S+ versus S− Fading in prompting procedures with autistic children

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the relative effectiveness of two prompt-fading procedures for teaching difficult visual discriminations to autistic children. Both prompt procedures involved within-stimulus fading where manipulation occurred on the relevant component of the discrimination. One procedure involved fading first along the S+ stimulus, while holding the S? stimulus constant. The other procedure involved fading first along the S? stimulus, while holding the S+ stimulus constant. Eight autistic children were each taught two discriminations, one by each of the prompt procedures. Results indicated that for all but one child, the discriminations were acquired significantly faster, with fewer errors, when the S+ stimulus was faded first. These findings are related to the literature on the effects of stimulus novelty on selection and learning.     

Measurement and interpretation of situational and dispositional attributions

Four problems with the measurement of situational and dispositional causality are reviewed. These are: the assumption that dispositional and situational causality are inversely linked; the diversity of the causes considered within the situational and dispositional categories; the difficulties of differentiating between causes internal and external to the actor; and the low convergent validity of various closed-ended attribution measures. A study reaffirms the lack of convergence among closed-ended measures and between closed and open-ended measures as well. In a second study, subjects' ratings of closed-ended attributions are taken as indicators that a freely chosen to not freely chosen dimension may better represent subjects' attributional thought than the internal/external dimension does. Open-ended data from the convergence study are recoded using this scheme and achieve significantly better convergence with closed-ended data. The implications of this redefinition for solving the various measurement problems are discussed.     

Resistance to satiation: Reinforcing effects of food and eating under satiation

It has been shown previously that rats which have learned a response when hungry will continue to make that response when tested satiated, a phenomenon labeled resistance to satiation. Here we showed that rats which were previously trained hungry will learn a new response for the opportunity to consume pellets in a new situation when tested satiated. In four experiments various groups received each of the components of the training given when rats learn an instrumental response when hungry. Rats were placed in the goalbox of a straight alley and given food pellets when hungry or were hungry only in their home cages prior to running a straight alley in the satiated test in Experiment 1. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4 learning of a differential conditioning problem for pellets in S+ (nonreward in S?) was measured in the satiated test. Groups given pellets in their home cages when hungry with or without alley exposure learned to run more rapidly in S+ than in S? in the satiated test phase. The tendency to eat pellets in the apparatus and the reinforcing effect of eating the pellets was larger for rats which ate the pellets when hungry in their home cage than for rats which ate the pellets when satiated in their home cage. Being hungry in the home cage with no pellets was not sufficient to produce eating or running for pellets in the satiated test, indicating that any inherent reinforcing effect of the pellets is not sufficient to produce eating or running, and that incomplete satiation cannot account for the learning. These data indicate that a reinforcing effect of eating pellets under satiation is an important determiner of resistance to satiation.     

Nonverbal communication of couples in conflict

This article examined the rates, contextual meanings, and attributional meanings of nonverbal behavior occurring during role-played conflict between dating couples. Eighty couples reported perceptions of their own behaviors and their partners' behaviors and were observed in a laboratory setting by trained raters. The nonverbal channel was used significantly more by females than by males and to express approval rather than disapproval. However, the nonverbal-disapproval summary category demonstrated weak validity. Eye contact had the most complex, unexpected contextual meanings. Reduced eye contact appeared to variously convey disapproval, cues of lower interpersonal power, and a reduction of intimacy to compensate for accompanying increases in other approval behaviors. Despite significant correlations between nonverbal and verbal behaviors, dating partners rarely based their perceptions of their behavior or their partners' behavior upon their rates of nonverbal behaviors.     

Sound and pattern in artificial fluency: Spectrographic evidence

This study was designed to yield objective information relative to Wingate's hypothesis that common influences are operative in conditions widely reported to induce fluency in stutterers (Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 1969, 12, 677; 1970, 13, 861; Stuttering: Theory and Treatment, New York: Irvington-Wiley, 1976). Spectrographic tracings of the same phrase uttered under four ameliorative conditions and, as usually spoken, were obtained from four stutterers and four normal speakers. Comparisons among these tracings support the inference that the reduction in stuttering typically found in these conditions reflects certain changes in manner of speaking, principally in the pattern of intonation.     

Vocational development in early childhood: An examination of young children's expressions of vocational aspirations

Vocational aspirations were investigated in a sample of 282 children between the ages of 3 and 6. Age comparisons suggested that one aspect of vocational development in early childhood involves mastery of the task of projecting oneself into the future and conceiving of oneself as one day achieving adult status. Race comparisons indicated that urban blacks were less mature than urban whites in terms of mastery of the vocational projective task seen as characteristic of this developmental period. No significant sex differences were found in rate of development. However, there were indications that the pattern of vocational projection differs for males and females and that females undergo occupational foreclosure earlier than their male peers. Implications for vocational development theories are discussed.     

Response and associative phase components of elaborative prompt effects in children's noun-pair learning

The effects of aural and pictorial elaborative prompts were estimated separately for response and associative phase components of children's nounpair learning. A 20-item list of noun pairs was administered individually to 200 second- and third-grade children by the method of paired-associates. Indices of response learning (free verbal recall and pictorial identification) revealed equivalent effects among prompt conditions whereas measures of associative learning (multiple-choice pictorial-recognition tests) demonstrated substantial performance facilitation as a function of both aural and pictorial elaborative prompts. This outcome was regarded as an unequivocal identification of the locus of elaborative prompt effects in children's nounpair learning.