The interpretation of universal affirmative propositions

It is proposed that All F are G is often given a ‘structure-neutral’ interpretation, as All, F, G, lacking a subject-predicate distinction. In the first experiment, children aged 6–7–8, and 11–12, and adults, acted out instructions like “Make a building in which all the yellow blocks are square”. The experiment demonstrated the dominance in children and decline with age of structure-neutral interpretations. In a second experiment, with the same age groups, propositions of the form All F are G, varying as to the factual inclusion relations expressed, were presented as the major premises of syllogistic items. The results indicated the presence of structure-neutral interpretations under some circumstances in adults as well as children, and also demonstrated the existence in all subjects of a ‘pragmatic processing’ mode that becomes less obligatory with age. In pragmatic interpretations, meaning is determined by previously known factual relations between the things which the words represent, rather than by grammatical relations between the words themselves.     

The role of proprioception in the perception and control of human movement: Toward a theoretical reassessment

The theoretical role of proprioception in the perception and control of human movement is elusive because of the obvious inability to manipulate experimentally the various receptive systems. Individuals who have had the metacarpophalangeal joint and joint capsule removed and replaced with silastic inserts afford a unique opportunity to evaluate a principal source of proprioception, namely, slowly adapting joint afferents. In a set of experiments, we show that such individuals show no deficits in finger localization following joint replacement. We take this and other complementary findings as a preliminary basis for proposing a dynamic rather than kinematic account of movement production. In addition, we provide a reconceptualization of the function of proprioceptive information in the CNS. Our arguments focus on proprioceptive inputs as tuning or modulating interneuronal pools rather than providing dimension-pecific information to the brain, as is commonly assumed.     

Problems in the evaluation of PLATO lessons

The evaluation of the effectiveness of PLATO CAI in both educational and industrial settings is discussed. The evaluation of the PLATO instruction in the educational setting generally supports the effectiveness of PLATO instruction but was hampered by limited control of instructional method for different populations of students. Further difficulties in evaluation were caused by ceiling effects in the measurement instrument. Evaluation of PLATO instruction in the consulting setting was hampered by lack of cooperation by the client institution. Mastery of the content of some areas covered by the PLATO lessons in this setting was high, whereas mastery of other content areas was low. Conclusions address the necessity for at least a minimal amount of cooperation from the client institution and a minimal amount of control of the evaluation setting for adequate evaluation of any CAI instructional method.     

The variable influence of confession inconsistencies: How factual errors (but not contradictions) reduce belief in suspect guilt

Wrongful conviction statistics suggest that jurors pay little heed to the quality of confession evidence when making verdict decisions. However, recent research indicates that confession inconsistencies may sometimes reduce perception of suspect guilt. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of attribution theory, correspondence bias, and the story model of juror decision‐making, we investigated how judgments about likely guilt are affected by different types of inconsistencies: self‐contradictions (Experiment 1) and factual errors (Experiment 2). Crucially, judgments of likely guilt of the suspect were reduced by factual errors in confession evidence, but not by contradictions. Mediation analyses suggest that this effect of factual errors on judgments of guilt is underpinned by the extent to which mock‐jurors generated a plausible, alternative explanation for why the suspect confessed. These results indicate that not all confession inconsistencies are treated equally; factual errors might cause suspicion about the veracity of the confession, but contradictions do not.     

Two- and three-year-olds infer and reason about design intentions in order to categorize broken objects

In naming artifacts, do young children infer and reason about the intended functions of the objects? Participants between the ages of 2 and 4 years were shown two kinds of objects derived from familiar categories. One kind was damaged so as to undermine its usual function. The other kind was also dysfunctional, but made so by adding features that appeared to be intentional. Evidence that 2‐, 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds were more likely to apprehend the broken objects than the intentionally dysfunctional objects as members of the familiar lexical categories favors the conclusion that, in naming, children may spontaneously infer and reason about design intentions from an early age. This is the first evidence that 2‐ and 3‐year‐olds not only take design intentions into account in object categorization, but that they do so even without explicit mention of the objects’ accidental or intentional histories. The results cast doubt on a proposal that young children's lexical categorization is based on automatic, non‐deliberative processes.     

Thought suppression in spider-fearful and nonfearful individuals

The authors examined the suppression of spider-related thoughts in spider-fearful (n = 23) and nonfearful (n = 22) individuals. Participants were primed with vivid pictures of spiders and a story about spiders. Next, they were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions: (a) suppression of thoughts associated with the previously presented spider-related stimuli or (b) free expression of any thoughts, including those related to the spider-related stimuli. All participants completed a subsequent free-expression exercise. Results indicated that spider-fearful individuals expressed thoughts about the spider-related stimuli for a longer length of time than did nonfearful individuals, particularly in the suppression condition. Participants in both groups demonstrated a rebound of thoughts associated with the spider-related stimuli following suppression. The authors propose that the priming of feared stimuli makes suppression of fear-related thoughts particularly difficult for fearful individuals, perhaps by activating a state of heightened arousal.     

Facilitation and impairment of event memory produced by photograph review

Selectively reviewing some items from a larger set of previously learned items increases memory for the items that are reviewed but may also be accompanied by a cost: Memory for the nonreviewed items may be impaired relative to cases where no review occurs at all. This cost to nonreviewed items has primarily been shown in contexts of verbal list learning and in situations where the reviewed and nonreviewed items are categorically or semantically related. Using a more naturalistic impetus to selective review--photographs relating to previously experienced events--we assessed whether the memory of older and younger adults for unrelated complex activities that they themselves had performed was also impaired due to nonreview. Both younger and older adults showed impaired memory for nonreviewed activities when tested with free recall (Experiment 1), but not when tested with recognition or cued recall (Experiment 2). If mitigating retrieval cues are unavailable, selective review may impair memory for nonreviewed everyday events.     

When Good Intentions Are Not Enough: Modeling Postdecisional Cognitive Correlates of Condom Use1

Measures of intention usually leave substantial proportions of the variance in behavior unexplained. It has been suggested that improved behavioral prediction could be achieved by identifying postdecisional cognitive processes capable of distinguishing between intenders who do act and those do not act. Condom-related self-report measures of postdecisional cognitive processes were developed and tested in a cross-sectional questionnaire study involving 447 heterosexual students. A discriminant function composed of postdecisional measures was found to significantly distinguish between intenders who reported use and non-use and to correctly classify 80% of intenders. The results indicate that measures of the relative importance of competing intentions, prior planning of specific preparatory actions, and action-specific self-efficacy may enhance the prediction of condom use among intenders.     

Prospective analysis of early lapse to drinking and smoking among individuals in concurrent alcohol and tobacco treatment

The aims of the current study were to examine, prospectively, (a) dynamic changes in affective state, self-efficacy, and urge in the hours before initial smoking and drinking lapses among individuals in concurrent alcohol and smoking treatment, and (b) the extent to which self-efficacy, urge to use, and/or the use of one substance predicted lapse to the other substance. Ninety-six men and women recruited for a clinical trial of concurrent alcohol and tobacco treatment were eligible for inclusion. Only data from those who experienced an initial lapse to drinking (n=29) or smoking (n=32) were included. Two outpatient substance abuse clinics provided concurrent alcohol and smoking treatment on a weekly basis for three months. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) methods were employed over a 28-day monitoring period to assess antecedents to first drink, and a 14-day monitoring period was examined for initial smoking lapses. Baseline and EMA measures of positive and negative affect, alcohol/smoking urge, alcohol/smoking abstinence self-efficacy, nicotine withdrawal, and quantity/frequency of alcohol and tobacco use were examined as lapse predictors. Analyses of EMA ratings controlled for the corresponding baseline measure. Smoking lapse among individuals in concurrent alcohol and tobacco treatment was foreshadowed by higher urges to smoke, lower positive mood, and lower confidence to resist smoking. Drinking lapse was preceded by lower confidence to resist smoking, but only among individuals who reported recent smoking. Concurrent alcohol and smoking treatment should focus on the enhancement of abstinence self-efficacy, positive mood, and the curbing of urges in order to offset lapse risk.