Infant recall memory and communication predicts later cognitive development

This longitudinal study investigates the relation between recall memory and communication in infancy and later cognitive development. Twenty-six typically developing Swedish children were tested during infancy for deferred imitation (memory), joint attention (JA), and requesting (nonverbal communication); they also were tested during childhood for language and cognitive competence. Results showed that infants with low performance on both deferred imitation at 9 months and joint attention at 14 months obtained a significantly lower score on a test of cognitive abilities at 4 years of age. This long-term prediction from preverbal infancy to childhood cognition is of interest both to developmental theory and to practice.     

A Comparison of Least-to-Most Prompts and Progressive Time Delay on the Disruptive Behavior of Students with Autism

We compared the effects of two instructional strategies on the frequency of errors and episodes of disruptive behavior of 4 students with autism. In Phase I, easy and difficult tasks were presented to determine whether the tasks were associated with differential rates of disruptive behavior. Phase II compared the effects of a least-to-most prompting procedure (LTM) to a progressive time delay procedure (PTD) on errors and disruptive behavior when difficult tasks were presented. Observers sequentially recorded instructor instructions, response prompts, prompts for appropriate sitting, and feedback statements; and student disruptive, correct, error, and no responses during 1:1 sessions. Results showed PTD produced fewer errors than LTM for all 4 students, and lower rates of disruptive behavior for 2 students. When PTD was implemented as the final phase with 2 of the students, rates of disruptive behavior associated with the task previously taught with LTM immediately decreased. Conditional probability statements indicated that disruptive behavior occurred infrequently with all 4 students when effective response prompts were used.     

A comparison of self-instructional checking procedures for remediating mathematical deficits

We examined the relative effectiveness of three procedures for teaching long multiplication/division to seven adolescents with learning disabilities: no-checking, end-checking, and multi-checking. During training, each subject was taught by modelling and imitation to verbalize self-instructions in the form of a strategy while solving the problems. The relative effects of the checking and no-checking procedures on accuracy and rate of problems completed were examined in an alternating treatments design. The best treatment was then given alone and a reversal was implemented six weeks later, followed by a return to the best treatment during a final phase. Irrespective of the procedure used, the subjects' accuracy improved while the rate of problems completed decreased. These effects were greatest with the multi-checking procedure for six of the seven subjects. Generalization to untaught problems of various levels of complexity occurred under all procedures. Though maintenance effects were seen during the follow-up, accuracy was generally higher and more reliable when the subject's best checking procedure was reinstated. It is suggested that error detection and correction were important for maintaining high levels of accuracy and that these operated differentially in the three procedures to produce the differing levels of accuracy. The role of other factors such as pre-skill knowledge, complexity of the problem and prior reinforcement history are also considered.     

Consistency measures for pairwise comparison matrices

We propose new measures of consistency of additive and multiplicative pairwise comparison matrices. These measures, the relative consistency and relative error, are easy to compute and have clear and simple algebraic and geometric meaning, interpretation and properties. The correspondence between these measures in the additive and multiplicative cases reflects the same correspondence which underpins the algebraic structure of the problem and relates naturally to the corresponding optimization models and axiom systems. The relative consistency and relative error are related to one another by the theorem of Pythagoras through the decomposition of comparison matrices into their consistent and error components. One of the conclusions of our analysis is that inconsistency is not a sufficient reason for revision of judgements. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

TEMPORAL AND CLIMATIC VARIABLES IN NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION1

Home-observation data on 5- to 7-yr-old boys collected over 2 yr were examined for systematic variations in rates of desirable and undesirable behaviors associated with several temporal and climatic variables. Significant effects associated with time of day, day of the week, precipitation, and temperature were found. No significant effects on the naturalistic observation data were found for environmental factors associated with lunar phase. It was noted that the correlational nature of the findings did not obviate the necessity for control of the influence of temporal and climatic variables. Several methodological strategies for such control were discussed.     

Virtue Ethics and Situationist Personality Psychology

In this paper I examine and reply to a deflationary challenge brought against virtue ethics. The challenge comes from critics who are impressed by recent psychological evidence suggesting that much of what we take to be virtuous conduct is in fact elicited by narrowly specific social settings, as opposed to being the manifestation of robust individual character. In answer to the challenge, I suggest a conception of virtue that openly acknowledges the likelihood of its deep, ongoing dependence upon particular social relationships and settings. I argue that holding this conception will indeed cause problems for some important strands of thought in virtue ethics, most notably in the tradition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. But an approach to virtue ethics modeled on David Hume's treatment of virtue and character in A Treatise of Human Nature promises to escape these problems.     

新手考官的工作记忆和人格对其评分有效性的影响——以无领导小组讨论为例

相对于其它评价中心技术而言,在无领导小组讨论中考官因素对评分结果的影响尤为重要.本研究主要探讨无领导小组讨论中新手考官的工作记忆与人格对其评分有效性的影响.结果发现,首先,新手考官的评分者一致性较低,评分准确度较差.其次,工作记忆和人格的部分因素分别从不同方面影响新手考官的评分有效性,具体表现在：（1）利他性越强,新手考官评分总均值的准确性越高,且评分结果越宽松;（2）新手考官的决断性越强,对所有应聘者做出有效区分的准确性越高;（3）新手考官的沉稳性越高,对各维度的区分越有效;（4）注意转换和抑制能力对新手考官的晕轮效应及其在各个维度上进行区分的准确度有抑制作用.     

Lower bounds for the reliability of the total score on a test composed of non-homogeneous items: II: A search procedure to locate the greatest lower bound

Finding the greatest lower bound for the reliability of the total score on a test comprisingn non-homogenous items with dispersion matrix Σ _x is equivalent to maximizing the trace of a diagonal matrix Σ _E with elements θ _I , subject to Σ _E and Σ _T =Σ _x − Σ _E being non-negative definite. The casesn=2 andn=3 are solved explicity. A computer search in the space of the θ _i is developed for the general case. When Guttman's λ₄ (maximum split-half coefficient alpha) is not the g.l.b., the maximizing set of θ _i makes the rank of Σ _T less thann − 1. Numerical examples of various bounds are given. Present affiliation of the first author: St. Hild's College of Education, Durham City, England.     

工作情景中差错概念与差错取向因素分析

研究一调查了解我国工作差错概念以及对待差错的基本态度与行为。研究二通过问卷调查,分析差错取向因素结构及其影响因素,结果发现,差错是一种目标导向的行为;差错取向由差错处理、差错掩盖、差错压力和差错预防四个因素组成,并且管理层次和文化程度对差错取向有较大的影响。