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<p> Mothers&rsquo; socialization has been shown to impact prosocial tendencies in children. Discussions during joint book reading may provide a context to observe mothers&rsquo; strategies for evoking emotions. More specifically, mother-child talk about emotions, cognitive states, and inductive reasoning may enhance children&rsquo;s perspective taking about characters experiencing diversity. However, mothers may differ in their amount and type of talk if the characters in the story are from an in-group or out-group. While not all mothers may engage in these strategies during book reading, evoking sympathy in children has been shown to predict children&rsquo;s prosocial attitudes and behaviors toward others in need. The goal of this study was to explore mothers&rsquo; discourse strategies during a joint book reading task with first and second graders. Moreover, this study aimed to test whether reading and discussing a story about an in-group or out-group member differed and whether certain differences increased donating behavior and prosocial attitudes and from pre- to post-tests. In the main results, children&rsquo;s donations did not significantly increase from pre-test to post-test as hypothesized nor did donations differ between the in-group or out-group story condition. However, children&rsquo;s prosocial attitudes toward both in-group and out-group children improved equally from pre-test to post-test. Also as hypothesized, maternal discourse differed between story conditions. More specifically, there was an interaction between child gender and story condition where mothers with daughters used more emotion talk and cognitive state talk when discussing out-group members than did mothers with sons. Exploratory analyses revealed that mothers who used more emotion talk and inductive reasoning had children with lower prosocial attitudes when averaged across time of measurement toward both the in-group and out-group. Alternatively, children&rsquo;s trait sympathy predicted higher average donations and prosocial attitudes. Finally, children&rsquo;s civic identity scores predicted children&rsquo;s average prosocial attitudes and maternal discourse variables (i.e., emotion words, cognitive state words, and number of inductive sequences). Future research should continue to investigate the relationship between children&rsquo;s civic identity and maternal discourse, as this was the first study to explore the two. In conclusion, inducing sympathy in children may be an effective strategy for fostering more favorable attitudes toward other people in need regardless of their group identification. Additionally, individual child characteristics may predict children&rsquo;s inclination to help others in need; however, aspects of mothers discourse may hinder such prosocial tendencies with children if they induce personal distress.</p>

A retrieval disruption construal of suppression during directed forgetting (DF) was examined. It was argued that it is often difficult to distinguish between retrieval disruption, response disruption, and differential rehearsal interpretations of DF effects. To circumvent the problem of response disruption, two types of tests--exclusive (i.e., interference) and implicit--were used. To circumvent the problem of differential rehearsal, incidentally studied items and a list segregation instruction were utilized. Intraserial cuing (i.e., cuing by item sets) was used in all four experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, the exclusive test was stem-cued recall and the implicit test was stem completion. In Experiment 1, unique stems (i.e., stems that did not share words across study lists) were used. A DF effect was found only in the exclusive test and only with intentionally studied items. It was argued that a methodological artifact obscured the DF effect in the incidentally studied items. In Experiment 2, repeated stems (i.e., stems that shared words across study lists) were used. The use of repeated stems allowed intrusion rates to be measured. A DF effect was again found only in the exclusive test, but this time in both intentionally and incidentally studied items. In Experiment 3, only a free recall exclusive test was used. A DF effect was found only in the intrusions. Again, it was possible that a methodological artifact obscured the DF effect in the exclusive test. In Experiment 4, Jacoby's (1991) exclusive recognition test was utilized. One half of the subjects was instructed to emphasize accuracy and the other half was not so instructed. A speed-accuracy tradeoff was observed such that the uninstructed group was faster, but displayed a relatively large number of "new"-old errors. In the uninstructed group, a DF effect was observed, but this effect was reversed across semantic and structural study conditions. A DF effect was not found in the instructed group. These findings were interpreted as support for the hypothesis that retrieval disruption affects the use of contextual information normally associated with target information in memory (e.g., Kihlstrom & Evans, 1979).

Environment perception research has traditionally relied upon perceptual surrogates in the methodological assessment of landscape preference. The ability of surrogates to sufficiently represent particular environmental conditions should be a continual concern for preference research. Judgments of scenic beauty for two different mediums of representation, static and dynamic surrogates, of a Wild and Scenic river were compared to determine if the preservation of motion in necessary for sensitive judgments of scenic beauty. Flow level, a dynamic element of the river landscape, was hypothesized to influence judgments of scenic beauty only in the dynamic medium condition, and not in the static medium condition. The results indicated that subjects who rated scenes in both medium conditions were sensitive to changes in stream flow level. The method of presentation was also argued to have a substantial influence on preference ratings.

This study investigated the presence of the framing bias in children's probabilistic decision-making. Under investigation was whether children would frame when presented with problems analogous to those known to elicit framing in adults. Prospect theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1979) was pitted against fuzzy-trace theory (Brainerd & Reyna, 1990) to determine which provided a better explanation of children's decision-making. Preschoolers, second-, and fifth-graders were asked to make choices in a probabilistic situation across various levels of probability and expected values of outcome. It was expected that the amount of framing would increase with age.

This study evaluated the ability of individual subjects and small groups to correctly identify Arizona plant communities from color airvideo footage, explored the relationship of five background variables to subjects' success, and determined which community types were easiest and most difficult for subjects to identify. Forty-six volunteers from the University of Arizona School of Renewable Natural Resources participated in a multiple-choice pretest-posttest experiment using 30 different plant communities depicted in one-minute segments of videotape. Three hours of training increased mean individual score from 7 correct (pretest) to 21 correct (posttest), and mean group score from 11 to 24. All respondents significantly improved their performance, regardless of background. Posttest results showed no significant difference in ability among individuals or between individuals and groups. The most difficult community to identify was creosote-tarbush desertscrub; the easiest was paloverde-saguaro desertscrub. Findings support the feasibility of video interpretation by minimally-trained personnel.

The kindling model of epilepsy in animals has become a widely used tool in the study of convulsive mechanisms. A recent interest in the role of somatostatin (SS) in epileptic brains has produced a small body of literature, but few insights into the function of SS in seizures. Two experiments utilizing a chemical model of kindling were used. Experiment 1 using a high dose of pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) (30mg/kg) and experiment 2 using a subseizure dose of PTZ (20mg/kg). Behavioral results of experiment 1 showed an increase in seizure sensitivity over the 2 month course of the study but failed immunostaining confounded any anatomical localization of SS. Behavioral results of experiment 2 yielded no significant difference between control and experimental animals but showed both qualitative differences and a decreased number of SS cells in the experimental group. The results of these studies make few predictions about the role of SS in seizure activity or in the kindling model of epilepsy and it is painfully obvious that more work needs to be done in this realm.

Different areas of skin were shown to have different degrees of compressibility. One skin site was considered more compressible than another if it showed a larger range of indentations resulting from a set range of forces. Two skin sites were found within 5 cm. of each other which demonstrated markedly different compressibilities. Such sites were quite easy to find on the ventral surface of a proximal phalange, and on the dorsum of the hand, but the region of the thenar eminence was much more homogenous with respect to compressibility. / The experimental question asked was how does skin compressibility affect psychophysical functions, while two consistently produced negatively accelerating functions describing tactile sensory intensity? A number of separate psychophysical functions were derived at different skin sites using single pulse mechanical stimuli. At each stimulation site, a subject gave magnitude estimates for a set of controlled skin indentations and for a set of controlled forces. / Out of four subjects tested, two consistently produced positively accelerating psychophysical functions, while two consistently produced negatively accelerating functions. It was predicted that if psychophysical functions based on force were affected by skin compressibility, a more compressible skin site would provide for a larger exponent. This prediction was observed in eight out of twelve cases (three skin regions on each of four subjects). Out of the eight predicted exponent changes, four were statistically significant using a regression analysis of variance. None of the four exponent changes which were counter to the prediction were statistically significant. / It was also predicted that if psychophysical functions based on skin indentation were affected by skin compressibility, a more compressible skin site would provide for a smaller exponent. This prediction was observed in eleven out of twelve cases. Out of the eleven predicted cases, five were statistically significant exponent differences. Many of the statistically insignificant exponent changes could be attributed to comparing two stimulation sites which did not have very different compressibilities. / It was apparent that skin compressibility does play a role in determining how intense a given mechanical stimulus feels. It was hypothesized that, regardless of the stimulus dimension, the difference in skin compressibility may cause a difference in the effective area of the stimulus, or the surface gradient produced by the stimulus, or both. A difference in the effective area would translate into a difference in the number of mechanoreceptors recruited. A difference in the surface gradient may cause a difference in the response of some mechanoreceptors. / An examination of the variability of the magnitude estimates indicated two things. (1) A power function model of the stimulus intensity - tactile sensory intensity relationship is better than a straight linear model. (2) A given skin indentation at a constant rate of indentation is a less ambiguous signal of intensity than a given force at a constant rate of force change. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: B, page: 1140. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.

A retention study in a therapeutic community (TC) was conducted to examine treatment as a factor in client drop out. A quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group design involving 22 new admissions was used to evaluate the efficacy of a behaviorally based treatment approach designed to enhance retention for TC clients in their early phase of residential treatment. The Beck Depression Inventory and Problem-Solving Inventory were administered in pretest-post format, in addition to the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8 which was administered at posttreatment. Results revealed a retention rate of 100 percent for the treatment group compared to 27 percent for the untreated group. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: B, page: 6131. / Major Professor: Dianne Montgomery. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.