To evaluate the efficacy of a typical range of New Zealand alcoholism treatment programmes, 113 male and female alcoholics were randomly assigned after inpatient detoxification to one of three programmes that provided decreasing amounts and intensity of treatment: a six-week inpatient programme, a six-week outpatient programme, and a single confrontational interview where patients were referred to non-hospital services. Those who refused or dropped out of treatment were followed up in a semi-control group. A broad range of patient measures were taken at intake and 6 and 18 months afterwards, when 86% of subjects were located. No treatment was more effective than another (in terms of statistically significant differences) in helping subjects to abstain or drink less, nor did any treatment appear to be more effective than another in promoting social and psychological recovery. Furthermore, those who stayed in treatment did not show significantly more long-term improvement than those who refused or dropped out of treatment. Two programmes did significantly reduce the alcohol consumption of the alcoholics assigned to them at the 6-month follow-up compared to those who dropped out, but by 18 months there was no longer a significant treatment effect. Although the two follow-ups showed individual drinking patterns were unstable, on average almost half the subjects located had improved either because they had abstained or were drinking moderately. There were only small gains on direct measures of social adjustment. Compared to the general New Zealand population, subjects were more likely to be divorced or separated, manual workers and unemployed. Nonetheless, these characteristics did not contribute to predicting the subjects' response to treatment. Multiple regression equations explained between 33% and 57% of the variance in amount drunk after treatment. The patients' own predictions of their chances of drinking again, evidence of electrocardiographic abnormalities and the patients’ net weekly incomes, were more consistent variables in explaining drinking levels and predicting abstinence in the long term than the demographic and psychological variables. Variables that were significant in explaining drinking levels were often not significant when it came to predicting abstinence and vice versa. Abstinent subjects felt more often than drinkers that they had achieved the goals that they had set themselves aria by the final follow-up there were many positive differences in lifestyle apparent. Thus, in the final outcome, although abstinence was clearly demonstrated to be a worthwhile goal, no treatment was significantly more effective than another in helping to achieve this goal. Patients who underwent treatment apparently showed greater recovery than those who dropped out of treatment but this result was also not statistically significant.

In 1989 New Zealand is considering legislation which will make discrimination against lesbians, transexuals and gay men illegal. To increase children's understanding of sexual orientations educators need to have some knowledge of what children already understand and how children use their information. The three studies address this issue in spite of the difficulties in obtaining permission to ask children about homosexuality. A homophobia questionnaire was administered to 290 first year psychology students. They were also asked to recall their childhood feelings about gay people when they first met a homosexual and first understood the concept of homosexuality. Older women were the least homophobic. A second study was carried out with 5, 7, and 11 year old children in three schools with a family discrimination task. A third of the 11 year olds could label the couples of the same sex as gay, homosexual or lesbian and gave more positive items to the two-parent families. A third study involved 31 children from two-parent families and 32 from lesbian families. Out of the 63 six to ten year olds, 27 could define 'homosexual' and 'gay' and 37 could define lesbian. Twenty could use a strategy to recognise a lesbian. Although social discrimination against non-heterosexual orientations placed some constraints on this research, it yielded preliminary evidence for the emergence of children's understanding of sexual orientations between 7 and 11 years of age.

Researchers and theorists have stressed the importance of self-produced locomotion for the development of more distal forms of communication such as social referencing but this notion has not been specifically tested. Social referencing research has also been conducted exclusively in the university laboratory. Three studies examined the influence of self-produced locomotion on the development of social referencing and compared social referencing behaviour in familiar and unfamiliar settings. Social referencing was defined as occurring when, following a novel event, infants looked to a familiar adult and used the information provided by the adult to adjust their behaviour towards the event appropriately. In the first study, forty infants, half locomoting and half non-locomoting, were seen in their own homes at either 7-months (10 crawling, l0 not crawling) or 9-months (10 crawling, l0 not crawling). Testing was repeated on all infants 2 months later. Infants were videotaped in each of three maternal availability conditions (mother available; not available; or not interactive) before a remote control toy car moved toward them. Mothers were instructed to give either a positive or negative facial signal when their infant looked at them during this final phase. The infants were responsive to the availability of the mother on a number of dependent measures. Locomoting infants approached their mothers more, played with the toys less, and differed in some aspects of looking behaviour during the availability phases. During the final social referencing phase neither group consistently used the information provided by the mother to change their behaviour. A second study examined a further ten, 9-month-old infants using an identical procedure. The infants were delayed in the onset of self-produced locomotion due to surgical and immobilization procedures prescribed for club foot. This group did not differ from the normal non-crawling 9-month-olds in the availability phases of the study but did look to their mothers more quickly and vocalized less during the social referencing phase. The third study used a similar procedure and identical novel stimulus to examine 20, 11-month-old infants' social referencing behaviour in a laboratory situation. There was a significant difference between the infants who received a positive versus negative message for the contact with the car measures. When they received a negative message, infants tested in the laboratory were less likely to touch the stimulus car and touched it for a shorter time than infants of the same age and tested at home. Mothers of all infants participating in this study completed the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire. None of the infant characteristics predicted which infants would use the social referencing strategy. It is concluded that social referencing is not a strategy used extensively by 7-and 9-month old infants although social looking is common at these ages in response to new events. Locomotion experience has little effect on social referencing. Infants use information from a variety of sources to assess a new situation and 11-month-old infants are more likely to use social referencing as a strategy in an unfamiliar setting. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed in relation to the cognitive requirements of preverbal and emotional communication and the relative importance of social influences for interpreting novel events.

Pigeons were trained under concurrent chain schedules in which the initial links were equal aperiodic schedules. One of the two terminal links was always a fixed-interval schedule of 10 sec duration. The other terminal link was either a two-valued mixed-interval schedule or a fixed-interval schedule. The shorter of the two intervals comprising the mixed-interval schedules was always 5 sec, the longer was either 10 sec, 20 sec, 40 sec, or 60 sec. The number of times each of the two intervals occurred in these mixed-interval schedules was varied. The data were compared with predictions from various models of concurrent chain performance and the adequacy of these models was discussed. No one model was a good predictor of all the data. Davison and Temple's (submitted for publication) model fitted the FI vs FI data well and fitted the FI vs MI data better than any other model. It was suggested that a "carry over" from one condition to the next had affected the present data. It was also suggested that the way in which Davison and Temple's predictions differed from the obtained preference ratios was the result of a weighting of the intervals in the MI schedules that changed according to the particular choice arranged.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / The two experiments conducted were designed to investigate behavioural models of signal-detection performance. The detection environment was made difficult, or confusing, for the pigeon subjects by either varying the number of stimuli presented or by varying the disparity of the stimuli. These experiments provided thorough data sets from which the adequacies of current behavioural-detection models were able to be evaluated. The models evaluated were developed from two different areas of research: One was based on the generalised matching law and the others were based on the confusion between stimuli. One of the most fundamental assumptions of these models is that their parameters are assumed to be independent of each other, i.e., parameter invariant. When a variable known to affect measures of stimulus discriminability is manipulated, estimates of stimulus discriminability only are predicted to vary. Similarly, when a variable known to affect sensitivity to reinforcer frequency (or response-reinforcer discriminability) is manipulated only this parameter is predicted to change. The experiments conducted aimed to determine whether this assumption was true not just theoretically, but also empirically. The models were assessed in terms of whether their assumptions were met, whether the parameters estimated had sensible relations to the experimentally arranged stimulus disparities, and whether they provided a good description of the data. The first experiment investigated the effects on matching-to-sample performance of increasing the sample stimulus size pool from two to four. Of interest was whether stimulus discriminability between any pair of stimuli would remain constant when a third or fourth sample was added. Six pigeons were trained on a symbolic matching-to-sample task involving the discrimination of various intensities of yellow light. The difference in the arranged physical "intensity" between each successive sample stimulus in the set was 1 Volt. The numbers of sample stimuli presented were varied between two (Part l), three (Parts 2 and 4), and four (Part 3). Across conditions, the ratios of reinforcers obtainable for correct matching responses were varied over at least five levels, allowing behavioural models of signal-detection to be fitted to the data. In Part 5, the numbers of sample stimuli were varied between two, three, and four and the reinforcer ratio between consecutive remaining samples was 2:1. All response alternatives remained available in the choice phase and as a result once a sample had been presented, subjects continued to emit error responses to stimuli that were no longer presented. Current behavioural models of detection were used to investigate the effects of varying the number of sample stimuli on matching performance. The analyses from the generalised-matching-law based model indicated that this model was unable to deal with the data effectively. In order for the analyses to be conducted, pairwise combinations of the sample stimuli had to be made. Analyses using only the two errors relevant to the pairwise combination of the stimuli indicated that adding or removing a sample stimulus did not affect the ability of the subjects to discriminate between the remaining samples, following the principle of indifference from irrelevant alternatives. Estimates of stimulus discriminability followed the order of the arranged physical disparity between the stimuli. An interaction between stimulus discriminability and sensitivity to changes in the frequency of reinforcement was found when there should theoretically have been independence between these two measures. The rate of reinforcement on another alternative caused fluctuations in the behaviour ratios between a discriminable pair of stimuli, violating the principle of indifference. Stimulus discriminability, however, remained unchanged. However, by using only the two errors relevant to a pair of stimuli, a large amount of behaviour for other error types was omitted. The alternative, using all errors, provided even poorer data fits to the model and the number of errors overwhelmed the ratio of correct to incorrect behaviour resulting in insensible parameter values being estimated. The results from more recent, confusion-based, detection models indicated that these models were able to effectively deal with and describe these data. No attempt was made to degrade the disparity of the choice-reinforcer contingency and estimates of response-reinforcer discriminability were high and constant throughout the experiment. Estimates of stimulus-response discriminability from these later models also decreased as the arranged physical disparity between the sample stimuli decreased. In accordance with the theory, stimulus-response discriminability, was independent of response-reinforcer discriminabiliry, preserving parameter invariance. The extended confusion-based model provided an easy and effective numerical analysis of detection tasks in which n-stimuli and m-choices are arranged. The discussion raised the issue of why subjects should continue to emit error responses to stimuli that were no longer or had never been presented as samples. It also commented on how parameter estimates for the 4 × 4 matrix tended to be smaller due to the finite bound of confusion probabilities. Overall, a version of the principle of indifference from irrelevant alternatives was not supported by this study. In the second experiment, six pigeons were trained on a standard 2-stimulus,2- response symbolic matching-to-sample task involving the discrimination of sample and choice stimuli varying in density (numerosity). The disparities of the sample and choice stimuli were varied systematically across experimental parts, allowing sample and choice confusion to be investigated independently. Degradation of the stimuli was carried out by manipulations of the probabilities of pixels illuminated on the stimulus areas of a computer monitor. Across conditions, the ratios of reinforcers obtainable for matching responses were varied over five levels. Parameter invariance was the main topic of investigation. Current behavioural models of signal-detection were investigated. Again the model based on the generalised matching law provided poor descriptions of the data both empirically and theoretically. Interactions between stimulus discriminability and sensitivity to reinforcement were found, making these parameters unreliable estimates of sample discriminability and response bias. Furthermore, the effects on detection performance of reducing the disparity of the sample or choice stimuli were difficult to evaluate independently as either sort of manipulation had the same effect on stimulus discriminability due to the structure of the model. The more recent behavioural models of detection based on the confusion between the stimulus and response relations provided sound descriptions of the data. Reductions in the disparity of the sample stimuli led to decreases in stimulus-response discriminability and left the response-reinforcer discriminability unchanged. Similarly, reductions in choice-stimulus disparity caused a decrease in estimates of response-reinforcer discriminability and not in stimulus-response discriminability. Therefore, parameter invariance was again obtained and the variables known to affect these parameters (sample and choice stimulus disparity) were correctly identified. The confusion model, therefore, provided a befter description of performance for this experiment. Discussion centred on how previous criticisms of the model in regard to a failure to demonstrate parameter invariance were unsupported by both the original data and the present study. In summary, confusion-based behavioural-detection models were quite adequate in describing the data from more complicated symbolic matching-to-sample tasks than have traditionally been employed. Their theoretical assumptions were supported empirically and high percentages of the data variance were accounted for by the model. As a word of caution, the general discussion concentrated on the mathematics of fitting non-linear models. Importantly, in order to attain systematic replication of results, details of the exact fitting process need to be specified. Differences in fitting procedures caused differences in parameter estimates. Extension of the confusion-based models into other areas of research (e.g., free-operant studies and delayed matching-to-sample tasks) will increase the usefulness of these models. Future directions for detection research were suggested. Keywords: Detection, behavioural models, parameter invariance, matching-to-sample task, disparity, principle of indifference, stimulus discriminability, response-reinforcer discriminability, numerosity, confusion, pigeons.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / This thesis seeks to integrate the diverse fields of the social psychology of intergroup relations and mental retardation. In order to do this a a new cross-disciplinary field described as "The Social Psychology of Mental Retardation" (abbreviated to SPMR) is defined and explored theoretically and empirically. This involved a literature review of the current status of the social psychology of intergroup relations, especially as the field of social psychology emerges from the 'crisis of confidence' period, and incorporating the insights and changes that have occurred as a result of this. The history of the development of social psychology generally and applied social psychology were both considered as part of this. A review of current literature in mental retardation was carried out along with an attempt to explore the contemporary social context or social ecology of mental retardation in New Zealand, as well as the media (and other representations) of mentally retarded people. Themes were present throughout this thesis included: an explicit value orientation; a rejection of a positivistic-empiricist approach to scientific research; considering mental retardation as a social construct, and an emphasis on the social context or social ecology of mental retardation Two main pieces of empirical research were carried out. All the results were analysed using appropriate SAS statistical procedures. Study 1 involved a coin allocation task for 33 mentally retarded subjects using the matrix procedure originally developed by Henri Tajfel of Bristol University. The results here provided information about social categorization processes based on intellectual handicap as a social identity. These mentally retarded subjects were also given a 106 item adjective checklist, also used later on, and the results from this considered as part of the second part of Study 2. The second study consisted of two parts, both using undergraduate social science students as participants. The first involved the administration of a 24 item questionnaire in two forms to investigate a series of common myths and misconceptions about mental retardation and intellectual handicap. There was approximately 300 responses to each questionnaire. The results were analyzed to give information on the knowledge of both intellectual handicap and mental retardation of these participants, as well as for differences between these two group/labels. The second part of Study 2 involved the 106 item adjective checklist to investigate social stereotypes of various disabled or handicapped groups/group labels. Participants here were firstly asked to rate the adjectives on a 5 point favourability scale, and then to indicate which adjectives they considered applied to one of nine different groups/labels. This procedure constituted a New Zealand standardization of the adjective checklist. Multiple comparisons within this sample were made to clearly establish the contents of current stereotypes of the rated group/labels by this subject population. An index of the relative favourability of mental retardation and intellectual handicap was generated from these results. An indication of the relative complexity of the same stereotypes was also generated. It was concluded that mentally retarded adults do show the same ingroup preferences shown by nonhandicapped people in Tajfellian intergroup relations experiments, and that this indicated that intellectual handicap was a meaningful social category for mentally retarded adults. It was further concluded that there was generally a low prevalence of common myths and misconceptions about mental retardation and intellectual handicap from the first part of Study 2. There were several important exceptions to this finding. For the second part of Study 2, mentally retarded people, who identified themselves as intellectually handicapped, showed a strong preference to evaluate their own group highly, and ascribed more favourable adjectives than the students did to the intellectually handicapped or towards university students as a group. Study 2 showed that there was little difference made by the students between the terms intellectual handicap and mental retardation. Of the nine groups/labels rated by the students, intellectual handicap was ranked 6th and mental retardation 7th. The complexity analysis indicated quite similar rankings of mental retardation and intellectual handicap when compared to the favourability analysis. Overall it was concluded that the Tajfellian social identity theory derived from the European influenced social psychology of intergroup relations could form a useful basis for the development of an applied SPMR. The social acceptance and social integration of the mentally retarded in the classroom and in wider society was identified as a major area of current concern, where the proposed SPMR could be of value.

Data from twelve auditory signal detection experiments show that a model general to all signal detection tasks explains results better than specific auditory models. This thesis examines models of the detection of sinusoids in Gaussian white noise, all predicting linear ROC-curves on normal-normal co-ordinates, but differing in their predictions for the ROC-curve slope. Distinction is made between stimulus distributions, transducer distributions and response-inferred distributions. Response-inferred distributions include variance from stimuli, transducers and unstable criteria. The first three experiments (rating) showed that slope increases with increases in p(sn) and in the number of categories available for describing the presence of the signal. An explanation for this data assumes that the 'yes-no' criterion has the least variance and other criteria have variances proportional to their distances from the 'yes-no' criterion. This explanation is developed into a model of selective attention in which the variance of all real criteria is a function of their distances from an optimal criterion. Faulty memory is the assumed cause of criterion variance. Predictions that follow from the model are (i) there is a decline in criterion variance as signal strength increases ; (ii) there is a U- (or inverted U-) shaped function relating slope and signal strength; (iii) criterion variance is less in forced-choice tasks than in 'yes-no' tasks; and (iv) slope is partially determined by task design and any other factor which affects the subject's memory for signal or noise. Experiments 4-6 establish that the concept of criterion variance also applies to yes-no procedures, and Experiments 7-11 substantiate predictions made by the model of selective attention. Data from Experiments 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are analysed in terms of models of sinusoidal burst and gap detection. None of the probabilistic models is adequate, but Zwislocki's (1969) deterministic model of temporal summation accounts for the data. A model of response-inferred distributions is presented in which the mathematical relationships of the variances and locations of criteria, of signal strength and of stimulus variances to the slope of the ROC-curve are described. Equations for the optimal criterion, the variance of individual criteria and a measure of sensitivity uncontaminated by criterion variance are derived. Re-analysis of data using the model of response-inferred distributions supports the predictions of the model of selective attention. The model of response-inferred distributions predicts 'peaked' rating ROC-curves which are similar to two-state functions and commonly observed in the literature. However, both two-state and high-threshold theories are unable to explain the data. Experiment 12 compares the model of response-inferred distributions with Pike's (1973) multiple observations model for latency data and finds the latter model inferior. Criterion variance is shown to account fox at least half of the variance of the response-inferred distributions, and consequently, it is argued that TSD results should be viewed more in terms of the general processes which produce criterion variance than modality-specific models of signal processing.

Eight marsupial phalangers, (Trichosurus vulpecula) with mid-saggital section of the optic chiasma were trained monocularly in a visual discrimination task, as were four which had, in addition, mid-saggital sections of the anterior commissure, fasciculus aberrans and hippocampal commissure. All were tested for transfer to the untrained hemisphere. The results showed that those with the commissures intact transferred information to the hemisphere not trained directly, while those with commissures sectioned did not. It appears that transfer of visual information between cerebral hemispheres can take place in an animal which lacks a corpus callosum, and that the forebrain commissures may be the functional equivalent, in this marsupial, of the corpus callosum in eutherians. A further eight animals received mid-saggital section of the optic chiasma. Two had all other interhemispheric pathways intact, two had mid-saggital section of fasciculus aberrans and hippocampal and anterior commissures, two had fasciculus aberrans only sectioned, and two had fasciculus aberrans only intact. All were trained monocularly in a visual discrimination task and tested for transfer to the opposite hemisphere. Those with all commissural pathways intact and those with only fasciculus aberrans intact demonstrated transfer. Those with all commissures sectioned and those with only fasciculus aberrans sectioned did not show transfer. It seems probable that integrity of fasciculus aberrans is a necessary and sufficient commissural condition for interhemispheric transfer of visual information in this marsupial.

Organisms trained to respond at a high rate to one stimulus, S1, and at a low rate to another stimulus, S2, lying in the same physical dimension as S1, may, when presented successively with a number of stimuli lying in the dimension, respond at the highest rate to a stimulus away from S1 in a direction opposite S2. This "peak shift" effect has been found following training in which S1 and S2 were presented successively, but not when they were presented simultaneously. In the present study peak shift was obtained when S1 and S2 were presented simultaneously during training. In order to isolate the conditions necessary to produce peak shift after simultaneous training, different groups of pigeons were given variations in procedure, but peak shift was obtained with all groups. The variations included using stimuli from various physical dimensions, using different training procedures, and using various methods of presenting stimuli during the tests for peak shift. The results were generally more consistent with discrimination theories that postulate the interaction of generalisation gradients around S1 and S2, rather than with theories that postulate control by some relationship between S1 and S2, and in particular, they were most consistent with explanations of peak shift that propose that the responding occurring in the presence of S1 is inhibited in the presence of S2.

The logical structure of this thesis demanded a three part presentation. Part I of this thesis provides an historical analysis of global marine ideologies and values, and establishes a framework and justification for the research. The chronological analysis in Part I reveals that humans lived in harmony with the environment throughout most of history. It was not until the twentieth century that technological developments and the burgeoning human population began to take its toll. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries disciplines such as astronomy, physics and chemistry became distinct from philosophy. The most recent discipline to develop has been psychology, a science that is barely one hundred years old. In the past, psychological investigation ignored the natural world until in recent years the new paradigm of environmental psychology has emerged. Expanding on the notion of phenomenological psychology, a systems-oriented approach demands a holistic world view in contrast to analysing parts of a system. From this perspective, the present research adopted a biosocial multidisciplinary approach to the study of the human/marine environment interface. Part II is concerned with the theory and method in the study of marine and coastal environments. The theoretical concept of consumer socialisation assumes that learning takes place during interaction with socialisation agents such as family, peers, cultural influences and the media. To test the paradigm of social learning theory in familial (informal) and peer collaborative (formal) circumstances, two research studies were carried out. First, a three generational sample of five families in Auckland, New Zealand, were interviewed to test intergenerational commonalities and differences in social, cultural and economic values pertaining to marine environmental issues. Content analysis supported the notion that mechanisms associated with consumer socialisation theory were evident in the rhetorical constructs of participants. Predictions that environmentally aware parents and grandparents would have children with similar attitudes, and adjacent generations would have more closely aligned attitudes and beliefs than nonadjacent generations, were supported. Further, interactive dialogue resulted in contradictions and coercion, strategies associated with attitude change within the theoretical model of social learning. The second research study investigated the effects of collaborative learning on cognitive development. In contrast to the systemic approach of experiential learning, the traditional lecture format fails to address the student as a total person. Based on this premise, an interactive simulation game with a focus on marine conservation, and the corresponding effects on learning and behaviour, was developed in the present study. Decisions relating to conservation versus economic development of the marine environment were manipulated by the introduction of role-play in the context of the simulation game, which was based on an imaginary island governed by eight ministries. Following rigorous pilot testing, the final version of the simulation game was field tested with one hundred and fifty-four students aged between twelve and fifteen years at three Auckland, New Zealand, high schools. Results revealed first, a significant effect of role-play on decision-making and second, a significant difference between control and experimental groups in correct answers to knowledge-based questionnaires, confirming the effectiveness of peer interaction through simulation as a teaching device. Students began to construct their own cognitive understanding of environmental issues and problems faced by government departments with divergent agendas. Once this point was reached it was not difficult for participants to consider social, economic and environmental factors in terms of real-life situations. The results of both studies are summarised in the final chapter. Findings revealed that socialisation processes are instrumental in developing orientation towards environmental issues. Furthermore, interpersonal communication has the power to alter cognitive structures. Justification for concern about marine environmental protection, and the urgency associated with the development of educational mechanisms, was evident from the results of this research. Implications for future interaction with marine biosocial systems, limitations of the study and directions for further research, are defined in the closing sections of this thesis.