The effect of self-recording and social reinforcement components of parent training programs

This investigation attempted to assess the effectiveness of two components of parent training programs: (1) the effect of a self-behavior management project prior to intervention with deviant child behaviors, and (2) that of social reinforcement from peers and the consultant. Four groups of parents were exposed to a basic training program and were measured on their success in an intervention program in the inappropriate behavior of their children (ages 7–9 years). Two groups of parents were requested to do a self-modification program prior to the intervention with deviant child behavior; two groups did a child intervention program without a self-management project. One group in the self-management and one group without self-management received verbal social reinforcement from peers and the consultant during interventions. Results obtained indicate that the parent group whose training involved a self-behavior management project prior to intervention with their child's inappropriate behavior and verbal social reinforcement achieved a significantly greater reduction of these behaviors when compared to the groups where either self-management of social reinforcement was used.     

Conceptual preference for thematic or taxonomic relations: A nonmonotonic age trend from preschool to old age

Two experiments examined the development of conceptual preference for either thematic (functional) or taxonomic relationships in a match-to sample task. In Experiment 1 twenty subjects from each of five age groups—preschool to old age—completed a method of triads preference test where they were forced to choose a thematic or taxonomic match. Young and old individuals preferred the thematic parings while school age and college adults preferred the taxonomic matches. Although the Age × Preference relation was pronounced, the majority of subjects at all ages could provide adequate justification of both the preferred and nonpreferred relationship. In addition, kindergarten subjects in Experiment 2 could readily be trained to respond on the basis of the nonpreferred mode. These data suggest that the pervasive shift in conceptual responding from syntagmatic to paradigmatic, thematic to taxonomic, etc., represents a change in preference rather than a shift to a fundamentally new way of organizing knowledge.     

Children's strategy preferences for resolving contradictory story information under two social conditions

This paper attempted to examine how children, when confronted with a literary implicature, resolve this implicature under two types of social conditions. More specifically, this paper identified five types of strategies which people employ to resolve text anomalies arising when old information in a story setting is incompatible with new information in a story ending. Two experiments demonstrated that third graders (8.4 and 8.6 years) and sixth graders (12.5 and 12.8 years) consistently selected certain strategies for resolving old and new, empirical and value, contradictory information. Although third and sixth graders demonstrated a similar strategy preference for resolving contradictory old and new information in formal conditions, the principal difference was that third graders modified old information to fit new information while sixth graders modified new information to fit old information. In contrasting the formal and informal conditions, third graders shifted their strategy preferences so as to minimize the amount of text restructuring in the formal condition; sixth graders, on the other hand, shifted their strategy preferences so as to maximize the amount of text restructuring in informal conditions. These findings suggest that story schema structures are more interpretive than story grammar psychologists presently assume.     

Differences in human ability to judge veracity from the audio medium

The few past studies in this topic area have consistently found that human subjects, as a group, are able to judge veracity better than chance; but no findings have been published relating individual differences to judgmental accuracy. Thus the present study was designed as a first step in filling this knowledge gap. To create a stimulus set of lies and truths, which listeners would later judge for veracity, a method was employed that generated 10 audio-tape recorded lies and 10 audio-tape recorded truths. Each of 100 subject-listeners judged each audio-tape for veracity, and also provided information on a set of personological variables. Listener, as a group, were significantly better than chance in accurately judging veracity (p < .001). In addition, a set of personological variables (social intelligence, field dependence/independence, number of siblings, TV viewing habits, and confidence in judgments) was identified that accounted for 22% of the variance in accuracy (p < .0002). It is acknowledged that these findings are tentative and will require replication before they can be regarded as reliable or valid.     

The form of analog size information in memory

The information used to choose the larger of two objects from memory was investigated in two experiments that compared the effects of a number of variables on the performance of subjects who either were instructed to use imagery in the comparison task or were not so instructed. Subjects instructed to use imagery could perform the task more quickly if they prepared themselves with an image of one of the objects at its normal size, rather than with an image that was abnormally big or small, or no image at all. Such subjects were also subject to substantial selective interference when asked to simultaneously maintain irrelevant images of digits. In contrast, when subjects were not specifically instructed to use imagery to reach their decisions, an initial image at normal size did not produce significantly faster decisions than no image, or a large or small image congruent with the correct decision. The selective interference created by simultaneously imaging digits was reduced for subjects not told to base their size comparisons on imagery. The difficulty of the size discrimination did not interact significantly with any other variable. The results suggest that subjects, unless specifically instructed to use imagery, can compare the size of objects in memory using information more abstract than visual imagery.