Prognostic factors and classification issues in the treatment of secondary orgasmic dysfunction

The present study examined patient and problem characteristics as well as therapy process factors associated with success and failure in sex therapy for secondary orgasmic dysfunction. Ss were 23 married couples selected for emotional and marital stability; all wives were suffering from secondary orgasmic dysfunction. Sexual functioning and satisfaction were evaluated before and after 15 sessions of therapy. Ss also engaged in daily self-monitoring throughout the therapy program. Two criteria of therapeutic success were used: the couples' global sexual harmony and the females' frequency of orgasmic response in couple sexual activity. Higher pre-treatment masturbation rates by the female, as well as better awareness of her partner's sexual tastes and preferences, were related to poor therapeutic outcome. Greater pre-treatment enjoyment of non-genital caressing by the female as well as higher incidence of interpersonal orgasmic response in the past were associated with therapeutic success. The theoretical and research implications of the present findings are discussed.     

Alarm call responsivity of mallard ducklings: The inadequacy of learning and genetic explanations of instinctive behavior

Traditional conceptions of learning do not adequately account for the development of species-typical behavior. Developmental theory, though, can account for learning phenomena, as well as seemingly innate behavior. Developmental theory also focuses on subtle, nonobvious, as well as obvious, forms of experience throughout the life span, including the prenatal period. To illustrate the developmental approach, data on the ontogeny of alarm call responsivity in mallard ducklings (Anas platyrhynchos) are presented. This research, which was conducted both in the field and in the laboratory, identifies the particular acoustic feature of alarm calls to which ducklings are sensitive. Additional experiments have shown that normally occurring perinatal auditory experience is required for the development of behavioral inhibition (i.e., “freezing”). These experiments demonstrate the ability of developmental theory to account for phenomena that elude other, more traditional, theories.     

Acquisition and use of spelling-sound correspondences in reading

The acquisition and use of knowledge concerning the spelling-sound correspondences of English were evaluated by having children read words and nonwords that contained regular and homographic spelling patterns. Regular spelling patterns are associated with a single pronunciation (e.g., -UST as in MUST); homographic patterns have multiple pronunciations (e.g., -OSE as in HOSE, DOSE, LOSE). Analyses of errors, latencies, and pronunciations provided evidence for two complementary developmental processes: good beginning readers rapidly learn to recognize high-frequency words from visual input alone, while at the same time they are expanding and consolidating their knowledge of spelling-sound correspondences. Younger and poor readers rely more on phonological information in word decoding, as evidenced by their particular difficulty reading homographic spelling patterns. Poor readers do not appear to use a radically different strategy for reading words: their perfomance is similar to that of younger, good readers.     

Noncanonical orientation without occlusion: Children's drawings of transparent objects

The use of a transparent model in a drawing task allows all the features of the model to remain visible whatever its orientation. N. H. Freeman (1980, Strategies of Representation in Young Children, New York/London, Academic Press) found that when drawing a transparent glass with its handle turned away, children made more canonical errors (drawing the handle at the side) than when drawing a similarly orientated opaque cup. According to Freeman being able to see the handle in a noncanonical orientation “triggers” a canonical representation of the object (N. H. Freeman 1980, p. 252). Two experiments are reported which investigated children's drawings of transparent objects. The drawings obtained from children between 4 and 7 years old produced two major findings. First, the tendency toward canonicality when drawing a glass with its handle turned away was significantly reduced when two glasses in differeing orientations were presented side by side. Second, the number of canonical errors was lower when the glass was filled with milk (thus hiding the handle). This latter finding confirms that of N. H. Freeman (1980). However, the first suggests that children use situationally appropriate information when drawing transparent objects in a way similar to that noted by A. M. Davis (1983, Contextual Sensitivity in Young Children's Drawings, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 35, 478–486) using opaque objects.     

A statistical approach to Saaty's scaling method for priorities

This paper investigates the logarithmic least squares (LLSM) approach to Saaty's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1977, 5, 234–281) scaling method for priorities in hierarchical structures. It is argued that statistical criteria are important in deciding the scaling method controversy. It is shown that LLSM is statistically optimal under a number of realistic and practical models. Variances and covariances of parameter estimates are derived. The covariance matrix associated with overall priority differences is also developed. These results allow for a significance analysis of apparent priority differences.     

The different types of limb apraxia errors made by patients with left vs. right hemisphere damage

Limb apraxia errors were compared among normal controls and right- or left-hemisphere-damaged patients as they imitated gestures with the ipsilateral hand. Both brain-damaged groups made similar errors on nonrepresentative and representative/intransitive movements. In contrast for pretended object use movements (transitive), the left-hemisphere-damaged group made more arm position and classical body-part-as-object errors while the right hemisphere group made as many partial errors and more less-primitive, body-part-as-object errors than the left-hemisphere-damaged group. These results help explain why a certain percentage of right-hemisphere-damaged patients are labeled apraxic, but also suggest that the left hemisphere is more important for integrating intrapersonal space and the “representation” of extrapersonal space.     

Optimal design of parity tests

Researchers often test a null hypothesis of no ability in the populattion (the so-called “parity” hypothesis) using a single, forced-choice question with k alternatives. In this study a result is presented which should help researchers select the number of alternatives that maximizes the statistical power of the parity hypothesis test. Also the conditions under which it is always beneficial to add alternatives to the test are derived. Finally, the derived result is used to compare several popular parity test designs. The results show that the frequently used triangle test is optimal under a very broad range of plausible conditions.     

SKINNER AS SELF-MANAGER

B. F. Skinner was a remarkably productive, creative, and happy individual, in large part because of his expertise in self-management, a set of self-change skills that derive to some extent from his own scientific and theoretical work. Skinner's ardent defense of determinism appears to conflict with his views on self-control; although determinism can be reconciled with these views, we would be best served by dispensing with the “ism” and focusing instead on relevant data and data-driven theories. Contemporary research on self-control has diverged from Skinner's formulation in a number of ways, especially in focusing on cognition and choice. The extraordinary success Skinner had in applying self-management principles to his life should inspire us to take a closer look at the potential value such principles may have for society.     

Personality differentiation and prediction of persistence in physical science and engineering

Discriminant analyses techniques were applied to freshmen California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and Holland Vocational Interest Inventory (VPI) data for 914 male students and were used to predict curricular membership after two years of university education. The results suggest that those who persist in physical science, engineering or other curriculum are significantly discriminable from one another on the basis of freshman personality data, and that these personality variables show reasonable predictive stability when applied to a cross validation sample. Physical scientists appear to be markedly differentiated from engineers or others along an introspection-intellectual versus social conventional dimension. The predictive power of CPI and VPI personality variables while statistically exceeding chance is considerably less than that previously reported for ability or interest measures.