PROMOTING LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR CHILD PROTECTION: A COMMUNITY ANALYSIS

The Colorado Occupant Protection Project (COPP) intervention provided police with brief instruction concerning the importance of citations for drivers' failure to use child safety seats and special coupons to accompany citations. Coupons were exchangeable by drivers for a safety seat and brief training in its use, plus a waiver of the $50 citation fine. Over 4.5 years of archival records were employed, using an ABA design and a comparison community to evaluate the program. Few tickets were issued for nonuse of safety seats during the 3-year baseline in either community. Citations for nonuse of safety seats increased to over 50 per month during the intervention period at the test site, whereas rates remained essentially zero at the comparison site. After the COPP intervention was removed at the intervention site, citation rates for nonuse of safety seats decreased to about 15 per month. Differences between intervention conditions and settings were statistically significant. During the intervention, officers were 44 times more likely to write citations than were controls. Results suggested that a behavioral program can increase police citation writing for child protection purposes.     

AN ANALYSIS OF MAINTENANCE FOLLOWING FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING

The multiple and long-term effects of functional communication training relative to a common reductive procedure (time-out from positive reinforcement) were evaluated. Twelve children participated in a functional analysis of their challenging behaviors (Study 1), which implicated adult attention as a maintaining variable. The children were then matched for chronological age, mental age, and language age and assigned to two groups. One group received functional communication training as an intervention for their challenging behavior, and the second group received time-out as a contrast. Both interventions were initially successful (Study 2), but durable results were achieved only with the group that received functional communication training across different stimulus conditions (Study 3). Students whose challenging behaviors were previously reduced with time-out resumed these behaviors in the presence of naive teachers unaware of the children's intervention history. The value of teaching communicative responses to promote maintenance is discussed as it relates to the concept of functional equivalence.     

Fixed-ratio pausing: Joint effects of past reinforcer magnitude and stimuli correlated with upcoming magnitude

Pigeons responded on fixed-ratio schedules ending in small or large reinforcers (grain presentations of different duration) interspersed within each session. In mixed-schedule conditions, the response key was lit with a single color throughout the session, and pausing was directly related to the past reinforcer (longer pauses after large reinforcers than after small ones). In multiple-schedule conditions, different colors accompanied the ratios ending in small and large reinforcers, and pausing was affected by the upcoming reinforcer as well as the past one. Pauses were shorter before large reinforcers than before small ones, but they continued to be longer after large reinforcers than after small ones. The influence of the past reinforcer was modulated by the magnitude of the upcoming reinforcer; in the presence of the stimulus before the small reinforcer, the effect of the past reinforcer was enhanced relative to its effect in the stimulus before the large reinforcer. These results show that pausing between ratios is jointly determined by two competing factors: past conditions of reinforcement and stimuli correlated with upcoming conditions.     

Examining differential item functioning due to item difficulty and alternative attractiveness

A method for analyzing test item responses is proposed to examine differential item functioning (DIF) in multiple-choice items through a combination of the usual notion of DIF, for correct/incorrect responses and information about DIF contained in each of the alternatives. The proposed method uses incomplete latent class models to examine whether DIF is caused by the attractiveness of the alternatives, difficulty of the item, or both. DIF with respect to either known or unknown subgroups can be tested by a likelihood ratio test that is asymptotically distributed as a chi-square random variable.     

影响频度记忆的几个因素

本研究通过两个实验探讨了刺激呈现频度、刺激的形式及其性质、加工深度、操作难度、意向性诸因素对频度记忆的影响,结果表明频度编码并不是一个独立、自动的加工系统,对其它识记过程有影响的因素同时也能改变被试的频度估计水平;意向的作用主要体现在当识记任务有一定难度且又缺乏有效的回忆线索时,能够在有限的范围内提高频度估计的水平;记忆痕迹的深度和广度对于频度信息的提取来说是两个彼此关联的线索。此外,本文还就频度记忆领域几个主要理论观点作了简要评述。     

量词肯定句和否定句的理解

本研究试图探索人们对舍有“所有”、“每一个”、“有一些”等量词的肯定句、否定句和双重否定句的理解。要求成人被试尽快判断呈现在计算机屏幕上的句子和哪一幅图画的内容相符。结果表明,影响反应时的因素为(1)句子的表层结构和它的底层意义的一致程度;(2)句子的意义和从图画中得出的命题的一致程度;(3)句子中使用的量词。结果还表明,否定句的判断时间不一定全都比肯定句的长。     

Aristotle and the tradition of rhetorical argumentation

The first part of this paper contends that argumentation is central and essential to Aristotle's Rhetoric, and recounts a number of arguments in support of that view, particularly the recognition that deliberative rhetoric or the rhetoric of counsel is the primary concern of Aristotle's work. The second part of the paper reviews the work that follows in this present volume to show that the other writers' views fit in perfectly with this thesis.