The novels of S.E. Hinton: springboard to personal growth for adolescents

This article explores the use of fiction in the classroom as a tool for enhancing the self-understanding of adolescents. Specifically, two novels by S.E. Hinton are used as examples. Theoretical consideration as well as practical classroom activities are discussed.     

Left-handedness in twin families: support of an environmental hypothesis

Information on handedness, assessed as writing-hand, was collected from 197 MZ twin pairs and 203 DZ twin pairs and from their parents, spouses, and children. Associations for pairs of relatives were studied by 2 X 2 tables, computing chi squared-values and tetrachoric correlations. Correlations of about .3 were obtained for mother-offspring and sibling pairs, while for cousins the correlation was .25 (in a small sample). No other significant associations were found, not even for twins. These results suggest only a small, if any, genetic effect, and only a small environmental between family effect, most of which seems to be a maternal effect. The lack of cotwin correlations and correlations for one of the twins with her/his ordinary brothers/sisters suggest the existence of an effect specific to twins, since the correlation for pairs of ordinary siblings is significant. Conclusions drawn from twin studies alone may be biased. The frequency of left-hand writers has increased from 1% to 10% in the different age groups born during the last century in Norway. This age effect is present mainly in hand writing and not so much in handedness generally, suggesting a decrease in cultural repression against left-hand writing.     

References for motor tasks--gender differences across age in motor performance: a meta-analysis

In 1985 we published a meta-analysis of gender differences across age in motor performance in Psychological Bulletin, but it did not include an indexing of each motor task to the references from which it was obtained. This paper provides a table listing the 20 motor tasks and the references from which data for each task were taken. The range of tasks was from fundamental movements (e.g., catching, jumping, running, throwing) to motor fitness (e.g., agility, arm hang, balance, grip strength) to perceptual-motor abilities (e.g., anticipation timing, fine eye-motor coordination, pursuit-rotor tracking, reaction time). The arm hang was represented in the fewest papers (n = 2) while the dash and long jump were most frequently referenced (n = 21).     

Negative implications of fragmented public perspectives toward local alcohol programs

Strengthening local alcohol programs so as to emphasize primary prevention is an active concern among mental health professionals; yet interventions intended to achieve this aim have produced only modest shifts in program orientation in most communities. An analysis of data obtained from those active in local affairs in a small community, using Q-sort techniques, suggested that contrasting perspectives toward alcohol abuse as a social problem may stand as an unseen barrier to relevant change.     

Anisomycin impairs long-term working memory in a delayed alternation task

A long-term temporal component of working memory of rats trained on the radial maze has been shown to be susceptible to disruption by the protein synthesis inhibitor, anisomycin. It is not clear whether protein synthesis played a role in working memory because accurate performance on the radial maze required the storage of a large amount of information, or because the information was to be held in store for relatively long periods of time. This experiment tested these hypotheses by assessing the effect of anisomycin on choice accuracy in a comparatively simple spatial delayed alternation task. Results indicate that under the present training conditions, protein involvement in working memory is related more to the length of the retention interval than to the amount of information retained.     

Effects of foveal priming and extrafoveal preview on object identification

The results of three different experiments suggested that the relation between an object in the fovea on fixation n and an object subsequently brought into the fovea on fixation n + 1 affects the time to identify the second object. In Experiment 1 we extended previous work by demonstrating that a previously seen related priming object speeded the time to name a target object even when a saccade intervened between the two objects. In Experiment 2 we replicated this result and further showed that the benefit on naming time was due to facilitation from the related object rather than inhibition from the unrelated object. In addition, naming of the target object was much slower in both experiments when there was not a peripheral preview of the target object on fixation n. However, because the effect of the foveal priming object was greater when the target was not present than when it was present, priming did not appear to make extraction of the extrafoveal information more efficient. In Experiment 3, fixation times were recorded while subjects looked at four objects in order to identify them. Fixation time on an object was shorter when a related object was fixated immediately before it, even though the four objects did not form a scene. The size of the facilitation was roughly comparable to that in several analogous experiments where scenes were used. The results suggest that the effects of a predictive scene context on object identification may be explainable in terms of an object-to-object or "intralevel" priming mechanism.     

Intimate homicide: An analysis of violent social relationships

Homicide which occurs in intimate social relationships was studied using data from three Western Canadian cities. Variables which may be related to the relationship and homicide are also examined. Unstable relationships are clearly differentiated from other relationships and are more likely to result in homicide. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus): II. Vocal signals

Operant conditioning and multidimensional scaling procedures were used to study auditory perception of complex sounds in the budgerigar. In a same-different discrimination task, budgerigars learned to discriminate among natural vocal signals. Multidimensional scaling procedures were used to arrange these complex acoustic stimuli in a two-dimensional space reflecting perceptual organization. Results show that budgerigars group vocal stimuli according to functional and acoustical categories. Studies with only contact calls show that birds also make within-category discriminations. The acoustic cues in contact calls most salient to budgerigars appear to be quite complex. There is a suggestion that the sex of the signaler may also be encoded in these calls. The results from budgerigars were compared with the results from humans tested on some of the same sets of complex sounds.     

The assessment of type a behavior in children and adolescents: An overview

The present article presents an overview of the instruments that have been used to assess the Type A behavior pattern in children and adolescents. The development, usage, and psychometric properties of each assessment technique are discussed, with methodological concerns being addressed whenever appropriate. The Matthews Youth Test for Health is the assessment of choice for children, because of its brevity, ease of administration, and adequate psychometric properties. The Hunter-Wolf A-B Rating Scale is desirable only for older, highly literate children. The Adolescent Structured Interview appears to be the most promising device for the adolescent age range. The other adolescent assessment devices are relatively unpopular, difficult to administer, and not always conceptually parallel to existing research on Type A behavior. Recommendations for future research are presented.