Development of comprehension monitoring as a function of context.

Two studies with 59 Ss (preschoolers–4th graders) explored the effects of stimulus factors on children's ability to monitor comprehension of messages as listeners in a referential communication situation. Results of Exp I show that both complexity of the stimulus array and degree of message ambiguity affected performances. In line with previous findings, 4th graders but not younger Ss showed evidence of effective comprehension monitoring. Data from Exp II show that when conducive stimulus conditions were arranged, even 1st graders demonstrated considerable skill in comprehension monitoring. In addition to investigating comprehension monitoring per se, the studies also examined the role of comprehension monitoring in directing the overall comprehension process. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Girls' dating behavior as a function of social context and maturation.

Examined how environmental and physical characteristics contribute to the emergence of adolescent girls' dating behavior. The premise was that one set of individual characteristics, pubertal processes, may have more influence on girls' dating behavior in one context than in another, specifically more in girls who attend dance schools than in those who do not. Seventh to ninth grade girls were seen, 59 who were enrolled in national classical ballet company school and 328 who were not. Body image, dating behavior, career aspirations, pubertal status, and maturational timing were assessed via self-report and maternal report. Dancers were less likely to date than nondancers. A Dance/Nondance Group?×?Pubertal Status interaction was found: Premenarcheal dancers had lower dating scores than postmenarcheal dancers, whereas menarcheal status was not related to dating in nondancers. With regard to body image, a Breast Development?×?Dance/Nondance Group interaction was found, with breast development being negatively related to body image in dancers and unrelated in nondancers. Findings are discussed in terms of interactions between environmental and physical characteristics and the goodness of fit between contextual demands and a girl's particular physical characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Therapist complementarity as a function of experience and client stimuli.

Assessed degree of therapist (TP) complementarity (CMP), an interpersonal communication strategy, in 67 TPs' responses to client statements (CSTs) that varied on 3 dimensions (directness, power, and type of affect as it varied over TP experience level). TPs at all experience levels responded similarly to different types of CSTs. CMP was lowest in response to hostile-dominant CSTs and highest in response to hostile-submissive CSTs. Differences in CMP were found across levels of experience toward direct and indirect CSTs. Professional TPs were significantly more likely to respond to indirect client statements with lower CMP than were student TPs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Arousal level in repressors and sensitizers as a function of response context.

Gave 30 male and 30 female undergraduate repressors and sensitizers "noncontextual" and "contextual" tasks, with GSR as a measure of arousal. In the contextual situation, Ss were aware that they would be required to give free associations which might be self-revealing. In the noncontextual situation, Ss were not aware that they would eventually be required to form free associations. Results from the noncontextual task show that repressors had lower arousal levels than sensitizers during perception and verbal report, but higher during free association. Findings were reversed in the contextual condition. Analogies were drawn to the behavior of repressors (hysterics) and sensitizers (obsessive-compulsives) in psychoanalysis: repressors are more easily aroused by the free association condition, whereas sensitizers are able to use free association to diminish emotional reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in counselor response as a function of experience.

The responses of 67 counselors to 21 widely varying client statements were rated on eight dimensions (dominance, approach–avoidance, focus on affect, immediacy, breadth vs. specificity, meeting client's demands, verbosity, and confrontation). The counselors were divided into three experience levels (beginning students [n?=?24], advanced students [n?=?23], and doctoral level professionals [n?=?20]), and their responses were compared. We hypothesized that student counselors would evidence different amounts of these variables than would the doctoral counselors. This hypothesis was supported on the dimensions of dominance, immediacy, meeting client's demands, verbosity, and confrontation. It was also hypothesized that response flexibility would differ across the experience levels. On the dimensions of dominance, meeting client demands, and confrontation, doctoral counselors were more flexible than were advanced student counselors. The results indicate that students focus on learning and honing the use of certain counseling skills. In the process of doing this, they tend to apply them in a rigid manner. Doctoral counselors appear more able to apply their skills flexibly depending on the situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interpretation of praise and criticism as a function of their social context.

The effect of the interaction of praise and punishment with relative social status (superordinate, subordinate, peer) was studied by exposing college students to events occurring in different social contexts (family, occupation, military). It was assumed that the context would define the frame of reference in which the praise and punishment and social status would be evaluated. The data demonstrated that praise is reacted to more favorably than criticism regardless of context, but that context determines the relative effect of evaluative statements. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GE91D. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes toward disabled persons as a function of social context and specific disability.

191 nondisabled 18–64 yr olds completed the Disability Social Relationship Scale, which includes social situation subscales of Work, Dating, and Marriage, and disability subscales of Amputee, Epilepsy, Cerebral Palsy, and Blind. Results reveal significant differences across social situations and among specific disabilities, as well as a significant interaction between social situation and disability. Thus, situational context affects attitudes toward disabled persons. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instigative aggression as a function of past experience and target characteristics.

Examined third-party-instigated aggression by manipulating the provocativeness of the same or a new target in Part 2 of a task. Effects of previous experience with aggression (i.e., interacting with partners supportive of or disapproving of aggression in Part 1) were also examined. Ss were 80 female undergraduates. Although the provocativeness of the target accounted for the most variance in the amount of aggression expressed, when the target in Part 2 was new, prior experience influenced aggression. Results are discussed in terms of an interactional model of behavior. The clearer the current situational demands (i.e., known, predictable target) were, the less the influence of past aggressive experience on continued aggression; the more ambiguous the current situation (i.e., new, unpredictable target) was, the more the influence of past aggressive experience on continued aggression. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processing by prelingual deaf students as a function of language context.

Investigated the influence of language mode (print or sign) and syntax (English or American Sign Language [ASL]) on recall, preference, and comprehension. In Exp I, the effects of reading meaningful print passages in ASL or English were tested for 12 16–29 yr old deaf and 12 16–28 yr old hearing Ss. An effort toward comprehension interpretation was supported for the hearing Ss only. Deaf Ss not trained in ASL exhibited a familiarity with ASL syntax not exhibited by the hearing Ss. In Exp II, meaningful passages were presented to 30 15–19 yr old prelingual deaf Ss in 4 language contexts (signed English, signed ASL, print English, and print ASL) in a free recall task. Results show greater recall from ASL than from English contexts. Findings indicate that the visual orientation of prelingual deaf individuals, regardless of training in ASL, leads to the development of a sign-based encoding system that responds to ASL as a familiar language. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meaningful symbols as reinforcing stimuli.

An empirical relation was demonstrated between independent variables of meaningfulness (e.g., frequency of associations, evaluation, and prepotency) and dependent variables of reinforcement value (rate of response). Adult college Ss performed in an operant situation to determine the relative reinforcing effects of 3 variables of meaningfulness. The results of a counterbalanced Treatment X Trials analysis of variance demonstrated that exposure to more meaningful stimuli will significantly (p     

Single-incentive selective associations produced solely as a function of compound-stimulus conditioning context.

Barpressing was maintained in a tone-plus-light (TL) condition in 2 groups of rats by shock-related contingencies and in 2 other groups by food-related contingencies. Responding ceased in TL absence (TL). Contingency arrangements made TL hedonically positive, relative to TL, for 1 shock group and for 1 food group and hedonically negative for 1 shock group and for 1 food group. In a stimulus-element test, the visual modality was dominant when TL was hedonically positive, whereas auditory control increased when TL was negative, irrespective of the reinforcers involved. Within-incentive contingency manipulations produced selective associations hitherto ascribed to stimulus-reinforcer interactions, suggesting that biological constraints on learning may operate at the level of conditioned psychological states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of context sensitivity in children's graphic copying strategies.

The authors report on a series of 5 experiments in which 462 5- to 10-year-old children and 109 adults were required to copy geometric figures either with no constraints or following prior exposure to primes consisting of different parsings of the figures. The analysis focused on the graphic strategies adopted by the participants to copy the models. Three developmental steps were revealed in the baseline copying condition. Priming experiments demonstrated that the age-developmental step correspondence varied as a function of the type of prime used. However, the impact of priming differed according to age. It was limited at 6 years, whereas its size was noticeable at the other ages. These results are discussed in the light of developmental models that hypothesize a major role either for endogeneous factors in cognitive development or for exogeneous and contextual factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgements of discrimination as a function of group experience and contextual cues.

The personal/group discrimination discrepancy (PGDD) refers to the tendency to report more discrimination against one's group than oneself. The authors demonstrated that the magnitude of both personal and group discrimination judgments depend on group experience and cue availability in the judgment context, using college students as Ss. For men, who have relatively little experience with gender discrimination, the addition of contextual cues that highlighted workplace discrimination produced lower estimates of both personal and group discrimination. For women, who are familiar with discrimination in general and workplace discrimination in particular, contextual cues produced higher estimates of group discrimination, but lower estimates of personal discrimination. The authors contend that these differences reflect realistic assessments by participants of their group's experiences with discrimination. Implications for conceptualizing the PGDD are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality change as a function of volunteer experience in a psychiatric hospital.

Tested 416 college students for degree of moral tolerance and self-acceptance before and after completing undergraduate psychology courses. 16 of the students concurrently did volunteer work in mental hospitals. The within-Ss analysis indicates the volunteer experience did not significantly change the moral tolerance scores, whereas it did result in greater self-acceptance scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Session evaluation and recall of important events as a function of counselor experience.

Session evaluation and type of participant-recalled important event were investigated in 25 novice counselor dyads and 9 experienced counselor dyads during 9 sessions of short-term counseling. Counselor experience was the independent variable and session evaluation was the dependent variable. Results based on the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (W. B. Stiles, 1980) showed a significant interaction effect between counselor experience and role of participant (client or counselor) for session depth. Clients also reported an increase in positive affect over the course of counseling. Experienced counselors recalled more important events involving insight, whereas novice counselors recalled more important events involving exploration of feelings or self-critique. The type of important event recalled by clients also changed over the sessions of counseling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Priming effects in schizophrenia: Associative interference and facilitation as a function of visual context.

Irrelevant stimuli that flank a fixated target may cause either facilitation or interference with target classification. 20 schizophrenic patients, 20 depressed control patients, and 20 normal control Ss were compared on a flanker priming task that involved the linear display of a target surrounded by 2 flanking letters or digits. Choice reaction time (RT) between letter and digit targets was examined as a function of flanker condition and onset asynchrony between flankers and target. Facilitative priming occurred only with prior exposure of flankers compatible with the response required and was greater in degree with schizophrenic and depressed than with normal Ss. Interference from flankers incompatible with the response required occurred less among schizophrenics than among other groups. Several different processes may be involved in the inhibition of irrelevant information by schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol use among college students as a function of their typical social drinking context.

This study investigated the relations among frequency of drinking in different social contexts; alcohol consumption, expectancies, and problems; and psychosocial characteristics among college students. Social drinking contexts were defined by the size and gender composition of social groups. Participants were 98 men and 98 women who endorsed current alcohol use. The results showed that typical social drinking contexts were associated with men's average daily number of drinks and frequency of drunkenness but were not associated with women's alcohol consumption. Controlling for alcohol expectancies and personality factors did not obscure significant social context effects for men's alcohol consumption or problems, supporting the importance of considering social context variables in studies of drinking. Future research with regard to alcohol education, intervention, and prevention strategies is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in personality as a function of college attendance or work experience.

Administered the 16 PF to 105 females and 113 males who took a job immediately after leaving high school (work group) and 177 females and 178 males who entered college immediately after high school graduation (college group). All Ss were tested twice on the 16 PF both during their senior high school year (1965) and 5 yr. later (1970). Analyses of variance were performed for each of the personality factors treated as dependent variables and with groups and occasions as factors in these analyses. Three kinds of results were observed: (a) a set of selective traits that differentiated the college and work groups initially; (b) changes in certain personality traits that were related to the treatment effects experienced by the 2 groups (i.e., college or job); and (c) age trend effects common to both groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual search as a function of type of prior experience with target and distractor.

In a visual search task, participants identified the presence of a unique shape against a background of homogeneous distractors. Types of prior experience with the target, the distractor, or both were examined. In 2 experiments, a preexposure (PE) phase was followed by a test phase. The test display consisted of a target that was either target or distractor in PE or novel. Distractors were either targets or distractors in PE or novel. Reaction time was fastest for novel targets with familiar distractors, irrespective of the source of familiarity, and slowest for novel targets with novel distractors. Results are discussed in terms of attentional explanations of latent inhibition (LI) and perceptual learning and of visual search phenomena, such as novel popout. LI, previously attributed only to a deficit in the stimulus preexposed group, may also be due to enhanced performance in the nonpreexposed group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speed of form recognition as a function of stimulus factors and test anxiety.

This study evaluated the usefulness of several theories about Rorschach color shock. Using an arabic-greco-latin square design, the influence of color, pattern of color, figure, and anxiety level on response time was investigated in 192 Ss. "The influence on response time of stimulus attributes affecting complexity was confirmed. The hypotheses that highly anxious persons are greatly affected by colors are not confirmed. Partially verified were predictions made from Hullian behavior theory. It was found that drive level and figure difficulty were related to response time in that highly anxious persons became slower with increasing difficulty of figure during warm-up trials. During the test series, however, the predicted relationship was not found." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)