Analysis of the development of children's spatial reference systems

Four, six, and ten-year-old children were required to copy an object's location and orientation within a two-dimensional spatial layout under two conditions: when both E's standard board and that of the S's were in the same orientation and when they were rotated 180 ° from each other. The failure of the 4-yr-olds to copy location and orientation under both conditions even when space was topographically coded indicates that at this age the child does not conceptualize space within two dimensions. Although the errors of the 4-yr-olds tended to be of a self-reference nature with respect to orientation and location on rotation trials the axes of the self-reference system were not coordinated. Six and 10-yr-old children performed significantly better on both conditions, with the exceptions that the 6-yr-olds continued to preserve some orientations within a self-reference system. When topographical codes were removed and S imagined rotation there were no significant age differences in total errors; however, older children organized entire subspaces within a self-reference system. The findings support Piaget and Inhelder's hypothesis that two-dimensional reference systems do not develop until the period of concrete operational thought, and they also indicate that even at age 10, the self-reference system continues to function when topographical codes are absent. Several cognitive mechanisms proposed to account for the development of spatial abilities are critically discussed.     

Concepts of present self,expected self,and ideal self in vocational preferences and expectations

This study investigated the hypotheses that similarity of ideal self and occupational stereotypes are important in determining the vocational preferences of adolescents, while similarity between expected self and occupational stereotypes is important in determining their occupational expectations. Subjects were 97 male and 88 female high school students. Findings were consistent with the view that ideal self played an important role in determining vocational preferences for males and females. However, contrary to expectations, ideal self was more strongly associated than expected self with vocational expectations for females, though not for males.     

Quality of text recall as a function of children's classroom competence

This study demonstrated that the manner in which children, as students, chose to devise their recall was a function of the type of response register they maintained with their teachers. Students (mean C.A. = 10.4 years) who used an Imitative Response Register recalled significantly more referential propositions than students using either a Contingent or Noncontingent Response Register. In this sense, students employing an Imitative Response Register were more likely to reproduce text than the other Register Groups. Students (mean C.A. = 10.3 years) who used a Noncontingent Response Register recalled significantly more pragmatic inference propositions, i.e., either elaboration or distortion inference propositions, than students using either Imitative or Contingent Response Registers. In this sense, students employing a Noncontingent Response Register were more likely to embellish text than the other two groups. Finally, students (mean C.A. = 10.6 years) who used a Contingent Response Register recalled significantly more text-structured propositions, i.e., propositional and enabling inference propositions, than students using either Imitative or Noncontingent Response Registers. In this sense, students employing a Contingent Response Register were more likely to reconstruct text than the other two groups. These findings are discussed in terms of a classroom competence model of student behaviors.     

Rate reduction strategies used by stutterers and nonstutterers during high- and low-pitched speech

Groups of child and adult normal speakers and stutterers were tested in an habitual condition and in conditions where they were instructed to read aloud at pitches both higher than and lower than normal. Objective measures were made of subjects' fluent reading rate, and vowel and pause durations across conditions. Disfluencies were also counted. Findings revealed that all four subject groups reduced their frequency of disfluency from the habitual to both experimental conditions. These decrements in disfluency were attended by significant reductions in fluent reading rate. Spectrographic analyses revealed that most subjects, regardless of age and speaker characteristic, affected their rate reduction by extending both vowel and pause durations. These results are compatible with those obtained in recent studies and are discussed.     

Differential reinforcement of lever-press durations: Effects of deprivation level and reward magnitude

Three experiments investigated the performance of rats on a task involving differential reinforcement of lever-press durations. Experiment 1, which employed a discrete-trials procedure, manipulated deprivation level between subjects and reward magnitude within subjects. The minimum lever-press duration which would result in reward was varied from .4 to 6.4 sec. It was found that low deprivation resulted in longer mean durations and less response variability at the higher criterial values than did high deprivation. The magnitude of reward was not found to affect performance. Experiment 2 manipulated reward magnitude between subjects while holding deprivation level constant, and used the same general procedures as in Experiment 1. Small reward resulted in longer mean lever-press durations and less variability in responding than did large reward at the higher criterial values. The intertrial intervals were omitted in Experiment 3 in which deprivation level was varied between subjects and reinforcement was delivered only for response durations extending between 6.0 and 7.6 sec. Low deprivation resulted in longer mean lever-press durations and less response variability than did high deprivation, but the probability of a rewarded press duration did not differ between groups. The results overall are consistent with the hypothesis that low deprivation and small reward magnitude lead to weaker goal-approach responses and, hence, to less competition with lever holding. The deprivation and reward magnitude manipulations did not appear to influence lever holding performance by affecting the ability of animals to form temporal discriminations.     

RELIGION AND EMPIRICISM IN THE WORKS OF PETER BERGER

Abstract. Peter Berger established himself in the sociological profession in large part through his functional interpretations of religion and its ostensible demise in relation to the empirical bent of modern intellectual thought. Yet, in his ef–fort to expand the scope of empiricism such that it might address nontrivial concerns, Berger found himself attempting to understand the "substance" of religiori—that is, the conviction that there exists an "other" which confronts us unconditionally and consequently forms the basis of all issues concerning value and meaning. Berger's writings deserve critical attention in that they disclose both the problems and the promises of utilizing empirical methods for the task of rehabilitating, rather than debunking, humanity's religious propensities.