Projective drawings and children who stutter

Five young stutterers (aged 5–10 yr) and a matched group of five nonstuttering children completed five projective drawings and a scale for assessing communication attitudes of children at the beginning and at the end of a 3-mo treatment period. While the attitude scale failed to indicate differences between stuttering and nonstuttering children, performances on selected drawings did distinguish between experimental and control subjects. In addition, significant changes were observed in selected drawings over the treatment period for the young stutterers.     

An Apple II-based slide-projector laboratory

We describe the software and hardware of a laboratory running under UCSD Pascal on an Apple II computer. The system includes: two random-access projectors and two standard projectors, all equipped with tachistoscopic shutters; two filter wheels; a voice key; a tone generator; and eight response boxes. The laboratory can be used for any experiment in which visual stimuli are to be presented and in which precise display times, reaction times, and luminances are required. It is particularly well suited to picture-perception and picture-memory experiments.     

Juvenile deliquency in an Austrian sample of foster-children without a father substitute: review of the literature and some findings

‘SOS-Kinderdorf’ is a worldwide organization who offer new homes to children abandoned by their parents. Children live in family-like groups, headed by a ‘mother’, imitating natural family life as closely as possible. They lack ‘father’, however, which has been a frequent point of criticism with regard to empirical results on father absence. Some of these results are discussed and reviewed critically. Criminological studies have ascribed forms of juvenile delinquency to the childhood absence of a male model. It could be shown, however, that such results vary considerably depending mainly on the reason for father absence. It is doubted, therefore that generalizations may be made for SOS-Kinderdorf's type of one-parent family. Empirical results about juvenile delinquency in a sample of 163 male and female 14- to 18-yr-old former members of SOS-Kinderdorf families are reported, ‘observed’ over a 4-yr period and compared with data on juvenile delinquency for the same area and period of time. The former children from SOS-Kinderdorf are significantly less frequently delinquent than the controls as long as they stay in the institution but they show the reverse pattern after leaving.     

Existential perspective in the thought of Carl Jung

It is argued that there is a significant existential perspective in the thought of Carl Jung. Similarities and differences with some of the views of Jean Paul Sartre are explored as a way of developing this perspective and to show how a philosophy of a man might be developed drawing from both sources. Jung is shown to be in disagreement with Sartre in defending an idea of a determinate human nature, describing the self in a developmental way, and in not claiming that human freedom is absolute or unconditioned. Nevertheless, the Jungian concept of individuation is similar to Sartre's ideal of authenticity, in that both focus on the goal of achieving meaningful existence through development of inner resources, creative exercise of freedom, and overcoming self-deception.     

Models of consultation: Preferences of educational professionals at five stages of service

Three professional education groups (elementary school principals, special education teachers, and second-grade teachers from two school systems) were asked to rate their preference for four models of consultation as offered by school psychologists at each of five stages of the consultation process. Results indicate that there were no differences among the three professional education groups in their ratings of the models. However, there was a significant difference in the ratings given to each model, with the collaboration model receiving the highest rating. A model by stage interaction also was noted, a finding which suggests that consultation preference should not be considered a unidimensional concept. The implications of these results for the training and practice of school psychologists in the consultation role are discussed.     

Differential acquisition rates for different types of information from pictures

In three picture-recognition experiments, we investigated the characteristics of “specific feature” and “holistic” information hypothesized to be extracted from pictures. In each experiment, exposure time was varied at study. The recognition test was two-alternative forced-choice in which the target/distractor relationship was manipulated in such a way that responding on the basis of one type of information or the other was required. The results indicated that following one fixation on a picture at the time of initial study, performance based on holistic information was superior to performance based on specific feature information, whereas the reverse was true following sufficient study time for multiple fixations. These results support a view of pictorial information acquisition which postulates that most holistic information extracted from a picture is extracted during the first eye fixation on the picture, whereas subsequent fixations have the primary purpose of seeking out specific, informative features.     

The Effects of Cooperation and Competition on Ingroup-Outgroup Bias1

A matrix game format was employed in a 2 × 2 design to study the effects of within group cooperation and competition under conditions of success and failure on subjects' subsequent treatment of own group and outgroup persons. Subjects in two-person groups either succeeded or failed at a cooperative or competitive game and then awarded points (worth money) to themselves, their partner, and two other people. A review of the relevant literature suggested that ingroup-outgroup bias would be greater after successful competition than after unsuccessful competition. The results supported this hypothesis. It was also found that subjects in the Cooperation-Failure condition displayed greater ingroup-outgroup bias than subjects in the Cooperation-Success condition. A qualification of the previous research supporting a positive relationship between group cohesiveness and ingroup-outgroup bias was suggested on the basis of the results.     

School psychology and early education: Contributions of Boyd R. McCandless

The writings of Boyd R. McCandless and his colleagues concerned with socialization, sex role development, research methodology, early education, and the relationship of his work to school psychology and early education are discussed. McCandless' interests were diverse, but revolved around a central and continuous concern for those who have less access to experiences which are basic to productive and self-fulfilling lives. There is much in a review of this person's life and work that is instructive for both the academic and the practitioner.     

Integration,interruption and processing rate in visual backward masking

Summary In order to decide between the integration and the interruption theory of backward masking, an experiment is conducted where a cue stimulus preceding the test stimulus by various intervals requires either identification of one test stimulus item (partial report) or recall of the whole test stimulus (full report). In addition, the test stimulus-masking stimulus agynchrony and the luminance of the masking stimulus are varied. When identification accuracy is plotted as a function of cue stimulus-test stimulus interval, the partial-report data can be broken down in two segments: an asymptotic value for long (greater than 500 msec) and a region of decreasing accuracy for short cue stimulus-test stimulus intervals. The asymptotic value depends on the test stimulus-masking stimulus asynchrony and the luminance of the masking stimulus; however, the decrease of accuracy is not affected by these parameters when the scores are normalized with respect to upper and lower limits of performance. Full-report performance shows a uniform decrease across the whole range of cue stimulus-test stimulus intervals. The manner in which asymptotic values depend on the test stimulus-masking stimulus asynchrony and on masking stimulus luminance is taken as evidence of a two-factor theory of backward masking proposed in a previous paper (Scheerer, 1973). But the data on decrease of accuracy require a revision of this theory: under certain conditions, test stimulus degradation may be compatible with an interruption theory. The different temporal course of partial and full report accuracy is used to distinguish between a peripheral (eye movement-mediated) and a central component in critical item selection.

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Zusammenfassung Zur Entscheidung zwischen der Unterbrechungs- und der Integrationstheorie der visuellen Maskierung wird ein Experiment durchgeführt, in dem ein in verschiedenen Abständen vor dem maskierten Testreiz dargebotener Indikatorreiz entweder zur selektiven Identifikation eines Testreizelements (Teilbericht) oder zur Reproduktion des gesamten Testreizes (Gesamtbericht) auffordert. Außerdem werden das Testreiz-Maskierreizintervall und die Leuchtdichte des Maskierreizes variiert. Wenn die Identifikationsgenauigkeit als Funktion des Indikator-Testreizintervalles aufgetragen wird, zerfallen die Teilberichtskurven in einen asymptotischen Wert für lange (größer als 500 msec) und in einen Bereich abfallender Genauigkeit für kurze Indikator-Testreizintervalle. Der asymptotische Wert hängt vom Testreiz-Maskierreizintervall und von der Leuchtdichte des Maskierreizes ab; im Bereich abfallender Genauigkeit sind die Kurven von diesen Parametern unabhängig, wenn sie hinsichtlich oberer und unterer Grenzwerte der Genauigkeit normalisiert werden. Die Gesamtberichtskurven zeigen einen gleichmäßigen Genauigkeitsabfall über den gesamten Bereich von Indikator-Testreizintervallen. Die Abhängigkeit des asymptotischen Werts vom Testreiz-Maskierreizintervall und von der Maskierreiz-Leuchtdichte wird als Hinweis auf die Gültigkeit der im Literaturbericht (Scheerer, 1973) formulierten Zwei-Faktorentheorie der visuellen Maskierung interpretiert. Jedoch erfordern die Befunde zum Abfall der Identiflkationsleistung eine Revision dieses Konzepts; unter bestimmten Bedingungen kann eine unterbrechende Wirkung des Maskierreizes zu einer Qualitätsminderung des Testreiz-Äquivalents führen. Aus dem unterschiedlichen Verlauf von Teilbericht und Gesamtbericht wird geschlossen, daß die Selektion eines Testreizelements in einen peripheren (durch Fixationsänderung vermittelten) und in einen zentralen Anteil zerlegt werden kann.

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Preparation of this report was facilitated by International Postdoctoral Fellowship No. F05-TW-1794 from the Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., USA, and by Grant NIMH MH-10753 to Dr. Ralph N. Haber.     

Requirements for minicomputer operating systems for human experimentation and an implementation on a 4K PDP-8 computer

A programming system is described which considerably simplifies preparation and running of experiments on PDP-8 computers.