Choice behavior of rats searching for food

The experiments reported here were designed to determine if several general principles drawn from appetitively motivated discrimination experiments in standard laboratory apparatus might also apply to food-searching behavior under more naturalistic conditions. Food-deprived rats searched for food in an open observation area. Choice behavior after finding food and after not finding food was analyzed. In all cases, not finding food in a possible food location was sufficient to direct subsequent search behavior away from that location for the remainder of the day's test. Finding food had variable effects on subsequent choice behavior, depending on the number of locations that actually contained food and the number of days food was in one location before being shifted to another. The results indicate that the rat's search strategy was influenced by food availability and distribution in ways that are predicted by discrimination learning experiments.     

Reading abilities of school-age stutterers

The reading abilities of 20 school-age stutterers and their matched normally fluent controls were assessed by means of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests. Results indicate that the reading abilities of school-age stutterers are not significantly different from those of school-age normals. Similarly, knowing whether a subject was classified as a stutterer or normally fluent speaker was of minimal assistance in predicting the subject's reading performance. These findings suggest that school-age stutterers' reading abilities are within normal limits. An individual stutterer, just like an individual normally fluent speaker, may exhibit “reading problems”; however, caution should be employed in extrapolating from one individual stutterer's reading performance to the reading abilities of all stutterers.     

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.     

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.     

The role of reference in children's acquisition of a miniature artificial language

Nursery school children were presented with a simple miniature artificial language in one of three conditions. In the first, the stimuli to which the words referred contained an inherent lawful relationship and the language syntax reflected this relationship. In the second, the stimuli contained an inherent lawful relationship but the language syntax did not reflect this relationship. In the third, no lawful relationship existed among the stimuli to which the words referred so the language syntax imposed an arbitrary relationship among stimuli. Subjects in the first group were able to produce more correct utterances than those in the other two groups when the stimuli to which the words referred were not present, suggesting that some form of semantic mediation mechanism was being used. Evidence from novel constructions indicates that for both groups using stimuli containing an inherent lawful relation there were interactions between semantic learning mechanisms and syntax learning mechanisms.     

Moderating effects of employee expectancies on the relationship between leadership consideration and job performance of engineers

Ninety-four engineers were asked to describe their supervisors' leadership style, to indicate their expectancies whether performing effectively in their jobs would lead to job rewards and the valence of these rewards. It was hypothesized that employees' expectancies and a considerative leadership style interact to influence the performance levels of these engineers. Results indicated that leader consideration and employee expectancies operate in joint fashions to effect job performance.     

Interhemispheric alpha asymmetry and imagery mode

Interhemispheric alpha activity was measured while subjects were engaged in covertly imaging familiar pictorial material using three imagery modes: “shapes and colors,” “words,” or both. The results showed suppression of alpha activity in the hemisphere which is primarily involved in the cognitive mode being used by the subject.     

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.     

A comparison of the Probe technique and conventional therapy for young stutterers

This study contrasted the gains made in speech theraphy by 39 stutterers, 15 of whom were treated by conventional methods and 24 by the Probe technique. It was found that the Probe technique yielded substantially greater gains in fluency than did the conventional method, having more influence on final performance than factors such as initial fluency, time since onset of stuttering, or the presence of other unacceptable behaviors.