Barry S. Parsonson

CHILD PEDESTRIANS' CROSSING GAP THRESHOLDS

Three gender-balanced groups of 16 school children (5-6 years, 8-9 years, 11-12 years) participated in individual pretests of vision, hearing, and time to walk across a 12-m wide urban street and back. Each child then completed 10 roadside trials requiring judgement of the threshold point at which they would no longer cross in front of traffic approaching from their right. The judgements were made from a site immediately in front of a parked car at a point 2 m from the kerb and 4 m from the centre of the road. Traffic speeds and distances were measured using a laser speed and distance detector. The results indicated that, overall, distance gap thresholds remained constant regardless of vehicle approach speeds. Analysis of the thresholds for distance gap judgements for the 4-m half-street crossing showed that some of the older children could be expected to make safe decisions, but this was not so for the 5-6- and 8-9-year-olds at vehicle approach speeds above 60 kph. Almost two-thirds of the children reported using distance to judge gaps, which proved the least adequate strategy in terms of proportion of resultant safe decisions. The findings are discussed in relation to developing effective child pedestrian safety strategies.

The Graphic Analysis of Data

Graphic data presentation, visual data analysis, and single-subject designs have each achieved a unique prominence in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior. In combination, they have allowed the direct, responsive, and individualized behavior-control procedures that characterize the functional analysis of behavior as no other strategy could have done (Baer, 1977; Michael, 1974; Skinner, 1956).

Training generalized conservation in 5-year-old children☆

Abstract This study comprised two experiments, each using a multiple-probe design and involving individual conservation training of four 5-year-old children identified by pretests as nonconservers. Training involved exposure to a series of conservation problems and experimenter feedback on response accuracy. Probes of the childrens explanations of their responses and for generalized correct conservation to untrained problems were made during training sessions. Durability of training was assessed by post-training probes. Experiment 1 investigated whether the children could be trained to conserve mass and if that training generalized to conservation of weight and/or volume. Experiment 2 investigated the effects on acquisition and generalization of altering the training sequence conservation concepts, i.e., by training volume conservation and probing for generalization to mass and/or weight conservation. The results of both experiments showed that training quickly and durably established generalized correct conservation and that the childrens explanations changed to conform with acquisition of conservation. The Experiment 2 data indicated that acquisition was unaffected by altering the sequence of training. The findings are discussed in the light of D. M. Baers (1970, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development , 16 (3), 238–345; 1973, in H. W. Reese & J. Nesselrode (Eds.), Life-Span Developmental Psychology , pp. 185–193, New York: Academic Press) ideas on application of behavior analysis to developmental psychology.

Psychotherapy in New Zealand state psychiatric hospitals

Abstract Analysis of a questionnaire, intended to provide information on the formal training and psychotherapeutic activities of personnel administering psychotherapy in New Zealand state-run psychiatric hospitals, revealed that most members of each professional group (psychiatrists, physicians, psychologists, social workers) claimed some formal training. Typically, preferred therapeutic techniques were based on psychoanalytic (psychiatrists and physicians) or non-directive (psychologists and social workers) models. The most common form of psychotherapy was, however, individual directive advice or counselling. An interesting finding was the wide acceptance of psychotherapeutic intervention with psychotics. The relevance of psychotherapy within the New Zealand psychiatric hospital context was discussed.

Extreme response tendencies on a semantic differential.

The present investigation was undertaken to examine the generality of the findings of a number of studies whose results indicated that psychiatric patients, as compared with normals, exhibited a higher frequency of checking the polar extremes of the semantic differential. Three carefully matched groups of normals, neurotics and psychotics completed a 7-concept, 9scale form of the semantic differential and their scale-checking styles were compared. The results supported the hypothesis that psychiatric patients check the extremes more often than normals but did not confirm the finding that psychotics are significantly more extreme in their responses than neurotics. It was suggested that the observed extreme response tendencies of psychiatric patients could reflect an important aspect of emotional maladjustment.

The Use of Reinforcement Procedures in Retraining Hand Movement of a CVA Hemiplegic

This study investigated the effectiveness of reinforcement procedures in retraining upper extremity movement impaired as a result of cerebrovascular accident. A simply constructed instrument permitted accurate measurement of motor responding and, under some treatment conditions, provided the subject with direct feedback of movement. Experimenter praise for movement which met a pre-selected standard or criterion, in combination with binary visual feedback of performance and a knowledge of progress condition, was shown to bring about continuing improvement in the hemiplegic subjects range of supination. Praise with binary feedback alone functioned only to sustain responding at above baseline levels.

Sex differences in the extreme response tendencies of psychiatric patients: a function of sex-role identification.

Two research hypotheses, generated from earlier studies and relating to sex differences in response tendency on the semantic differential (SD), were tested. Three carefully matched groups, each comprising 10 male and 10 female normals, neurotics, and psychotics, completed a 7-concept, 9-scale SD. The results indicated that emotional maladjustment and sex of rater were important variables in determining the pattern of scale-checking exhibited. It was suggested that the observed differences in extreme response tendency might be related to sex-role expectancies.