Self-directed desensitization for acrophobia

Acrophobic outpatients received therapist- or self-directed (tape-recorded) desensitization in a study of (a) treatment effectiveness with diminished therapist contact ; (b) subject characteristics ‘predicting’ outcome; and (c) generalization of change. At Post-test, treated Ss (N=16) had improved significantly more than Waiting List Ss (N=13) on self-report measures of acrophobia and general anxiety, while the treatment methods were equally effective. An 8-month follow-up found that self-directed Ss had attempted more specific behavioral situations than therapist-directed Ss, and showed additional gains on self-report measures while therapist-directed Ss maintained post-test levels. Results suggested: (a) desensitization provides effective treatment even with reduced therapist contact; (b) some subject characteristics relate to outcome and (c) treatment effects generalize to other anxiety indices.     

Judgments of recency for long sequences of pictures: the absence of a developmental trend

Recency judgments were examined for four groups (N = 40 per group) aged 7, 8, 10, and 18 years. The Ss were required to choose either the near or far item on a series of test pairs embedded within a long sequence of single inspection items. No age effects were found. Performance was more accurate the longer the separation between the original presentation of the two test items and the shorter the lag from the most recently presented item to the test. Implications for general and developmental theories of memory were discussed. The data supported the hypothesis that tasks, which do not require deliberate mnemonic strategies, are not developmentally sensitive.     

Paired-associate learning by normal children and retardates with relevant redundant compound stimuli

During daily sessions four first-grade boys each played a two-choice marble dropping game. When one colored light was presented a plain token was dispensed as soon as S dropped a marble, and when another light was on a token with a hole in its center was delivered. During choice trials that were interspersed among single-color trials S had to choose one of the two different colored holes. At the end of each session S traded tokens with holes for pennies and then turned in the remaining plain tokens which were not exchanged for money. After S had developed a preference for the response that earned the tokens with holes (tokens that were backed up with pennies) E instructed S to try to get as many plain tokens (unexchangeable tokens) as he could. All Ss immediately switched to the response that earned unexchangeable tokens but as soon as E left they returned to choosing the backed up response. When the adult reentered, Ss again chose to work for unexchangeable tokens. Two different Es (male and female) served and the instructions of each were effective in controlling responding as long as the adult was present, except for one S who did not respond to one E, but did respond as described for the other.     

The effects of two stressors on state anxiety for students who differ in trait anxiety

The role of individual differences in speech trait anxiety as they related to the magnitude of A-State responses in two stressful situations was examined. Measures of anxiety were obtained before, during, and immediately after Ss gave a speech (ego-stressor) and blew up a balloon until it burst (physical stressor). While exposure to each stressor resulted in dramatic changes in A-State, it was found that differential A-State increases for the high and low speech trait anxious Ss occurred only during the ego-stressor condition. These findings were discussed in terms of Trait-State Anxiety Theory with particular reference to the differential stressful effects of ego and physical stressor on A-State for Ss who differ in A-Trait.     

UCS duration and conditioned suppression: Acquisition and extinction between-groups and terminal performance within-subjects

Two experiments demonstrated a positive monotonic relation between UCS duration and conditioned suppression ranging from no suppression at 0.05 sec to nearly complete suppression at 3.0 sec. In Exp 1, 5 acquisition groups were run at 0.5 mA. No suppression occurred at the shortest duration, approximately 50% suppression by Session 3 in two intermediate groups (0.2 and 0.5 sec) and nearly complete suppression by Session 3 at the two longest durations (1.0 and 3.0 sec). The relation between UCS duration and recovery of responding during extinction followed a parallel pattern. In Exp 2, terminal performance was studied within-subjects and the same relation was replicated.     

Acquisition of spatial antonym pairs

Twenty-eight children (mean age 4.3 yr) were tested for comprehension of spatial antonym pairs with arrays which contained four objects representing both members of two antonym pairs. The results showed that: (a) the most common error was to point to an object representing the same polarity (marked-unmarked) as the word requested; (b) there was not a high degree of confusion within antonym paris; (c) unmarked antonyms tend to be acquired before marked antonyms; and (d) the order of acquisition of the pairs was: tall-short, long-short, high-low, thick-thin, deep-shallow, wide-narrow. The results were interpreted as supporting a modified semantic-feature hypothesis, in which polarity is acquired before dimension.     

The right hemisphere and temporal processing of consonant transition durations: electrophysiological correlates

Auditory evoked responses (AER) were recorded from frontal, temporal, and parietal scalp regions to a series of consonant-vowel syllables which varied in the duration of the consonant transition. Multivariate analyses of the AER waveforms identified one component of the AERs occurring only over right hemisphere regions which discriminated between differences in transition durations. A second component detected over only left hemisphere areas discriminated differences in place of articulation. These data are consistent with previous behavioral and electrophysiological reports that the right hemisphere is sensitive to temporal discriminations.     

Left hemisphere sensitivity to consonant sounds not displayed by the right hemisphere: electrophysiological correlates

Auditory evoked responses (AER) to a series of consonant-vowel syllables were recorded from frontal, temporal, and parietal scalp locations from 14 right-handed college students. Averaged AERs were submitted to principal components analysis and analysis of variance. Six components of the group's AERs were found to reflect various aspects of the stimulus parameters. One component reflected changes over only the left hemisphere to different consonants. A second component changed systematically over both hemispheres but did not discriminate between all consonants.     

The relationship of participation in school activities to abilities and interests in a high school student sample

Participation in school activities is hypothesized to be related to the multiple abilities and interests of high school students. The Ball Aptitude Battery (yielding 14 ability scores), Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory, and a biographical information blank (to obtain information about participation in 53 extracurricular activities) were administered to over 900 high school seniors of both sexes. Correlational and multiple regression analyses showed different patterns of activity participation to be related to different abilities and interests. The degree of relationship was generally low, generally higher for the males than for the females, and higher for interests than for abilities. Activity correlates of abilities differed for the sexes, but activity correlates of interests tended to be similar. This suggests that the same ability can result from differential participation in activities, but the same interest develops from similar activities.