Habit reversal treatment: Learning an incompatible response or increasing the subject's awareness?

The elements of the Habit Reversal Treatment Package developed by Azrin and Nunn (1973) to counteract nervous habits were systematically analysed. Fifty nail biters (92% reported biting their nails for more than 5 yr) were randomly assigned to one of the following treatments: Habit Reversal, Habit Reversal and Self-Monitoring, Self-Monitoring, Self-Monitoring and Daily Graph Plotting, Waiting List control, Pictures of both hands were taken prior to the commencement of treatment and at 6 and 12 weeks after treatment termination. The results showed that the four treatment groups improved equally compared with the control subjects. Such data cast doubt on the importance of learning an incompatible response in Habit Reversal Treatment. An alternative explanation based on increasing the subject's awareness is put forward.     

Adaptation of the category boundary between speech and nonspeech: A case against feature detectors

Two experiments were performed employing acoustic continua which change from speech to nonspeech. The members of one continuum, synthesized on the Pattern Playback, varied in the bandwidths of the first three formants in equal steps of change, from the vowel /α/ to a nonspeech buzz. The other continuum, achieved through digital synthesis, varied in the bandwidths of the first five formants, from the vowel /æ/ to a buzz. Identification and discrimination tests were carried out to establish that these continua were perceived categorically. Perceptual adaptation of these continua revealed shifts in the category boundaries comparable to those previously reported for speech sounds. The results were interpreted as suggesting that neither phonetic nor auditory feature detectors are responsible for perceptual adaptation of speech sounds, and that feature detector accounts of speech perception should therefore be reconsidered.     

Developmental patterns in the encoding and combination of logical connectives

A total of 224 subjects in grades 2, 4, 6, 8, high school, and college solved problems requiring comprehension of the logical connectives and, or, if-then, only if, and if and only if, as well as the terms is and is not. Half the subjects were required merely to encode the connectives; the other half were required to combine as well as encode them. Problems were presented in two replications (over two sessions) via two different content vehicles. Quantitative analyses revealed significant effects of task, age, session, and connective, with comprehension of different connectives developing at different rates. In general, comprehension of the conjunctive connective was easiest; comprehension of the conditional and biconditional connectives was most difficult. Qualitative analyses indicated just how the logical connectives were interpreted at each grade level, and also investigated individual differences within each grade level.     

Affective and cognitive mediators of reactions to spatial invasions

At a crosswalk on a busy street, a confederate, sketching a drawing or not, stood close or far from a pedestrian for 10 sec before the street light indicated “Walk.” In the first study, pedestrians were given the opportunity to subsequently help this confederate or another accomplice by calling attention to a dropped pen. In the second study, crossing speeds were timed and pedestrians were asked to record their mood and reactions to “another pedestrian,” who happened to be the confederate. These studies tested and found evidence for both cognitive and arousal explanations of reactions to spatial invasions. Cognitive and attributional theories imply that characteristics of the invader are important mediators of reactions to the invasion. The close nonartist was judged to be more inappropriate, produced faster escape speeds, and was helped less than the close artist or the far confederates. Arousal explanations imply that any invasion produces a generalized reaction which would be unrelated to characteristics of the invader. The other accomplice was helped less when the subject had been invaded and this reduction in helping was unaffected by the artist manipulation. These findings suggest a general arousal response to any invasion with a subsequent reliance on cognitive interpretations.     

Group caution at the race track

McCauley, Stitt, Woods and Lipton's finding that groups were more conservative than individuals when betting at a race track has been criticized on statistical and methodological grounds. The present study which does not suffer the shortcomings for which McCauley et al. were legitimately criticized does, nonetheless, sustain their general results and conclusions. Groups were significantly more cautious than individuals when wagering $2.00 on a horse race.     

The return of the repressed. On Robert N. Bellah,Norman O. Brown,and religion in human evolution

As much as Robert Bellah’s final work, Religion in Human Evolution, has been studied and dissected, no critic underlined the importance of psychoanalysis for its main argument and its theoretical framework. The paper shows the influence exerted by a controversial interpreter of Freud, Norman O. Brown, on Bellah’s ideas, intellectual profile, and writing style in the late-1960s and early 1970s. While in search for a new intellectual voice, Bellah was struck by Brown’s work and began to make intensive use of his book, Love’s Body, both in his teaching and in his research of the early 1970s, during his so-called “symbolic realism” period. While Bellah abandoned Brown’s ideas and style in the mid-1970s, some of the basic intuitions he had during that period still survived as one of the major theoretical intuitions of Religion and Human Evolution.