AN ECOBEHAVIORAL EXAMINATION OF A SIMPLE STRATEGY FOR INCREASING MEALTIME LANGUAGE IN RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES

Typically in large residential facilities for retarded persons, meals are served in an institutional style that does not appear to encourage appropriate peer interactions. An ecological program alternative is serving meals in a family style. The present study was designed to examine both the feasibility of serving family style meals and the effects of family style meal service on mealtime language. Five retarded young adult male residents, who had some conversational skills and appropriate table manners, participated in this study. The experimental design involved a multiple baseline analysis across meals (dinner, lunch, and breakfast). Observers coded the youths' mealtime verbalizations according to the type, content, and direction of the verbalizations and they recorded the length of the meals. The analysis of the verbalization data indicated that during family style meals the participants spoke substantially more often than during institutional style meals. Increases in peer-directed conversation about the meals primarily accounted for the verbalization changes. Family style serving also resulted in the youths spending more time with their meals. In addition, social validation measures suggested that the family style procedures were preferred by the consumers (participants, staff, and concerned community members).     

Reality therapy: Icing on the cake of behavior modification

The paper presents a conceptual model for therapeutic intervention based on a behavioral orientation. Behavioral therapy is viewed on a continuum ranging from basic operant techniques to cognitive strategies applied to human interaction. It is hypothesized that the elements of reality therapy, with its emphasis on human interaction, are needed to provide closure to the therapeutic intervention and to help maintain new coping behaviors. Utilizing the context of an institutionalized client, suggestions for how this process might occur are discussed.     

Two subjective scales of number

The way in which the apparent magnitude of numbers grows with their absolute magnitude was measured with a modified version of the direct technique Marks and Slawson (1966) used to determine the psychophysical exponent for loudness. This modified technique required subjects to estimate how evenly and randomly a sequence of integers appeared to sample the numerical continuum. The results indicate that the apparent magnitude of numbers increases with a decelerated power function of their arithmetic magnitude when a series samples from an open-ended range. However, when an upper boundary of the range is specified, the subjective scale seems to be linear. Random productions of numbers parallel the results found with judgments of presented sequences. The two scales of number provide the basis for an interpretation of the difference between magnitude and category scales: that subjects use numbers differently when the response scale is open-ended Imagnitude estimation than when it has a fixed upper limit tcategory scale. Given the assumption that subjects use numbers in this way in the two tasks, the qualitative relation between magnitude and category scales is predicted.     

The effect of object shape and mode of presentation on judgments of apparent volume

Apparent volume for geometric solids and life-sized two dimensional representations of these solids was scaled by magnitude estimation. Data were adequately fit by power functions whose exponents were less than those previously reported for judgments of apparent length and area. Object shape and mode of presentation affected both magnitude estimations of apparent volume and the best fitting power function exponents. The influence of shape, both across object shape classes and within the cylinder shape class, appears to depend upon the relative elongation of the vertical dimension.     

The role of symmetry in the good continuation ratings of two-part tonal melodies

Subjects heard a series of two-part melodies, in which each part was a random sequence of eight pitches (Experiment 1) or five pitches(Experiment 2) from the diatonic scale. The task was to rate each melody on how well the second part followed the first. It was predicted that the presence of symmetry between the two parts would increase the perception of good continuation. In Experiment 1, two symmetrical relat/lons—(itinversion) and (itretrograde)—yielded melodies that were more highly rated than the control melodies, which consisted of nominally (itdifferent) parts. A third symmetry, the (itretrograde inversion), did not enhance good continuation ratings. In Experiment 2, inversions and retrograde inversions were compared with control melodies, using shorter sequences and pitches with equal durations. Again, inversions, but not retrograde inversions, were significantly preferred. The results suggest that the aesthetic judgment of good continuation depends at least partially on a cognitive analysis of the relation between the melody parts. The positive symmetry effects are further discussed in relation to other studies of symmetry transformations in the contexts of both musical sequences and visual arrays.     

Detection of symmetry

The time to detect symmetries in square field patterns was measured. The same relationships among mean detection times for different symmetries was found in both well-practiced and naive subjects. When the task was to detect any symmetry, detection times were faster for multiply symmetry was faster than diagonal, singly symmetric ones. Horizontal-vertical symmetry was faster than diagonal, which was faster than centric. When the task was to detect specific symmetry, that is, vertical, horizontal,diagonal, or centric only, detection times were faster again for multiply symmetric patterns, suggesting that "irrelevant" symmetry facilitates performance. Errors and response times indicate that certain symmetries are more difficult to reject than others, depending on the type of symmetry to be detected. Thus, the results suggest interference effects arising from certain symmetries. The data are best accounted for by a model in which symmetry is encoded integrally. When decoding is required by the task, as in detection tasks, the observer performs a serial hierarchical decomposition of the code.U     

Piaget's data and spearman's theory—An empirical reconciliation and its implications for academic achievement

A hierarchical simple structure factor solution was obtained for item scores from a psychometrized battery of Piagetian-type tasks individually administered to 660 kindergarten children. At the first level of factors were the Piagetian theoretical entities of seriation, classification, conservation of number, and temporal and spatial reasoning, with numeration loading on seriation and classification as indicated by the theory. At the second level were two factors identified as Piaget's logicomathematical and infralogical operations. A third-level factor was identified as a g factor. The association of the Piagetian-type tasks with kindergarden and first grade academic achievement was through the third-level g factor. The second-level factors appeared to be similar to Vernon's k:m and v:ed but, like the first level factors, made no important contribution to predicted achievement above that contributed by the g factor. A socioeconomic factor made no unique contribution to predicted first grade achievement. It was concluded that the Piagetian concrete operations variables have no unique role in the prediction of kindergarten or first grade academic achievement.