Conceptual preferences among preschool children.

Investigated whether a shift from complementary to similarity concepts occurs in preschool children prior to the shift from concrete-similarity to abstract-similarity concepts that had been observed among elementary school children. The conceptual preferences of 140 boys and girls, aged 3, 4, 5, and 9 yrs, were assessed using a classification task known as the Picture Pairing Test. Results indicate a distinct developmental sequence in conceptual preferences, with complementary, perceptible, functional, and finally, nominal concepts increasing significantly at various ages. The role of perceptible concepts, especially those based on common color, as a bridge between complementary concepts and more abstract forms of similarity concepts, is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The life satisfaction of nonnormal persons.

Tested the proposition that membership in a fixed-status class would be unrelated to life satisfaction. In 2 experiments, questionnaire responses of handicapped persons (144 and 46) were compared with those of normals (151 and 44). No differences were found along the dimensions of life satisfaction, frustration with life, and mood, while some evidence indicated that the handicapped were less suicidal, more religious, more oriented toward the generalized other, and felt their lives were more difficult. Handicapped Ss who acquired their defect did not differ from those born with it. In Exp III, the observed moods of 40 mentally retarded children (mean age = 13) were compared with those of 40 normals (mean age = 13) via a time-sampling procedure while they were in class and at recess at school. Parents and teachers responded to a rating scale indexing intelligence, social adjustment, and happiness for each S. Differences uncovered favored the intelligence and social adjustment of the normals and the happiness of the male retardates. Results are construed as demonstrating essential equivalence in life satisfaction for handicapped, retarded, and normal persons. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of speed of exposure and difficulty of discrimination on visual recognition of retarded readers.

Administered a tachistoscopic recognition task to 36 retarded and 36 normal 6-7 yr old readers to determine whether retarded Ss' visual-perceptual deficit was a function of speed of exposure and/or difficulty of discriminating alternatives on response cards. 3 time exposures were employed, and there were 2 sets of response cards. All cells in the factorial design were independent, and the same stimuli were presented tachistoscopically to all Ss. It was found that speed of exposure, not difficulty of response cards, differentiated between retarded and normal Ss. At the faster exposures of 10 msec and 1 sec, retarded Ss performed significantly less well than normals, but they equaled the performance of normals at the slower exposure of 5 sec. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing of information in iconic memory: Differences between nonretarded and retarded subjects.

Compared iconic memory processes of 17 undergraduates and 18 retarded Ss (primarily aged 18–28 yrs; IQ 56–77) in 4 experiments. In Exp I, a partial report paradigm was used in which 6 retarded and 6 undergraduate Ss were presented 6 pictures under 4 intervals (0–500 msec). In Exp II, using 5 Ss in each group the same procedure as in Exp I was used but letters as well as pictures were included. Results show that although overall performance for retarded Ss was poor, they did better with letters than with pictures—a reverse of the finding with undergraduate Ss. In Exp III, 2 retarded Ss were given extended practice and incentive to perform well. Asymptote was reached in 10 days but never equaled performance of unpracticed undergraduates. In Exp IV, using 5 Ss in each group, information load was varied from 1 to 4 items, and a masking stimulus was used to interrupt processing following 6 intervals that lasted up to 250 msec. Results show that (1) there are quantitative differences between intelligence groups in iconic capacity; (2) retarded Ss process information more slowly, a difference that increases with increasing information load; and (3) there are substantive structural differences in iconic memory of retarded and nonretarded Ss. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short-term memory processes in children with reading and arithmetic learning disabilities.

Examined the role of phonemic coding in short-term memory in 45 children with a reading disability, 38 children with a specific arithmetic disability, and 89 normal children, as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test. Ss, aged 7–13 yrs, were administered a series of tasks that involved the visual or auditory presentation of rhyming and nonrhyming letters and either an oral or a written response. Younger Ss (7–8 yrs) with a reading disability did not show any difference between the recall of nonrhyming and rhyming letters, whereas normal Ss of the same age did. Older reading-disabled Ss (aged 9–23 yrs), like their normal counterparts, had significantly poorer recall of rhyming as opposed to nonrhyming letters. However, their overall levels of performance were significantly lower than normals. The same pattern was found with Ss with arithmetic disabilities for the visual presentation of stimuli. For the auditory presentation of stimuli, the performance of Ss with arithmetic disabilities resembled that of normals, except at the youngest ages. Whereas a deficiency in phonological coding may characterize younger children with learning disabilities, older children with learning disabilities appear to use a phonemic code but have a more general deficit in short-term memory. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responses to cognitive and perceptual ambiguity in chronic and acute schizophrenics.

Responses of 25 acute and 34 chronic schizophrenics to perceptual and cognitive ambiguity were compared with those of 36 normal control Ss by means of: several "decision location" series consisting of blurred photographs presented in the order of increasing clarity; a series of pictures which could be matched, at Ss' discretion, with a number of statements allegedly made by the persons pictured; a series of pictures to be similarly matched with nationality names. The chronic Ss compared to normals offered earlier recognition responses on the perceptual task and matched more items on the cognitive measures. The scores of the acute group, however, yielded uniformly negative results and were found to be intermediate in relation to those of the chronic and normal Ss. (31 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and language skills in autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children.

Compared the sensorimotor skills and play behaviors of 16 normal 16–25 mo old children, 16 mentally retarded children (CA 32–80 mo, MA 17–38 mo), and 16 autistic children (CA 39–74 mo, MA 18–38 mo) to identify deficits in object knowledge specific to autism. There were no differences in sensorimotor skills between the 3 groups except that the autistic Ss were deficient in the capacity to imitate gestures and vocalizations. Autistic Ss showed less diverse functional play, particularly directed toward dolls, and less symbolic play both spontaneously and after cuing. Although functional and symbolic play and the ability to imitate were correlated with receptive language for all 3 groups, sensorimotor skills were associated with receptive language only for the normal and the mentally retarded groups. The observation that autism involves deficits in certain cognitive concepts and not others suggests that representational thought may be manifested in 2 systems, only one of which is impaired in the autistic child. Another hypothesis is that the cognitive deficits manifested by autistic children may be related to their impaired social development, because all the areas of cognitive deficit involve significant social components. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Object-discrimination learning set acquisition in young cerebral palsied children in relation to tested and rated intelligence.

Explored object-discrimination learning set formation as a potential means of assessing the intelligence of children with neuromotor handicaps. 40 learning set problems were administered to the following groups, each containing 6 2-31/2 yr. old Ss: cerebral palsied (CP) children who tested as retarded but who were rated as not being retarded, CP children who tested and were rated as being retarded, nonhandicapped retardates, and nonhandicapped children with average intelligence. The CPs who were rated as not retarded performed like the normals; both were significantly better learners than the other 2 groups. The import of these findings for the future assessment of such children and the role that other variables play in such learning are discussed. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Logical problem solving by educable retarded adolescents and normal children.

Gave a simplified version of the logical problem-solving task developed by E. D. Neimark to 20 institutionalized and 18 noninstitutionalized retardates and to 20 children from kindergarten through 3rd grade. The performance of the retardates fell below that of the normals of equal mental age. Although the retardates and the younger children solved the problem when the critical information was supplied to them, most of these Ss could not generate the necessary information by themselves, and continued to make redundant responses. For the normals, performance improved up to 81/2-9 yrs of age, at which point 90% reached criterion. Training improved the performance of 7 yr olds but had little or no effect on the performance of 6 yr olds and institutionalized retarded adolescents. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive controls and mental retardation.

Devised a color-digit interference task and 2 sorting tasks as variants of the Stroop Color-Word Test and R. Gardner, et al. (see record 1961-02266-001) sorting tasks, respectively. These tasks proved applicable to a mentally retarded sample (n = 39) and provided reliable measures of 2 cognitive control dimensions (constricted-flexible control and equivalence range). As predicted, the main test scores were significantly more variable in retarded Ss than in normals (n = 32). Analyses of performance on the color-digit interference task indicated that retarded Ss were significantly slower than the normals on all parts of the task, particularly under conditions of distraction (whether inherent in the task or externally imposed). Low IQ retarded Ss were significantly slower than high IQ retarded Ss on all parts of the task. The extreme cognitive control test scores of the retarded Ss, the nature of the attentional deficit among these Ss, and the relevance of a cognitive control approach for the training of retarded persons are discussed. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subjective versus objective measurements of deviant sexual arousal in clinical evaluations of alleged child molesters.

Psychological assessments of sex offenders involve evaluating deviant sexual arousal. We evaluated 24 male alleged child molesters and 23 normal control subjects, comparing self-reports of sexual interest with physiological responses during penile plethysmography. Alleged child molesters reported more subjective arousal to children than did normals; subjective and objective measurements were significantly correlated for alleged child molesters' response to children and normals' response to adults; alleged nonincestuous offenders had significantly higher subjective response to pictures of children than did alleged incestuous offenders; and both alleged child molesters and normals reported sexual arousal despite showing no penile responses, and repulsion despite showing significant penile responses. Results suggest that self-reports of deviant arousal in conjunction with penile plethysmography can help in differentiating pedophiles from normals and can provide critical information for clearer, more comprehensive assessments of deviant sexual arousal and denial of deviant sexual arousal than that obtainable from plethysmography alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and the experience of time.

Conducted 2 studies to investigate the effects of personality, as dichotomized along a thought-action dimension, on time perception. Study 1 divided 27 10-48 yr old psychiatric patients into groups depending on whether their weighted color responses on the Rorschach exceeded or were exceeded by the sum of the movement responses. Ss with an introversive Experience Balance (EB) overestimated time, whereas Ss with an extratensive EB underestimated time. Study 2 used 24 normal undergraduates divided into high introversive and high extraversive based on the Maudsley Personality Inventory. 2 time judgments were obtained from each S, and the effect of situational factors (stress) as well as personality was noted. Results are similar to those of Study 1. The time estimation of the action-oriented Ss was significantly more influenced by situational factors than were the time judgments of the ideational Ss. The relationship between thought-action and time estimation was significant in both normal and clinical samples. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outer-directedness in the problem solving of normal and retarded children.

2 studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that the high incidence of failure experienced by retardates results in their employing an outer-directed style of problem solving. In Study I 20 retarded and 20 normal children matched on MA experienced either a success or a failure condition on 3 games and were then tested on 2 imitation tasks. Retardates were found to be more imitative than normals. All the children were found to be more imitative following the failure than the success condition. In Study II 20 normal and 20 retarded children matched on MA and divided into experimental and control groups performed on 2 object-assembly and 1 block-board task. In the experimental condition E engaged in certain behaviors that if attended to would interfere with S's performance on the 1st object-assembly task and facilitate performance on the 2nd object-assembly task, and which would provide S with a response that could be imitated on the block-board game. As predicted, the retarded experimental group did poorer than the normal experimental group on the 1st object-assembly task, but was superior to the normals on the 2nd object assembly task. They also showed a tendency to be more imitative on the block-board game, and they made more glances toward E. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Unconscious anxiety": Phobic responses to masked stimuli.

Tested the hypothesis that an unconscious preattentive perceptual analysis of phobic stimuli is sufficient to elicit human fear responses. Selected snake- and spider-fearful Ss, as well as normal controls, were exposed to pictures of snakes, spiders, flowers, and mushrooms. A separate forced-choice recognition experiment established backward masking conditions that effectively precluded recognition of experimental stimuli both for fearful and nonfearful Ss. In the main experiment, these conditions were used to compare skin conductance responses (SCRs) to masked and nonmasked phobic and control pictures among fearful and nonfearful Ss. In support of the hypotheses, snake- and spider-fearful Ss showed elevated SCRs to snake and spider pictures as compared with neutral pictures and with responses of the nonfearful Ss under both masking conditions. Ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance indicated that the fearful Ss felt more negative, more aroused, and less dominant in relation to both masked and nonmasked phobic stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of IQ and mental age on hypothesis behavior in normal and retarded children.

156 mental-age-matched normal and retarded Ss at mental-age (MA) levels of 5.5, 7.5, and 9.5 yrs received blank-trial discrimination problems designed to expose hypothesis behavior. There was evidence that Ss at all MA levels used hypotheses. Use of feedback indicating that a response was wrong increased significantly with MA, while use of feedback indicating that a response was right increased significantly with IQ. On simple problems involving 2 stimulus dimensions, retarded and normal groups used about equal numbers of hypotheses, but on 4-dimensional problems the retarded used fewer hypotheses than normals. It is suggested that this IQ Level * Problem Complexity interaction may explain contradictions among previous findings regarding IQ effects on learning. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responsiveness to affective stimuli by obese and normal individuals.

Conducted 2 experiments to test the hypothesis that the obese are more responsive than normals to both positive and negative affective stimuli. In Exp I, obese and normal high school males (N = 46) gave ratings of positively and negatively arousing slides. In Exp II, the behavior of obese and normal children 1 mo-6 yrs old (N = 79) in a positively and a negatively arousing situation was observed. Obese Ss in both experiments responded more strongly than normals to the positive affective stimuli; obese Ss in Exp I responded more strongly than normals to the negative emotional stimulus. A possible reason for the failure of obese Ss in Exp II to respond more strongly than normals to the negative affective stimulus is discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Weight differences in emotional responsiveness to proprioceptive and pictorial stimuli.

In 2 studies, 70 overweight and 76 normal-weight undergraduates were administered the Sadness and Elation components of the Nowlis Mood Adjective Check List to investigate weight differences in emotional responsiveness to proprioceptive and pictorial stimuli. Contrary to past evidence that overweight Ss are more emotional than normals, the emotional state of normal-weight Ss fluctuated with manipulations of their facial expression, whereas that of overweight Ss did not respond to these proprioceptive cues. Although research employing affectively loaded pictures found overweight Ss to be more emotionally responsive than normals to these external stimuli, no such weight differences were obtained when less polarized pictures were used in the present studies. It is concluded that even though overweight Ss were more emotionally responsive to extremely polarized external stimuli that demand perception, they were less responsive to proprioceptive stimuli derived from facial expressions and equally responsive to moderately polarized pictorial stimuli. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of perceived competence, motivational orientation, and anxiety in segregated and mainstreamed educable mentally retarded children.

Examined whether instruments designed to tap the self-system in normal IQ children could be used with retarded pupils. The Perceived Competence Scale for Children and scales assessing intrinsic vs extrinsic orientation in the classroom and school concerns were administered to 90 retarded children mainstreamed for socialization or academic purposes and to 36 retarded children who were taught in self-contained classrooms. All Ss were aged 9–12 yrs. For each measure, the 4- or 5-factor structure found for normal-IQ children was not obtained. However 2-factor solutions were revealed, leading to the identification of 6 constructs: General Competence, Popularity, Motivation for Hard Work, Autonomous Judgment, Concern About Evaluation, and Concern About Teacher Support. The failure to find differences between mainstreamed and self-contained Ss was related to the social comparison groups used. Mainstreamed Ss compared themselves with other mainstreamed retarded pupils, whereas self-contained Ss used other self-contained pupils as their comparison group. Findings highlight the need to revise instruments for use with the retarded and to obtain social comparison information. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hemispheric asymmetry in Down's Syndrome children.

Examined auditory processing of linguistic stimulation presented dichotically to groups of 30 Down's Syndrome (DS) children, 20 non-DS retarded children who were MA and CA matched, and 20 MA matched nonretarded children, all of whom were right-handed. Ss completed a knowledge-of-numbers test and the Slosson Intelligence Test. They then listened to 20 trials of a dichotic message at approximately 70–75 db and repeated digits they heard. DS Ss showed a significant left ear advantage in processing the auditory linguistic material, while the other Ss showed the normal right ear advantage. Findings corroborate that having DS has a specific effect on the functional organization of the CNS auditory system. The right hemisphere may not be as efficient as the left hemisphere at language processing. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in the understanding of pictorial representations of sound.

Two studies examined understanding of pictures representing sound production among 112 3–6 yr olds. In Study 1, Ss labeled pictures as either showing sound or not; in Study 2, Ss chose which of a pair of pictures showed sound. Pictures varied as to the extent the representations were designed to be analogous to actual sound production in the environment. Different types of pictorial representation of sound were not equivalent in their ability to evoke a correct interpretation. Ss across the age range tested all understood the pictures that depicted postures associated with sound production in the environment. Pictures that relied on conventional or arbitrary representations of sound, such as lines radiating from a mouth, were less well understood by the younger Ss. Over the preschool years, however, there was substantial improvement in Ss' skill at interpreting these pictures. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)