Right-hemisphere speech representation and comprehension of syntax after left cerebral injury

Comprehension of language and visuo-spatial abilities were studied in 12 surgical patients with left cerebral lesions and right-hemisphere speech representation verified by sodium amobarbital tests. When left-hemisphere symptoms preceded the acquisition of speech, impaired understanding of syntactically complex sentences was associated with an early, but not late, onset of convulsive seizures. Other behavioral measures did not show a similar effect of age at seizure onset. Sparing or loss of comprehension could not be related to any aspects of the neurological histories in cases with right-hemisphere speech acquired before the onset of left-hemisphere symptoms. Factors which may have influenced the development of right-hemisphere language comprehension are discussed.     

Environmental dispositions and the evaluation of architectural interiors

The Environmental Response Inventory (ERI) was developed, in part, to assess dispositions toward everyday physical environments and to aid in explaining variance in response to settings. The eight ERI scales were examined and resultant hypotheses were tested in a design involving evaluative ratings of 10 everyday public building interiors briefly presented in sequences of color slides to 118 participants. Settings were arranged in three levels of generality. Results support the ERI as a promising tool. Biographical items also correlate with ratings. Environment evaluation is discussed as a complex phenomenon, in which rater differences play a significant part.     

Visual processing of multielement arrays and selective backward masking

In the first of two selective masking experiments, 7-letter rows were followed at several ISIs by a mask or no-mask and a bar-marker partial report cue. The results suggest that the arrays were processed ends-first and then, in general, from both ends towards the middle. In the second experiment, bar-marker partial report cues were presented at the onset or offset of 6-letter/1-digit or 7-letter rows. The subjects could not anticipate the category of the to-be-reported item with the alphanumeric displays. With a delayed cue, selective masking was obtained with both mixed category and pure letter arrays, but with simultaneous cuing, masking was always distributed across all serial positions. The results suggest that the subjects: (a) abstracted some information about category from the mixed arrays during an initial parallel stage of processing, (b) selectively attended to mainly the cued item with simultaneous probes with homeogeneous and mixed category displays, and (c) employed an ends-first processing strategy with both types of arrays when the bar-marker partial report cue was delayed.     

Follow-up on welfare benefits received by Job Club clients

A follow-up was made of the welfare payments received by AFDC clients who had received job-finding counseling. At the 6th-month follow-up, welfare payments had been reduced by about one-half for the Job Club clients vs 15% for the control group.     

The effect of modification of expressive displays on vicarious emotional arousal

Several recent experiments have demonstrated that modulation of the facial expressive response is accompanied by changes in autonomic arousal and subjective response to painful stimuli. The present study asked whether facial self-regulation may also bring about changes in covert vicarious emotional experience. Three groups of subjects were exposed to a videotaped model displaying intermittent pain to shock in a differential vicarious autonomic conditioning paradigm. Subjects in the inhibit and amplify groups were asked, respectively, (a) to inhibit their facial muscles or (b) to pose a facial response of pain when the model was shocked. It was predicted that the inhibit group would show less autonomic arousal to the model's expressive display (empathy) and less conditioning (as measured by skin conductance and heart rate change), and the amplify group more empathy and conditioning, than a third group who was given no facial instruction. In fact, the amplify group showed more skin conductance arousal, heart rate acceleration, and activity in response to the model's expressive display of pain than did the other two groups (which were not different from each other), but no more autonomic or facial conditioning. The overall pattern of physiological data is interpreted as generally supportive of a facial feedback theory of emotion: where significant between-groups' differences were obtained in facial activity, as in vicarious instigation, autonomic arousal differences also emerged; where no expressive differences were obtained, as in vicarious conditioning, no differences in autonomic arousal were found.     

On the form and location of the Psychometric Bisection Function for time

The Psychometric Bisection Function for time relates the discriminability of intermediate duration stimuli to a short and long training duration. Bisection Functions for animals (R. M. Church & M. Z. Deluty, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 1977, 3, 216–228) confirm Weber's Law and also show indifference between short and long reports at the geometric mean of the training durations. Two discrimination processes are studied which, in combination with different constructions of the subjective time scale, result in Bisection Functions which differ in form and location. The two discrimination processes use a likelihood ratio rule or a similarity rule to compare intermediate durations to the training durations. These rules in combination with two different constructions of the subjective time scale result in four models which conform to Weber's Law. For one of the scales subjective time is a power function of real time with the scalar property on variance (Scalar Timing). For the other, subjective time is a logarithmic function of real time with constant variance (Log Timing). Both Log and Scalar Timing assume normality on the subjective scale. Only three of these models also entail the geometric mean at the indifference point. The exception is Scalar Timing with the likelihood ratio discrimination rule. This model entails indifference at approximately the harmonic mean of the training stimuli. Variants of the remaining three models differ theoretically but alternatives are difficult to discriminate empirically. A contrast is provided by a Poisson Timing subjective scale in which variance increases directly with the mean. This scale results in indifference at the geometric mean for both discrimination rules but violates Weber's Law in both cases.