Research note: The accuracy of group majorities for disjunctive and conjunctive decision tasks

For complex group decision tasks which can be described in terms of establishing the truth value of conjunctive (and) or disjunctive (or) composite propositions, the advantage for group judgmental accuracy of disaggregating the decision task into separate individual evaluations of the truth value of each component atomic proposition in the composite is investigated. For true propositions it is shown that disaggregation is preferable for conjunctive tasks, but not for disjunctive tasks; while the reverse is true for false propositions.     

The development of spatial and class relations in four young children with right-cerebral-hemisphere damage: Evidence for an early spatial constructive deficit

This study followed the development of four children with right-hemisphere injury on a series of manipulative classification tasks to determine whether and how early brain injury affects the development of spatial and class relations. The children were first tested at about 2 years of age. Their data were compared with previously collected data from 18- to 42-month-old normal children, and with data from four young children with left-hemisphere injury. The results showed the children with right-hemisphere injury do not generate a particular spatial relation (next to) in their spatial groupings with the same frequency as normal or left-hemisphere damaged children, although they do generate in and on relations with normal frequency. An apparent deficit in the development of class relations is shown to be secondary to the spatial deficit, in that it is evident only in tasks that require spatial grouping.     

The development of basic mechanisms of pattern vision: spatial frequency channels

The mature visual system possesses mechanisms that analyze visual inputs into bands of spatial frequency. This analysis appears to be important to several visual capabilities. We have investigated the development of these spatial-frequency channels in young infants. Experiment 1 used a masking paradigm to test 6-week-olds, 12-week-olds, and adults. The detectability of sine wave gratings of different spatial frequencies was measured in the presence and the absence of a narrowband noise masker. The 12-week data showed that at least two spatial-frequency channels with adultlike specificity are present at 12 weeks. The 6-week data did not reveal the presence of narrowband spatial-frequency channels. Experiment 2 used a different paradigm to investigate the same issue. The detectability of gratings composed of two sine wave components was measured in 6-week-olds and adults. The results were entirely consistent with those of experiment 1. The 12-week and adult data indicated the presence of narrowband spatial-frequency channels. The 6-week data did not. The results of these experiments suggest that the manner in which pattern information is processed changes fundamentally between 6 and 12 weeks of age.     

Why we are fairer than others

Subjects wrote lists of either fair or unfair things that they or others did. A pervasive tendency was found for subjects to associate themselves with fair behaviors and others with unfair behaviors. When different subjects rated samples of the written behaviors for fairness and frequency we found that fair behaviors were rated as more frequent than unfair behaviors and self-ascribed behaviors were rated as fairer than behaviors ascribed to others. These findings and others are shown to result from a tendency for subjects to perceive a stronger link between the fairness and frequency of their own behavior than between the fairness and frequency of the behavior of other people. A final analysis showed that the subcategories of unfair behavior that subjects associated with others were different from those associated with themselves.     

Self-control and choice in humans: Effects of video game playing as a positive reinforcer

Participants chose between reinforcement schedules differing in delay of reinforcement (interval between a choice response and onset of a video game) and/or amount of reinforcement (duration of access to the game). Experiment 1 showed that immediate reinforcement was preferred to delayed reinforcement with amount of reinforcement held constant, and a large reinforcer was preferred to a small reinforcer when both were obtainable immediately. Imposing a delay before the large reinforcer produced a preference for the immediate, small reinforcer in 40% of participants. This suggested a limited degree of “impulsivity.” In Experiment 2, unequal delays were extended by equal intervals, the amounts being kept equal. Preference for the shorter delay decreased, an effect that presumably makes possible the “preference reversal” phenomenon in studies of self-control. Overall, the results demonstrate that video game playing can produce useful, systematic data when used as a positive reinforcer for choice behavior in humans.     

Moral outrage and pragmatism: Explanations for collective action

Two explanations for collective behavior were contrasted. The first, exemplified by relative deprivation theory, stresses the importance of feelings of moral outrage and perceived economic injustice. The second focuses on more pragmatic considerations, such as the availability of resources for mobilization. The present study examines these explanations for collective behavior in a laboratory setting. Subjects were members of a disadvantaged group. In a 3 × 2 factorial design two independent variables were manipulated. The magnitude of pay inequality between the disadvantaged group and a more advantaged group was manipulated to be large, moderate, or small. Mobilization resources available to the disadvantaged group were manipulated to be either present or absent. In accord with predictions based on relative deprivation theory, as the magnitude of the inequality increased, stronger feelings of deprivation were expressed. However, contrary to relative deprivation theory, larger magnitudes of inequality and stronger feelings of deprivation were not associated with greater willingness to engage in legitimate or illegitimate forms of collective behavior. Instead, as predicted by some critics of relative deprivation theory, willinginess to engage in illegitimate forms of collective behavior was affected only by a gragmatic consideration: the presence or absence of mobilization resources.     

东莨菪碱所致记忆障碍的脑内突触机制

研究问题是东莨菪碱所致记忆障碍的脑内突触机制,在东莨菪碱所致记忆障碍模型上定量分析屯小鼠海马ＣＡ３区ＧｒａｙＩ突触界面结构参数的变化。     

Interpreting social-sexual behavior in a work setting

The influx of women into the work force, especially into nontraditional jobs, has facilitated interest in the topic of sexual harassment and, more generally, sexuality at work. Survey research data show disagreement about the interpretation of interactions between the sexes at work. This study was designed to learn more about the way people interpret ambiguous, but potentially sexual, interactions between the sexes in a work setting. Respondents were asked to evaluate a vignette depicting such an interaction. The vignettes were composed so that three dimensions were manipulated: the sex of the initiator of the behavior, the status of the initiator relative to the target, and the type of behavior. These manipulated dimensions, along with the sex of the respondent, were used as variables to examine the respondent's interpretation of the vignettes. Four-way ANOVAs showed that the independent variables were related to the evaluation of the relationship between the initiator and the target, the evaluation of the behavior, the appropriateness of the behavior, and the likelihood of the behavior. Men interpreted the vignettes more positively than did women. Incidents initiated by women were viewed more positively. Those initiated by persons with higher status than the target were seen less positively. Respondents, especially women, considered incidents that included touching to be negative. This was especially so when the touching was combined with a comment on work, and this effect was exacerbated when the behavior was initiated by a male and/or higher status person.     

Language loss in bilingual Chicano children

The results of two studies on language loss in bilingual Chicano children are reported. In Study I, focusing on normal language acquisition in balanced bilinguals, 41 children in kindergarten through fourth grade were administered the Bilingual Language Acquisition Scale (BLAS), an instrument testing comprehension and production of the following features: number, gender, word order, relatives, conditionals, and Spanish subjunctive and its English equivalents. Most development occurred between kindergarten and the upper grades in the English Comprehension and Production subscales. In the production of Spanish, significant differences appeared between kindergarten and the upper grades to grade three. Unexpectedly, in the fourth grade, performance dropped sharply, with children performing almost at the kindergarten level. There were no significant differences by grade in Spanish comprehension. Most significant differences among grades were produced in the more complex categories (conditionals, Spanish subjunctive/English equivalents, and relatives) in the production subscales in English and Spanish. By fourth grade, in Spanish (and sometimes by third grade), children were performing with significantly lower accuracy than the younger children, particularly in the more complex structures (subjunctive and conditionals, for example). In Study II, 32 of the original subjects were retested two years later using the same instruments and procedures. While performance in English continued to improve for the sample as a whole, performance in Spanish production deteriorated to a significant degree. In Spanish, significant differences in performance between the two administrations were found, both for the scale as a whole and for the following categories: past tense, relatives, and the subjunctive. The influence of personal history and language use patterns was tested. The most severe incidence of loss occurred among children who tended to use both English and Spanish with the same speaker.