their performance initially (as predicted by vicarious reinforcement and social comparison hypotheses), their performance decreased over time, reaching levels below their own baseline rates. In the second part of the study, intermittent praise delivered to the observing child was examined as a potential strategy to reverse the unexpected effects obtained in the first part of the study. Intermittent praise was found to be effective in reducing these effects and in producing enhanced performance. Individual data, as well as group data, are presented. Results are discussed in light of theoretical and applied issues related to the use of vicarious reinforcement in applied settings.     

“Impossible figures” and interpretations of polyhedral figures

The concept “impossible figure” is analyzed by formalizing the interpretations of a polyhedral figure by an observer, and defining several types of inconsistency in such interpretations. Tests for these inconsistencies are developed using simple graph theory, and a sufficient condition is established for the feasibility of an interpretation. Finally, techniques are derived for the automatic construction of usual or unusual multibar figures.     

The development of young children's awareness of logical inconsistencies

Research by Markman (1979) suggests that children up to 12 years of age do not spontaneously detect logical inconsistencies. The present study was directed to factors which may limit children's ability to recognize their failures to understand. A task was devised which involved materials that were clearly based on children's experiences, and which involved premises and conclusions which were presented contiguously, rather than being interspersed among other sentences. Ninety-six 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old children were asked to judge the acceptability of eight three-sentence “stories” told by a puppet, and were asked to justify their responses. The stories differed in whether they were consistent or inconsistent, and in whether the principle upon which a story's consistency depended was implicitly or explicitly stated. The results showed developmental differences. By Age 7 years, most children were quite capable of evaluating sentences for their logical consistency. Five-year-olds, however, did not perform as well on the task, especially when the information upon which the logical cohesiveness of the stories rested was implicitly, rather than explicitly, stated. An examination of the justifications provided by these children revealed that they tended to question the empirical validity of individual sentences, rather than integrate the story as a whole and examine its overall logical structure.     

A voice-operated method for administering the MMPI

Paper/pencil psychological tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) are difficult to complete independently by patients with limited hand function. This paper describes a voice recognition system developed to allow patients with no hand function to take the MMPI independently. Profiles generated by this system are not statistically different from those generated by standard MMPI booklet format. Limitations and possible extensions of the system as it currently exists are discussed.     

Marijuana-induced primary process content in the TAT

Seventy-two normal adult male subjects wrote TAT stories under baseline and either placebo- or marijuana-ingestion conditions. Marijuana subjects received 20 mg. doses of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol. The stories were keypunched and content analyzed with the Regressive Imagery Dictionary, which yields a score for primary process content. Results indicate that marijuana, relative to placebo, caused subjects to write stories with a higher proportion of primary process content than they had included in baseline stories.     

The roles of self-esteem and self-consciousness in the Wortman-Brehm model of reactance and learned helplessness

The present experiments were designed to study the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of Wortman and Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task), whereas large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the above effects. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to either a small amount of failure or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, subjects high in self-consciousness, who have shown greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than subjects low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. Further analyses revealed that this Self-Consciousness X Small Failure interaction was attributable to the performance data of the low, but not the high self-esteem subjects. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate and extend these results. Subjects were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the anagrams task. A significant Self-Esteem X Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Relative to the no-failure condition, in which the two self-esteem groups did not differ, low self-esteem participants (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high self-esteem individuals (high SEs) in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. The effect of private self-consciousness was considerably weaker in this study, possibly because the sample included few low SEs (who are especially influenced by self-focused attention) who were also relatively low in self-consciousness. Questionnaire data from Experiment 2 were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness.     

Measuring Machiavellianism with Mach V: a psychometric investigation

This study re-examines the reliability of the Mach V Scale using two different scoring procedures: Christie's scoring system and an alternative scoring system by Rogers and Semin. Using commonly accepted standards, results for 123 business managers indicate that the Mach V Scale is not a reliable instrument. Regardless of the scoring Scheme or the method of assessment employed, reliability estimates found in this study are well below conventionally accepted criteria and are also well below reliability estimates previously reported in the literature. In addition, the investigation indicates that although the alternative scoring system appears to increase the precision of the Mach V Scale, the effect of this increase is negligible in hypothesis testing.