Learning outcomes and their effects: Useful categories of human performance.

The outcomes of learning are persistent states that make possible a variety of human performances. While learning results are specific to the task undertaken, learning investigators have sought to identify broader categories of learning outcomes in order to foresee to what extent their findings can be generalized. Five varieties of learning outcomes have been distinguished and appear to be widely accepted. These categories are intellectual skills (procedural knowledge), verbal information (declarative knowledge), cognitive strategies (executive control processes), motor skills, and attitudes. Each of these categories may be seen to encompass a broad variety of human activities. It is held that results indicating the effects on learning of most principal independent variables can be generalized within these categories but not between them. Five categories exist because (1) they differ as human performances, (2) the requirements for learning them are different despite the pervasiveness of such general conditions as continguity and reinforcement, and (3) the effects of learning differ. It is argued that these categories represent a functional middle ground and are well-suited as a basis for future research. (50 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Necessity and natural categories.

Our knowledge of natural categories includes beliefs not only about what is true of them but also about what would be true if the categories had properties other than (or in addition to) their actual ones. Evidence about these beliefs comes from three lines of research: experiments on category-based induction, on hypothetical transformations of category members, and on definitions of kind terms. The 1st part of this article examines results and theories arising from each of these research streams. The 2nd part considers possible unified theories for this domain, including theories based on ideals and norms. It also contrasts 2 broad frameworks for modal category information: one focusing on beliefs about intrinsic or essential properties, the other focusing on interacting causal relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reliability and the number of rating-scale categories.

"Ss (N = 236) rated 20 foods as to preference using rating scales containing 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9 categories. Test reliability (summed ratings for each S) and rater reliability (summed ratings for each food) were computed for each scale. Test reliability was constant over the entire range of categories and was very similar to reliabilities found in another study. Rater reliability was constant from five to nine categories, but was slightly lower at two and slightly higher at three categories. It was concluded that test reliability is independent of the number of scale categories, and that rater reliability is relatively constant but" warrants further research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract coherent categories.

Many studies have demonstrated the importance of the knowledge that interrelates features in people's mental representation of categories and that makes our conception of categories coherent. This article focuses on abstract coherent categories, coherent categories that are also abstract because they are defined by relations independently of any features. Four experiments demonstrate that abstract coherent categories are learned more easily than control categories with identical features and statistical structure, and also that participants induced an abstract representation of the category by granting category membership to exemplars with completely novel features. The authors argue that the human conceptual system is heavily populated with abstract coherent concepts, including conceptions of social groups, societal institutions, legal, political, and military scenarios, and many superordinate categories, such as classes of natural kinds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identifying basic categories.

Categories that are at a level of abstraction allowing optimal differentiation have been termed basic. Such categories appear to have a general advantage in ease of cognitive processing over other, nonbasic categories. The present paper compares 2 quantitative procedures for determining whether a category is basic. The 1st, predicated on the notion of cue validity, can be shown to be unsuitable. The 2nd, predicated on the notion of category–feature collocation, appears to be an appropriate measure of intercategory differentiation. Cue validity is defined as the probability with which the possessor of a given feature is a member of a particular category. The collocation measure, on the other hand, represents (in the present context) the product of cue validity and a 2nd factor. This 2nd factor is the converse of cue validity: the probability with which a member of a given category possesses a particular feature. Basic categories are identified as those for which relatively large numbers of features yield maximal category-feature collocations. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concerning the concern over the medical model.

Comments that I. G. Sarason and V. J. Ganzer (1968) have neglected to mention an important aspect of the criticism of medical models. For some critics of medical models, the primary issue is the symptom–underlying illness paradigm, which implies that abnormal behavior results from different processes than normal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships as natural categories.

Five experiments assessed the hypothesis that perceivers spontaneously organize social information around relationship categories. Ss were exposed to information items (structured in 3 formats) about each of 8 targets. Half of the Ss were told that the targets were 4 married couples, and the couple members were identified (married couple condition). The remaining Ss received the target information in the same sequence, but were informed that targets were married to an unspecified other (yoked couple condition). Ss free recalled the information and matched the information items with the target names. Ss cognitively organized the information around married couple categories more so than yoked couple categories and confused married couple members with one another more so than yoked couple members. Formation of relationship categories occurred at the encoding rather than the retrieval stage. The hypothesis that relationships serve as natural categories was strongly supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Color categories in macaques.

Investigated whether macaque monkeys partition the photic spectrum into the same 4 basic hue categories that humans do (i.e., blue, green, yellow, and red). Seven males were trained to respond in the presence of one chromatic stimulus and were tested, in extinction, for generalization to others. In extinction, Ss responded at similar and high levels to stimuli that fell in the same human hue category as the training stimulus and at similar and much lower levels to stimuli that fell in a different human hue category from the training stimulus. It is concluded that macaques and humans categorize the spectrum in a similar fashion. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Objects, parts, and categories.

Conducted 4 studies to show that the basic level differs qualitatively from other levels in taxonomies of objects and of living things. The 4 studies show that (1) parts prevail at the basic level, (2) basic level categories differ by parts, (3) subordinate level categories share parts, and (4) parts vary in perceived goodness. It was found that part terms proliferated in Ss' listings of attributes characterizing category members at the basic level, but were rarely listed at a general level. At a more specific level, fewer parts were listed, although more were judged to be true. Perceptual salience and functional significance both contributed to perceived part goodness. It is proposed that part configuration underlies the various empirical operations of perception, behavior, and communication that converge at the basic level. Part configuration underlies the perceptual measures because it determines the shapes of objects to a large degree. Parts underlie the behavioral tasks because most behavior is directed toward parts of objects. Labeling appears to follow the natural breaks of perception and behavior; consequently, part configuration also underlies communication measures. Because elements of more abstract taxonomies, such as scenes and events, can also be decomposed into parts, this analysis provides a bridge to organization in other domains of knowledge. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Supervisors' Experiences of Trainee Impairment and Incompetence at APA-Accredited Internship Sites.

This collective case study examined the process by which experienced supervisors identified and intervened with impaired trainees. Twelve participants who worked at 3 university counseling center internships were identified for inclusion on the basis of the centers' reputations for being active in discussing and addressing intern competence problems. Participants completed a background questionnaire and were interviewed. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Y. S. Lincoln & E. G. Cuba, 1985). Participants identified key issues that affected their ability to intervene appropriately, including lack of preparation for the evaluative components of supervision, the degree of agency and collegial support for supervisors, and the emotional difficulty of intervening. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Household work and the development of concern for others.

In 2 studies, information was collected about the amount of family-care and self-care household work 9- to 14-year-old children performed and whether this work was done on a routine basis or in response to requests from others. Only routine family-care work was positively correlated with concern for others demonstrated in the family, and only in older children. There was no relation between type of household work assignment and prosocial behavior directed to a stranger. Older children were assigned more routine self-care tasks in the 1st study, and older girls more routine family-care work in the 2nd study. Assignment of household work is one of several precursors of prosocial development, but type of household work assigned is critical. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective attention and the acquisition of new phonetic categories.

A class of selective attention models often applied to speech perception is used to study effects of training on the perception of an unfamiliar phonetic contrast. Attention-to-dimension (A2D) models of perceptual learning assume that the dimensions that structure listeners' perceptual space are constant and that learning involves only the reweighting of existing dimensions to emphasize or de-emphasize different sensory dimensions. Multidimensional scaling is used to identify the acoustic-phonetic dimensions listeners use before and after training to recognize the 3 classes of Korean stop consonants. Results suggest that A2D models can account for some observed restructuring of listeners' perceptual space, but listeners also show evidence of directing attention to a previously unattended dimension of phonetic contrast. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of the structure of color categories.

Previous investigators have argued that basic color categories are structured in terms of a universal focal area with varying boundaries. In the present study 2 developmental implications were investiaged: (a) that foci for color categories become established and are stabilized earlier than boundaries and (b) that focal judgments are always more stable than boundary judgments. A total of 20 kindergartners, 40 3rd graders, and 40 adults served in 3 color designation experiments modeled after those of B. Berlin and P. Kay (1969). Means and variances of focal and boundary judgments for the 8 basic chromatic terms were determined for the 3 groups. In general, both hypotheses were supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Traits as goal-based categories: The importance of goals in the coherence of dispositional categories.

It is argued that goals are central to the meaning and structure of many traits and help define the prototypicality structure of those traits. Partly on the basis of L. W. Barsalou's (1985) work on goal-derived categories, it was predicted that goals help define the judged prototypicality of many trait-related behaviors and the confidence with which people make trait inferences from those behaviors. Consistent with this hypothesis, ratings of the extent to which behaviors achieved the goal associated with a trait strongly predicted the typicality of the behaviors. Furthermore, the rated goal-relatedness of a behavior also strongly predicted the confidence with which people would make a trait inference from that behavior. It is suggested that goals play a major role in the conceptual coherence of traits and other social categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Death concern, futurity, and anticipation.

The relationship between death concern and future time perspective was investigated. Undergraduate male Ss selected from the upper and lower quartiles of a death-concern questionnaire were compared on a measure of future time perspective, and on the Picture Arrangement and Vocabulary subjects of the WAIS. Ss with low death concern showed significantly greater extension into the future and obtained significantly higher scores on the Picture Arrangement subtest than did Ss with high death concern. No difference between the 2 groups was obtained on the Vocabulary subtest. The relationship between death concern and temporal experience is discussed, and suggestions for future research advanced. (35 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emerging areas of ethical concern.

Reviews the development of the ethical standards of psychologists (see American Psychological Association 38:2), and considers whether "there is a significant gap between the requirements of practitioners and the guidelines" provided in this code of ethics. 3 questionnaire surveys of the 1969 membership of the American Psychological Association concerning (1) community psychology, (2) psychotherapy, and (3) research with human Ss are examined. Regarding ethics education, it is suggested that ethics be included as part of a more general course in professional problems. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of concern for others.

Investigated the development of prosocial and reparative behaviors by examining children's responses to distresses they caused and those they witnessed in others during the 2nd yr of life. Prosocial behaviors (help, sharing, provision of comfort) emerged between the ages of 1 and 2, increasing in frequency and variety over this time period. These behaviors were linked to expressions of concern as well as efforts to understand and experience the other's plight. Children's reparative behaviors after they had caused distress also increased with age. Age changes in these early signs of moral development were accompanied by social–cognitive changes in self-recognition. In assessments at age 2, children were most responsive to distress in their mothers but also showed some sensitivity toward unfamiliar persons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Combining graded categories: Membership and typicality.

Forming a conjoint category (square tables) from constituent categories (squares and tables) has traditionally been remodeled by formal set intersection. In this traditional view, in which categories are treated as precisely defined sets, an item is a member of the conjoint category if and only if it is a member of both constituent categories. However, as is now widely believed, many categories should be treated as graded, with members that vary in typicality and boundaries that are inexact. In the present article, it is argued that set intersection is inappropriate for combining graded categories. The authors propose an alternative formal mechanism in which a conjoint category is constructed from constituent categories by forming a joint distribution of values. The proposed model accounts for both membership and typicality of instances in conjoint categories, but only when the constituent categories are independent, or the relation between them is known. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)