Withdrawal,matching, withdrawal-matching,and variable-matching strategies in reducing attack-instigated aggression

Several studies have investigated strategies that a participant in dyadic aggression may use to reduce the aggression of the other participant. In one set of these studies the subject is instigated to aggression by an opponent who sets maximum shocks for the subject to receive during the first block of six trials. Following attack-instigation, opponents shift to withdrawal and matching strategies for 18 trials. The withdrawal strategy is an abrupt shift to the lowest levels of shock possible. The matching strategy is the exact matching by an opponent of the shock set by the subject on the previous trial. With these procedures the withdrawal strategy has been the most effective method to reduce aggression. These results led to the suggestion that the effectiveness of the withdrawal strategy may be due to immediate, unambiguous communication by the opponent of his willingness to reduce attack. This hypothesis was tested in the present study by creating a matching condition modified to include immediate, unambiguous communication of willingness to reduce attack. In this withdrawal-matching condition the opponent followed attack with two trials of the lowest levels of shock before shifting to a matching strategy. Although the withdrawal-matching strategy did not lead to shock settings that were significantly lower than the matching strategy, there was evidence that subjects interacting with withdrawal-matching opponents did reduce their shock settings from block 1 to block 4 more rapidly than subjects interacting with matching opponents. A variable matching strategy was also used to provide a more realistic analogy of matching in the mundane world. While subjects with variable-matching opponents also did not set shock levels during blocks 2, 3, and 4 that were significantly lower than the matching strategy, there was evidence that subjects in this condition reduced their shock levels more rapidly than subjects with matching opponents. Although the effects were not as strong as expected, the results do provide some support for the interpretation that the effectiveness of the withdrawal strategy may be due to unambiguous communication of willingness by the opponent to reduce his or her aggression. The effectiveness of the variable-matching strategy was attributed to interrupting the tendency of the subject and his or her opponent to match each other's responses. Consistent with earlier attack-instigated aggression studies, the withdrawal strategy in the present study led to a rapid reduction in aggression.     

Frequency and Category Factors in the Reduction and Assimilation of Function Words: EPG and Acoustic Measures

Many studies have observed phonetic and phonological differences between function words and content words. However, as many of the most commonly cited function words are also very high in frequency, it is unclear whether these differences are the result of syntactic category or word frequency. This study attempts to determine whether syntactically defined function words are indeed phonologically and phonetically reduced or assimilated when word frequency is balanced. Three experiments were designed to distinguish the relative contributions of the factors of category and frequency on phonetic and phonological reduction and assimilation. Overall results suggest that syntactic category and word frequency interact with phonetic and phonological processes in a more complex way than previously believed. Experiment 1 measured final t/d dropping, a reduction process, using electropalatography (EPG). Experiment 2 examined vowel reduction using acoustic measures. In Experiment 3, palatalization, an assimilation process, was examined using EPG. Results showed that t/d dropping responds to the factor of syntactic category, whereas palatalization is affected by word frequency; vowel reduction responded to both factors, with a dominant syntactic category effect and a secondary within-category frequency effect. The implications of these findings for models of lexical representation and theories of language acquisition are discussed.