Lexical creativity during instances of word-finding difficulty: Broca's vs. Wernicke's aphasia

Lexical innovation--the creation of a word by combining existing morphemes in a novel way (e.g. "map ball" for "globe")--was evaluated as a method for circumventing word-finding difficulty in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia. Aphasic groups were matched for naming performance and compared to a control group of normal adults matched for age and education. Lexical innovations were collected during the administration of a confrontation naming test, and were then analyzed in terms of the correctness of morpheme combination, semantic accuracy, novelty, and communicative effectiveness. An innovation was considered to be communicatively effective when its intended referent was understood by a naive judge. The lexical innovations of the two aphasic groups were diametrically opposed: as compared to both Broca's aphasics and normal adults, Wernicke's aphasics innovated significantly less often, and their innovations were significantly inferior in terms of: semantic precision, the proper construction of morpheme combination, and communicative effectiveness. This pattern suggests that lack of verbal fluency may be compatible with lexical creativity, while empty logorrheic speech may be an impediment to lexical creativity. Similarly, we conclude that the agrammatism of Broca's asphasia does not interfere with lexical innovation, while the paragrammatism of Wernicke's aphasia does interfere with lexical innovation, thus suggesting that paragrammatism affects morpheme combination at the word level as well as the sentence level.     

Occupational values,environments, and levels

The Job Attitude Scale was administered to majors and captains and to upper-middle managers and lower-middle managers of industrial organizations. No significant differences in general intrinsic orientation were found between the majors and the upper-middle managers, or between the captains and the lower-middle managers. The majors and the upper-middle managers were significantly more intrinsically oriented than the captains and the lower-middle managers. The results also showed that the military samples were significantly more concerned with advancement, security, status, and family needs-salarywise-than the civilian samples, while the two civilian groups were significantly more concerned with achievement, supervision, and relations with subordinates than the two military groups. The results were discussed in view of job environment and job level.     

Occupational classification in terms of interest patterns

This study was designed to identify the important clusters of occupational groups identifiable from an analysis of the dimensions accounting for similarity in profile shapes among a set of 28 new vocational interest measures. A total of over 47,000 individuals belonging to 189 particular occupational groups have completed the Strong Vocational Interest Blank and had their data summarized in the form of group profiles. The matrix of 189 occupational group profiles of the 22 SVIB Basic Scales was analyzed by a series of multivariate procedures designed to predict group profiles on the Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS). Predicted JVIS profiles were obtained using an intercorrelation matrix of 548 males who had completed both the SVIB and the JVIS. Predicted JVIS profiles were subjected to a form of transpose factor analysis to obtain clusters of similar occupations. A total of 23 distinct occupational clusters were obtained, ranging from military officers to salesmen, and were interpreted as representing the major groupings of occupations defined by similar patterns of vocational interest.     

Choice times and Spence's discrimination learning theory

In two experiments, rats acquired brightness discriminations in a free-operant circular runway with two response alternatives. Both individual and group choice times revealed continuous changes that were not apparent in the discrete measure of choice. Two major assumptions of Spence's discrimination learning theory were confirmed: (a) learning is continuous, and (b) discriminative stimuli in simple discrimination tasks of both simultaneous and successive types are compounds with position elements as well as elements from the relevant visual dimension. The distinctive, consistent pattern of learning revealed by the choice-time measure suggests that position habits reflect a learning strategy in which the complex task is learned as a series of simpler ones.     

Testing expectancy theory predictions using behaviorally based measures of motivational effort for engineers

Expectancy theory predictions were tested using a sample of engineers who had been rated on dimensions of work motivation or effort (in contrast to performance) using the behaviorally based rating scales designed by Landy and Guion (1970). It was found that the expectancy model was only weakly upheld for an older (41 or older) age subgroup, while few relationships were observed for a younger (below 41) age group. Also, the motivational behavior scales did not show any enhanced predictability when compared to a more global rating of job performance.     

Subjective ratings of credibility following brief exposure to desensitization and pseudotherapy

Forty-two Ss were selected as if they were to participate in an analogue desensitization experiment. They then listened to taped excerpts of desensitization and pseudotherapy and responded to a questionnaire assessing the relative credibility of the two treatments. Desensitization was found to be more credible than pseudotherapy. The implications of this finding for previous and future research are discussed.     

Concomitant changes in classically conditioned heart rate and corneoretinal potential discrimination in the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

Corneoretinal Potential (CRP) and heart rate changes were measured in a series of differential classical conditioning experiments in which the directionality of the heart rate response was related to (a) CRP acquisition, and (b) the certainty or uncertainty of the stimulus situation. The results suggested that heart rate decelerations were associated with stimuli that predict upcoming aversive events, while heart rate accelerations were associated with asymptotic CRP responding late in conditioning. These findings were interpreted in terms of (a) changes in general somatic activity, and (b) the cue properties associated with CSs which predict aversive events.     

The response ratio hypothesis for magnitude estimation

Assume that each presentation of a signal produces two independent random variable representations and that the ratio of responses on successive trials of a magnitude estimation experiment are proportional to the ratio of a representation from the present trial, which representation is then lost, to the remaining one from the previous trial. The mean response to a particular signal depends on the mean of the representation used, but in general exhibits drift over trials and sequential effects due to the preceeding trial; the mean response ratio does not exhibit drift, but it has a simple form only when there are no sequential effects; however, a modified mean ratio function has a simple form. A model suggested by D. V. Cross is a special case of this one. Simple timing and counting models for the representations fail to exhibit sequential effects, contrary to considerable data. However, data of the authors have suggested a version of the timing model in which the sample size of the representation varies by an order of magnitude depending on how close the signal is to the preceding one; this hypothesis accounts for the observed sequential effects and other aspects of the data.