A comparison of attentional and control shift models of the performance of concurrent tasks

A concurrent verbal task was superimposed upon the performance of a practiced bimanual motor skill by right-handed Ss. Addition of the verbal task did not increase the total number of errors; however, a significant interaction between hands and conditions was observed. The right hand made significantly more errors under the verbal condition, while the left hand made non-significantly fewer errors under that condition. These findings were interpreted as supporting an attentional model rather than a model which proposes that addition of the verbal task causes control of the right hand to shift to the non-verbal right hemisphere.     

Women's reactions to discrimination from members of the same or opposite sex

The effects upon women's self-evaluations of experiencing varying severity of failure in interpersonal competition against male vs. female opponents were explored. The results supported the hypothesis that self-esteem in women is more vulnerable to interpersonal rejection from men as opposed to other women. Specifically, subjects reported lower self-esteem when severe failure was due to the actions of alleged, male opponents rather than female ones. Also, severe failure elicited less favorable self-evaluations than mild failure only when the female subjects confronted male opponents. Finally, contrary to a defensive self-presentation hypothesis, subjects did not respond to discrimination from men by presenting themselves as being discrepant from the stereotype of women. Instead, subjects who interpreted their failure as reflecting prejudice on the part of men evaluated themselves more favorably on positive traits underlying the female stereotype.     

The effect of continuous, intermittent, and "placebo" reinforcement on the effectiveness of the conditioning treatment for enuresis nocturna

It has been suggested that intermittent reinforcement may be of value in reducing the rate of relapse in bedwetting conditioning therapy. An experiment was conducted with 30 enuretic boys to examine acquisition and extinction parameters of continuous (100%), intermittent (70% variable ratio), and “placebo” (0%) reinforcement schedules. Reinforced trials were administered as in the typical Mowrer conditioning procedure. Non-reinforced trials were achieved by means of a time delay with the subsequent alarm being activated in the parent's room rather than in the child's room. These procedures required the development of a new conditioning device which could be programmed to automatically administer the desired schedule of reinforcement. The results of the field investigation revealed that continuous reinforcement (CR) and intermittent reinforcement (IR) groups attained acquisition in approximately the same number of trials and with essentially the same success rate. Relapse rate was significantly greater in the CR group than in the IR group. The placebo group showed no improvement over the 6 weeks of treatment. The results of this study may be interpreted as supporting the tenet that relapse can be viewed and treated as an extinction of the acquired response.     

Instigation of assertive behavior through videotape-mediated assertive models and directed practice

Twenty-eight undergraduate college women received an assertive training procedure in which they observed videotape-mediated assertive models and practiced nine types of assertive responses over a seven-week period. They reported significantly (p< 0.01) more assertive behavior and were rated as significantly (p< 0.01) more assertive than subjects receiving a placebo treatment and subjects receiving no treatment. There were also trends (p's = 0.17, 0.19, 0.29) for Ss receiving assertive training to report lower fear of social conflicts than subjects under the two control conditions.     

Electrical aversion therapy with alcoholics: An analogue study

Chronic alcoholic patients matched on age, education and length of problem drinking were assigned to one of three treatment conditions, with 10 subjects in each group: (1) Electrical Aversion Conditioning (high shock paired with alcohol sips); (2) Control Conditioning (very low shock paired with alcohol sips); and (3) Group Therapy (confrontation psychotherapy). Groups 2 and 3 were included to control for possible ‘attention-placebo’ and expectancy factors involved in the conditioning procedures. Subjects in each group were given instructions designed to produce high expectancy for therapeutic success. Pre-post measures of alcohol consumption and attitudes toward alcohol were obtained using an analogue ‘taste test’ assessment procedure. No statistically significant differences in reduced alcohol consumption or attitudes toward alcohol were found among the groups. Trends in the data support the contention that effects of electrical aversion may be more related to such factors as therapeutic instructions, expectancy, specificity of the procedure or experimental demand characteristics than to conditioning factors.     

Selective imitation of the passive construction through modeling

Six 4- to 5-yr-old subjects were exposed to five sessions in which an adult model used passive sentences to describe a set of modeling stimuli. Probe stimuli, which the subjects were asked to describe without benefit of modeling and without selective reinforcement were interspersed among modeling stimuli. A matched group of control subjects received probletrials but no modeling trials. Both groups of subjects were subsequently tested on their ability to comprehend active and passive sentence forms. Every subject in the experimental group produced passive sentences on probe trials even though there was considerable variability in the number of passives produced. No control subject produced passives. The modeling procedure increased the comprehension scores of the experimental group above those of the control group though the scores of both groups were above chance. The results were contrasted with earlier studies in which modeling was ineffective in producing passive usage and in which comprehension of the passive was not demonstrated by even older children.     

A developmental study of recognition of pictures and nouns

Children at four age levels (4, 6, 8, and 10 years) were given continuous recognition tasks using concrete noun, abstract noun, and pictorial stimuli in a 4 × 3 factorial design. Pictures were recognized significantly better than concrete and abstract nouns at the 4- and 6-year age levels and significantly better than abstract nouns at the 8- and 10-year age levels. This supported Paivio's contention that pictures are easier to remember than words because of a greater possibility of dual encoding, while Rohwer's contention that there is a shift in recognition memory development received no support. There were no significant differences between recognition of concrete and abstract nouns at any age level, which opposed the findings from adult studies and suggested that Paivio's theoretical orientation would have to be extended in order to account for developmental data. Recognition for both concrete and abstract nouns was found to be linear and increasing significantly with age, but no age trends for picture recognition were found.     

Tendencies of Possibility: A Peircean Consideration of Kauffman's Cosmic Mind

Stuart Kauffman speculatively proposes a panpsychic interpretation of quantum mechanics, where a cosmic mind makes measurements to change quantum possibilities into classical actuals. However, in response, Charles S. Peirce's understanding of existence simplifies Kauffman's triadic ontology and accounts for an evolving cosmos. Peirce's objective idealism confirms possibility as fundamental to ontological existence, clarifies actuality as specifically related to space-time's extent, and revises Kauffman's broad panpsychism to a narrow but pervasive role for law-like, dispositional tendencies. Theological implications include bridging Arthur Peacocke's Divine Becoming with a neo-Aristotelian, scientifically plausible potential for existence.