The consequences of noncooperation for the target of third party instigated aggression

Consequences for a new target as a function of noncooperation was investigated in the instigative aggression paradigm. Subjects instigated partners to aggress against an opponent by suggesting what shock intensity to deliver. The partner was either cooperative (i.e., complied with the suggestion) or noncooperative (i.e., refused to set high shocks). Subsequently, subjects were given the opportunity to be directly aggressive by actually setting the shocks themselves. During this phase a new target who was nonprovocative was introduced. Subjects aggressed alone, in the presence of their partner, or in the presence of a new person. Results revealed that noncooperation reduced the level of instigative aggression and carried over to the second phase of the experiment. Subjects who had had cooperative partners were more aggressive toward the new target than were subjects who had had noncooperative partners. The presence or absence of the partner was not significant.     

Influencesicture context on object recognition

The effect of sorrounding context on the recognition of objects from briefly presented pictures was investigated. Forty-eight undergraduates saw 100 msec displays of either line drawings containing several objects embedded in context or drawings of object arrays without background context. Following each exposure they were required to select from among four objects the one that had been contained in the picture. Presentation of objects in context aided recognition only when incorrect response alternatives were inconsistent with the picture context. The results suggest that context contributes to the construction of a general characterization of the pictures which provides expectancies regarding the identity of specific objects.     

Habit reversal vs. negative practice treatment of nailbiting

A previous study of the habit reversal treatment of nailbiting was extended by using more subjects (97) and a comparison with an alternative method (negative practice). Negative practice reduced nailbiting episodes by about 60% whereas habit reversal reduced nailbiting episodes by about 99% throughout the 5-month follow-up.     

The response of day and night wetting children and children who wet only at night to retention control training and the enuresis alarm

Forty-five children with night wetting only (NW) and 30 children with day and night wetting (DNW) were randomly assigned to 2 treatment groups: alarm only and alarm preceded by 4 weeks of retention control training (R.C.T.). Fewer children became dry at night in the DNW group than the NW group and DNW children relapsed earlier following treatment. The enuresis alarm was far superior to R.C.T. in reducing night wetting in both enuretic groups. It also reduced day wetting in some of the DNW children. Children who became dry in the NW group did not show significant changes in functional bladder capacity. Although changes in functional bladder capacity were seen in the DNW children who became dry, changes were only noticeable once dryness had been achieved.     

Posthypnotic amnesia for recently learned material: Interactions with “episodic” and “semantic” memory

In two experiments, posthypnotic amnesia was suggested for a word list memorized during hypnosis. After an initial test of amnesia the subjects gave word associations (Experiment 1) or category instances (Experiment 2) to stimuli intended to elicit the critical (word list) items covered by the amnesia. The extent of initial amnesia observed was strongly associated with measured hypnotic susceptibility. Even among the most hypnotizable subjects, however, the dense amnesia did not prevent the critical items from being elicited by the semantic memory tasks, nor did it modulate the priming which these associations received by virtue of the prior learning experience. Moreover, production of the critical items did not, in general, remind the amnesic subjects of those items which they had previously learned, but could not now remember. Full memory was restored after the amnesia suggestion was canceled by a prearranged cue. Posthypnotic amnesia appears to represent a temporary dissociation of episodic features from memory traces, so that the subject has difficulty in reconstructing the context in which the target events occurred.     

Development of comprehension of sentences with “because” or “if”

The comprehension of sentences with “because” or “if” was investigated in children aged 2;9–11;11. Imitation, comprehension (choosing one of two picture sequences to go with a sentence), recognition (judging sentences with connective or structure differences as heard before or not), and synonymy (judging equivalence of meaning in sentences with different connectives or structures) tasks were administered, along with logical ordering, reversibility, and classification tasks. Above-chance responding in the comprehension task occurred by age 8, and in recognition and synonymy by age 10. Cognitive performance predicted 28.4% of the variance in the linguistic scores and cognitive success was concurrent with or preceded linguistic success. Comprehension of “because” and “if” appears to develop gradually, and is related to the development of certain operative rules.