Categorical and schematic organization and the development of retrieval strategies

This study investigated the effects of schematic and categorical organization on young children's recall. Preschool and kindergarten children recalled either a taxonomic list or a story in one of two presentation conditions: an alternate condition, in which the material was presented, children recalled it and the procedure was repeated, or a successive condition in which the material was presented twice and children recalled it twice. Although preschool children's story recall was well organized, their list recall was poorly organized, and organization did not increase over recall trials in either presentation condition. In contrast, kindergarten children's recall of both the story and the list was well organized, and their recall was better organized on the second recall trial than on the first in both presentation conditions. These results are discussed in terms of the development of retrieval strategies during the preschool years/     

The heroic motive: Some experimental demonstrations

The appearance of heroic motives in interpersonal relations is examined. Three experiments were conducted to test the general hypothesis that witnessing the victimization of a partner would impel young men to incur costs in order to confront the transgressor. In each experiment, either the individual, his partner, or an anonymous other was insulted. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that individuals were most willing to confront the insulter when their female partners (Experiment 1) or their male teammates (Experiment 2) were victimized. That pattern occurred despite evidence indicating that the most negative affective reactions were experienced by individuals who had been directly insulted. Experiment 3 revealed that individuals were also more willing to perform a subsequent altruistic act in response to the victimization of their partners than when they or an anonymous other person had been victimized. Taken together, the results indicated that heroic motivations in response to the victimization of a partner were distinguishable from other more negatively oriented processes that were aroused in response to self-victimization by the insulter.     

Unsophisticated judges' perceptual evaluations of the speech of “successfully treated” stutterers

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if the speech of “successfully therapeutized” stutterers and a group of partially treated stutterers was perceptually different from the speech of normal speakers when judged by unsophisticated listeners. Tape-recorded speech samples of treated stutterers were obtained from leading proponents of (1) Van Riperian, (2) metronome-conditioned speech retraining, (3) delayed auditory feedback, (4) operant conditioning, (5) precision fluency shaping, and (6) “holistic” therapy programs. Fluent speech samples from these groups of stutterers were paired with matched fluent samples of normal talkers and presented to a group of 20 unsophisticated judges. The judges were instructed to select from each paired speech sample presented to them the one produced by the stuttering subject. The results of the analyses showed that five of seven experimental groups were identified at levels significantly above chance. It can be concluded that the fluent speech of the partially and successfully treated stutterers was perceptibly different from the utterances of the normal speakers and that the perceptual disparity can be detected, even by unsophisticated listeners.     

Voice reaction time of stuttering and nonstuttering children and adults

The voice reaction time (VRT) of 5-yr old, 9-yr old, and adult stutterers and nonstutterers was investigated. Subjects initiated the sound / Λ / in response to fifty-five 1000-Hz tones of 1 sec duration. The tones were presented in five equal sets of 11 tones each with the silent intervals between the tones randomly selected to be 3, 4, 5, or 6 sec. Data analysis was based on responses 2–11 for each set. The VRTs for both the stutterers and the nonstutterers decreased significantly as an inverse function of age, with the largest decrease in reaction time occuring between 5 and 9 yr. The VRTs for the stutterers, however, were significantly slower than those of the nonstutterers at each of the three age levels. The results suggest that observed disruption in the laryngeal behavior for at least some stutterers may not result from the development of stuttering with age, but may contribute to early difficulty in the child's ability to produce fluent speech. Consideration of central factors are discussed.     

Effect of sentence structure on stuttering

The elicited speech of 20 adult male stutterers was analyzed to determine the effect of the number, type, and location of relative clause structures on the frequency of stuttering. The selected structures were identified on the basis of transformational grammar. The findings indicate that the frequency of stuttering increases significantly with an increase in the number of relative clauses included in a matrix sentence structure. The results also indicate that the more severe the stuttering is, the more the stutterer is likely to be affected by this variable. Trends toward more frequent stuttering in the postverbal relative clause and the adjectival form of the relative clause were observed.     

The voice problems of stutterers: A practical approach from clinical experience

Voice disorders, which may be caused by the stuttering problem, have been noted in at least one-third of stutterers seen. Basically, stutterers have false speech images that normal speech is perfect and without natural dysfluencies (repetitions, pauses, etc.). Many stutterers also have erroneous vocal images of how they should or should not sound. Both images control speech and voice. Clinical experience indicates that vocal rehabilitation should be used in conjunction with speech therapy for many stutterers.     

The other way around: Effects of causal attributions on estimates of consensus,distinctiveness, and consistency

It was hypothesized that the attributed cause of a given person's behavior will affect inferences about its generalizability over persons (consensus), stimuli (distinctiveness), and circumstances (consistency). Moreover, these effects were expected to parallel the effects of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information on causal attributions. Experiment 1 provided support for these predictions but also showed that attribution affected consensus judgments less than it affected judgments of distinctiveness and consistency, particularly when consensus was not the first characteristic estimated. Using a different set of stimulus materials and a different manipulation of attribution, Experiments 2 and 3 provided further evidence for the effects of attribution on inferences of consensus information. Experiment 3 indicated that the false consensus effect—actors' tendency to assume that the majority of people share their behavior—may be due to actors' tendency to attribute their behavior to situational factors. Implications of the present studies for biased estimates of consensus and the use of consensus and attribution as mediating variables are discussed.     

Determinants of information-seeking behavior

Two studies examined situational determinants of choice among anagram tests that varied both in difficulty and in diagnosticity (the information they provided about one's own ability). In both studies, subjects worked on a preliminary anagram test before making their choices. Study 1 manipulated level of performance on the preliminary test. Results showed that high performance led to preferring more difficult and more diagnostic tests. In Study 2, subjects were either paid or not paid for their performance on the preliminary test. Results showed that pay led to a preference for more diagnostic tests. Unexpectedly, results of both studies showed that although difficulty and diagnosticity were defined independently of one another, they were not perceived as such. Thus, high diagnostic tests were perceived as more difficult; more difficult tests were perceived as more diagnostic; and the difference between high and low diagnostic tests in perceived diagnosticity and choice of items (high diagnostic tests had higher scores on both measures) were more pronounced among more difficult tests. Motivational as well as cognitive interpretations of the results were discussed.     

Cerebral lateralization of deaf and hearing individuals for linguistic comparison judgments.

A group of congenitally deaf adults and a group of hearing adults, both fluent in sign language, were tested to determine cerebral lateralization. In the most revealing task, subjects were given a series of trials in which they were fist presented with a videotaped sign and then with a word exposed tachistoscopically to the right visual field or left visual field, and were required to judge whether the word corresponded to the sign or not. The results suggested that the comparison processes involved in the decision were performed more efficiently by the left hemisphere for hearing subjects and by the right hemisphere for deaf subjects. However, the deaf subjects performed as well as the hearing subjects in the left hemisphere, suggesting that the deaf are not impeded by their auditory-speech handicap from developing the left hemisphere for at least some types of linguistic processing.