The decrement in conditioned fear with increased trials of simultaneous conditioning is not specific to the simultaneous procedure

Three experiments using a conditioned punishment paradigm with rat subjects examined the possibility that the nonmonotonic acquisition function previously found to characterize simultaneous conditioning was due to the noninformative nature of the conditioned stimulus (CS). In Experiment 1 the suppressive effects of a CS previously presented with an unconditioned stimulus (US) in a simultaneous and forward (informative) manner were compared following 20 and an additional 60 conditioning trials. Excitatory conditioning similarly diminished with increased trials for both the simultaneous and forward procedures. Experiment 2 employed a between-groups design. Simultaneous, forward, and trace conditioning procedures were compared following 20 or 100 trials. Each of the three 100-trial groups showed less resistance to extinction than their 20-trial counterparts. Experiment 3 determined that the decrement in excitatory conditioning for the 100-trial groups was not due to the greater number of US presentations, per se, but rather to the number of CS-US pairings. The nonmonotonic acquisition function observed with all three conditioning procedures indicated that informational factors were not responsible for the decrement observed in simultaneous conditioning. The pattern of results suggested that subjects receiving extended conditioning trials were better able to discriminate between training and testing.     

The relationship of moral judgment, self-awareness, and sex to complicance behavior

Sixty male and sixty female college students, representing three of Kohlberg's stages of moral judgment, were exposed to a complicance situation in which their personal count of a series of metronome clicks was contradicted by a unanimous group. Group differences were either one or two steps from veridical. For half of the subjects self-awareness was experimentally increased. The results indicated that subjects in moral judgment Stages 3 and 4 complied significantly more than Stage 5 subjects. The self-awareness manipulation produced a complex pattern of results in the form of a three way interaction with moral judgment and type of compliance. Finally, sex differences in compliance behavior were significant, with females complying more than males. The results were discussed in terms of a cognition-behavior relationship.     

Third party instigated aggression as a function of attack pattern and a nonaggressive response option

In the present study, subjects suggested what shock intensity a confederate should set for her opponent in a reaction time competition. Opponents displayed one of three attack patterns: increasing, decreasing, or minimal provocation. Also, for half the subjects a “no shock” option was available. A control group who had the nonaggressive option and for whom the opponent was nonaggressive (always chose “no shock”) was included. Results revealed that subjects' responses were governed by the norm of reciprocity; also the option reduced instigative aggression for subjects encountering increasing and decreasing provocation, while elevating aggressive response when the opponent was minimally provocative. Results are discussed in terms of attribution and locus of control.     

Immediate and delayed effects of victim suffering on the attacker's aggression

On the first day of a two-day experiment, male undergraduates were either angered or not, and they were given either high, low, or no metered pain feedback after each shock they supposedly delivered to their previous evaluator for his errors on a learning task. After the learning task the subjects made a number of ratings, including how much they had enjoyed this first session. On the second day, all subjects were simply required to administer shocks to a different person for his mistakes on the same learning task. The angered subjects were more punitive on both days toward both learners than the nonangered men. On the first day the angered men also increased the intensity of the shocks they delivered over trial blocks. Most interestingly, the angered men showed more enjoyment of the first session of the experiment as their victim's pain increased, and this enjoyment rating was related to the angered subjects' level of aggression on the second day of the experiment when they punished an “innocent” victim. The results were interpreted as consistent with the hypothesized reinforcement process which essentially states that signs and/or knowledge of the victim's suffering can reinforce impulsive or angry aggressive behavior.     

An interpretation of research of feedback interruption in speech.

The controversial question of the scope of sensory control in the voluntary motor patterns involved in speech is examined by reviewing studies in which the auditory, tactile, and proprioceptive feedback channels have been distorted or interrupted. The author makes a case for open loop control of well-learned speech patterns under normal circumstances. The concept of internal feedback is introduced as a possible control system of skilled speech, whereas response feedback and external feedback are viewed as necessary for children developing speech or adults learning new speech patterns.     

Cerebral asymmetry in infants.

This paper examines the intercorrelation matrix of the subtests of the Porch Index of Communication Ability using a variety of factor analytic and rotational procedures. In addition to a general factor reflecting overall language dysfunction, verbal, graphic, and gestural factors were also found which accounted for 83% of the total variance. These factors were related to Schuell's Howes', and Wepman's models of aphasia. The impact of factor analytic methodology on the conclusions drawn from the same data was also examined and suggestions for clinical use of this battery were discussed.     

Empirically derived groups in the assessment of recovery from aphasia.

This paper examines the pretreatment intercorrelation matrix of the subtests of the Porch Index of Communication Ability to derive factors reflecting components of language impairment. In addition to a general factor reflecting overall language dysfunction, five specific factors reflecting verbal competency (fluency), graphic-verbal expression, gestural-verbal expression, gestural-nonverbal comprehension, and graphic-geometric comprehension were found which accounted for 90.6% of the total variance. A cluster analysis of the five pretreatment factor scores yielded six groups which accounted for 79% of the variance for these factors. These groups were differentiated primarily in terms of impairment and showed a high rate of accuracy prediction for group membership (97.5%). These groups were extremely stable, as shown by the 75% accurate prediction rate derived from the post-treatment factor scores. The effectiveness of this model in generating homogeneous and highly discriminable groups based on objective measures of the patient's language functions indicates that classification of patients into empirical groups should be a major concern of any research design. Implications for assessing effectiveness of therapeutic intervention and the design of test battery were also discussed.     

Reaction-time measures of stutterers and nonstutterers

Ten adult male stutterers and ten adult male nonstutterers participated in six reaction-time tasks designed to measure manual, acoustic, and laryngeal-region response latencies. The analysis revealed statistically significant differences between the groups for the acoustic data only. The results indicated that acoustic reaction-time differences are not accounted for by the speed of the general laryngeal response.     

A general framework for the analysis of concept identification tasks

A general framework is presented for concept identification based on hypothesis-testing theory. It is a modification of the duoprocess theory presented by Chumbley (1972). It is shown how Markov models for various complex concept identification tasks may be derived from this framework and how such models may be analyzed by making use of probability generating functions. Two experiments are described. In experiment 1 three tasks were used: two simple tasks, where the subject either only had to select the relevant dimension in order to solve the problem or only had to learn a short list of paired-associates, and a more complex task, where both processes were needed to reach the solution. The results were in general favorable to the theory. Experiment 2 was designed to test the application of the theory to the four-choice concept problem. The predictions of the theory are compared to those of the subproblem learning theory of trabasso and Bower (1964), modified to include a ‘learning-on-errors’ assumption. The fit of the duoprocess theory was reasonably good and superior to that of the subproblem learning theory.