INCREASING REQUESTS BY ADULTS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES USING INCIDENTAL TEACHING BY PEERS

A peer-delivered incidental-teaching procedure was used to instruct appropriate requesting in adults with moderate to severe mental retardation or autism. Three pairs of group-home residents participated in an incidental-teaching procedure to increase appropriate requesting, prompting, and responding of residents during lunch-preparation sessions. An increase in the number of incidental-teaching episodes during dinner was obtained, and remained high when lunch-making training sessions were withdrawn. In addition, during the incidental-teaching phase, an increase in appropriate requests and overall verbalizations occurred for the peer learners. Changes in appropriate requesting and overall verbalizations also remained higher than baseline when training was withdrawn.     

幼儿从电视中学单词──项伴随学习的研究

对幼儿从电视中伴随学习单词的可能性及其影响因素进行了初步的探讨。４０名小班幼儿和４６名大班幼儿参加了实验,他们在接近自然的状态下观看有字幕的动画片。结果发现：幼儿在无任何指导的情况下观看有字幕的动画片,能伴随学习到汉字,这表明,电视对幼儿的词汇发展有着积极的影响;不同性别的儿童都能同等程度地从电视中伴随学习到单词;词义的伴随学习受幼儿原有的词汇水平和幼儿对目标词熟悉程度的影响;词音的伴随学习只发生在词汇水平较高的幼儿当中,并且随着幼儿对目标词熟悉程度的增加而增加;词音和词义的伴随学习存在频度效应。     

TWO-TO-ONE versus ONE-TO-ONE STUDENT-TEACHER RATIOS IN THE OPERANT VERBAL TRAINING OF RETARDED CHILDREN1

The operant training of two retarded children simultaneously on a picture-naming task was investigated as an alternative to the more commonly reported one-to-one student-teacher ratio. In Experiment I, two conditions were compared in which the children received primary reinforcement on a fixed-ratio schedule for responding correctly on prompt and probe trials in a standardized picture-naming procedure. During the “Group Condition”, the experimenter alternated from one child to the other after each primary reinforcement, after each incorrect response, after each response omission, and after each 10-sec period in which a child did not “attend” (by making a trial-initiating response) when it was his or her turn to be worked with. During the “Individual Condition”, the experimenter worked with only one child, and presented trials whenever the child made attending responses. Experiment I demonstrated that the Group Condition was more efficient than the Individual Condition in terms of total correct responses and total pictures learned per unit of training time. Incidental learning was also found in that the children learned some of each others' pictures as well as their own, thus indicating a further advantage of the larger student-teacher ratio. In Experiment II, an attempt was made to equate the two conditions, except for the presence of two children in the Group Condition, by ignoring the child in the Individual Condition for brief periods equal to those that occurred in the Group Condition when the experimenter presented training trials to the other child. The results demonstrated that the greater efficiency of the Group Condition was not due to the manner in which training time was allocated to the two members of a group. It also replicated the finding that the children learned some of each others' words in the Group Condition.     

The Double Life of Double Effect

The U.S. Supreme Court's majorityopinion in Vacco v. Quill assumes thatthe principle of double effect explains thepermissibility of hastening death in thecontext of ordinary palliative care and inextraordinary cases in which painkilling drugshave failed to relieve especially intractablesuffering and terminal sedation has beenadopted as a last resort. The traditionaldoctrine of double effect, understood asproviding a prohibition on instrumental harmingas opposed to incidental harming or harming asa side effect, must be distinguished from otherways in which the claim that a result is notintended might be offered as part of ajustification for it. Although double effectmight appropriately be invoked as a constrainton ordinary palliative care, it is not clearthat it can be coherently extended to justifysuch practices as terminal sedation. A betterapproach would reconsider double effect'straditional prohibition on hastening death as ameans to relieve suffering in the context ofacute palliative care.     

Incidental memory for colour word associates processed in colour naming and reading aloud tasks: is a blue ocean more memorable than a yellow one?

ABSTRACT

Congruency effects for colour word associates (e.g., ocean) have been reported in Stroop colour naming tasks. However, incidental memory for such words after word reading and colour naming tasks has not been examined. In the current study, participants incidentally recalled colour word associates (e.g., ocean) and neutral words (e.g., lawyer) immediately after naming their font colour (Experiment 1a) or reading them aloud (Experiment 1b). In both tasks, recall was better for congruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in blue) than incongruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in green) or neutral items (lawyer appearing in blue).

This outcome is consistent with the idea that co-activation of a semantic colour code and a lexical representation strengthens the episodic memory representation and makes it more accessible.     

Young children's spontaneous utterances of mental terms and the accuracy of their memory behaviors: a different methodological approach

The purpose of this study was to determine whether young children's spontaneous utterances of mental terms would be congruent with the accuracy of their memory behaviours, and whether the use of an incidental memory task would yield similar developmental patterns as other methodologies. It was hypothesized that if children realize that internal mental activities influence behavioural actions, then the children's behavioural actions (recall) would be congruent with their utterances. A total of 27 three‐ and five‐year‐old children spontaneously used cognitive verbs such as knowing, forgetting, remembering, thinking, guessing and betting during a recall task. The results revealed that 39% of the 3‐year‐old children's behavioural responses and 67% of the 5‐year‐old children were congruent with their spontaneous utterances. These and other findings were consistent with studies that utilized different methodologies. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual differences in emotional intelligence and incidental memory of words1

Participants were required to complete the Japanese version of the Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire ( Toyota, Morita, & Tak?i?, 2007 ) to assess their level of emotional intelligence. Then they were asked to rate the pleasantness of an episode that each target reminded them of, followed by unexpected free recall tests. Participants with high emotional intelligence recalled targets with pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant episodes equally. However, for participants with low emotional intelligence, targets with neutral episodes were recalled less than those with pleasant or unpleasant ones. These results were interpreted as showing that the level of emotional intelligence determined the effectiveness of neutral episodes on targets as retrieval cues.     

The effects of training on caregiver implementation of incidental teaching

A brief training package consisting of modeling, rehearsal, and feedback was evaluated to train caregivers to use incidental teaching to teach 3 children with autism to request an item or activity. The training package improved correct implementation of the incidental teaching procedure by caregivers. In addition, probes indicated that caregivers could apply these skills to teach the child an additional skill.     

偶然情绪对延迟选择的影响机制

本研究旨在探讨偶然情绪对延迟选择的影响及影响机制。本研究包括两个实验, 在被试进行决策前, 分别采用图片和短片诱发其与当前决策任务无关的偶然情绪, 然后要求被试完成选择任务, 并从决策结果和决策过程两个角度考察偶然情绪对延迟选择的影响及影响机制。结果发现, 当可选项中不存在1个优势选项时, 与正性情绪相比, 个体在负性情绪下会更倾向于延迟选择, 而个体对决策信息的加工深度在偶然情绪对延迟选择的影响中具有中介作用。这可能是因为相比于正性情绪, 个体在负性情绪下会采用更深入的加工策略, 增加了决策难度, 进而提高了个体的延迟选择倾向。     

偶然情绪对决策的影响

情绪在决策领域中的引入曾历经过一个从刻意回避到日益重视的过程, 大量研究表明, 即使与决策本身无关的偶然情绪也会对人类的决策行为具有重要作用。本文通过梳理本领域的最新研究提出未来应注重考察：偶然情绪的影响条件、具体情绪的作用以及偶然情绪与可选项的情感属性对决策的交互影响。最后, 本文在情绪激发方法、情绪的操纵检测和决策任务实测等方面进行了总结并提出一点研究建议。