WISC short forms with emotionally disturbed children

The complete WISC protocols of 100 emotionally disturbed children were rescored according to 30 selected-subtest and 1 selected-item methodologies and then compared for their correspondence to the standard form. High correlations between all of the short forms and the standard WISC were obtained. However, 16 of the selected-subtest short forms and the selected-item short form resulted in a significantly different mean than the standard. In addition, all short forms resulted in a high percentage of individuals changing IQ classification. Results are interpreted as indicating the inappropriateness of short forms with emotionally disturbed children when individual scores are of prime interest.     

Individually tailored behavioral rating scales: a possible alternative

Individually tailored behavioral ratings were introduced as a possible alternative to time sampling or counting each occurrence of the behavior. Interrater reliability was found to be good for the more specific behavior categories and reliability between ratings obtained from direct observation and those based on unit records was acceptable. The usefulness of individually tailored behavioral rating scales in demonstrating behavior change is demonstrated through the presentation of a representative case.     

The identification of structural components of an unknown language

Adult subjects attempted to identify structures (words and constituents) in sentences of a language they did not know. They heard each sentence twice-once with a pause interrupting a structural component and once with a pause separating different structural components. They were asked to choose the version that sounded more natural. An experimental group of subjects who had been previously exposed to a spoken passage in the same language as the test sentences was more successful in identifying structures of the sentences than was the control group with previous exposure to another language. This result was interpreted as demonstrating that language structure may be partially acquired during a brief exposure without reliance on meaning. It was also noted that the experimental group identified constituents more accurately than words. This result suggested that constituents, more than words, function as acquisitional units of language.     

Interference in a typeface variant of the Stroop test

Ss were asked to name the typeface in which a printed item appeared in a discrete trial variant of the Stroop color-word test. Two kinds of items were used: (a) typeface names appearing in antagonistic typefaces, e.g., the word SCRIPT printed in bold type; and (b) nonsense strings constructed by jumbling; the letters in a typeface name, e.g., PSRTCI printed in bold type. Typeface-naming latencies were found to be significantly longer for items of the first kind. Examination of the distributions of individual trial latencies for the two kinds of items indicated that modification of Morton’s (1969) account of the Stroop test is required.     

Transfer and the organization of Perceptual-Motor space

Summary Three experiments are reported involving transfer of effects of different types of visual distortion: lateral displacement, linear extent, and visual rotation. Transfer between different body parts and between different dimensions of space occur but to varying degrees. These are interpreted in terms of their implications for understanding the organization of perceptual and perceptual-motor space.This research was supported by the Center for Research in Human Learning of the University of Minnesota, and by grants 1-K3-HD 12,396, HD 03082 to the University of Minnesota. The authors are indebted to Dr. Albert Yonas for helpful discussions of the results.     

The role of offer rates in controlling sharing by young children

The effects of different reinforcement contingencies on the rates of offers to share and their corresponding rates of acceptance by two small groups of preschool children were investigated in two experiments. In the first experiment, food and praise were given after a 5-min play period to any subject who had made one or more offers to share during the play period. This procedure increased the rate of share-offers by all subjects. However, as share-offers increased, the percentage of offers accepted decreased. In the second experiment, reinforcement was made contingent on a subject reducing offers to share to only one or two per 5-min period. This led to a higher percentage of the offers being accepted. The results suggest that by controlling the rate of a social behavior, the manner in which other persons in the environment respond to the behavior may also be influenced.     

Near-field visual acuity of pigeons: effects of head location and stimulus luminance.

Two pigeons were trained to discriminate a grating stimulus from a blank stimulus of equivalent luminance in a three-key chamber. The stimuli and blanks were presented behind a transparent center key. The procedure was a conditional discrimination in which pecks on the left key were reinforced if the blank had been present behind the center key and pecks on the right key were reinforced if the grating had been present behind the center key. The spatial frequency of the stimuli was varied in each session from four to 29.5 lines per millimeter in accordance with a variation of the method of constant stimuli. The number of lines per millimeter that the subjects could discriminate at threshold was determined from psychometric functions. Data were collected at five values of stimulus luminance ranging from--0.07 to 3.29 log cd/m2. The distance from the stimulus to the anterior nodal point of the eye, which was determined from measurements taken from high-speed motion-picture photographs of three additional pigeons and published intraocular measurements, was 62.0 mm. This distance and the grating detection thresholds were used to calculate the visual acuity of the birds at each level of luminance. Acuity improved with increasing luminance to a peak value of 0.52, which corresponds to a visual angle of 1.92 min, at a luminance of 2.33 log cd/m2. Further increase in luminance produced a small decline in acuity.     

Behavior problems in elementary school children

Two-year follow-up data for an ostensibly normal sample of children who had been previously characterized on a number of behavior problem dimensions by their teachers and peers were analyzed. In addition, 1-year follow-up data were presented for a group of extreme behavior children from the same school. The behavior dimensions of Distractibility and Conduct Problem were fairly stable over 2 years for girls and boys. In addition, Inadequacy—Immaturity was stable for girls and may mark more severe behavior problems for young girls. Behavior problems of young girls were more predictive of later achievement difficulties while behavior problems of boys were more prdictive of peer and teacher difficulty. Finally, teacher's clinical judgment was demonstrated to be useful for indexing behavior for hyperactive boys.Portions of this paper were presented at the New England Educational Research Organization Meeting, Provincetown, Massachusetts, May 1975. The authors wish to thank Dr. Raymond Pressman and the teachers of Hillside Elementary School, Niakayuna, New York, for providing valuable assistance in support of this study. This study was supported in part by the Research Foundation of New York, Grant number 020-7315-A.