Dichhaptic recognition of shapes and letters in children.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 37(4) of Canadian Journal of Psychology Revue Canadienne de Psychologie (see record 2007-03779-001). The legends for Figures 1 and 2 should read as follows: Figure 1: Verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Reprinted by permission from Laterality: Functional Asymmetry in the Intact Brain, by M.P. Bryden. New York: Academic Press, 1982. All rights reserved. Figure 2: Apparatus for dichhaptic presentation of verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Reprinted by permission from Laterality: Functional Asymmetry in the Intact Brain, by M.P. Bryden. New York: Academic Press, 1982. All rights reserved.] Previous investigations of tactual asymmetry have generally used long presentation times and few have controlled responding order. The present study used dichhaptic presentation of letter and nonsense shapes, a 2-sec exposure time, and a controlled order of response to investigate tactual asymmetry in 40 8-, 10-, 12-, and 14-yr-olds. Ss were tested individually in a single session after being assigned to 1 of 2 groups. One group received the verbal material first, the other group the nonverbal material first. Nonsense shapes showed a significant left-hand superiority, whereas letters showed no consistent hand differences, suggesting that right hemisphere involvement was greater in the shapes task. No consistent age effects were found. The only significant sex differences involved a trend toward a greater left-hand (right-hemisphere) effect for males (N?=?20) than females on the shapes. (French abstract) (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Dichhaptic recognition of shapes and letters in children": Erratum.

Reports an error in "Dichhaptic recognition of shapes and letters in children" by Cheryl Gibson and M. P. Bryden (Canadian Journal of Psychology Revue Canadienne de Psychologie, 1983[Mar], Vol 37[1], 132-143). The legends for Figures 1 and 2 should read as follows: Figure 1: Verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Reprinted by permission from Laterality: Functional Asymmetry in the Intact Brain, by M.P. Bryden. New York: Academic Press, 1982. All rights reserved. Figure 2: Apparatus for dichhaptic presentation of verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Reprinted by permission from Laterality: Functional Asymmetry in the Intact Brain, by M.P. Bryden. New York: Academic Press, 1982. All rights reserved. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1984-00983-001.) Previous investigations of tactual asymmetry have generally used long presentation times and few have controlled responding order. The present study used dichhaptic presentation of letter and nonsense shapes, a 2-sec exposure time, and a controlled order of response to investigate tactual asymmetry in 40 8-, 10-, 12-, and 14-yr-olds. Ss were tested individually in a single session after being assigned to 1 of 2 groups. One group received the verbal material first, the other group the nonverbal material first. Nonsense shapes showed a significant left-hand superiority, whereas letters showed no consistent hand differences, suggesting that right hemisphere involvement was greater in the shapes task. No consistent age effects were found. The only significant sex differences involved a trend toward a greater left-hand (right-hemisphere) effect for males (N=20) than females on the shapes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit memory for nonverbal associations

A color-naming priming task was used to examine implicit memory for new nonverbal associations. Implicit memory was observed for associations between words and colors and between abstract shapes and colors. The authors also asked whether nonverbal association priming might occur more readily than verbal association priming. Colored compound nonwords were used as stimuli, and participants were asked to attend either to the 2 syllables of the compound nonword or to the compound nonword and the color in which it was printed. The authors found that the association formed depended on which attributes of the stimuli were attended to and were not more readily formed for nonverbal material. The results demonstrate that tasks that encourage unitization between the elements to be associated facilitate associative priming.     

Effects of complexity association value, and learning on the recognition of random shapes.

Describes 2 experiments, with 90 and 96 college students, respectively, to examine effects of stimulus complexity, association value, and amount of learning on recognition of random shapes. Results were evaluated using the area under the operating characteristic as the recognition measure. Both experiments indicated that increases in complexity and association value of stimuli resulted in poorer recognition performance. Increases in amount of learning in Exp. II improved recognition performance. Separate analyses of hit rate (HR) and false alarm rate (FAR) indicated that complexity affected only HR, learning affected both HR and FAR, and association value affected only FAR. An explanation of the association value effect, based on the retention and use of verbal traces in recognition is offered. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tachistoscopic recognition of Kana and Hangul words, handedness and shift of laterality difference

Nonsense Kana words as verbal stimuli and Hangul words (Korean orthographic characters) as non-verbal were presented tachistoscopically in the left or right visual field to normal right-handed, non-familial left-handed Japanese subjects, who have not seen Hangul characters. Right-handers showed a significant right (or left) field superiority for the recognition of verbal (or non-verbal) stimuli. This pattern of differences found in right-handers is, though to a slightly lesser degree, also present in non-familial left-handers, while it is absent in familial left-handers. Initial left field superiority for Hangul word recognition shifted to no laterality difference in left-handers as well as in right-handers during the learning period for Hangul words.     

Body position, facial expression, and verbal behavior during interviews.

The communicative value of body position and facial expression was evaluated by measuring an O's ability to detect a relationship between nonverbal and verbal behavior which had been simultaneously emitted. The verbal and nonverbal stimuli were collected during 2 different standardized stress interviews. Judges (Js) were shown pairs of photographs together with short written speech samples and required on each trial to pick the photograph which matched the verbal behavior. In 4 separate experiments with different groups of Js, accurate judgments were obtained. Evidence for a relationship between nonverbal and verbal behavior simultaneously emitted was replicated across 2 different samples of interview behavior and under 3 cue conditions—seeing the head, body, or whole person. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Left-ear superiority in dichotic perception of vocal nonverbal sounds.

In 2 experiments, a total of 96 right-handed college students were asked to identify 2 dichotic sounds in recordings of (a) hummed melodic patterns; or (b) vocal nonspeech sounds, e.g., laughing or crying. In both cases a significant left-ear superiority was found. Data indicate that voice quality does not independently engage left or right hemisphere mechanisms since verbal and nonverbal vocal stimuli may be processed in different hemispheres. (French summary) (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working and long-term memory deficits in schizophrenia: Is there a common prefrontal mechanism?

This study tested the hypothesis that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex deficits contribute to both working memory and long-term memory disturbances in schizophrenia. It also examined whether such deficits were more severe for verbal than nonverbal stimuli. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess cortical activation during performance of verbal and nonverbal versions of a working memory task and both encoding and recognition tasks in 38 individuals with schizophrenia and 48 healthy controls. Performance of both working memory and long-term memory tasks revealed disturbed dorolateral prefrontal cortex activation in schizophrenia, although medial temporal deficits were also present. Some evidence was found for more severe cognitive and functional deficits with verbal than nonverbal stimuli, although these results were mixed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A non-verbal analogue to the verbal transformation effect.

Investigated the effectiveness of nonspeech sounds as auditory stimuli in eliciting a nonverbal analog to the verbal transformation effect phenomenon. 25 college students were given 5 stimuli (3 pure tones of 250, 1,000, and 4,000 Hz, white noise, and a 5-note musical motif). Results indicate that the transformations elicited by the nonspeech stimuli were similar in number of forms elicited, specific forms, and types of transformations to those produced by speech stimuli. Implications for the proposed mechanisms underlying the perception of speech are discussed. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Client verbal and nonverbal reinforcement of counselor behavior: Its impact on interviewing behavior and postinterview evaluation.

Examined the effect of client reinforcement on counselor behavior within the interview as well as on selected attitudinal judgments of the counselor about the client. 30 counselor-trainees interviewed a standard client for 1 20-min interview. Following a 10-min baseline period, the client reinforced the counselor's reflection of feeling (RF) statements with either a verbal response, a verbal plus nonverbal response, or a noncontingent verbal plus nonverbal response. Counselors then completed a postinterview questionnaire measuring attraction to and clinical impression of the client. Results show that (a) counselors in verbal and verbal plus nonverbal conditions showed significant increases in RF statements, while noncontingent controls showed no significant gains; and (b) differences in counselor attraction and clinical impression of the client were minimal. Implications are discussed in terms of skill acquisition in counselor training. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal and verbal content behaviors in the prediction of interviewer effectiveness.

Assessed the ecological validity of previous research (e.g., M. B. LaCrosse, 1975; J. R. Graves and J. D. Robinson, 1976) that has suggested that an interviewer's nonverbal behaviors predominate over verbal content in the prediction of interviewer effectiveness ratings. In contrast to earlier investigations, the current study assessed naturally occurring rather than manipulated interviewer behavior and used "client" ratings of effectiveness rather than observer ratings. Data were collected from analog interviews conducted by 40 counseling students with 80 undergraduates. Results indicate that nonverbal interviewer behaviors do not clearly predominate over verbal content behaviors in the prediction of effectiveness ratings. It is suggested that earlier findings of nonverbal superiority are not generalizable to more ecologically valid interview settings. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training psychiatric nursing staff in social approval skills.

18 psychiatric nursing staff members (mean age 32 yrs) participated in an experimental training study to test the effectiveness of a brief microtraining instructional format against a traditional discussion training format. Results indicate that both microtraining and discussion treatments produced improved in-vivo performance of verbal and nonverbal social-approval skills, but microtraining treatment resulted in significantly greater in-vivo use of both verbal and nonverbal social-approval skills at posttreatment and a 5-wk follow-up. No differences in skill comprehension were evident across the 2 training treatments. (French abstract) (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negativism in verbal and nonverbal responses of autistic children.

Studied negativism in 9 autistic, 9 behavior-disturbed, and 9 normal 5-12 yr olds in 3 different stimulus conditions (verbal requests for verbal responses, verbal requests for nonverbal responses, and nonverbal requests for nonverbal responses). Each condition included 2 tasks, which were requested 15 consecutive times. Ss demonstrated that they could perform the tasks before testing, and their responses were scored according to the similarity between the response and the request. Results demonstrate that the autistic and behavior-disturbed Ss responded similarly, except when requests required verbal responses, in which case the autistic Ss were much more negative. Results suggest applications to diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Power displays between women and men in discussions of gender-linked tasks: A multichannel study.

Conducted a multichannel investigation of how gender-based familiarity moderates verbal and nonverbal behaviors between men and women. Undergraduates in 24 mixed-sex dyads discussed masculine, feminine, and non-gender-linked topics. The primary dependent variables were verbal and nonverbal behaviors related to social power. The verbal behaviors examined were speech initiations and total amount of speech; the nonverbal behaviors studied were visual behavior (while speaking and while listening), gesturing, chin thrusts, and smiling. Systematic differences in the behaviors of men and women emerged on the gender-linked tasks. On the masculine task men displayed more verbal and nonverbal power-related behavior than did women. On the feminine task women exhibited more power than men on most of the verbal and nonverbal measures. On the non-gender-linked task men displayed greater power both verbally and nonverbally than did women. There were 2 exceptions to this overall pattern. Across all conditions, women smiled more often than did men, and men had a higher frequency of chin thrusts than did women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age- and sex-related differences in left- and right-hemisphere processing by learning disabled children.

Age and sex differences in left- and right-hemisphere processing were assessed with 2 dichotic listening tasks in a sample of 48 control and 48 learning-disabled (LD) children ranging in age from 6 yrs 9 mo to 12 yrs 4 mo. Children were presented with consonant–vowel syllables (CVs) and simple square-wave and complex square-wave tones. Neither age nor sex differences in response accuracy or lateralized processing of CV stimuli were evident for control children. Borderline significance was obtained for tonal stimuli. In contrast, CV stimuli elicited a bilateral response in younger LD children, and tonal stimuli elicited a bilateral response in all LD children. Furthermore, control children were oppositely lateralized for verbal and nonverbal stimuli, whereas LD Ss exhibited a general processing bias to the same hemisphere. These data support the theory that LD children may lack the necessary functional specialization required for lateralized processing of such stimuli. In addition, these data do not fully support the developmental invariance hypothesis and may even suggest a putative right-hemisphere or bilateral processing deficiency in LD children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decoding skills in nonverbal communication and perceived interviewer effectiveness.

Examined the relationship between decoding ability in nonverbal communication and characteristic verbal and nonverbal behavior of beginning counselors during interviews. There were 17 "good" decoders and 17 "poor" decoders who conducted short interviews with a client; the decoders were assessed by the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity. Interviewer behavior was rated subjectively by the client as well as objectively by 2 trained observers who counted the occurrences of certain verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Comparison of good and poor decoders revealed no significant differences between groups on the 2 multivariate sets of ratings for clients and observers. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Three-year-olds' difficulty with the appearance–reality distinction: Is it real or is it apparent?

Four experiments investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the appearance–reality distinction using both J. Flavell, F. Green, and J. Flavell's (1986) typical verbal response paradigm and a new, nonverbal response paradigm. Both paradigms require verbal questioning, but the former involves a verbal response and the latter a nonverbal one. In the nonverbal paradigm, children were shown a deceptive object and asked to respond, nonverbally, to 2 different functional requests, 1 concerning the object's apparent property and 1 its real property. In the verbal paradigm, children were asked to state what the object looked like and what it really was. In the verbal paradigm, children were about 30% correct (a rate matching that in the literature), whereas over 90% of the same children were correct in the nonverbal paradigm. Participating in the verbal paradigm first had a detrimental effect on the children's performance in the nonverbal paradigm, but the reverse order had no effect. These results suggest that 3-year-olds can represent two conflicting properties of a deceptive object and thus understand the appearance-reality distinction in the nonverbal domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Asymmetric effects of ovarian hormones on hemispheric activity: Evidence from dichotic and tachistoscopic tests.

Previous studies have suggested a role of endogenously cycling ovarian hormones in the modulation of perceptual asymmetries. In the present investigation, participants were given perceptual asymmetry tests including verbal and nonverbal tachistoscopic and dichotic listening tasks during the menstrual and midluteal phases of the menstrual cycle. Salivary levels of estrogen and progesterone were also measured. Analyses of performance on the tachistoscopic tests revealed that left visual field, but not right visual field, accuracy was significantly lower for both verbal and nonverbal tasks at the midluteal phase than at the menstrual phase. Right ear performance on the nonverbal dichotic test was significantly reduced at the midluteal phase. Results suggest suppression of right hemisphere processing areas and possible reduction in callosal transfer efficiency at higher levels of ovarian steroids. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal and nonverbal communication of facilitative conditions.

Studied 1 verbal and 5 nonverbal cues in a multichannel communication paradigm to assess their effect on the communication of the facilitative conditions of empathy, respect, and genuineness. 15 trained counselors and 15 clients rated 32 videotaped interactions between counselor and client, each interaction portraying a different combination of verbal message, trunk lean, eye contact, vocal intonation, and facial expression. Results of empathy, respect, and genuineness ratings reveal that (a) nonverbal cues in the paradigm accounted for significantly greater message variance than did the verbal message; (b) counselors and clients differed significantly in their perceptions of the cues, and these differences (reflected in interactions) depended heavily upon the presence or absence of the remaining cues; (c) previously unstudied cues of vocal intonation and facial expression with these dependent variables proved to be significant contributors to the final judgments of facilitative conditions; and (d) the process of decoding the level of facilitative conditions is a factorially complex process which cannot be understood by factorially simple studies. Results are further discussed with respect to the role of nonverbal communication in the counseling process. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)