The relevance of DAF-induced speech disruption to the understanding of stuttering

The literature on delayed auditory feedback (DAF) repeatedly makes reference to the occurence of disfluencies under DAF in nonstutterers. However, no attempt has been made to determine the relative frequency of occurence of various types of disfluencies in nonstutterers under DAF. The present study investigated the frequency of occurence of various types of disfluencies in normal-speaking subjects in five successive oral readings under DAF. Twenty-four young adults read aloud a prose passage five times successively under 200 msec of bilateral DAF. Measures of the frequency of different types of disfluencies, locus of occurence of disfluencies in the speech sample, adaptation and consistency indicate that DAF-induced disfluencies are remarkably similar to those found in stuttering. It is suggested that DAF and stuttering disrupt speech at approximately the same “level” along the speech production process, possibly at the prosodic level.     

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.     

Rate reduction strategies used by stutterers and nonstutterers during high- and low-pitched speech

Groups of child and adult normal speakers and stutterers were tested in an habitual condition and in conditions where they were instructed to read aloud at pitches both higher than and lower than normal. Objective measures were made of subjects' fluent reading rate, and vowel and pause durations across conditions. Disfluencies were also counted. Findings revealed that all four subject groups reduced their frequency of disfluency from the habitual to both experimental conditions. These decrements in disfluency were attended by significant reductions in fluent reading rate. Spectrographic analyses revealed that most subjects, regardless of age and speaker characteristic, affected their rate reduction by extending both vowel and pause durations. These results are compatible with those obtained in recent studies and are discussed.     

Operant and Pavlovian factors in cross-response transfer of inhibitory stimulus control

Experiment 1 used a within-response procedure to compare inhibitory stimulus control of the extinction cue in multiple variable interval-extinction (mult VI EXT) and the variable time cue in multiple variable interval-variable time (mult VI VT). Experiment 2A made the same comparison using a crossresponse procedure. In addition, Experiment 2A also tested the extinction cue in multiple variable time-extinction (mult VT EXT), and Experiment 2B tested the variable time cue in mult VT EXT. Unlike the mult VI EXT and mult VI VT conditions, the mult VT EXT condition was administered in the absence of a response manipulandum. The main findings of the present study were: (1) cross-response suppression by the variable time cue in mult VI VT; (2) greater response suppression by the extinction cue in mult VI EXT than by either the variable time cue in mult VI VT or the extinction cue in mult VT EXT; and (3) response facilitation by the variable time cue in mult VT EXT. These findings indicate that inhibitory stimulus control based on an operant source (i.e., absence of an R-S contingency) does transfer across responses, and that such transfer cannot be explained in terms of competing responses. These findings also indicate that operant and Pavlovian sources of stimulus control summate algebraically to determine the inhibitory strength of the extinction cue in mult VI EXT. Finally, the third finding is not consistent with notions that emphasize the importance of location and localization of cues explicitly paired with positive events.     

Can the Simultaneous Experience of Opposing Emotions Really Occur?

Various investigators have proposed that people may feel simultaneous positive and negative affect. However, experimental evidence from tests of a recent theory about the intensity of emotion (J. W. Brehm, 1999) suggests that even when they are invited by the experimental design, positive and negative emotions do not occur at the same time. When people have been instigated to feel a particular emotion, such as happiness, and then are given a reason (e.g., sad news) for not feeling happy, they report continued happiness but no increase in sadness unless the reason for feeling sad is very great, in which case sadness replaces happiness. The present paper briefly reviews the underlying theory and evidence, and discusses implications.

The Impact of Attributional Processes on Triggered Displaced Aggression

The current study examined the role of attributional processes on triggered displaced aggression and specified the conditions wherein affect versus attributions would predict the degree of aggressive responding. Consistent with expectations, attributions for a minor provoking event predicted the degree of aggression towards targets that had violated expectations or where a specific attribution was provided. When no such expectancy violation occurred, only negative affect generated by the provocation predicted aggression. Furthermore, results indicated that initial feelings toward a provoking target impacted aggressive responding by influencing attributions made for a target's provoking action. When faced with a minor provocation, individuals were more likely to spontaneously attribute that event to external causes for people they like (e.g., positive valence targets), thus reducing the subsequent degree of aggressive retaliation. In contrast, for disliked targets, individuals were more likely to attribute provoking behavior to internal causes, resulting in an increase in aggression. The new model provides a theoretical extension to the cognitive-neoassociationistic perspective on aggression (L. Berkowitz, 1989, 1990, 1993).

The Best Friendships of Shy/Withdrawn Children: Prevalence, Stability, and Relationship Quality

The mutual best friendships of shy/withdrawn and control children were examined for prevalence, stability, best friend's characteristics, and friendship quality. Using peer nominations of shy/socially withdrawn and aggressive behaviors, two groups of children were identified from a normative sample of fifth-grade children: shy/withdrawn (n = 169) and control (nonaggressive/nonwithdrawn; n = 163). Friendship nominations, teacher reports, and friendship quality data were gathered. Results revealed that shy/withdrawn children were as likely as control children to have mutual stable best friendships. Withdrawn children's friends were more withdrawn and victimized than were the control children's best friends; further, similarities in social withdrawal and peer victimization were revealed for withdrawn children and their friends. Withdrawn children and their friends reported lower friendship quality than did control children. Results highlight the importance of both quantitative and qualitative measures of friendship when considering relationships as risk and/or protective factors.     

Peer Victimization, Aggression, and Their Co-Occurrence in Middle School: Pathways to Adjustment Problems

An ethnically diverse sample of 6th-grade students completed peer nomination procedures that were used to create subgroups of students with reputations as victims, aggressors, aggressive victims, and socially adjusted (neither aggressive nor victimized). Self-report data on psychological adjustment, attributions for peer harassment, and perceived school climate were gathered. In addition, homeroom teachers rated participating students on academic engagement and students' grades were collected from school records. Victims reported the most negative self-views, aggressors enjoyed the most positive self-views, and aggressive victims fell between these two groups, although their psychological profile more closely resembled that of victims. However, all three subgroups encountered more school adjustment problems when compared to their socially adjusted classmates. Different pathways to school adjustment problems for aggressors and victims were examined. For victims, characterological self-blame for victimization and psychological maladjustment were the key mediators, whereas for aggressors, the significant pathway was mainly through perceived unfairness of school rules. Analyses by ethnicity revealed that African American boys were most likely to be perceived as aggressive and as aggressive victims and they were doing most poorly in school. Implications for intervention with subgroups of problem behavior youth and the particular vulnerabilities of African American adolescents were discussed.     

Bias and Accuracy of Children's Perceptions of Peer Acceptance: Prospective Associations with Depressive Symptoms

Are depressive symptoms in middle childhood associated with more or less realistic social self-perceptions? At the beginning and end of the school year, children in grades 3 through 5 (n=667) rated how much they liked their classmates, predicted the acceptance ratings they would receive from each of their classmates, and completed self-report measures of perceived acceptance and depressive symptoms. Accuracy of perceived acceptance was indexed by the mean difference between pairs of predicted and received ratings (absolute values). Standardized residual scores created by regressing self-reported perceived acceptance (either predicted ratings or children's responses to a questionnaire measure of perceived peer acceptance) onto peer acceptance ratings formed two measures of bias. Bi-directional associations were found for accuracy of perceived acceptance and depressive symptoms; inaccurate perceptions predicted increases in depressive symptoms and depressive symptoms predicted decreased accuracy. Neither measure of bias predicted changes in depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms predicted increases in negatively biased perceptions as assessed via questionnaire.