The different types of limb apraxia errors made by patients with left vs. right hemisphere damage

Limb apraxia errors were compared among normal controls and right- or left-hemisphere-damaged patients as they imitated gestures with the ipsilateral hand. Both brain-damaged groups made similar errors on nonrepresentative and representative/intransitive movements. In contrast for pretended object use movements (transitive), the left-hemisphere-damaged group made more arm position and classical body-part-as-object errors while the right hemisphere group made as many partial errors and more less-primitive, body-part-as-object errors than the left-hemisphere-damaged group. These results help explain why a certain percentage of right-hemisphere-damaged patients are labeled apraxic, but also suggest that the left hemisphere is more important for integrating intrapersonal space and the “representation” of extrapersonal space.     

Heart rate variability and respiratory concomitants of visual and nonvisual “imagery” and cognitive style

Attention to visual and nonvisual imagery, elicited by an imagery questionnaire, was studied using both within and between subjects analyses of cardiac and respiratory parameters. Visual imagery was accompanied by more regular interbeat heart rate (HR) and shorter, more stable respiratory cycles than nonvisual imagery. “Visually-oriented” thinkers (visualizers), identified by a word association test, manifested less overall variability in HR than “verbally-oriented” thinkers (verbalizers), as well as less variable HR and respiratory period during visual imagery. Visual and nonvisual imagery differed in HR variability for verbalizers and in respiration period for visualizers. The results are discussed in terms of the concepts of attention deployment, “mental load”, cerebral asymmetry, and stylistic personality differences in cognitive functioning.     

An evaluation of outcome variables in the systematic desensitization of test anxiety.

This study investigated the effects of group systematic desensitization and group counseling on anxiety and academic performance. Fifty-four undergraduates who requested help for debilitating test anxiety were randomly assigned to Desensitization. Group Counseling, or No-treatment control groups. Measures of test anxiety, trait anxiety, and academic achievement were obtained for all students' pre- and post-treatment. The Desensitization group showed a significant decrease in test anxiety; the Counseling and No-treatment groups showed no changes in these measures. None of the groups showed any change in trait anxiety or academic achievement. The results provided evidence that systematic desensitization was an effective treatment for reducing test anxiety, but not for improving grades.     

Deprivation and reward stimuli as compound stimuli

In Experiment 1 the experimental group was tested with a deprivation level and a reward magnitude which it had experienced previously but which it had not experienced in combination. This group was inferior in test performance to a group which had experienced the test deprivation-reward combination prior to test. These results were interpreted as indicating that deprivation stimuli and reward stimuli form a compound stimulus and training on the elements of the compound produces performance inferior to training directly on the compound. In Experiment 2, the decrement associated with two different shifts in deprivation and reward did not differ despite the different size change of total incentive involved in the two shifts. The results were interpreted as indicating that the deprivation-reward stimulus is not produced by a single underlying incentive mechanism.     

Infants' intermodal perception of events

Four-month-old infants viewed two sound motion picture films of simple, natural events. The films were projected side by side, as one of the two sound tracks was played through a centrally placed speaker. Infants' visual attention to the films was consistently influenced by what they heard: They looked primarily at the event specified by the sound track. The experiment demonstrates that infants are able to perceive relations between sights and sounds in the absence of spatial cues. They respond to a perceived intermodal invariance with increased attention to the event reaching them over two modalities.     

Cognitive tuning and receptivity to novel information

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that cognitive tuning would cause receivers to be more receptive to novel than to familiar information, compared to transmitters. The information receptivity of transmitters and receivers was contrasted against a control group. The influence of the source and audience, possible limits on the influence of the tuning set, was also explored. Finally, amount of variance controlled by cognitive tuning, personality variables and information utility were examined.While the results strongly support the prediction that transmitters prefer familiar information, receivers and control group subjects did not significantly differ in preferences for novel information. The anticipated expertise of source or audience had no influence on information receptivity. Among the three sets of variables used, the greatest amount of variance was explained by information utility, followed by cognitive tuning and personality measures, though all three variables controlled a significant amount of variance.     

Cardiac-somatic changes during a simple reaction time task: A developmental study

The relationship during a simple reaction time task between heart rate and four measures of task irrelevant somatic activity was evaluated in four age groups of children, i.e., 4-, 5-, 8-, and 10-year-olds and young adults, in order to evaluate further a hypothesized coupling of cardiac and somatic activity. At all age levels, phasic decreases in both heart rate and somatic activity coincident with performance were found with the magnitude of the effect increasing with age only on three somatic measures. However, tonic levels of both heart rate and somatic activity decreased with age. Performance on the reaction task was found to be inversely related to the age-related phasic somatic effects as well as age-related tonic heart rate and somatic activity.     

Disagreements and self-esteem: Support for the competence-reinforcement model of attraction

The competence-reinforcement model of attraction (Byrne & Clore, 1967) theorizes that interpersonal disagreements produce negative affect and decrements in personal competence. Subject dislike for disagreeing strangers has been a frequent and reliable finding, but the theoretical issue of whether disagreements elicit negative affect because they threaten one's sense of personal competence has been less thoroughly investigated. The present study examines the relationship between attitude disagreements and self-esteem. On the basis of the competence-reinforcement model of attraction it was hypothesized that disagreements would produce decrements in selfesteem, and that the decrements would be most pronounced among subjects expressing the greatest dislike for the disagreeing stranger. Both hypotheses were supported, and it was concluded that the competence-reinforcement model provides an adequate account of both attraction and self-esteem loss.