Mothers of 48 infants approximately 12 months old displayed either positive or neutral affect while their infants responded to pleasant, ambiguous, or aversive toys. On the first trial maternal affect had no effect; on the second trial, positive maternal affect resulted in more positive infant responses, but only for the ambiguous toy. (Author/RH)

Describes the establishment of a psychological space for any set of stimuli by determining metric distances between the stimuli with the probability that a response learned for a stimulus will generalize to the other. (Author/TW)

Describes observer-based technique for assessing auditory capacities of infants from three to 12 months of age. This technique, referred to as the Observation-based Psychoacoustic Procedure (OPP), combines features of the Forced-choice Preferential Looking Technique and of the Visual Reinforcement Audiometry. Pure-tone detection and frequency…

Evaluates the efficacy of two training procedures for eliminating selective stimulus control observed with three trainable mentally retarded children. In another experiment, improvements in stimulus control were not a function of varying degrees of difficulty between stimulus sets or of a prior history of discrimination training with the less…

An earlier study showed that responses are remembered better when subjects produce them from cues, than when subjects read cue-response pairs. The decided memory advantage for generated targets relative to read ones is known as the generation effect. The present research is designed to study the generation effect for cues, following a…

This study assessed the differential effectiveness of two types of response delays on correct responding (with communicative gestures) by three individuals with severe mental handicaps to training instructions. Results showed that response delay was effective in increasing the number of correct responses in two of the three individuals. (DB)

Effective instructional strategies used to teach language skills to 24 elementary aged students with autism or moderate mental retardation included the use of choral responding; the use of student-to-student responding; the frequent rotation of materials while teaching 2 to 3 concepts; and the use of random, unpredictable trials for student…

Examines the characteristic features of epidemic hysteria reports in school settings. Discovers three distinct symptom patterns: (1) mass motor hysteria (psychomotor alterations due to preexisting stress); (2) mass anxiety hysteria (extreme anxiety following the redefinition of a mundane event); and (3) mass pseudo-hysteria (relabeling of mundane…