Short-term memory in deaf and hearing children in relation to stimulus characteristics

Experiment 1 examined short-term memory with a serial probe task in 20 younger (mean age: 6 years, 3 months) and 20 older (mean age: 8 years, 8 months) deaf children. Four sets of stimuli were used: familiar animals, unfamiliar nonsense forms, fingerspelled letters, and lower-case print. In contrast to earlier research with hearing children, strong primacy effects were found with all stimuli at both ages, with frequent gestural and/or oral labeling but little cumulative rehearsal evident. To determine whether results were uniquely tied to deafness, identical procedures were used in Experiment 2 with 20 younger (4 years, 9 months) and 20 older (5 years, 10 months) hearing children. Again, overt activity was common, with strong primacy effects on animals and nonsense forms in the older group and on animals in the younger group. Contrasts between present and earlier findings suggest the need to consider the degree to which stimulus labels are overlearned, the role of nonverbal mediators in rehearsal, and the effects of changing educational experiences.     

The sources of developmental differences in children's incidental processing during discrimination trials

Crane and Ross reported that second graders learned more than sixth graders about attributes made relevant after solution of a discrimination task. Here two experiments are reported that enlighten the sources of this developmental difference. Both make use of an experimental technique whereby children verbalize their hypotheses during solution of a discrimination problem. The results indicate that ten-year-olds do not learn about incidental attributes that they tested while irrelevant in the pre-solution period, but that five-year-olds and seven-year-olds do. Children of all three ages process incidental information about attributes that they did not sample pre-solution. With some qualification, the incidentally processed information is retained throughout a five-minute delay interval. The results bear on developmental trends in the distribution of attention and on theoretical accounts of incidental learning in discrimination tasks.     

Individual differences in speed of phonemic analysis, visual analysis, and reading.

College student subjects (Ss) classified phrases as making sense or not according to sound in one condition, according to visual appearance in another, and in abasic task in which either strategy would yield right answers. Ss who were relatively fast in the visual condition were faster at the basic task than Ss who were relatively fast in the sound condition. Other results suggested that the former Ss used a visual strategy in the basic task while the latter used a phonemic strategy.     

Span and rate of apprehension in children and adults.

Children and adults quantified random patterns of dots, under unlimited exposure duration. For adults and children two distinct processes appear to operate. For adults the quantification of collections of from one to three dots is essentially errorless, and proceeds at the rate of 46 msec per item, while the quantification rate for from 4 to 10 dots is 307 msec per dot. For children the same operating ranges appear to hold, however children are much slower. The lower slope is 195 msec per dot, while the upper is 1049. Although the results for adults and children are similar except for the overall rates, the nature of the isomorphism between children and adults is unclear.     

When stereotypes hurt: Three studies of penalties for sex-role reversals

Three studies that demonstrate penalties for sex-role reversals are reported. In each study, subjects evaluated men and women who behaved either in line with sex-role stereotypes or counter to them. The results show that popularity ratings and perceived psychological adjustment of both passive-dependent men and aggressive-assertive women were adversely affected. The findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to recent theories about women's achievement motivation.     

Continuing problems in exploring the structure of job satisfaction

Job satisfaction ratings-defined as the product (importance) X (what the job should offer, what the job actually offers)-on 29 job dimensions were factor analyzed for two large and randomly drawn samples of management-level males. An identical analysis was also carried out on the perceived discrepancy score alone. Differences between the results of the analyses on the two types of measures indicated that while the importance weighted measure of job satisfaction is more elegant and conceptually appealing, it is embedded in considerable measurement difficulty. Some probable sources of and possible approaches to handling this difficulty were offered.     

The actual and retrospective-occupational self-concept dimensions of retired educators

A 20-item adjective checklist was used by 118 retired educators to describe their actual and retrospective-occupational self-concepts. The men made their retrospective ratings for middle-aged and preretired occupational roles. The intercorrelations among the self-concept ratings were multiple-set factor analyzed, and seven common dimensions were identified: (1) stability, (2) conventionality, (3) independence, (4) practicality, (5) status, (6) confidence, and (7) cleverness. The results suggested that the retired educators had used the same dimensions in describing their actual and retrospective-occupational self-concepts. The percentages of variance contributed by the dimensions within the self-concept structures were also reported and discussed within the framework of career development.     

Age,sex, training,and the measurement of field dependence

This study was designed to: (a) examine the effects of age and sex on a person's susceptibility to field dependence training; (b) determine whether the field dependence phenomenon is a function of “cognitive style” or of a person's general inability to make correct judgments in the face of too much confusing and inaccurate information. Traditional Rod and Frame scoring is based on the latter assumption. Interpretation of results, however, has traditionally been based on the “cognitive style” assumption. Results indicate that Rod and Frame results are not a function of cognitive style. This seems particularly true of two aspects of the field dependence phenomenon: (a) the sex difference effect and (b) the correlation between Rod and Frame and Embedded Figures results. Age, more than sex, may be a function of both cognitive style and general ability to perceive the upright. A training effect was not demonstrated. Hypotheses were put forward to explain the nature of field dependence, the magnitude of field dependence errors, and the lack of a training effect.     

Spontaneous private speech and performance on a delayed match-to-sample task

Spontaneous private speech samples were obtained from 65 kindergarten children (mean age 70.3 months) from one suburban (n = 36) and one city (n = 29) school as they worked alone on a delayed match-to-sample (DMS) task with three levels of difficulty (2, 10, and 30 sec delays). As expected increases in DMS delay intervals produced decreased performance and increases in private speech. The expected increased positive relationship between task relevant private speech and performance for longer delays was found in city children but not suburban children. Since mean IQ scores were significantly different for the two groups this variable was further examined in post hoc analyses and discussed along with socio-economic status as possible explanations for the observed school-sample differences. A within-subject comparison for all children showed the percentage of speaking trials correct at 30-sec delay to be significantly greater than the percentage of nonspeaking trials correct. The effect of one experimenter modeled trial on a subsequent 10 trials at 30-sec delay was to increase speech and performance and to show a stronger relationship between speech and performance than for premodeling trials. These exploratory findings with a relatively simple two color matching task suggest further explorations of spontaneous private speech as a way of studying internalization of self regulatory cognitive strategies.     

Looking where you listen: visual cues and auditory attention

In the non-laboratory environment, we are generally able to see the source of the sounds to which we are attending. In a preliminary examination of how and to what degree we might use this visual information, subjects shadowed one of two female voices when able to see the persons speaking (Experiment I) or when able to see, and thus precisely localize, the auditory loudspeakers (Experiment II). Selective performance was improved by being able to see the lip movements of the people whose voices were heard, and by being able to localize visually the sources of the voices.