Adolescents' comprehension of televised sexual innuendos

This study assessed various determinants of adolescents' comprehension of televised sexual innuendos. Eighteen males and 18 females at each of three ages (12, 14, and 16 years) were asked to interpret a series of 24 TV excerpts, each of which contained either a sexual innuendo or a nonsexual filler joke. Based on adult ratings, the innuendos were systematically varied by the topic alluded to (intercourse, physical/sexual attributes, socially discouraged practices, and nonsexual) and the level of explicitness (high vs. low). Age of viewer and topic referenced significantly influenced the comprehension scores. Fourteen- and sixteen-year-olds yielded higher scores than twelve-year-olds. Innuendos referencing discouraged sexual practices were most adequately explained and those referencing intercourse were least adequately explained.     

Attitudes in four age groups toward sex role division in adult occupations and activities

Kindergarten, eighth grade, college, and adult subjects were presented with a list of 43 adult occupations. They indicated for each whether it should be performed by a male, female, or either. Liberality, defined in terms of the number of “either” responses, increased markedly from kindergarten to eighth grade through college and then showed a moderate decrease in the adult sample. In each age group except kindergarten there was a significant sex difference with females being more liberal. Analysis of individual roles showed that both sexes were willing to let women into prestige occupations but females were more willing than males to have household and child-caring tasks performed by both sexes.     

Development of kinetic images: When does the child first represent movement in mental images?

An experiment investigated at what age children could represent movement in imagery. Five- and eight-year olds were asked whether two stimuli were the same or different in shape. The two stimuli were either presented in the same orientation or one stimulus differed from the other by clockwise rotation of 30 ° (0.52 rad), 60 ° (1.05 rad), 120 ° (2.09 rad), or 150 ° (2.62 rad). Children were instructed to visually imagine the counterclockwise rotation of one shape into the position of the other to help make the judgment. For both 5- and 8-yr olds, reaction times increased as a linear function of angular discrepancy between stimuli, indicating that both age groups represented rotation in their imagery. The findings conflict with Piaget and Inhelder's thesis that imagery representing movement first emerges when children are 7 to 8 yrs of age.     

Intimacy in response to direct gaze

Believing that they were participating in a study of encounter groups, male and female subjects were encouraged to deliver a personally revealing monologue to a same-sex listener whose visual behavior had been “programmed” by the experimenter. In the four experimental conditions, designed to explore the role of gaze as a stimulus, as a potential reinforcer, and as a source of feedback, the listener provided (a) continuous direct gaze; (b) direct gaze contingent upon intimate statements; (c) continuous gaze aversion; or (d) gaze aversion contingent upon intimate statements. The intimacy of the speaker's monologue was rated by a “blind” observer, the listener, and the speaker himself. Direct gaze, whether constant or contingent, appeared to promote intimacy between females and reticence between males, while gaze avoidance had the opposite effects. The only raters who disagreed with this assessment were the male speakers, who felt that they had been most intimate in the two direct gaze conditions. Positive feelings including liking for the listener and task satisfaction also were associated both with self-revelation and with direct gaze among females but not among males.     

Differences among medical,business, and engineering students in the intensity and direction of their affective responses to occupational concepts

A semantic differential was used to measure the affective responses of vocationally committed male students in medicine, business, and engineering to occupational concepts representing the fields of medicine, business, engineering, the clergy, and law enforcement. A factor analysis of the data indicated that the students responded to the concepts with the Evaluative, Activity, and Potency dimensions of affective meaning. It was found that the groups differed significantly in the intensity and direction of their affective responses to the occupational concepts on the Evaluative and Activity dimensions. An examination of the nature of the group differences indicated that they held different affective meanings for their respective vocational choices, and for other occupational concepts as well. The medical students responded to medicine as good, potent, and active; the business students to business as bad, potent, and active, and the engineering students to engineering as good, weak, and active. The possible relationship of affective meaning to vocational behavior was discussed.     

Second-order conditioning of Pavlovian conditioned inhibition

Two experiments are reported which investigated the conditioning of inhibition to a neutral stimulus as a result of its repeated pairing with a previouslyconditioned inhibitor. Both experiments employed a conditioned suppression technique with rat subjects. Experiment 1 detected the second-order inhibition through the retarded acquisition of concurrently administered excitatory conditioning. Experiment 2 found similar retardation in the acquisition of excitatory fear conditioning following previous second-order conditioning of inhibition to the stimulus. Implications are discussed for theories of the nature of inhibition and for second-order conditioning as an assessment technique.     

Stimulus generalization of auto-shaped key-pecking following interdimensional and extradimensional training

In three experiments, groups of pigeons were tested for wavelength generalization of auto-shaped key-pecking following different types of training. In Experiment I, one group received auto-shape trials with a 555-nm CS. Another group received auto-shape trials with a 555-nm CS and a white CS. A third group received auto-shape trials with a 555-nm CS and a white CS, except the white CS was nonreinforced. The third group yielded the sharpest gradient, whereas the second group yielded the flattest gradient. In Experiment II, one group received auto-shape trials with a 555-nm CS. A second group received auto-shape trials with a 555-nm CS and a compound CS consisting of a vertical white line on a 555-nm background. A third group received auto-shape trials with a 555-nm CS and a compound CS, except that the compound was nonreinforced. The third group yielded the sharpest wavelength gradient, whereas the second group yielded the flattest. In Experiment III, exposure differences to 555 nm in Experiment II resulting from differential speeds of auto-shape acquisition were controlled by the use of an ITI manipulation. Amount of exposure to 555 nm was shown not to be responsible for the results of Experiment II.     

Some attributes of adjectives used by young children

Analysis of 24 spontaneous speech samples from children at 24 and 30 months revealed a correlated progression in the form, function and meaning of modifiers used with increased language development. Predicate adjectives were used to comment on transitory states of objects and predominated in the early speech samples. Attributive adjectives were used to subdivide classes or to specify among particular instances within classes on the basis of physical characteristics such as size, by use of a conventional type name, or by use of a possessive. Attributives predominated in the later speech samples. Differential use of a particular form appears to be a function of its cognitive and communicational usefulness rather than its syntactic derivation.     

Interaction of stimulus dimensions in concept and choice processes

Four major types of interaction of stimulus dimensions based on perceptual research are described: integral, configural, separable, and asymmetric separable. Implications of these interactions for concept and choice processes are discussed. With regard to concept learning, it is argued that integral or configural interactions are desirable within the set of relevant and within the set of irrelevant dimensions used to generate stimuli, but that relevant dimensions should be separable from irrelevant dimensions. With regard to choice processes, integral or configural dimensions produce choices based on ordinary distance relations or equivalent parallel processing of dimensions. With separable dimensions, however, serial processing is at least possible; and such processing can lead to choices in which the subset of stimuli and the order of processing of dimensions affects the choice outcomes.