LONG-TERM FOLLOW-UP OF ECHOLALIA AND QUESTION ANSWERING

A long-term follow-up of echolalia and correct question answering was conducted for 6 subjects from three previously published studies. The follow-up periods ranged from 26 to 57 months. In a training site follow-up, subjects were exposed to baseline/posttraining conditions in which the original trainer and/or a novel person(s) presented trained and untrained questions. Four subjects displayed echolalia below baseline levels, and another did so in some assessments. Overall, echolalia was lower than in baseline in 80.6% of the follow-ups. Five subjects displayed correct responding above baseline levels. No clear differences were noted in correct responding or echolalia between the trainer and novel-person presentations or between trained and untrained questions. In a follow-up in a natural environment conducted by a novel person, lower than baseline levels of echolalia were displayed by 3 subjects; 2 subjects displayed lower than baseline levels in some assessments. Two subjects consistently displayed correct responding above baseline, and 3 did so occasionally. Issues related to the study of maintenance are discussed.     

Utilization and predicted trends of behavioral inventories

Published articles (N=1703) during the period 1975 to 1982 in three behavioral journals (Behavior Therapy, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, andJournal of Applied Behavior Analysis) were reviewed for the utilization of preintervention and categories of behavioral inventories. Results revealed that (a) the three forms of the Fear Survey Schedule (FSS) and the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS) were the most utilized traditional behavioral measures, (b) new self-developed inventories were reported with significantly (p<.05) different frequencies across the three journals, (c) numerous published inventories beyond the traditional FSS and SADS were reported, and (d) an expanded use of IQ measures in preintervention behavioral assessment was also found. Trends regarding the nature of behavioral inventories among the three journals and a discussion on advances in behavioral assessments are presented.     

Central auditory processing : IV. Ear dominance—Spatial and temporal complexity

Ear dominance for dichotically presented tones was measured in 63 right-handed subjects when the frequency difference (Δf) was small compared to the center frequency (f_c) and again when it was large. Although two-thirds of the population exhibited a left-ear dominance in both conditions, a shift toward right-ear dominance occurred when the Δf was increased. An additional study, employing the alternating tone illusion described by Deutsch, revealed the same general effect, i.e., a shift toward right-ear dominance with increasing values of Δf/f_c. The results of these experiments, coupled with a review of previously published data of other dichotic experiments, indicate that as the ratio of Δf/f_c increases, the subjective complexity of the sound image increases, and there is a progressive emergence of a “right-ear advantage” (or ear dominance). A tentative explanation relates these results to the effects of anatomical asymmetries of primary and auditory association cortex and the efferent temporal lobe enhancement mechanism described by R. Efron, P. H. Crandall, B. Koss, P. L. Divenyi, and E. W. Yund (Brain and Language, 1983, 19, 254–263.     

Central auditory processing: I. Ear dominance—A perceptual or an attentional asymmetry?

The phenomenon of ear dominance for pitch described by Efron and Yund has been attributed by them to an asymmetry of sensory origin in the binaural integration of dichotic tone pairs. An explanation of this phenomenon in terms of an attentional bias is rejected on the basis of two experiments where the possibility of such bias was excluded. These and other experiments indicate that a simple explanation of this ear dominance in terms of a hemispheric specialization in the processing of tonal stimuli also must be rejected.     

Conditioned inhibition is not the symmetrical opposite of conditioned excitation: A test of the Rescorla-Wagner model

Rescorla and Wagner's (1972) linear associative model of learning predicts that a neutral stimulus will become weakly excitatory if it is paired with a conditioned inhibitor and the compound is not reinforced. If the inhibitor is not allowed to extinguish during these pairings, the model predicts that the neutral stimulus will become strongly excitatory. Rescorla (1971) has presented some evidence to support the former prediction of a weak effect. Experiment I tested the latter prediction of a strong effect using rats in a conditioned emotional response paradigm, and found no evidence that the pairings made the neutral stimulus excitatory. Experiment II replicated Rescorla's results, but showed that even on a relearning test the experimental group learned no faster than a novel stimulus control group.     

Concomitant changes in classically conditioned heart rate and corneoretinal potential discrimination in the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

Corneoretinal Potential (CRP) and heart rate changes were measured in a series of differential classical conditioning experiments in which the directionality of the heart rate response was related to (a) CRP acquisition, and (b) the certainty or uncertainty of the stimulus situation. The results suggested that heart rate decelerations were associated with stimuli that predict upcoming aversive events, while heart rate accelerations were associated with asymptotic CRP responding late in conditioning. These findings were interpreted in terms of (a) changes in general somatic activity, and (b) the cue properties associated with CSs which predict aversive events.     

Eliminating nail-biting by the habit reversal procedure

Fingernail-biting is prevalent among children and adults alike. About 43% of children bite their nails during the puberty ages (Wechsler, 1931); 25% of college students are nail-biters (Coleman and McCalley, 1948), and 10% of adults bite their nails (Pennington, 1945).A variety of treatments including negative practice, operant procedures and psychotherapy have been used in treating nail-biting but no single treatment has been generally effective in eliminating nail-biting. Smith (1957) using negative practice reported that 21 of 57 (39%) of his nail-biting clients were cured. 9 improved and 27 (47%) were unimproved. Bucher (1968) reported that 13 of 20 (65%) college students stopped nail-biting by using a self-administered operant shock procedure. However, he reported many relapses after the withdrawal of shock for nail-biting. No evaluation of psychoanalytic treatment for nail-biting appears to have been made.     

Using conjoint-measurement models to investigate a theory about probabilistic information processing

A theory of how opinions are formed and revised on the basis of probabilistic evidence is presented. The decision maker is viewed as a limited information processor who attends to the dimensions of a sample of equivocal information in a sequential fashion, beginning with the most salient dimension and continuing in decreasing order of salience. The contribution of each dimension level to the final opinion depends on the strength of association between that level and each of the two hypotheses under consideration. This theory is represented formally as an additive-difference model, various special cases of which correspond to other algebraic models in the literature. Two of the special cases were empirically investigated under varying levels of experience and payoffs, using the techniques of conjoint-measurement theory and ordinal data from individual subjects. The data provided reasonably good support for the models under all conditions investigated, and in addition showed interesting effects on salience and on processing of the independent variables.