Papers reviewed and determined not to be word norm studies. Use the flag icon to report errors or suggest re-inclusion.
18265 papers
Three hundred eighty sign/glosses of two grammatical word classes were rated for sign translucency and were compared to referent ratings made earlier on concreteness. The ratings revealed that verbs were rated significantly more translucent than nouns but less concrete than nouns. In terms of differences in concreteness and translucency within sign/glosses, verbs tended to be rated similarly for both variables, while individual nouns were rated higher in concreteness. Analysis of the rating categories for nouns and verbs indicated that the lower the rated translucency level of nouns and verbs, the greater the probability of differences between translucency and concreteness ratings. For levels of concreteness, differences in ratings between concreteness and translucency were greater for high concrete and low concrete words than for words of intermediate concreteness. Implications for teaching of signing to language-impaired individuals are discussed.
A sample of 275 men and 370 women were given the Sexual Arousability Inventory which requests an arousal rating of 28 sexually-related activities. Differences were obtained between those subjects defined as having low experience in cohabitation versus high experience. The role of novelty in sexual experience is discussed in relation to the results of the study.
Interactional analysis (IA) systems have been devised and applied to doctor-patient dialogues to describe encounters and to relate process to outcomes. Prior work in this area has been typified by the use of a single taxonomy for classifying verbal behaviors and limited outcomes (compliance and/or satisfaction). We applied three different IA systems (Bales, Roter's modified Bales with affective ratings, and Stiles' "Verbal Response Modes") to 101 new-patient visits to a general medical clinic for which multiple outcomes had been determined: several measures of patient knowledge of problems at conclusion of visit; patient compliance with drugs (over the ensuing three months); and patient satisfaction with the visit (perceived technical, interpersonal and communication quality). Within IA systems, cross tabulations and multiple regressions were performed to relate encounter events to outcomes. Across IA systems, multiple regression R2 and R2 adjusted (R2a) for the number of independent variables entering were used to characterize strength of relationships. Roter's IA system showed stronger relationships to outcomes of knowledge (41% R2, 27% R2a) and compliance (44% R2, 28% R2a) than did Bales' or Stiles' systems. R2 for patient satisfaction was identical for Bales and Roter (35%), and greater than R2 for Stiles (14%). We conclude that choice of IA system for research or teaching purposes should be based on behaviors and outcomes of particular interest and importance to the user. Based on audioreview of tapes, Roter's approach is less time-consuming and may perform as well as more complex systems requiring transcript analysis.
ABSTRACT In the New York area, there are three local terms for “dragon fly”: darning needle, dining needle, and diamond needle. We analyze the distribution of these terms and their relation to the national norm, dragon fly. (Language variation, dialectology, language change.)
Digital filter techniques have been applied to the analysis of eye movement data. Methods were developed to calculate eye velocity and eye acceleration in real-time from an electronystag-mogram (ENG) signal that was recorded using a one-pole RC high-pass filter in the preamplifier. Nonrecursive, finite impulse-response digital filters were designed to remove the effects of the RC high-pass filter and calculate the first and second time derivatives of the ENG signal, as well as remove high-frequency noise. Applying these new techniques to the analysis of vestibular nystagmus enables estimation of the transfer characteristics of the vestibuloocular system.
490 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 58, NUMBER 2 (1982) is a detailed report of the construction, development, and validation of an EFL placement test for German university students. The DELTA is a norm-referenced mix of discrete point and integrative measures, which is shown to be very efficient in predicting later success in learning English, as well as being useful in languageacquisition research. 'Measurement or global assessment of oral foreign language proficiency?', by W. Knibbeler, compares the global and analytic measurement of the French of 108 Dutch adult learners. K attempts to ascertain—via the creation of indices of correctness, fluency, and lexical variety—whether speech acts can or should be described by counting words and errors. The results show a high correlation between the global ratings of proficiency given by trained judges and the ratings derived from quantitative analysis oftranscription ofrecorded speech, the major difference being that global assessment is much less time-consuming. The last three articles are more directly concerned with the quantitative analysis of learner errors. T. Slama-Cazacu and T. Dutescu-Caliban present 'The first hierarchical system of errors (HSE) in the acquisition of English by native speakers ofRomanian', a statistical study from the Romanian-English Contrastive Project of Bucharest. A total of 1183 errors produced by 252 speakers are analysed hierarchically by grammatical structure, taking into account frequency of occurrence and communicative importance. The authors scrutinize the different tasks involved, learner strategies such as 'disguising', the effect of time on learning and errors, and other variables; they conclude that the classical contrastive hypothesis is not valid, since most errors result not from the base language, but rather from influences in the material already acquired in the target language. They outline routes for further contrastive analysis and error therapy. U. O. H. Jung compares the written English of dyslexic and non-dyslexic German school children in 'Dyslexia and the foreign-language teacher'. J first reviews the literature on dyslexia, and then examines the performance of388 subjects on a dictation-cloze test. The results indicate that the classic definition of dyslexia, as characterized by reversal or inversion ofgraphemes in reading and writing, needs to be adjusted (at least in second-language learning situations ), since such a phenomenon represents only 3% of the performance errors; indeed, the 'normal' children tended to reverse and invert letters more often than the dyslexic children. R. Grotjahn closes the volume with a critical assessment of the methodological issues inherent in the quantification of articulatory difficulties —'Zur Quantifizierung der Schwierigkeit des Sprechbewegungsablaufs'. His specific focus is the quantitative definition of the problems which learners encounter in the articulation of German consonant sequences. This volume, which shows substantial awareness of the state of language research in the United States, seems significant for several reasons, not the least of which is the presentation ofthe meticulous research ofEuropean scholars who are not well-known in America. Particularly because ofits critical perspective and dedication to empirical substantiation of learning and teaching theory, the volume will be of considerable value to researchers in language acquisition and proficiency—whether linguists, psychologists, or psychometricians. [Alicia Pousada, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, CUNY.] Deep dyslexia. Ed. by Max Coltheart, Karalyn Patterson, and John C. Marshall. London & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. Pp. xi, 444. $45.00. In 1966, John Marshall and Freda Newcombe published a case study concerning 'selective dysphasic impairment', with specific emphasis on 'the linguistic aspect of paralexia'. When their patient was asked to read aloud single, unrelated words, he showed an interesting error pattern; instead of saying the given words, he gave semantically-related substitutions, e.g. 'uncle-nephew', 'liberty-freedom', 'little-short' etc. In a subsequent paper (1973) Marshall & Newcombe suggested that these substitution errors indicated the impairment of the spelling -sound route to the lexicon. Within half a decade, the dysphasic profile indicating nonfluent speech, fairly good object-naming, reduced short-term memory span, and predominantly semantic substitutions in oral reading became known as 'deep dyslexia' or 'phonemic dyslexia' (T. Shallice & E. Warrington, 1975). In 1978 a symposium was held at Jesus College, Cambridge, to discuss the 22 cases (16 English and 6 Japanese) reported in the neuropsychological literature. The present book is a result of this meeting. BOOK...
Formal theories have linked pathological anxiety to a failure in fear response inhibition. Previously, we showed that aberrant response inhibition is not restricted to anxiety patients, but can also be observed in anxiety-prone adults. However, less is known about the influence of currently experienced levels of anxiety on inhibitory learning. The topic is highly important as state anxiety has a debilitating effect on cognition, emotion, and physiology and is linked to several anxiety disorders. In the present study, healthy female volunteers performed a fear conditioning task, after being informed that they will have to perform the Trier Social Stress Test task (<i>n</i> = 25; experimental group) or a control task (<i>n</i> = 25; control group) upon completion of the conditioning task. The results showed that higher levels of state anxiety corresponded with a reduced discrimination between a stimulus (CS+) typically followed by an aversive event and a stimulus (CS-) that is never followed by an aversive event both during the acquisition and the extinction phase. No effect of state anxiety on the skin conductance response associated with CS+ and CS- was found. Additionally, higher levels of state anxiety coincided with more negative valence ratings of the CSs. The results suggest that increased stress-induced state anxiety might lead to stimulus generalization during fear acquisition, thereby impairing associative learning.
During the last 20 years, linguistic data processing mainly has been seen as a tool to develop linguistic regularities (or detect irregularities) of a given natural language, especially to handle large textual databases ("Corpora"). A second motivation to use a computer was to test some theories or models of a language system (or a part of it) using a simulation program. As a result of both strategies, the "Saarbrücken Text Analysis System" has been implemented. At present, a very large lexical database is available to analyse written German texts morphologically and syntactically. The syntactic parser is able to handle every German sentence with more than 90% "correct" results. On the other hand, the development of large (textual) databases within different fields (e.g. law, patent specifications, medicine) is increasing rapidly. Therefore, a computer aided indexing system ("Computergestützte Texterschließung: CTX") has been developed at Regensburg and Saarbrücken University to improve the (even natural language oriented) access to textual data ("free text") applying linguistic strategies to information retrieval processes.\nMain results of feasibility studies, especially in the field of German Patent Documentation, are presented.
The present study investigated the relationship of mothers' childrearing attitudes, children's feelings of inferiority, and child's gender to children's total Need for Power and Fear of Power. Subjects were 51 boys and 64 girls, ages 11 to 13 attending an urban parochial school. Subjects were administered a TAT which was scored for Need for Power and Fear of Power according to Winter's system. Children's feelings of inferiority were measured using the Personal Inferiority scale of Rogers' Personal Adjustment Inventory. The mother of each subject completed Roth's Mother-Child Relationship Evaluation which produced scores for each mother on the four attitudes of Acceptance, Overprotection, Overindulgence, and Rejection, as well as a Confusion-Dominance rating. A correlational analysis of all variables revealed significant relationships between children's Fear of Power and total Need for Power; between gender and feelings of inferiority; and among the subscales of the Mother-Child Relationship Evaluation. A stepwise multiple regression analysis to determine the effect of the independent variables on children's Need for Power produced no significant results. A discriminant analysis performed to determine whether any combination of independent variables would discriminate between High and Low Fear o Power groups produced a significant discriminant function. Maternal childrearing attitudes of Overindulgence and Rejection contributed most to the function. Children High in Fear of Power tended to have mothers who were most Overindulgent and least Rejecting. Classification of subjects into the two Fear of Power groups resulted in accurately assigning 65.2% of the cases. Children's innate position of powerlessness relative to adults and the controlling qualities of mothers' Overindulgence were discussed as possible contributors to the emergence of children's power motivation. Suggestions regarding further research were offered.
Abstract: Prior knowledge of the content of a passage should reduce the effort required to encode the passage, and facilitate its recall. This paper presents the results of two experiments on the effects of prior knowledge upon comprehension of simple technical prose. The basic procedure was to collect ratings of the amount of prior knowledge for individual passage sentences, and then determine whether those familiarity ratings predict reading 'study) time and recall for the sentences. Three encoding task conditions were used in the same basic procedure: a self-paced study task, a force-paced study task, and an incidental learning task. A cued recall test followed each condition. In the self-paced task, readers studied unfamiliar material longer than familiar material, but recalled at the same level regardless of familiarity. In contrast, familiarity did predict recall in the force-paced and incidential tasks. Unknown proposititons were recalled less often than known propositions; the recall of unknown propositions was especially low in the incidental task. An explanation for this pattern of results is based on the idea that increased study time is required for unfamiliar material due to the additional processing required to encode an unknown proposition and to elaborate less familiar propositions.
SUMMARYThe article assumes that each and every dictionary considers language not only as a list of (written) words, which are indexed according to specific rules, but also that it reveals a definite conception of language. It further considers the hitherto poorly examined first 25 years of mono-lingual Italian lexicography which has found its way into print. Only a few aspects of this work are discussed here, though each of them thoroughly.On the basis of explicit statements made by 16th-century lexicographers and of the manner in which their dictionaries were actually compiled, an attempt is made to indicate what sort of relationship may occur between the discordant sound of an expression which aims to pass itself for Italian, and the form that is eventually adopted as representing the (literary) code. It appears that the main tendency in Italian lexicography was that of taking over, regularly and almost exclusively, usages from literary figures of the past, particularly from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. A few pages in a lexicon compiled in 1532 by the Florentine Giovambattista Verini appear to be the only exception; they belong to an unassuming spelling-book with no other expressed goal than that of teaching the public how to read and write. These few pages also record the lexical usage current in Tuscany as well as a few words borrowed from the northern regions of Italy. The other dictionaries examined in the present paper (none of which having been compiled by a Tuscan lexicographer) express quite a different aim, namely, to teach their reading public to write well by following general principles based on the imitation of literary texts. (Only in few cases does the lexicographer recommend the use of 'good speech' under particular circumstances.)The entry word of a dictionary may be the result of an individual decision taken by the lexicographer, and based on the limited corpus of the lexicon by a single, preferred author. These indexed words may also have been based on the entire lexicon of this 'exemplary' author, but also on a more composite langue arrived at by the use of several texts belonging to different historical periods and perhaps even through the use of the lexicographer's own knowledge of the language. The present article deals with dictionaries and with the linguistic views of the authors as explicitly stated in their works. (Some of these statements pertaining to the use of Italian as a regional composite and to Latin as a model are particularly interesting.) It also takes into consideration the main features of these indexes, keeping in mind the linguistic sources from which they were derived, certain aspects of the language employed for definitions, and the function of quotations drawn from (usually) literary texts. (A few minor observations regarding contemporary rhyming dictionaries as well as references to comments on literary texts are also made.)Among the many books reviewed in the present paper, particular attention is paid to Le tre fontane (1526) by Niccolò Liburnio which contains separate lexical lists derived from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. This book may be called 'palindromic' because its headwords offer a norm which has a triple as well as a single application: on the one hand, it sets apart the writer's parole, objectifying it, and, on the other, it presents a mixture of styles to be taken as the langue of the literary subcode. Le ricchezze (1543) by Francesco Alunno is, among the dictionaries compiled on the basis of the lexicon of a single author, the one that best sheds light on the linguistic ideas of its author.The Vocabulario (1536) by Fabricio Luna is a book which, notwithstanding its poor quality, is of particular value even today since it introduced a number of changes into lexicographic practice.This includes the picking out of words for its entries from a variety of texts which cover several regions of Italy and different historical periods; beginning with written Italian used in the 14th century, which was by then regarded as 'classical', Luna's book works its way down to the modern period. In this process, the lexicographer apparently was involving himself; one encounters, in its headwords, and for the first time in the history of Italian lexicography, a so-called 'Tuscan' language, obviously labelled not according to its geographic distribution but based on stylistic characteristics, with no concrete links to time and place. Moreover, the belief or, rather, the misunderstanding that a linguistic texture never changes throughout the ages (a principle on which all historical dictionaries are based) stems from the juxtaposition of quotations that were in fact derived from different kinds of parole.La fabrica del mondo (1548), the last book of lexicography compiled by Alunno, presumes to cater for the general demand for written language by offering a new turn with regard to the listing of entry words: they are now given in accordance with an encyclopedic approach, where words are grouped according to subjects; the headwords, in addition to being drawn from these three acknowledged masters of the 14th century (who are obsequiously brought to the fore), are now taken from contemporary sources and quite intentionally selected by the lexicographer himself.RÉSUMÉTout dictionnaire considère la langue comme une liste de mots (écrits), répertoriés d'après des règles définies, mais il révèle en même temps une conception déterminée de la langue, telle est la présupposition de notre arti-cle. Celui-ci examine les vingt-cinq premières années, peu étudiées jusqu'ici, de la lexicographie italienne unilingue qui fit l'objet d'une impression. De ces travaux, nous ne discutons ici que quelques aspects, mais d'une manière exhaustive.En nous fondant sur les déclarations explicites des lexicographes du XVIe siècle et sur la manière dont ils compilèrent effectivement leurs dictionnaires, nous essayons d'indiquer quel type de relation peut naître entre les sons discordants d'une expression qui veut se faire passer pour de l'italien et les formes finalement adoptées comme représentant le code (littéraire). Il apparaît que la tendance principale de la lexicographie italienne consista à reprendre, régulièrement et presque exclusivement, les usages des grandes figures littéraires du passé, en particulier de Dante, Pétrarque et Boccace. La seule exception est constituée apparemment par quelques pages d'un lexique compilé par le Florentin Giovambattista Verini: elles font partie d'un manuel d'orthographe sans prétention, qui a pour seul but avoué d'enseigner au public comment lire et écrire. Ces quelques pages témoignent aussi de l'usage lexical existant en Toscane, ainsi que de quelques mots empruntés aux régions septentrionales de l'Italie. Les autres dictionnaires examinés ici (et dont aucun ne fut compilé par un lexicographe toscan) se proposent expressément un but tout à fait différent: enseigner à leurs lecteurs à bien écrire en se fondant sur l'imitation de textes littéraires (rares sont les cas où le lexicographe recommande l'emploi du "bien parler" dans certaines circonstances).Les 'entrées' d'un dictionnaire peuvent résulter d'une décision personnelle du lexicographe et se fonder sur le corpus limité fourni par tel auteur préféré. Les mots répertoriés peuvent aussi se fonder sur tout le lexique de cet auteur 'exemplaire', ou encore sur une langue plus composite obtenue à partir de plusieurs textes appartenant à différentes périodes, et peut-être même par l'intermédiaire de la connaissance qu'a le lexicographe lui-même de la langue. Nous nous occupons ici des dictionnaires et des conceptions linguistiques révélées par les déclarations explicites des auteurs dans leurs ouvrages (certaines de ces déclarations relatives à l'utilisation de l'italien en tant que 'composite' régional et à la référence au latin en tant que modèle présentent un intérêt particulier). Nous prenons également en considération les traits principaux de ces répertoires — en gardant présentes à l'esprit les sources linguistiques dont ils dérivaient —, certains aspects de la langue des définitions et la fonction des citations tirées de textes (en général) littéraires (nous y ajouterons quelques observations de moindre importance sur les dictionnaires de rimes de l'époque, ainsi que des renvois à des commentaires des textes littéraires.Parmi les nombreux ouvrages examinés ici, nous accordons une attention particulière à Le trefontane (1526) de Niccolô Liburnio, qui contient les listes lexicales séparées de Dante, Boccace et Pétrarque. On peut qualifier cet ouvrage de 'palindromique', étant donné qu'il propose une norme dont l'application est triple et unique à la fois: d'un côté, il met à part la parole de l'écrivain, en l'objectivant, et de l'autre, il présente un mélange de styles comme étant la langue du sous-code littéraire. Parmi les dictionnaires compilés d'après le vocabulaire d'un seul auteur, ce sont Le ricchezze (1543) de Francesco Alunno qui nous fournissent le plus de lumières sur les idées linguistiques de l'auteur.En dépit de sa médiocrité, le Vocabulario (1536) de Fabricio Luna garde un intérêt particulier, même aujourd'hui, parce qu'il introduit un bon nombre de changements dans la pratique lexicographique. Ainsi, pour ses entrées, ilrelève des mots provenant de divers textes qui recouvrent plusieurs régions et périodes; partant de l'italien écrit en usage au XIVe siècle, considéré alors comme 'classique', l'ouvrage de Luna se fraie son chemin jusqu'à la période moderne. L'auteur intervient apparemment lui-même dans ce processus; on trouve, dans ses entrées et pour la première fois dans l'histoire de la lexicographie italienne, ce qu'il appelle langue 'toscane', manifestement étiquetée ainsi non pas d'après sa distribution géographique, mais d'après des caractéristiques stylistiques, sans liens concrets avec le temps et l'espace. Par ailleurs, de la juxtaposition de citations provenant en fait de types de parole différents naît la croyance ou plutôt la méprise selon laquelle (c'est le principe même qui fonde tous les dictionnaires historiques) un tissu linguistique ne change jamais au cours des temps.La fabrica del mondo (1548), dernier ouvrage lexicographique compilé par Alunno, prétend satisfaire à la demande générale en expression écrite en proposant un nouveau procédé pour le classement des entrées: celles-ci sont maintenant présentées selon une approche encyclopédique, qui regroupe les mots d'après les thèmes; les entrées, en sus de cettes tirées des trois maîtres reconnus au XIVe siècle (mis en vedette avec obséquiesité), proviennent maintenant de sources contemporaines et font l'objet d'un choix tout à fait intentionnel du lexicographe lui-même.
Computer technology provides a powerful high-resolution tool for the analysis and understanding of the electroencephalogram (EEG). A system of user-interactive graphics-based computer programs analyzing the power spectral density (PSD), coherence, and phase-angle relationships of the EEG is described, along with the mathematical algorithms used. The analytic variables inherent in coherence analysis are reviewed. These variables include choices of sampling parameters, auto- and cross-spectral algorithms, smoothing techniques, and use of the γ2(f) or γ(f) value for coherence. These variables in the analysis itself have a net interactive effect on the calculated results that often makes comparability of data across studies impossible. Thus, it is proposed that studies include a graph showing the authors’ derived coherence values for a set of standard test signals to enhance scientific communication.
The acquisition of WF-rules by children learning their mother-tongue has hardly been studied up to now for English or Dutch. Yet, it seemed to me that the acquisition of WF proceeds much more slowly than the acquisition of phonology, syntax and flexional morphology. To test this hypothesis a WF-test of 211 items was submitted to a sample of 109 thirteen-year-old children of different social categories and to a control group of 20 adults. An adapted version has been submitted later on to a sample of 80 sixteen-year-old adolescents. Both versions try to measure the knowledge of WF- rules, and not the knowledge of certain morpho-logically complex words. It appears from the test that the children master only half of the WF of Dutch: only 47 % of the items have been correctly formed, understood or judged. Even using a less rigid criterion - not mastery, but WF-ability in general - they don't do much better (55 %). The lexical-morphological ability of the adolescents reaches 69 %; i.e. one fourth higher than that of the children. The proportion of normative answers rises from 39 % of all answers given by children over 54 % for the adolescents to 73 % for the adults. The author's conclusion that children - and to a lesser extent, adolescents -do not master Dutch WF-rules, is illustrated with the discussion of four test items. The author stresses the desirability of teaching WF-rules at the right age and of correctly distinguishing between knowledge of words-the norm- and knowledge of the rules to form and understand complex words, i.e. the language-system.
236 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 57, NUMBER 1 (1981) a syntactic rule that changes a pronoun into its corresponding reflexive, and a semantic rule that assigns coreferentiality between the reflexive and its antecedent. Carl Kerschner, using generative semantic theory as a model, discusses copula realization in Spanish. Mariza Pimenta-Bueno uses an analysis of the Portuguese clitic se to provide evidence for lexical redundancy rules as distinct from transformational rules. John Robert Schmitz studies the occurrence of certain classes of adjectives with ser, estar, and estar -ndo. Finally, Jacob Orstein and Guadalupe ValdesFallis offer a state-of-the-art paper which attempts to report on the various activities of researchers dealing with Spanish of the Southwest. [T. D. Terrell, University ofCalifornia, Irvine.] The acquisition and use of Spanish and English as first and second languages: Selected papers from the 12th Annual Convention of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Mexico City, April 4-9, 1978. Ed. by Roger W. Andersen. Washington, DC: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 1979. Pp. 181. $6.50. All twelve articles in this collection—one of the more interesting volumes to have appeared in recent years—are good; and some are very good. In spite of the title, all deal with aspects of second (not first) language acquisition. John Shumann reviews studies done on the acquisition of negation in English, focusing particularly on the so-called preverbal negation stage. Rose Nash discusses the incorrect use of false cognates by Puerto Ricans when speaking English: 'Some type (Sp. tipo) was acting silly in a bar.' Roger Andersen investigates the relationship between first-language transfer and second-language overgeneralization. William Flink shows how a factor analysis can be used profitably to determine various learner strategies in second-language acquisition. (The techniques are very interesting, but it is unfortunate that some researchers are still using translation of sentences as a measure of achievement.) Betty Mace-Matluck's paper on the order of acquisition of English morphemes is similar to previous studies, but differs crucially in that the language backgrounds of the subjects were (in addition to Spanish) Cantonese, Tagalog, and Ilokano. Her results agree essentially with earlier studies, but she suggests that some of the variation may well be caused by first-language background. Anna Chamot looks at the acquisition of English by a child bilingual in Spanish and French, focusing principally on the strategies of simplification and language transfer. David Turner, in his study of adult Spanish speakers acquiring English, tests Stephen Krashen's Monitor Model and concludes that his data are consistent with it: subjects show little practical effect of formal language instruction, but considerable improvement on grammar tests which presumably tap learned rules and encourage monitoring. Sandra Plann reports on the acquisition of Spanish gender, number, and verb-subject agreement by students in the Culver City Spanish Immersion Program. Although the program achieved its goal of effective communication in Spanish with native speakers, neither number and gender agreement in the noun phrase nor subject-verb agreement was completely acquired by the students; furthermore, no trend of improvement was found across the six years of the program. She concludes: 'perhaps in light of the limited interaction with native speakers of the target language, the goal of native-like proficiency in an immersion program is an unrealistic one.' A more realistic goal is ability to communicate ideas and feelings clearly tonative speakers ofthe secondlanguage. José Galván and Russell Campbell examine the communication strategies employed by children in this same language program. Susan Gonzo and Mario Saltarelli look at immigrant languages, Spanish in this case, and propose a Monitoring Principle (different from Krashen's Monitor Model) to explain drift away from standard-language norms, as evidenced in the speech of generations following the original immigrants. Eugene Garcia and Robin Aquilera look at language-switching during mother-child interactions; they conclude that language switching is comparatively rare, and that when it does occur, 'it may serve a very meaningful function related to conversational clarification and possible language teaching.' [T. D. Terrell, University of California, Irvine.]...
A pool of 200 males, aged 18-22 and enrolled in introductory psychology at Purdue University, were screened on the Eysenck Personality Inventory - Neuroticism Scale and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Forty of these males, falling within one standard deviation of the norm on both screening measures, were assigned to one of four groups--recorded control (RC), induced affect (IA), induced positive affect (IPA), or induced negative affect (INA). Subjects in each group participated in three sessions, one session during which experimental rationale was explained and informed consent obtained and two experimental sessions. During both experimental sessions, each subject was recorded for electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (EKG) during 20 minutes of baseline and 30 minutes (five six-minute phases) of experimental intervention. During baseline and experimental phases, all subjects reclined on a hospital bed, the head of which was in a semi-upright position, with their eyes gently closed. They were asked to maintain a state of relaxed alertness during baseline. During the five six-minute phases of experimental intervention in each session, subjects in group RC were read the Constitution by the experimenter, while subjects in the experimental groups (IA, IPA, and INA) underwent two phases of induction of emotional arousal, alternated with three phases of relaxation. During arousal phases, the experimenter facilitated subjects' self-induction of arousal through use of standard induced affect instructions. Because investigation of physiological concomitants of positive and negative emotions was of interest, subjects in one experimental group received instructions for induction of positive affect while subjects in another experimental group received instructions for induction of negative affect. A third experimental group received standard induced (non-specific) affect instructions, which allowed them to develop either positive or negative emotions. Theta (3-7 cps) and alpha (8-13 cps) activity was filtered electronically from raw EEG activity as it was recorded on paper by a Lafayette Instruments polygraph, and seconds per minute of occurrence of each was counted by electronic counters and recorded from a visual display by the polygraph operator. EKG was recorded on paper simultaneously with EEG and was counted manually after experimentation by the experimenter and one other rater. At the end of each phase, baseline and experimental, each subject completed a state measure of affective arousal, the Affect Rating Scale - Now, which consists of five components--potent positive, potent negative, weak negative, weak positive, and relax. Results obtained indicated a tendency for subjects undergoing affective arousal, negative or positive, to produce increased theta EEG activity, relative to baseline and alternated relaxation phases, concomitant with elevated heart-rate and self report of strong emotional arousal. The strongest effects were obtained for subjects in group INA. Results obtained with alpha EEG activity were less clear but suggestive of increased alpha activity during the final arousal phase relative to the preceding relaxation phase in the final experimental session for both positive and negative arousal. No strong consistent progressive change over relaxation or arousal phases was observed for physiological or self-report indices. Results obtained do not support activation theories of emotional arousal but do offer tentative support for Lacey's contention that EEG synchronization following cardiovascular system activation provides a mechanism for organismic physiological homeostasis. Also, the results of this study offer tentative support for Schachter's theory that the cognitive component of emotional arousal is largely responsible for discrimination of positive and negative emotional states. More detailed investigation is necessary before more substantive conclusions can be drawn.
The present study contrasted two measures of psychological androgyny, the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, in terms of experimental subjects' bipolar ratings of four gestures (pointing, touching, standing over, and invading another's personal space). This perceptual task partially replicated a study conducted by N. Henley in 1977 dealing with the communication (through nonverbal behavior) of power differences between the sexes. This study examined whether an individual's classification on either androgyny measure was related to the latter's submissiveness-dominance and asexuality-sexuality ratings of photographic slides depicting members of a dyad enacting various combinations of the gestures targeted for study (see above). It also examined the relationship of one's score on a sex-role attitudes questionnaire (Attitudes Toward Feminism Scale) to her/his perceptual ratings and androgyny classification. The present study thus afforded an opportunity to determine whether Henley's research findings could be replicated and to contrast two popular measures of androgyny in terms of behavior previously found to differentiate the sexes. Eighty female and 50 male University of Windsor undergraduate students participated in this project. Statistical analyses of their responses revealed that Henley's findings were, in large measure, replicated. Subjects generally rated the targeted gestures as dominance gestures and gave them significantly higher dominance ratings when combined in a model's pose. Both sexes gave gestures enacted by a man higher dominance ratings than those by a woman and they gave gestures by a woman to a man higher sexuality ratings than gestures by a man to a woman. Sex of subject was not a distinguishing variable in these results nor was androgyny classification nor subjects' classification on the Attitudes Toward Feminism Scale. Correlations among the above three "subject" variables were also examined and differences between subjects' classifications on the two androgyny scales were discussed.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1981.S654. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-08, Section: B, page: 3443. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1981.
The 1980 meeting of users/owners of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer equipment is discussed.
The specific EEG manifestations of epilepsy, seizures, and interictal spikes and sharp waves occur at unpredictable times and at variable frequencies. To obtain an adequate diagnosis, it is often necessary to record the EEG for several hours or several days. A computer system was developed to perform data reduction and quantification by continuously monitoring seizures and automatically recognizing interictal spikes and sharp waves. The past 2 min of EEG are kept on the computer disk at every instant. When an epileptic seizure occurs or when a spike is detected, a sample of EEG, including a section preceding the event itself, is written on the EEG polygraph and on magnetic tape. A continuous recording is thus replaced by samples of varying lengths, containing only the important aspects of the EEG, reducing considerably the original data. After the monitoring session, the spatial and temporal distributions of the interictal activity are presented in a quantified form on the terminal. The seizures are recorded on digital tape and are available for several types of processing. The patient is also monitored by a video system; EEG and video are synchronized by a time-of-day clock to allow electroclinical correlations.
An inexpensive and easy-to-bulid input/output interface capable of driving the electromechanical loads (relays, solenoids, dc motors, etc.) and incandescent lamps is described. The interface hardware is based on the Commodore VIC-20 microcomputer. The design is adaptable to most 8-bit microcomputers.
The term “grammar” is ambiguous. This essay explores the meanings of the term in general and concentrates on its relevance to Modem Hebrew. The gap between the lexical meanings and the speakers' knowledge of grammaticality is demonstrated as being a result of the close linkage between Biblical Hebrew grammar and Modem Hebrew norms.
This paper describes the opportunities offered by the application of commercially available, inexpensive microcomputers to computer-assisted administration of standard psychometric procedures. The rationale underlying this application and the requirements of software design are discussed. A project based upon the APPLE microcomputer is described, together with an example of the software being developed. Preliminary work and planned development and evaluation are reported.
A discussion of the development of a method for the analysis of salivary activity is presented. Results gained using this new method are compared with those obtained using a whole-mouth spitting technique. The application of the new method in real-world situations is indicated. Norms are presented for measures of salivary flow, pH, and salivary ion concentration based on experimental studies of a female working population.
A new mathematical procedure (BIDALGO) is suggested for application to the psychological testing field. BIDALGO, similar to past adaptive testing methods, is compared both with MMPI short-form efforts and applications in the educational testing literature. A comparison is also made between linear regression models used in past efforts and the Bayesian decision models used in BIDALGO. The requirements for an MMPI application are delineated, emphasizing branching procedures for specific scales and difficulties expected in achieving code-type congruence. Work in progress of applying BIDALGO to the depression scale and the full MMPI is also described.
In order to compare the relative strengths of sex-role stereotypes and situational cues in the perception and evaluation of leadership, this study investigated the visibility (identifiability) and perception of male and female leaders as a function of group sex composition, level of performance, and rater sex. Through videotapes, 451 introductory psychology students viewed same or mixed-sex three-person groups working interactively on a brain-storming problem. Situational cues (positioning, quantity of verbal participation, quality of verbal inputs) were used to define a male or female as occupying a leadership role, and subjects were asked to indicate whom they believed the group leader was, to evaluate members on leadership and personal attributes, and to rate the group's atmosphere and satisfaction. It was hypothesized that males and females would be equally visible as leaders in groups composed of all same-sex followers or mixed-sex groups composed of one same and one opposite-sex follower. Due to sex-role expectancies, visibility was expected to decrease for female leaders dealing with groups composed of all male followers. Female leaders were expected to receive lower personal evaluations on ratings of leadership attributes. High group performance was expected to lead to more favorable evaluations of all group members, but lower visibility for female leaders of mixed or opposite-sex followers. While rater sex was not expected to affect leader designation, it was hypothesized that female raters would give more favorable personal evaluations of all stimulus persons and of group atmosphere. Results indicated that under these conditions, the person established as the leader through situational cues was seen as the group leader regardless of the sex of the followers that the leader interacted with, the performance level attributed to the group, or the sex of the observer making the judgment. Designated leaders were identified as the leader of the group between 88 and 100 percent of the time, indicating that the techniques used to establish leadership were successful in creating a situation of high leader salience. Results were interpreted as an indication that sex stereotypes may affect evaluations of individuals about whom little is known but sex, but not affect ratings of those for whom relevant behavioral data are available. The variables of leader sex and follower sex had no significant effects on leader evaluations, but did interact on the measures of satisfaction with leader, willingness to work with the group viewed, and expected future performance of the group. On the measure of satisfaction with leader, the sex of the highest-participating follower but not the lowest influenced judgments, making the two types of mixed-sex groups more similar to one of the same-sex groups (specifically the one in which the sex of the highest-participating follower was the same) than they were to each other. Performance level had significant effects on most leader evaluation measures, with leaders of high-performing groups being rated more leader-like, more dominant, more intelligent, and as possessing more task-oriented attributes. High-performance also enhanced ratings of followers, particularly for higher-participating followers. Rater sex did not affect leader designation, but it was found that female raters gave more favorable evaluations of leadership, dominance, and task-oriented attributes.
The application of computers to the functions traditionally carried out by a psychometrician or psychologist is examined. Diagnosis, psychotherapy, interviewing, psychological testing, test interpretation, and report writing are reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of using computers in assessment applications are discussed. Patient and professional acceptance of automated psychological services is reviewed, as well as the parameters to consider in the development of computerized interviewing and testing. Brief comments are made regarding suitable computer systems for these applications. It is argued that computers can provide a cost-effective enhancement to the delivery of mental health services.
A package of five FORTRAN programs that provides for fast user-controlled analyses of reading eye fixations is described. The package requires the data to be in a fixation format and to be rescaled to screen dimensions. OLDEYE identifies six types of fixations and calculates descriptive statistics on each of them, on their associated saccades, and on their average pupil diameter. CONVRT represents the text as a string of words that can be coded according to experimentally relevant variables. PLTFIX prints fixation durations by letter position and sequence of occurrence. MODDAT is an interactive program for marking parts of the text in which the data quality is below acceptable standards. It also allows the correction of systematic errors due to calibration or drift. MATCH combines the outputs from OLDEYE, CONVRT, and MODDAT and calculates 11 dependent measures for every word. The output of MATCH is suitable for input to conventional multivariate statistical programs.
Goldstein, Rennick, Welch, and Shelly (1973) developed a visual searching task (VST) that succeeded in obtaining a hit rate of 94.1% correct classifications when comparing brain-damaged and normal subjects and a 79.4% hit rate when comparing brain-damaged and psychiatric subjects. Goldstein and Kyc (1978) reported 92.5% correct classifications for the brain-damaged vs. normal comparisons and 82.5% correct classifications for brain-damaged vs. schizophrenic comparisons. We computerized the administration of the VST and found 85.7% correct classifications for the brain-damaged vs. normal groups and 71.4% correct classifications for the brain-damaged vs. psychiatric group. These results suggest that the computerized VST (CVST) is also a potentially valid indicator of brain damage.