PREDICTION OF WORK RELEASE SUCCESS AT A FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION USING THE MMPI

A pilot study was conducted at a federal correctional institution to determine the extent to which personality factors, as measured by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), were related to work release success. The results indicated that only one MMPI scale (Pa) was significantly related to an inmate's success in the work release program. Implications for further research are discussed in the article.     

Teachers and parents as researchers using multiple baseline designs

Two teachers and a parent used three basic multiple baseline designs to investigate the effects of systematic reinforcement and punishment procedures in the classroom and at home. (1) A fifth-grade teacher concurrently measured the same behavior (tardiness) in three stimulus situations (after morning, noon, and afternoon recesses). Posting the names of pupils on a chart titled "Today's Patriots" was made contingent on being on time after the noon recess, then successively also the morning and afternoon recesses. Tardiness was reduced to near zero rates at the points where contingencies were applied. (2) A highschool teacher recorded the same behavior (daily French-quiz grades) of three students. She then successively applied the same consequences (staying after school for individual tutoring for D and F grades) for each student. At the points where the contingency was applied, D and F grades were eliminated. (3) A mother concurrently measured three different behaviors (clarinet practice, Campfire project work, reading) of her 10-yr-old daughter. She successively applied the same contingency (going to bed early) for less than 30 min spent engaged in one after another of the behaviors. Marked increases in the behaviors were observed at the points where the contingency was applied.     

Tunnel vision or general interference? Cognitive load and attentional bias are both important

Accuracy of identification of single letters presented in the near periphery (2.2 degrees, 3.3 degrees, or 4.4 degrees) was adversely affected when subjects were given a simultaneous foveal visual task as part of the same display. The level of processing required by the foveal task as well as the attentional allocation instructions were both found to be important. Tunnel vision as opposed to general interference can be induced by a combination of high foveal cognitive load, a focused attention strategy, and speed stress.     

Cross-Racial/Ethnic Eyewitness Identification: A Field Study1

Using a method similar to that of Brigham, Maass, Snyder, and Spaudling (1982), 86 adult convenience store clerks were asked to identify 3 confederate/customers, one Anglo-American, one black-American, and one Mexican-American who had visited their stores 2 hours earlier. Wilcoxon matched pairs signed-rank test showed that clerks were superior at identifying customers of their own racial or ethnic group, Z= 2.84, p < .002. For clerks who made an identification, the correlation between the recognition accuracy and confidence in their identification was not significant, r_pbis (56)= .05. The results of this field study paralleled those found in most laboratory experiments of cross-racial/ethnic identification and demonstrated that Mexican-Americans are subject to the own/other groups identification accuracy phenomenon as well.     

Field independence and simultaneous processing in preschool children

The present study examined the relations between field independence and simultaneous processing of preschool children as measured by the Preschool Embedded Figures Test (PEFT) and subtests from the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), respectively. Data partially supported the assumption that field-independent children would perform significantly better on simultaneous processing tasks in general. Significant age and sex differences on field-independence/field-dependence and simultaneous-processing abilities were found among the embedded figures task and selected portions of the K-ABC. Analysis of embedded figures further indicated age differences, but no significant sex differences.     

Visual demonstration and movement production: effects of motoric mediation during observation of a model

The effect of three observational strategies, namely, passive observation, enactive mediation, and delayed mediation, on the accuracy of imitating a modelled throwing action was assessed with a sample of 12-yr.-old schoolboys in a mixed factorial design. 9 boys were assigned to use one of the strategies to produce the pattern of arm movements displayed on a large video-monitor when the speed of the model's movements was varied at three levels. Accuracy of limb displacement and timing of limb movement relative to the model were the performance measures. The results indicated that limb displacement was most accurate when delayed mediation was used with the slowest display. The production of timing was most accurate when enactive mediation was used with the fastest display. Over-all, the use of the passive observation strategy provided the least accurate performance.     

Contextual constraints on usage of cognitive words

The conversations of 36 41/2 to 5-year-olds differing in race (black and white) and social class (professional and working class) and the adults with whom they spoke were tape-recorded during play and teaching time at preschool and dinnertime at home. Usage of cognitive words was analyzed for six levels of meaning that differed in depth of processing from reference to (1) perception and attention, (2) recognition, (3) fact recall, (4) understanding, (5) metacognition, and (6) evaluation of presuppositions. Although the rank order of usage was the same, children devoted less of their lexicon to the three higher levels of meaning than adults. Even in adults, perceptual references predominated. Use of higher-level meaning was less prominent in school and in the black working-class population. There were significant correlations between exposure to adult conversations with high-level meaning and child use of those meanings, and between the diversity of cognitive vocabulary in children and adults, but those correlations were smallest in the black working-class population.Funds to the project on which this paper is based were given by The Carnegie Corporation of New York to William S. Hall. The authors wish to thank the Computer Science Center of the University of Maryland for funds for data analysis.