Neurological soft signs and school achievement: The mediating effects of sustained attention

A group of 115 black male adolescents drawn from a clinically unselected birth cohort, half of whom were known to have had neurological soft signs at age 7, were examined at age 17 to determine the relation between soft signs and performance on standard tests of school achievement and sustained attention. Three signs measured at age 17-dysgraphesthesia, difficulties with rapid alternating movements (dysdiadochokinesis), and motor slowness—were related to lower concurrent and past IQ and to impaired performance on laboratory and paper-and-pencil measures of sustained attention. The relation between signs and the attentional measures remained significant after IQ was statistically controlled. The three age 17 soft signs as well as age 7 signs were related to impaired performance on standardized tests (age 17) of school achievement. Most of the relation between signs and school achievement could be accounted for by the variance signs shared with sustained attention. One sign, mirror movements, was unrelated to all other attentional and cognitive measures.The study was supported by center grant MH 306906 and research training grant 5 T32 MH 13043-13 from the National Institute of Mental Health, as well as by the City College and the City University Computing Centers. We thank Lillian Belmont and two reviewers for their critical comments on an earlier version of the paper. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Joseph Barmack.     

Continuities in the development of the physical and social sciences: Principles of a new social physics

The original concept of “social physics” was built on positivist philosophy and scientific method. Evidence from quantum physics suggests that a postpositivist “social physics” may yet be viable, not because social science should emulate physics, but because physics is more like social science. The five principles of complementarty, uncertainty, the measurement problem, nonlocal causation, and participatory collusion are presented in this article to demonstrate the contemporary convergence of the physical and social sciences into a new social physics. E. Sam Overman is associate professor of public affairs at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado at Denver, Denver CO 80204. He recently editedMethodology and Epistemology for Social Science, selected papers by Donald T. Campbell (University of Chicago Press, 1988). He has published other articles on policy physics and social science philosophy, and has conducted research and published extensively in the area of information resource policy and management.     

Vigilance, personality and strength of the nervous system

Numerous attempts have been made to explain the overall level of performance and the change in performance over time in vigilance tasks in terms of the proposed inverted U relationship between performance and ‘arousal’. The present experiment investigated the effects on vigilance performance of the following variables: introversion, neuroticism, time of day, accessory sensory stimulation, ‘signal frequency’ and time on task. Some measures of subjective state and body temperature were also included. The behavioural measures of overall performance revealed interactions involving neuroticism and time of day, and between neuroticism and frequency. This may reflect the operation of response bias factors, though these may be influenced by ‘arousal’. There were also main effects for several of the factors which may have practical significance. There was a significant effect of time on task on all the behavioural measures but no clearcut effects of personality on the vigilance ‘decrement’. It is argued that the latter may not provide the most satisfactory test of the inverted U model and its relationship to personality. However, interactions between noise and time on task for some of the measures may have practical importance. Measures of subjective state showed a fall in the reported level of ‘arousal’ accompanied by a rise in reported ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’ with time on task. Body temperature was higher after the task than before.     

Metaphors do not use associations between concepts,they are used to create them

Does the interpretability and aptness of a metaphor depend on prior existing associative relations between the metaphor topic and vehicle? Lexical decision latencies for pairs of words drawn from apt, comprehensible metaphors were no faster than latencies for randomly paired words. In contrast, lexical decision latencies for associatively related word pairs were faster than latencies for randomly paired words. These data suggest that good metaphors do not use preexisting associations to achieve their effects. Instead, we argue tht people use metaphors to create new relations between concepts. Implications for a theory of metaphor comprehension are discussed.     

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”: Acceptance of Paternalistic and Ally Political Discourses Both Predict Pro-Roma Solidarity Intentions Through Moral Inclusion

The way politicians talk about minorities institutes the normative context of intergroup relations. We investigated how endorsement of different political discourses predicts donation and collective action intentions by majority members toward the Roma in five European countries. The survey was conducted online using samples demographically similar to the populations of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, France, and Ireland (N = 5,054). First, results showed that accepting paternalistic discourse versus discourse promoting allyship were not distinguishable; both promoted higher moral inclusion which in turn predicted higher prosocial intentions. Second, donations (i.e., immediate relief) and collective action (i.e., social change action) were driven by identical factors. Third, acceptance of openly hostile political discourse neither predicted moral exclusion, nor lower prosocial intentions. In summary, our research provides important evidence that when it comes to Roma—non-Roma relations, the previously established distinction between solidarity intentions that aim to solidify status relations versus bring about social change is completely blurred, presumably because of the social context in which any positive message communicates moral inclusion challenging the hostile status quo.     

A survey of referral problems in 59 Ohio school districts

Feedback for the school psychologist is vital to construct and maintain remedial or preventative programs in the public schools. This study was undertaken to see if referral data would be useful as a source of such information.

Referral forms were solicited from school psychologists in 59 Ohio school districts and an analysis was made of their contents. The data obtained indicates that referral information can be used to provide school psychologists clues pertaining to referral procedures and the types of children and problems referred.

Specifically, this study indicates a greater need in the area of communication among pupil personnel workers. Further, it indicates that the psychologist in the school deals largely with problems of an academic nature thus offering a direction for in-service programming. Finally, the data reveals an interesting trend in the area of mental health which could possibly be an area of fruitful research.     

Hemispheric involvement in shadowing vs. interpretation: a time-sharing study of simultaneous interpreters with matched bilingual and monolingual controls

A time-sharing study used shadowing and interpretation/paraphrasing tasks to evaluate lateralization in professional interpreters individually matched to bilingual and monolingual controls. A two-step multivariate general linear model procedure was used to determine lateralized effects and extent of disruption produced by the tasks. Results revealed the monolingual group to be left lateralized for both tasks, but the two bilingual groups were lateralized in the LH only for shadowing. The monolingual group was significantly different from the bilingual groups in the pattern of hand asymmetry for interpretation/paraphrasing. The findings replicate outcomes of prior repeated measures analysis of variance procedures on percentage of change scores. However, new information is added by the more refined analysis. The findings are also discussed in terms of previous laterality studies using similar tasks and subject samples.     

Measuring and predicting the effects of alcohol consumption on contrast sensitivity for stationary and moving gratings

Contrast sensitivity was measured for 12 healthy young males while sober, after ingestion of an alcohol placebo, and after ingestion of alcohol (95% grain alcohol; mean estimated blood alcohol level = .088%). Observations were made for both stationary gratings and gratings that traveled through a circular path and required pursuit eye movements. The significant alcohol-related reduction in contrast sensitivity was 2.6 times greater for moving (.29-log-unit reduction) than for stationary gratings (.11-log-unit reduction). The loss in contrast sensitivity for the moving gratings of high spatial frequency (12 cpd) was particularly severe (.37 log unit). Estimated blood alcohol level was correlated with the loss in contrast sensitivity for moving gratings (r = .61), but not with the loss for stationary gratings. Estimated blood alcohol level was strongly correlated with the difference between the loss in contrast sensitivity to moving and stationary gratings (r = .75). These results are consistent with reports that alcohol consumption degrades the ability to make pursuit eye movements. Subjects’ perceived intoxication level was not a reliable predictor of any index of visual performance.     

Role of intertrial interval following an escape or avoidance response in bar-press avoidance

In three experiments, rats learned bar-press avoidance as a function of the intertrial interval following an escape or an avoidance. The general hypothesis is that the length of these intervals affects bar-press avoidance differentially, depending on whether an avoidance follows an escape (avoidance/escape) or an avoidance (avoidance/avoidance) on the previous trial. Specifically, it is proposed that short escape ITIs will facilitate avoidance/escape and avoidance/avoidance, while avoidance ITIs will have no effect on avoidance responding. The results tend to support this hypothesis. The shorter the intertrial interval following an escape, the higher the probability of both measures: avoidance/escape and avoidance/avoidance. No effect of avoidance interval was found on avoidance/avoidance. Unpredictedly, however, it was found that in comparison to a very short intertrial interval following an avoidance (0.5 sec), relatively long intervals (5 and 45 sec) facilitate avoidance/escape. These results were interpreted as mainly reflecting nonassociative factors such as shock-produced activity.