Phonemic effects in the silent reading of hearing and deaf children

Twenty-four deaf and hearing children silently read a printed passage while crossing out all detected cases of a pre-specified target letter. Target letters appeared in phonemically modal form, a category loosely analogous to “pronounced” letters (e.g., the g in badge), and in phonemically nonmodal form, a class which included “silent” letters and those pronounced in somewhat atypical fashion (e.g., the g in rough). Hearing children detected significantly more modal than nonmodal forms, an expected pronunciation effect for individuals in whom speech and reading ordinarily are in close functional relationship. The deaf detected exactly as many modal as nonmodal letter forms, provoking the interpretation that deaf children, as a group, do not effectively mediate print with speech. The deaf also were relatively unaffected by grammatical class, while hearing subjects were considerably more likely to detect a target letter if it occured in a content word than a functor term. Questions pertaining to reading instruction in the deaf are discussed.     

What's in a face: Individual differences in face perception

White and black females judged the similarity of all pairs of white and black male faces. An individual difference multidimensional scaling analysis of the similarity judgments indicated that most of the dimensions underlying the perceptions of male faces involved affective (honest, tense, attractive) characteristics rather than simple physical features (eye width, mouth height). The major physical dimension was face shape (long vs. wide). The dimensions were similar for black and white subjects. An individual difference hypothesis that we pay attention to those characteristics that we possess was partially confirmed.     

Research on individual differences requires correlational analysis,not ANOVA

The data of Welsh and Baucom (1977) have been reanalyzed using correlational analysis for the complete distributions in place of the analysis of variance of extreme groups. The analysis reveals a number of statistically significant correlations between composites of M-F scales and several measures of intelligence, but these are trival in size. Also the sign of the correlations depends directly on which M-F scales are selected to form composites. One can obtain a correlation between either masculinity and intelligence or femininity and intelligence depending on whether the supposed trait is measured from scales formed from the Adjective Check List or from a combination of the MMPI and the SVIB.     

Evidence for direct visual access to letter identities

Subjects were presented with two letters from the set BCDFGHLNPORTVZ, one in upper case and one in lower case. Subjects were required to decide, as quickly as possible, whether the two letters on each trial were the same (e.g., Bb) or different (e.g., Bd). Because letters were always physically different, subjects presumably must name the letters in order to respond. Reaction times were predicted by the visual similarity of the letters, and not by their phonemic distinctive feature similarity. Consistent with previous work showing that a word's meaning can be assessed directly from visual information, the findings suggest that visual analysis of a capital or small letter can result in knowing the latter name without further linguistic processing. These results were interpreted as an example of automatic detection as described by Schneider and Shiffrin (1977).     

Environmental,background, and psychological variables related to optimizing achievement and career motivation for high school girls

The purpose of the study was to investigate some environmental and psychological variables related to optimizing the achievement strivings of high school girls. It was hypothesized that environmental and psychological variables would have significant relationships to achievement strivings. The criterion variables were career motivation and achievement motivation. The predictor variables were: community support, early family socialization (environmental), self-esteem, risk preference, sex role orientation, and fear of success (psychological). Subjects were 10th-grade girls (N = 158) in a suburban midwestern high school district. Procedures involved group test administration involving 2 hr during the regular school day. Multiple regression analysis indicated that high achievement motivation and career choice were significantly associated with perceived support for achievement and career goals in the school and community environment (p < .01). Implications for increasing achievement and career motivation were discussed in relation to the requirements of the Education Amendments of 1972 and 1976 (Title IX).     

Coalition formation in characteristic function games: Competitive tests of three theories

Two experiments tested the bargaining, minimum resource, and minimum power theories of coalition formation in situations involving different payoffs for some of the winning coalitions (characteristic function games). In the first experiment, a triadic resource distribution was employed and payoffs for the coalitions were specified in such a way that each of the three theories predicted the formation of a different coalition. The coalition predicted by minimum power theory formed the most frequently, and the mean divisions of the payoffs among coalition members were also closest to the predictions of minimum power theory. However, the most frequent coalition was not only the one predicted by minimum power theory, it was also the one having the largest payoff per member. There-fore, a second experiment was conducted, which employed a tetradic resource distribution and specified the coalition payoffs in such a way that (a) each of the theories predicted the formation of a different coalition and (b) none of the predicted coalitions was the one with the largest payoff per member. Although the mean payoff divisions in the coalitions in this experiment were closest to those predicted by bargaining theory, the coalition that formed most frequently was not one of those predicted by any of the theories. Rather, it was the one having the largest payoff per member. None of the three theories is able to account adequately for the results of both experiments. The difficulties that the theories have in dealing with coalition formation in situations in which there are different payoffs for winning are discussed.     

The effect of punishment on a factor I stuttering behavior

On each of five days the subject of this experiment read aloud different material during an 18-min A₁ (base rate), B (experimental), and A₂ (extinction) period. No stimulation was delivered during the first three days. On the fourth day, the nonsense word “norg” was presented noncontingently during the experimental period. There was no statistically significant difference between the A₁ and B periods on any of these four days. On day five, “wrong” was made contingent on Factor I prolongations during the experimental period. As a result, there was a statistically significant increase in their frequency. When the response consequence was removed in the A₂ priod, there was a reliable reduction in prolongations and the frequency closely approximated that found in the A₁ period. These data suggest that response-contingent negative stimulation is contraindicated as a clinical tactic for use with Factor I prolongations. It not only failed to suppress them, it increased their frequency.     

Stuttering adaptation under distributed and massed conditions

An identical-subject-repeated-measures design, involving two counterbalanced conditions, was employed to investigate adaptation when the presentation of a 100-word list is distributed and when it is massed. In Condition I, the entire list was read aloud during each of five successive trials. Since a specific word reoccurred only after all of the others were displayed, the presentation may be said to be distributed. In contrast, the Condition II presentation was massed. Only after a word was read five times was the next one presented. The results indicate that significant adaptation occurred in both conditions. However, adaptation plateaued in the distributed condition. This was not the case when massing was employed. The among-condition analyses revealed that significantly more adaptation occurred in the massed than in the distributed condition.     

Vocational interests of career and homemaker oriented women

Women who had completed the SVIB-W as freshmen in college were contacted 13 to 21 years later and were classified as career (N = 236) or homemaker (N = 527) oriented on the basis of their actual work experiences. Significant differences between the groups were found on 25 of the 44 occupational scales, one of the three nonoccupational scales, and four of the 19 basic interest scales. The interests of the homemaker oriented women were more similar to the interests of women in business, nonprofessional, and home economics occupations while the interests of the career oriented women were more similar to the interests of women in the verbal-linguistic, verbal scientific, and scientific occupations. The results are discussed in terms of previous research and Holland's Occupational Classification system.