The morphological asymmetry of the hemispheres and cerebral dominance for speech: A possible relationship

The asymmetry of the posterior Sylvian branches of the middle cerebral artery was examined on the carotid angiograms of 59 patients in whom the lateralization of speech representation was known from sodium amobarbital (Amytal) studies. The usual asymmetry of these vessels was found to be present in the group of patients with left-hemisphere speech representation but significantly reduced in patients with atypical cerebral dominance for speech. A model of the inheritance of handedness and cerebral dominance is extended to take account of these results.     

Environmental dispositions and the evaluation of architectural interiors

The Environmental Response Inventory (ERI) was developed, in part, to assess dispositions toward everyday physical environments and to aid in explaining variance in response to settings. The eight ERI scales were examined and resultant hypotheses were tested in a design involving evaluative ratings of 10 everyday public building interiors briefly presented in sequences of color slides to 118 participants. Settings were arranged in three levels of generality. Results support the ERI as a promising tool. Biographical items also correlate with ratings. Environment evaluation is discussed as a complex phenomenon, in which rater differences play a significant part.     

Imposed latencies,interruptions and dyadic interaction: Physiological response and interpersonal attraction

This study explored the impact of paralinguistic phenomena on interpersonal attraction and physiological measures during dyadic interaction. Conversations between undergraduate subjects and same-sex experimenters were either synchronous or asynchronous, with half the asynchronous conversations including imposed long latencies and the remainder frequent interruptions. Results showed that imposed latencies were associated with decreased positive attributions and greater physiological arousal, but interruptions had a moderately positive effect. The findings were discussed in terms of Chapple's theory of interaction, and their implications for psychotherapy and other interviews.     

The role of Canadian school psychologists: Perceptions of a sample from the general public

A sample of 77 subjects responded to a questionnaire designed to collect information about their perceptions of the role of school psychologists. The results indicate that overall the respondents had a fairly accurate sense of what a school psychologist does, although they overestimated the importance of psychotherapy as one of the school psychologist's functions. It is recommended that school psychologists more clearly specify their function when dealing with members of the general public.     

Does reward depletion influence spatial memory performance?

If spatial memory tasks are considered as foraging problems, it can be predicted that rats' difficulty in learning a win-stay task—revisiting part of a maze where food has recently been found—should be partly overcome if the food is not fully consumed at the first visit (nondepleted reward) rather than being all eaten (depleted reward). Three experiments confirmed and further analysed this result. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that it does not depend on the amount of food initially found; nor is win-stay performance affected by the amount of food actually eaten. Experiment 3 suggested that the effects of nondepleted reward are mainly due to the animals' being interrupted while eating, and very little to the fact that uneaten food is left behind. The results are discussed with regard to their implications for learning theory, and for the application of foraging theory to learning and memory experiments.     

Contrasting cases of Italian agrammatic aphasia without comprehension disorder

This study examined the effects of different concurrent verbal memory loads on a recognition accuracy task using bilaterally presented nouns. Four different memory load conditions were examined. They varied along a size dimension of either three or six words and along a complexity dimension of either easy concrete nouns or difficult highly abstract nouns. In each of the above conditions and in one control group, order or word report was controlled and in a second control group subjects were free to report the lateralized words in any order they wished. There were 20 subjects in each of the six groups. As expected, a significant right visual field superiority for verbal processing was obtained. there were no main effects of size of memory load nor complexity of m emory load on the laterality patterns. More subtle fluctuations in the patterns were found in the form of significant interactions between memory load, order of word report, and visual field. These interaction effects suggest that words reported second in the bilateral task, are more susceptible to the interfering effects of either larger or more complex memory loads. This is particularly true for right visual field words. While these data generally support a structural model of hemispheric organization, the interaction effects suggest that modifications must be made to the basic model to account for such factors as hemispheric capacity limits and order of report in the bilateral task.     

Attentional biases and the right-ear effect in dichotic listening

Most dichotic listening experiments permit subjects to deploy attention in any way they choose. We argue that this adds uncontrolled variance to the observed right-ear advantage. In the first experiment, more robust laterality effects were obtained in an identification task with focused than with divided attention. Such differences were not found in the second experiment, when a detection procedure was used. Virtually all the laterality effect observed in the second study could be attributed to subjects who were biased attenders, in the sense that they exhibited more intrusions from the right ear to the left than vice versa. However, rather than indicating that laterality effects are simply attentional bias, this effect can be attributed to an asymmetry of perceptual discrimination.     

An observational case study of failure in social problem-solving

An observationally based assessment of social problem-solving skill was contrasted with more traditional testing methods. A preschool child with low social success was chosen for a demonstration profile analysis. The relative frequencies of the social goals, strategies, and targets shown by this child during free play were plotted in relation to that of his same-sex peer group. Parallel profiles of his relative success with specific goals, strategies, and targets were also constructed and compared to relevant group means and standard deviations. Specific social problem-solving strengths and weaknesses were identified from these profiles, using both intra- and interindividual analyses. The benefits and limitations of this approach for measurement and treatment of social problem-solving deficits were discussed.     

Mood and realism of confidence judgements of one''s own answers to general knowledge questions

This study examines the effect of a depressed mood on the realism of subjects' confidence judgements of the correctness of answers to general knowledge questions. Research conducted on how mood influences cognitive processes gives reason to expect that a depressed mood might increase the realism of individuals' confidence ratings. Sixty subjects were divided into three conditions, two of which were given mood induction, one condition into an elated-happy mood and one condition into a depressed-sad mood. As evidenced by subjects' responses to mood scales only the depressed condition was affected by the mood induction. All subjects answered 93 general knowledge questions and rated their confidence in the correctness of the answer given. Subjects were instructed to think aloud when answering the last 31 questions. The conditions did not differ with respect to the proportion of questions answered correctly, mean level of confidence, nor with respect to three measures of the realism in subjects' confidence ratings (calibration, over/underconfidence and resolution). The results were the same when questions answered with and without think aloud instructions were analysed separately.     

Evidence for the self as an imaginal prototype

This study investigated recognition memory of self-photographs which had been previously rated by subjects for their degree of reference to an imaginal prototype of “real self.” The number of false alarms to NEW photographs was found to increase with degree of self-reference to the imaginal prototype with the exception of photographs rated highest in self-reference. Females were reliably superior to males in self-recognition. Males and females also differed in nonverbal behaviors reflecting differences in their image of real self. Results were interpreted as supporting an hypothesis that the self functions as a cognitive prototype which has both imaginal and verbal characteristics.