Altered patterns of word associations in dementia and aphasia

The word associations of 38 demented, 17 aphasic, and 22 normal subjects were studied. Both normal and brain-injured subjects appear to make judgments about the grammatical class of the word stimulus. Certain stimulus words (especially nouns and adjectives) elicit paradigmatic responses whereas other words (especially verbs and adverbs) elicit syntagmatic responses. The mechanism producing syntagmatic responses seems relatively resistant to deterioration in dementia or aphasia. However, in dementia the mechanism that generates paradigmatic responses becomes progressively less efficient (possibly due to a loss of semantic markers) and consequently more random (idiosyncratic) responses emerge. Perseverative responses, inhibited in normal subjects, are more prevalent in dementia. Anomic aphasics show a pattern of word associations similar to that of subjects with mild dementia. Broca's aphasics, while making fewer paradigmatic associations than normals, retain enough self-monitoring mechanisms so that few idiosyncratic and perseverative responses are made while more null responses occur. Wernicke's aphasics show a marked shift away from a paradigmatic word association strategy, possibly due to an inability to access semantic markers or a true loss of these markers. Metalinguistic deficits (i.e., a failure to adopt an appropriate strategy) may also contribute to this shift away from paradigmatic associations. Furthermore, a disruption of self-monitoring mechanisms in Wernicke's aphasia leads to an increase in perseverative and idiosyncratic responses.     

Correlation between EEG and auditory perceptual measures in auditory agnosia

We describe a child who acquired a gradual sustained speech deficit for which no specific etiology was found, and who had an associated epileptogenic abnormality on EEG. Assessment of auditory perceptual skills and receptive language confirmed that gradual parallel improvement occurred with the EEG after therapeutic anticonvulsant blood levels were obtained. Prospective trials of anticonvulsant drugs in conjunction with serial measures of central auditory abilities are necessary to establish their value in the management of the linguistic deficit in children with auditory agnosia.     

Self-presentation and drive in social facilitation

Social facilitation refers to cases in which the presence of others increases the probability of certain responses on the part of an independently operating individual. Drive theory attributes these effects to an unconscious facilitation of dominant responses, as defined by Hull-Spence learning theory. Self-presentation explanations posit changes in motivation and cognitive strategies that result from an increased concern with favorable private and public images. The present paper reviews evidence and presents an experiment indicating both points of view are valid, but that neither perspective by itself can account for all relevant data.     

The cognitive representation of persons and groups and its effect on recall and recognition memory

A conceptualization of the manner in which trait and behavioral information is organized in memory is proposed and applied in predicting both the recall and recognition of information about persons and groups. Three information presentation conditions were considered: (1) Subjects are told to form an impression of a target (person or group) on the basis of the target's behaviors, and are given a trait-based concept of what the target is like before learning about these behaviors. (2) Subjects are told to form an impression of the target, but a general traitbased concept of the target is not induced until after they learn about the target's behaviors. (3) Subjects receive information about the target's behaviors with instructions to remember the information, and only subsequently are told to form an impression and are given more general information about the target's traits. The proposed model accounted for between-condition differences in both the recall and recognition of behaviors that were consistent and inconsistent with a general trait-based concept of the target, and for contingencies of these differences on whether the target was a single person or a group.     

Beauty and the attributions of the beholder

Four studies used an attributional approach to examine interpersonal attraction. Underlying causal dimensions were predicted to influence differentially two components of attraction, dating and complimenting. In the first study, 24 subjects indicated whether they would date physically attractive stimulus persons. Complimenting was examined in the second and third studies, with 24 subjects rating the likelihood of complimenting attractive opposite-sex stimulus persons and 32 subjects rating the likelihood of complimenting same-sex stimulus persons. For these studies the reason for the stimulus person's attractiveness varied in controllability (volitional versus nonvolitional) and stability (temporary versus permanent). Consistent with predictions, controllability influenced likelihood of complimenting but not dating. In addition, compliments were more likely when the reason for attractiveness was unstable than when stable. Conversely, dating was more likely when attactiveness was stable than when unstable. However, stability had less influence on men responding to women than on either men responding to men or women responding to both sexes. Similar results were obtained in a fourth study in which 56 subjects recalled incidents where they complimented or dated others for their physical attractiveness.     

The attribution of arousal and emergency helping: A bidirectional process

J. M. Piliavin, J. A. Piliavin, and J. Rodin (1969, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 289–299) and J. A. Piliavin, J. F. Dovidio, S. L. Gaertner, and R. Clark (1981, Emergency intervention, New York, Academic Press) proposed that physiological arousal is causally related to a bystander's response to an emergency. Examining this proposition, the current research investigated the hypothesis that residual arousal from an extraneous event has the capacity to facilitate as well as to inhibit bystander intervention during an emergency depending on whether the extraneous arousal is attributed to the emergency or whether the emergency-generated arousal is attributed to the extraneous event. Specifically, it was predicted that during an Unambiguous emergency, extraneous arousal from the prior performance of physical exercise would be attributed to the emergency and thus facilitate bystander responsiveness. During an Ambiguous emergency, however, emergency-generated arousal would be attributed to the prior performance of physical exercise and thus bystander responsiveness would be inhibited by higher levels of arousal. Fifty-four male subects performed no, moderate, or high levels of exercise before exposure to an Unambiguous or Ambiguous emergency. Results indicated that during the Unambiguous emergency, higher levels of prior exercise facilitated helping. However, when the emergency was Ambiguous, high levels of exercise tended to inhibit bystander responsiveness. Correlational analysis of telemetered heart rates and latency to intervene corroborated the above pattern of findings.     

Inference processes in learning well-defined concepts

In an adaptation of usual experimental techniques for studying the performance of a subject who has to discover a well-defined concept, two theories were independently tested. It was found that Bourne's set of inference operations (Bourne 1974; Salatas and Bourne 1974) predicted fairly well the relative difficulty for the connectives studied (inclusive disjunctive, alternative denial, joint denial, exclusive, exclusive disjunctive) for a stimulus population based on three-valued dimensions but not for a four-valued stimulus population. Reaction times gathered after the subject made no further classification errors fitted the decision-tree structures developed by Hunt et al. (1966). Inspection of the hypotheses subjects made about the rule, revealed two possible major reasoning obstacles: the introduction of a negative attribute and the notion of exception i.e. when the assignment of an attribute in one class depends on another attribute whereas in another class it does not.