An evaluation of the effects of supplemental “fluency” training during maintenance

The voice onset time (VOT) of two groups of treated stutterers and a normal-speaking group was assessed by spectrographic analysis. Both groups of stutterers had significantly slower VOT than the normal speakers. The experimental group of stutterers was given 8 wk of “fluency” training designed to remediate characteristics of speech identified as related to “tenuous” fluency. The control group of stutterers received ongoing maintenance therapy. Posttreatment VOT was assessed. The experimental stuttering group had significantly decreased their VOT in the direction of the normal-speaking group, whereas the control group of stutterers had a greater VOT between pre- and posttreatment. The implication of these results for the maintenance of fluency are discussed.     

Processing of visually presented vowels in the cerebral hemispheres

The respective efficiency of the cerebral hemispheres in processing visually presented vowels is discussed and examined in a tachistoscopic experiment with normal subjects. It is suggested that results from dichotic listening experiments cannot be used to predict performance on the same material in the visual modality. The physical characteristics of the stimulus, in both modalities, contribute to the pattern of hemispheric advantage and cannot be ignored in the interpretation of results from dichotic listening and tachistoscopic experiments.     

Effects of peer presence on sex-typing of children's play behavior

Effect of peer presence on the sex-typed toy choices of 3- and 4-year-olds was investigated in a repeated measures experimental design. Twenty-six girls and thirty-six boys were tested under three conditions: (a) alone; (b) in the presence of a same-sex peer; and (c) in the presence of an opposite-sex peer. Amount of time spent playing with three feminine- and three masculine-stereotyped toys was recorded. For both boys and girls, play with “sex role-inappropriate” toys was significantly lower in the presence of an opposite-sex peer than in the solitary condition. Across conditions boys exhibited less play with opposite-sex-typed toys than girls. Rate of play with opposite-sex-typed toys increased in successive trials for both sexes. These results indicate that the presence of an opposite-sex peer functions as a discriminative stimulus for avoidance of “sex role-inappropriate” play in preschoolers and suggests that preschoolers may have a history of differential reinforcement for sex-typed play in the presence of peers.     

Hemispheric functions in the processing of agent-patient information.

Left and right hemisphere processing capabilities for pictorial information about agent (performer of an action) and patient (recipient of an action) relations were assessed in a tachistoscopic study. Subjects were presented pictures in either the right or the left visual field depicting an agent-action-patient event. They were asked to locate which side of the drawing contained the agent and, in separate trials, which side contained the patient. Reaction times to locate the agent were significantly faster than to locate the patient, regardless of the field of presentation. The results are discussed in terms of a general nonlinguistic processing constraint that favors agent information. It is suggested that this processing asymmetry may underlie syntactic asymmetries regarding the expression of agents and patients in language.     

特里尔社会应激测试技术的介绍以及相关研究

由于能有效地诱发个体的应激反应,特里尔社会应激测试(Trier Social Stress Test,TSST)在实验室研究中受到普遍的应用。为了探测应激情境下的中央控制系统,蒙特利尔脑成像应激任务(Montreal Imaging Stress Test,MIST)对特里尔社会应激测试进行了发展和改进,为研究者提供了脑成像的研究手段。研究者基于此两种方法而进行了一系列有关应激的研究成果,在此基础上,作者提出了在中国开展实验室应激研究的可行性和初期研究方向。     

Acquisition and use of spelling-sound correspondences in reading

The acquisition and use of knowledge concerning the spelling-sound correspondences of English were evaluated by having children read words and nonwords that contained regular and homographic spelling patterns. Regular spelling patterns are associated with a single pronunciation (e.g., -UST as in MUST); homographic patterns have multiple pronunciations (e.g., -OSE as in HOSE, DOSE, LOSE). Analyses of errors, latencies, and pronunciations provided evidence for two complementary developmental processes: good beginning readers rapidly learn to recognize high-frequency words from visual input alone, while at the same time they are expanding and consolidating their knowledge of spelling-sound correspondences. Younger and poor readers rely more on phonological information in word decoding, as evidenced by their particular difficulty reading homographic spelling patterns. Poor readers do not appear to use a radically different strategy for reading words: their perfomance is similar to that of younger, good readers.     

Compound conditioning: Elimination of the blocking effect

Prior conditioning employing one element of a compound stimulus as the CS blocked the acquisition of a Conditioned Emotional Response (CER) to the second element of a simultaneous compound stimulus that was subsequently used as the CS in further conditioning trials. Presentation of a brief “surprise” stimulus 3 or 5 sec after the occurrence of the US during the compound trials eliminated the blocking effect.     

Construct validation of the dependency and self-criticism scales of the depressive experiences questionnaire

S. J. Blatt (Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 1974, 29, 107–157) distinguished between two types of depressive experiences, one characterized by strong dependency needs and the other by self-criticism and guilt. This paper reports a series of validation studies of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ), which was developed to measure individuals' vulnerabilities to these types of experiences (S. J. Blatt, J. P. D'Afflitti, & D. M. Quinlan, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1976, 85, 383–389). The Dependency and Self-Criticism scales were shown to be stable in the face of both a 13-week interval and the receipt of midterm grades. Dependency was associated with conflict concerning the expression of hostility and, in males, feelings of helplessness. Self-Criticism was associated with low self-esteem and high levels of morality-conscience guilt. In a study of behavior in dyadic problem-solving tasks, Dependency in males was found to be negatively related to task leadership, and Self-Criticism in females tended to be negatively related to judged likeability. On the other hand, little support was found for the hypotheses that Dependency would be related to field dependent cognitive style and to the use of primitive defense mechanisms. The results were viewed as supporting the utility of Blatt's distinction between the two types of depression, but a number of anomalous findings indicated a need for further study of the DEQ. The question of the developmental level of the two types of depression, possible sex differences in the correlates of the scales, and the possibility of situational specificity in individuals' responses were identified as the areas most in need of study.