Vocal changes in stutterers and nonstutterers during monotoned speech

For years, reports have circulated that stutterers experience marked decrements in their stuttering when they speak or read in monotone. Wingate has suggested that the ameliorative effects of various novel speaking conditions on stuttering can be attributed to modifications in vocalization induced by such conditions. The present study was conducted to see whether this explanation would extend to monotoned speech as well. Ten teenage and adult stutterers and 10 normal speakers were tested in control and monotone reading conditions. Dependent measures were the frequencies of disfluency and stuttering, fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency standard deviation, vocal SPL, vocal SPL standard deviation, and fluent reading rate. Only within-group statistical comparisons were made, because members of the two groups could not be matched pairwise along critical vocal parameters. The major findings of this study indicated that across the two conditions, both groups significantly reduced their fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency standard deviation, vocal SPL and vocal SPL standard deviation. Only the stutterers exhibited a significant decrement in disfluency and stuttering. The normals did not evince enough disfluency in the control condition for a reduction to occur during monotoning. Neither group effected a reduction in fluent reading rates. These and other findings and interpretations are discussed relative to Wingate's modified vocalization hypothesis.     

Cued recall in anterograde amnesia

After a single presentation of a word list, normal subjects exhibited better retention when prompted with semantic cues than with rhyme or letter cues. Alcoholic Korsakoff patients, patients receiving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and the patient N.A. exhibited impaired retention and, unlike control subjects, did not exhibit an advantage of semantic cues over letter and rhyme cues. Two experimental manipulations designed to equate the level of performance of amnesics and controls indicated that these amnesias could be understood as a reflection of weak memory strength that results from deficiencies in initial learning and retention. In addition, alcoholic Korsakoff patients appeared to have greater difficulty utilizing semantic cues than patients receiving ECT or patient N.A.     

Anxiety management and applied relaxation in reducing general anxiety

Sixty-three generally anxious subjects were assigned to anxiety management training, applied relaxation training, relaxation-only, placebo and untreated control conditions. After 6 weeks of treatment, anxiety management training led to reductions on a variety of self-report measures of state and trait anxiety and decreases in maladaptive cognitions during a laboratory stress procedure. On several measures, subjects in anxiety management training differed from relaxation-only and placebo subjects as well as untreated controls. However, treatment effects did not extend to performance and physiological measures of anxiety. Applied relaxation training, which in contrast to anxiety management training lacks structured rehearsal involving the recognition and reduction of tension cues during the treatment sessions, resulted in less consistent decreases in measures of general anxiety.     

Differential construct validity of a preschool battery for blacks,whites, males,and females

Seven major preschool tests were administered to a group of 322 kindergarten children. Scaled scores from the instruments were submitted to principal factoring, with iterations for the total sample and separately by race/sex groupings. The average intercorrelation of the pretests was similar across race and sex. A two-factor solution of the battery was derived for the total group and for each of the four subgroups (WF, WM, BF, BM). The two-factor solution was highly similar across race and sex, as indicated by the large coefficients of congruence obtained between factors derived within each group, thus supporting the equivalence of internal psychometric properties of the battery across race and sex. No evidence was determined to support sexual or racial dimorphism in the early structure of cognitive abilities.     

Do alcoholic amnesic patients passively rehearse verbal information?

Recently it has been claimed that alcoholic amnesic patients mainly engage in passive repetitive rehearsal during spontaneous learning and that this contributes to their memory problem. To test this hypothesis further, two experiments were conducted which compared list learning in amnesic patients and normal controls. In Experiment I both groups of subjects were required either to learn a list which was presented five times consecutively with free recall following each presentation, or they were asked to repeat each word out loud as they saw it and carry on doing so until the next word was shown. Five presentation trials were given and free recall was again tested after each presentation. It was predicted that if the amnesics' spontaneous form of learning involved only passive repetition there should be no difference between learning and repetition for this group while the controls should show an impairment in repeating compared to learning. The results showed that both groups of subjects were impaired to the same extent with repeating compared to learning and it was concluded that spontaneous learning was similar in both groups and that neither group merely passively rehearsed during spontaneous learning. A second experiment examined recognition performance of the two groups of subjects after learning or repeating lists of 20 words. Recognition was tested with distractors which were irrelevant, acoustically similar, graphemically similar, or semantically similar to the target word. It was found there were no differences between either of the groups in the pattern of errors made over the different distractor types. It was thus concluded that there was no encoding or rehearsal abnormality in the amnesic group. The possibility of differences between groups of alcoholic amnesics was discussed as well as the putative role of slow cognitive processing in their memory problems.     

An in depth, astute, comprehensive, and erudite attempt at categorization of stuttering theorists

The purpose of this paper is to make the reader aware of the various theoretical categories into which people who have been productive in the area of stuttering can be “slotted.” Readers are encouraged to read the characteristics, as I conceive of them, of each group of people and then see where their favorite “authorities” (which in many cases will undoubtedly include themselves) fit.     

The confluence model: Parameter estimation for six divergent data sets on family factors and intelligence

Theoretical predictions, based on the confluence model, were made for data from six national surveys of intellectual performance. All six surveys relate intellectual performance scores to family configuration variables. Widely divergent patterns of relationships between the major family factors, such as birth order and family size, and intellectual performance scores characterize the six data sets. Nevertheless, the confluence model was capable of accurate prediction in all cases when all three parameters were estimated. Little accuracy was lost using only two parameters. Variations in the estimated parameter values that reflected the variations in patterns of effects could be meaningfully interpreted for their psychological significance.     

Effects of noise on sensitivity of introverts and extraverts to signals in a vigilance task

Forty Ss, previously classified as introverts or extraverts on the basis of scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory, performed a visual vigilance task while being stimulated with noise at an intensity level of either 65 or 85 dB. Introverts given noise of 65 dB intensity showed an improvement in detection rate across trials, whereas introverts given noise of 85 dB intensity showed a decline in detection rate. Extraverts responded to noise of 65 dB intensity with a slight decrease in detection rate, but showed an improvement in detection over trials when noise of 85 dB intensity was given. When noise of the lower intensity was given, introverts showed greater sensitivity to signals than extraverts. When noise of the higher intensity was given, introverts and extraverts were equal in sensitivity. The results are discussed in terms of a hypothesized relationship between stimulation and arousal, with E-I as a moderator variable.     

Disentangling behavioral intention and behavioral expectation

Social psychologists have extensively researched behavioral intention and its relation to future behavior, usually within the framework of M. Fishbein and I. Ajzen's (1975, Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley) theory of reasoned action. However, the field has confounded two separate constructs while investigating intention: behavioral intention (BI) and what P. R. Warshaw, B. H. Sheppard, and J. Hartwick (in press, in R. Bagozzi (Ed.), Advances in marketing communication, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press) have coined behavioral expectation (BE), which is the individual's self-prediction of his or her future behavior. In this paper we define both constructs and explain how they differ in terms of the processes by which they are formed, their roles in determining behavior, and their utilities as behavioral predictors. We propose that behavioral expectation is the more accurate overall predictor since many common behaviors are unreasoned (i.e., mindless or habitual) behaviors, goal-type actions, or behaviors where the individual expects his or her intention to change in a foresseable manner. These are all cases where present intention (BI) is not the direct determinant of behavior but where the individual may be capable of appraising whatever additional determinants exist and of including them within his or her behavioral expectation. A study (N = 197) is reported in which student subjects received either a BE (n = 113) or a BI (n = 84) version of a questionnaire pertaining to their performance of 18 common behaviors. Overall, behavioral expectation was the better predictor of self-reported performance.