Children's discrimination of oblique lines.

In three experiments using delayed-matching tasks with 5-year-old children (one of which also included 7-year-olds) no support was found for the hypothesis that children code for line orientation using a match-mismatch strategy. The hypothesis that errors in discrimination of obliques can be attributed mainly to confusion over the left-right direction of tilt was rejected in a fourth experiment. It was concluded that young children do not spontaneously encode orientation in relation to a matching environmental cue and that there is no evidence that memory for the direction of obliquity is inferior to memory for the degree of obliquity.     

Three types of schemata in children's recall of cohesive and noncohesive text

Children, ranging in ages from 7.3 to 9.6 years, were identified according to the type of schemata structure they used to recall picture sequence events. These children were then required to recall several written text passages representing four different conditions: (1) theme first paragraphs, (2) theme final paragraphs, (3) paragraphs with no theme but having thematic structure, and (4) paragraphs with no theme and no thematic structure. It was found that the manner and the amount of the child's recall were a function of how the child's schemata structure interacted with a given paragraph structure. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the generally unquestioned assumption that only one “ideal” text grammar is needed to describe children's schemata for processing test.     

Stimulus-reinforcer and response-reinforcer relations in the control of conditioned appetitive headpoking (“goal tracking”) in rats

Experiment 1 studied the effect of several Pavlovian appetitive conditioning procedures on rats' headpoking into a food tray (goal tracking). The procedures included forward delay conditioning, CS-alone extinction, differential conditioning, and simultaneous compound conditioned inhibition training. In general, the headpoke behaved in all of these treatments much like a Pavlovian CR; however, one could also say that the headpoke behaved like an adventitiously reinforced operant for which the CS was an S^D. Experiment 2, therefore, used the differential-nondifferential technique (E. Gamzu & D. R. Williams, Science, 1971, 171, 923–925), and Experiment 3 used an omission technique (F. D. Sheffield, in W. F. Prokasy, Ed., Classical conditioning, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1965; D. R. Williams & H. Williams, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1969, 12, 511–520), to try to separate the role of stimulus-reinforcer and response-reinforcer relations in controlling the headpoke. These techniques proved inadequate. The results of Experiment 2 could be given either operant or Pavlovian interpretations. Those of Experiment 3 showed that headpoking is dominated by response-reinforcer, rather than by stimulus-reinforcer, relations when the two compete but forced no conclusion about which dominates when the two act together as in acquisition. Implications for pigeon autoshaping are discussed.     

Consistency of the labial temperature change measure of human female eroticism

Six adult, human female volunteers participated in a study to determine the consistency of their pattern of sexual arousal to two erotic films over two experimental sessions. Sexual arousal was assessed objectively by means of continuous measurement of temperature changes of the labia minora and subjectively by periodic self-ratings. Each subject developed increases in labial temperature to both film presentations that ranged from about 0.10°C to 1.36°C above basal levels. The amount of temperature change in a subject's labia minora during the first film presentation was significantly correlated with that during the second film, and there was a reasonable degree of consistency across the two sessions with regard to the rate at which the subject's labial temperature subsided towards basal levels after the cessation of erotic stimulation. Labial temperature changes and subjective ratings were also significantly correlated during each of the two film presentations.     

Levels of experienced dimensionality in children and adults

This work presents a new conceptualization of the contrast between holistic and differentiated perception of multidimensional stimuli. Specifically, two hypotheses about the experiential status of dimensions within holistic perception are proposed and tested as explanations of young children's general perceptual mode and adults' integral mode. The major result is that three levels of dimensional status are realized: (1) the hypothesis of nonprimary axes characterizes adult “integral” perception of saturation and brightness relations, (2) the hypothesis of primary but not mandatory axes characterizes kindergarteners' “integral” perception of size and shade relations, and (3) the notion of mandatory axes characterizes adults' separable perception of size and shade relations. These results indicate a new interpretation of the integrality-separability distinction and the derivative developmental hypothesis. It is specifically hypothesized that the developmental history of most dimensional combinations includes these three levels.     

Collaborating careers: The differential effects of race

Male and female black undergraduates enrolled in Introductory Psychology and Human Development courses at a predominantly black university responded to five stories about married black physicians whose total income was greatest, respectively, when the husband cared for the children (Story 1), the wife cared for the children (Story 2), either spouse cared for them (Story 3), the wife earned more than the husband (Story 4), or the husband earned more than the wife (Story 5). In contrast to the results of a study completed at a predominantly white university, black females favored maternal child care even when, as a result, the family income was reduced and had significantly less of a preference for higher relative salary for the wife than did females in the study at a predominantly white university; although black males preferred maternal child care in Story 2 and Story 3, the preference was significantly less than that of males in the study at a predominantly white university. The results were discussed in terms of their relevance to collaborating career patterns among middle-class black families.     

Blocking of a taste aversion by prior pairings of exteroceptive stimuli with illness

Although rats preferentially associate gustatory stimuli with illness, this does not imply that other types of stimuli cannot be associated with illness. In Experiment 1, rats consuming tap water in a distinctive environment prior to illness subsequently suppressed ingestion in that environment, whereas rats poisoned or injected with saline 10 hr later did not. It was also found that rats poisoned after drinking saccharin in the environment paired with illness developed weaker saccharin aversions than identically trained rats which drank saccharin in a different location. In Experiment 2, degrading the correlation between injection-related cues and illness by interpolating saline injections between LiCl preexposures attenuated the decremental effects of illness preexposure. The strength of the exteroceptive cue-illness associations observed in these studies suggests that theories based on evolutionary arguments are not the most appropriate frame of reference for analyzing stimulus selection in poison-induced avoidance.     

Career indecision in adult women: A comparative and descriptive study

This study compared 66 high-school women, 66 first-year college women, and 66 adult women on four measures of career indecision, the Satisfaction with Career Scale, the Occupational Alternatives Question, the Vocational Decision Making Difficulty Scale, and the Career Decision Scale. The results consistently suggested that the adult women were experiencing more career indecision than the high-school and college women. Intercorrelations among the scales were generally moderate to somewhat low and raised some questions about the use of the Career Decision Scale with adult women. Additional data were gathered on the adult women in an attempt to delineate the sample. Variables included were: marital status, present work experience, the career-related goals and the reasons for pursuing these goals, and possible impediments to reaching the goals. These results are presented and the implications for future research and counseling with adult women are examined.