Effects of educational and career exploration system on vocational maturity

An experimental group of 792 tenth graders spent from 1 to 17 hr (average 3 hr) on ECES, a computer-based educational and occupational exploration system.Gains on a test of vocational maturity administered at the beginning and end of the school year were compared with a control group of 1453 tenth graders, matched on relevant variables. ECES users showed larger gains than nonusers in (1) degree of planfulness and (2) knowledge and use of resources for career exploration, as measured by the Career Development Inventory, not in information about education, occupations and career decision making. Gains were related to amount of time spent on ECES but male-female differences were not exhibited.     

The effect of training procedures on the overlearning reversal effect in young children

The performance of 80 preschool children on a reversal problem was studied as a function of amount of training and type of training procedure used during acquisition and reversal. In the extinction phase of reversal learning, subjects given a correction procedure during the reversal problem made fewer perseverative errors than subjects given noncorrection. In the reversal midplateau phase of reversal learning, overtraining facilitated reversal learning for subjects receiving noncorrection during the acquistion problem, but not for subjects receiving correction. A shift in training procedure between acquisition and reversal increased the number of subjects who reached criterion immediately after perseveration. Since these results are difficult to explain in terms of traditional learning theories, an alternative response-switching strategy explanation was proposed.     

Immediate and delayed recognition of visual stimuli in poor and normal readers.

The present study investigated the hypothesis that specific reading disability is attributable to inadequate visual memory. Previous research had demonstrated that poor readers sustain no basic dysfunction in visual perception, but there was need to evaluate the possibility that deficiencies in letter and word recognition result from disorder in long-term visual storage. Adopting a format employed in a previous study, randomly arranged Hebrew letters were presented to poor and normal readers unfamiliar with Hebrew, and both groups were asked to demonstrate retention for these stimuli on three separate occasions: immediately after initial presentation, 24 hours later and 6 months later. As a control measure, the performance of the non-Hebrew subjects was compared with that of normal readers familiar with Hebrew letters. It was found that retention in the non-Hebrew groups was equivalent under all of the temporal conditions, but the performance of both was poorer than the Hebrew groups under the immediate and 24-hour conditions. However, none of the reader groups differed in the case of retention after a 6-month delay period. It was concluded that deficient visual memory is an unlikely source of specific reading disability, and alternative explanations of the disorder were considered.     

Effects of a prosocial televised example on children's helping

The possibility that regularly broadcast entertainment television programs can facilitate prosocial behavior in children was investigated. Thirty first-grade children, 15 boys and 15 girls, were individually exposed to one of three half-hour television programs: a program from the Lassie series which included a dramatic example of a boy helping a dog, a program from the Lassie series devoid of such an example, or a program from the family situation comedy series, the Brady Bunch. The effects of the programming were assessed by presenting each child with a situation that required him to choose between continuing to play a game for self-gain and helping puppies in distress. Children exposed to the Lassie program with the helping scene helped for significantly more time than those exposed to either of the other programs.     

Transfer between downshift in reward magnitude and continuous delay of reward

Two separate experiments were conducted to investigate transfer of persistence between delay and a downshift in reward magnitude. In the first experiment, experimental rats were initially downshifted in reward magnitude and later tested for persistence to continuous delay of large reward. It was found that these rats were more persistent to the effects of delay than control rats which did not receive prior experience with a downshift in reward magnitude. In the second experiment, experimental rats were first trained to receive large reward under delayed conditions and then tested for persistence to a downshift in reward magnitude. Compared to control rats which received no prior experience with delay, the experimental rats showed a significantly smaller negative contrast effect. The results were interpreted as supporting Amsel's theory of persistence as well as Capaldi's recent interpretation of contrast effects.     

The effects of active choice,shock duration,shock experience,and probability on the choice between immediate and delayed shock

The choice between immediate and delayed shock was investigated in three experiments with college students. Some Ss were required to choose between a longer-duration shock immediately and a shorter-duration shock later. Immediate, as opposed to delayed, choices were more frequent when: (a) Ss were required to choose the immediate or the delayed shock in contrast to other procedures in which Ss were required to choose immediate shock or passively wait for automatic shock to occur, (b) the duration of the immediate shock was reduced, (c) the S was given prior experience with shock, and (d) the probability of the immediate shock was reduced. Under some circumstances, shock delay and anxiety increased the frequency of immediate choices.