The development of metacognitive awareness in memory,communication, and attention

Four- and six-year-olds were asked questions about hypothetical situations in which a child was to perform one of three cognitive activities: (1) to remember something, (2) to communicate a message, or (3) to attend to a visual array. Questions focused on the child's understanding of the following four facts about the variables under study: (1) that it is easier to cognize about a shorter than a longer list (length), (2) that it is easier to cognize in the absence of noise than in its presence (noise), (3) that an adult or older child will find a cognitive problem to be easier than will a younger child (age), and (4) that it is generally easier to cognize with more time than with less time (time). Results indicated that the pattern of understanding was the same across the different cognitive activities, that there was a higher level of accuracy in answering questions about length and noise than about age and time, and that, over all, the 6-year-olds were more accurate than the 4-year-olds.     

Comparison of two models of similarity judgment

The conventional multidimensional distance model of similarity judgment was compared with a new model in which component differences are weighted and then averaged. To evaluate the models, qualitative and quantitative predictions were derived from Romney and D'Andrade's (1964) componential analysis of American kinship terms, and these predictions were tested by having subjects rate the similarity (in experiment 1) and the difference (in experiment 2) between all possible pairs of 12 kinship terms. In both experiments, violations of qualitative predictions for both a simple distance model and a simple averaging model revealed that the componential analysis was not sufficient to account for the data. However the averaging model was able to account for the data when the dichotomous dimension of lineality used by Romney and D'Andrade was replaced by a continuous dimension of immediacy or closeness of kin. In contrast, no comparable elaboration under the distance model was successful. These results were discussed in terms of the likely psychological processes underlying similarity judgment.     

Hiring bias and the disabled interviewee: Effects of manipulating work history and disability information of the disabled job applicant

Ninety MBA students were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions in a 3(levels of disability) × 2(levels of employment history) design. Levels of disability (Physical, Psychiatric, and No Disability) and levels of employment history (Good and Poor) were manipulated by giving the subjects bogus information on a job application form prior to hearing a taped job interview. Subjects then rated the quality of the interview and stated the probability that they would hire the interviewee. Evaluations of the interview and hiring probabilities were different between the experimental groups. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Measuring the importance of information in judgment: Individual differences in weighting ability and effort

Measuring the importance of cues in social judgment has been a longstanding problem. Past research has shown individual differences in the impact of ability and study effort on judgments of student performance. This research examined the hypothesis that the individual differences are due to the weight given to the information as opposed to the perceived extremity of the values of the information. Subjects judged the performance of hypothetical students described by ability, study effort, and effort during an exam. Individual differences in the impact of the three types of information were obtained and were predictable from self-reports of the relative importance of information. Different values of weights were necessary to account for the differences in the impact of information, although there were also differences in the perceived extremity of the information. The theoretical and applied significance of distinguishing the weight given to information in judgment from its subjective value are discussed. On the basis of a new review of the literature, as well as the present results, it is concluded that self-reports of the relative importance of information are predictive of individual differences in information use in judgment, but that they may reflect the total impact of information rather than only the weight.     

The effects of onset and offset warning and post-target stimuli on the saccade latency of children and adults

Two studies, involving children (mean age = 10 years) and adults, investigated the effects of visual stimulus onsets and offsets on the latency of saccades to peripheral targets. Saccade latency was reduced when foveal stimulus onsets or offsets preceded the target. When stimulus onset occurred 100 msec after target onset, the stimulus interfered with responding, with this interference effect significantly greater for children than for adults. When stimuli were presented in the peripheral visual field facilitation and interference effects were similar for children and adults. These results were interpreted as indicating that oculomotor processes are similar in children and adults while the stimulus intake processes that follow stimulus onset at the point of fixation have a greater interference effect on children's than on adults' eye movements.     

Judging similarity among strings described by hierarchical trees

The paper compares the tree-theoretical model of similarity judgement (in which the similarity between two objects is a function of the distance between them in a conceptual tree) with an averaging model of similarity judgement that is drawn jointly from information integration theory and from current research indicating the prevalence of anchoring and adjustment mechanisms in judgement. Results of an experiment are presented that suggest that even when subjects organize conceptual material as a hierarchical tree, judgments of similarity among the objects are better accounted for by an averaging mechanism than by distances in the tree. These data are discussed in terms of the differences between the representation in which knowledge is encoded and the processes that operate on the represented information.     

Speech—Language clinicians'' and university students'' impressions of women and girls who stutter

To identify impressions speech—language clinicians and university students have of females who stutter, a 47-scale semantic differential form was administered to members of each group to obtain their responses to eight hypothetical constructs, i.e., “A Girl,” “A Girl Who Stutters,” “A Boy,” “A Boy Who Stutters,” “A Woman,” “A Woman Who Stutters,” “A Man,” and “A Man Who Stutters.” Both groups were found to possess negative stereotypes for all four categories of stutterers. The nature of the stereotypes appeared to be influenced by a stutterer's gender and relative age. Clinicians considered stuttering to exert a stronger negative impact on females and on children. Their strongest stereotype was of “A Girl Who Stutters.” University students considered stuttering to exert a stronger negative impact on males. Their stereotypes of stutterers seemed unaffected by the relative age of the stutterer. Their strongest stereotype was of “A Man Who Stutters.” Several theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Father identification,achievement, and occupational behavior of rural youth: 10-year follow-up

Males from rural economically deprived school districts, who had previously been surveyed as high school seniors, again 1 year after graduation, and again 5 years after graduation, were surveyed a fourth and final time 10 years after high school graduation concerning their occupational status and aspirations, their marital status, their spouses' educational and occupational achievements, the importance of life roles, and their occupational and personal satisfactions. In the original study the participants had been divided into two groups, low-identification males (LIM) and high-identification males (HIM) based on independent evaluators' judgments of the adequacy of their fathers as identification models. Each group's responses to the survey were compared. The results indicate that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups on the variables of optimism about the future, spouses' occupational achievements, role importance, occupational satisfaction, and personal satisfaction. There were statistically significant differences on the variables of occupational status, occupational aspirations, educational achievements, educational plans, marital status, and spouses' educational achievements. The results are discussed in the context of the three previous surveys. Over the 10-year period the occupational and educational achievements and aspirations have been significantly higher for the HIM group than for the LIM group. Equally consistent is the finding that over the 10-year period there has been no differences between the two groups in satisfaction with status.