Attention demands of movements as a function of their duration and velocity

The attention demands of initiating and controlling discrete movements were examined as a function of their movement time (MT) and average movement velocity. Experiment 1 showed that the attention required to execute a movement decreased as MT decreased, although Experiment 2 through independently manipulating MT and movement velocity, revealed that movement velocity is the key determiner of attention demands rather than MT. The attention demands of preparing a high velocity movement are greater than during its execution with the reverse being the case for relatively slow velocity movements. The results are compatible with the view that it is the initiation of error corrections that are attention demanding (Keele 1973).     

Treatment of obsessive-compulsive patients: The contribution of self-instructional training to the effectiveness of exposure

Fifteen obsessive-compulsive patients were given treatment consisting of ten sessions of gradual exposure in vivo. For half of the patients gradual exposure in vivo was preceded by self-instructional training.Treatment resulted in significant improvement on anxiety and avoidance scales, Leyton Obsessional Inventory, Self-rating Depression Scale and on ratings for anxious mood and depression. Neither the post-test nor the follow-ups 1 month and 6 months later indicated a difference between the effects of the two conditions. Self-instructional training did not enhance the effectiveness of gradual exposure in vivo.     

Infant search tasks reveal early concepts of containment and canonical usage of objects

It is difficult to gain unambiguous evidence on the use of concepts by infants. Many results can be accounted for in terms of action-based strategies. The evidence reported here fulfils the minimal criteria for the operation of working concepts in infants. Search tasks are used with a filled interval which forces memory-search, and the object is hidden in containers which fulfil their customary job or violate it. Infants treat an upright cup as a more reliable location marker than an inverted one. A series of experiments probes the phenomenon. The results indicate that the infants have a working concept of containment which can be triggered by the provision of containers in their canonical orientation. Even “object permanence tasks” lead infants to access their knowledge of the relationships into which things typically enter in the world outside the laboratory.     

A feature-integration theory of attention

A new hypothesis about the role of focused attention is proposed. The feature-integration theory of attention suggests that attention must be directed serially to each stimulus in a display whenever conjunctions of more than one separable feature are needed to characterize or distinguish the possible objects presented. A number of predictions were tested in a variety of paradigms including visual search, texture segregation, identification and localization, and using both separable dimensions (shape and color) and local elements or parts of figures (lines, curves, etc. in letters) as the features to be integrated into complex wholes. The results were in general consistent with the hypothesis. They offer a new set of criteria for distinguishing separable from integral features and a new rationale for predicting which tasks will show attention limits and which will not.     

A new measure for determining children's subjective organization of speech

A new technique for determining children's subjective organization of speech is described. The technique consists of teaching a child a sentence and then repeatedly (1) reading the sentence up to a selected point, (2) sounding a tone, and (3) having the child supply the next word. The time from the tone to the onset of the child's voice is the dependent variable. In the first study 6- and 8-year-old children memorized the following sentence: “John likes to feed the little puppies in the barn.” Their response times suggested that the dominant segmentation pattern consisted of four phrases: a subject phrase, a verb phrase, an object phrase and a modifier phrase. Within each phrase differences between reaction times were on the order of 30 msec. Across phrases they were on the order of 120 msec. The same trend emerged for subsamples of the children with various short-term memory sizes, and for adults. It also appeared for subsamples of the total scores (e.g., first six trials and last six trials). In order to provide further evidence of the technique's validity, different sentences of the same general type were presented to children with short-term memory spans of either 3, 4, or 5. As predicted, it was found that when children's spans corresponded to the number of hypothesized chunks (i.e., 4), they could repeat the sentences verbatim on the first exposure. They could not do so, however, when their spans were lower than that value or when the number of phrases was increased. It was concluded that the new technique is a promising one for assessing young children's patterns of speech segmentation.     

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.     

Meditation,personality and arousal

A questionnaire survey of people who had learned a technique of meditation was carried out to assess persistence with practice, perceived effects of meditation practice and subjective experiences during meditation. The results suggested that a significant proportion give up meditating (42.9%) and that the subjective experience of meditation was similar to that of the hypnagogic state. Reported effects of meditation were generally physiological and psychological benefits related to relaxation.A personality questionnaire was also distributed and the results suggested that those attracted to meditation are significantly more neurotic and introverted than the general population but that those who continue with meditation are significantly less neurotic than those who give up their practice.These findings are discussed in terms of regression effects and in relation to a theory of personality and arousal.     

Effects of neutral and positive stimuli on stuttering: “Calling attention to stuttering” revisited

This study investigated the effects of presumably positive and neutral response-contingent stimuli on the occurence of stuttering. Eight adult stutterers spoke spontaneously during a 60-min experimental session, which was divided into three 20-min periods. During Condition I no stimuli were delivered. During Condition II a digital counter and a pair of yellow lights were activated each time the subject stuttered. During Condition III these same response-contingent stimuli were delivered, but with the additional factor that the subject would earn 5¢ each time the counter moved forward and the lights were illuminated. Conditions II and III were counterbalanced across subjects. The experimenter was unaware of which of the two contingencies were operative during Conditions II and III. Results showed no significant changes in occurence of stuttering due to either response-contingent stimulus. A discussion of theoretical and experimental implications is given.