Life or Death of Severely Disabled Infants: A Counseling Issue

Due to the death of a severely disabled infant from Bloomington, Indiana, a series of events set in motion by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has resulted in cautions to health care providers. The resulting policies and procedures warn hospital personnel against withholding nutritional sustenance or medical treatment from severely disabled infants. This article presents dimensions that might serve as a background for counselors to assist families in considering options related to disabled infants. These dimensions include the meaning of life, cost to benefit ratio, medical options, legal precedent, and a theological perspective. This issue is related to counseling practice through counselor ethics, values, and the need for information that counselors can provide to parents during the decision process.     

Catastrophe theory applications in clinical psychology: A review

Catastrophe theory is a new mathematical science that permits some insight into the way in which sudden changes or discontinuities of behavior may occur even though the underlying causative forces are essentially continuous. This article aims to present a nonmathematician’s view of catastrophe applications in clinical psychology. Areas covered include anorexia nervosa, binge eating and drinking, affective disorders, schizophrenia, aggressiveness, and prison disturbances. Where appropriate, therapeutic implications and possible physiological correlates are offered. Examples are given of catastrophe theory’s ability to explain previously inexplicable findings. Attention is drawn to its refutability and predictive value, and hence its scientific respectability.     

The effect of masked pictures on the interpretation of ambiguous pictures

Two experiments investigated whether the initial organization of ambiguous pictures presented supraliminally could be influenced by the presentation of semantically related pictures that had been pattern masked to prevent conscious representation. Twenty-two pictures were presented tachistoscopically in a counterbalanced sequence, each alternating with the supraliminal presentation of its ambiguous counterpart. The results supported the hypothesis that pictures precluded from consciousness by pattern masking could nevertheless influence the interpretation of ambiguous pictures. Although the possibility of structural priming could not be completely ruled out in these experiments, there is evidence to suggest that semantic priming is a component. The research potential of semantic priming is also discussed.     

A functional analysis of social reinforcement in vicarious verbal conditioning

This article reports the results of 629 subjects in three experiments designed to replicate and extend the phenomenon of vicarious verbal conditioning. Experiment I replicated the finding that subjects who responded most to vicarious verbal conditioning were aware of the contingency involved. Experiment II attempted to examine the effects of prior history with the verbal reinforcer on vicarious verbal conditioning by providing seven groups of subjects with varying classic conditioning histories prior to vicarious verbal conditioning. The null results associated with this experiment were hypothesized to be due to the fact that the vicarious verbal conditioning took place in a language laboratory where the subjects could hear but not see the model. Experiment III replicated Experiment II in a live group context as was done in Experiment I. The results showed a) that vicarious verbal conditioning was again found to take place, b) that associating the verbal reinforcer with a tone or tone plus money via forward classic conditioning potentiated the effects of the verbal reinforcer, c) that backward classic conditioning did not potentiate the reinforcer, d) nor did either of two sensitization procedures potentiate the effects of the verbal reinforcer. Both aware and unaware subjects evidenced vicarious verbal conditioning.     

Infants’ sensitivity to the depth cue of shading

Five- and 7-month-old infants were tested for sensitivity to the depth cue of shading. Infants were presented with two displays: a surface in which a convexity and a concavity were molded and a photograph in which shading specified a convexity and a concavity. Each display was presented under both monocular and binocular viewing conditions. Reaching was observed as the dependent measure. Infants in both age groups reached preferentially for the actual convexity in both the monocular and binocular viewing conditions. In the monocular photograph condition, the 7-month-olds reached preferentially for the apparent convexity specified by shading, indicating that they perceived it to be an actual convexity. These infants showed no significant reaching preference in the binocular photograph condition. This finding rules out interpretations of the infants’ reaching not based on perceived depth. The results therefore suggest that the 7-month-olds perceived depth from shading. The 5-month-olds showed no significant reaching preferences when viewing the photograph; thus, they showed no evidence of depth perception from shading. These findings are consistent with the results of a number of studies that have investigated infants’ sensitivity to pictorial depth cues. Together, these studies suggest that the ability to perceive depth from pictorial cues may first develop between 5 and 7 months of age.     

Time perception and attention: The effects of prospective versus retrospective paradigms and task demands on perceived duration

This research was designed to compare time judgments obtained under prospective conditions (in which subjects are instructed to attend to time) and retrospective conditions (in which subjects are unaware that they will be required to judge time). In Experiment 1, subjects prospectively or retrospectively judged the duration of intervals spent performing a perceptual-motor task at different levels of difficulty. The results showed that subjects tested under both research paradigms tended to give increasingly shorter and/or more inaccurate time judgments with increases in nontemporal task demands. Experiment 2 was designed to test the effects of attentional deployment on perceived time by comparing prospective and retrospective judgments under control, selective attention, and divided attention conditions. Both types of time judgments became increasingly inaccurate as attention was more broadly deployed. The results of these experiments are consistent with an attentional allocation model, and they suggest that nontemporal task demands disrupt or interfere with timing in both prospective and retrospective situations.     

Young children's attention to dyadic conversation as modified by sociometric status

Forty-eight American children, 12 popular and 12 rejected children from Grades 3 and 6, were paired with same-sex friends and nonfriends on an interactive task. Children were videotaped and their interactions judged for the amount and type of attention each child in the dyad gave to each other and the conversation. Main dependent measures included mutual engagements, acknowledgement of the partner, getting the attention of the partner, attention to the conversation, and social impact of the utterances. Both rejected and popular children attended to the conversation and the partner, but rejected children appeared to overattend in several ways. The interactions of rejected children and their matches involved more mutual engagements, conversational initiators, facilitators, terminators, and nonverbal attention-getting devices. Sex and developmental effects were also found.     

Development of linear measurement in five- and six-year-old children

This study sought to identify the higher level knowledge (e.g., conservation of number) necessary for a child to understand linear measurement and to chart the growth of linear measurement in terms of the development of its components. To assess the presence of these components, a battery of 34 number, length, and distance tasks was developed and administered to 100 children between the ages of 63 and 78 months from kindergarten and Grade 1. Results indicate that there is a substantial delay between acquisition of the necessary components and emergence of a mature grasp of linear measurement. The collection of components for the number and length domains form scaled sets; within each domain, however, the pattern of development is marked by discontinuities. These discontinuities are interpreted as being associated with the need to reorganize number and length concepts. Most elements of the observed sequences of development are predicted by Piagetian theory, although others, such as asynchronies between conservation and transitive inferences of nonequivalence, are more consistent with Gagne's (1968) model of development.