Leonard M. Giambra

Shaping a clinic population: the dropout problem reconsidered.

This study involved a comparison of dropout and nondropout community outpatients on a pool of demographic variables. Unlike previous studies, “dropout” was operationalized in terms of both session number cutoff and failure to appear for scheduled appointment(s). With the exception that early dropouts have had less previous therapy than later dropout or nondropout patients, no important group differences occurred. The findings combined to suggest that outpatient clinics “shape” patients into two groups: (1) those who make repeated use of a variety of mental health services and (2) those who quickly turn away from such services and are unlikely to reapply at a later date.

Daydreaming as a function of cueing and task difficulty.

The effects of demand characteristics and task difficulty upon the reported frequency of daydreaming were investigated. 71 Ss who performed 2 memory tasks of varying difficulty served in one of two control groups and an experimental group. Contrary to expectation, a suppression of daydreams occurred when Ss were cued that a report of daydreams was to be investigated. However, in line with our hypothesis a more difficult memory task resulted in a reduction in the amounts of reported daydreaming.

Effect of number of irrelevant dimensions with ten concept types on the attribute identification task in the selection mode with exemplar and non-exemplar start cards

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of increasing the number of irrelevant dimensions (IR) for 10 concept types with two types of start cards under conditions of the selection mode. The results indicated (a) a directly proportional relationship between the relative conceptual difficulty under 1IR and the increase in conceptual difficulty under 2IR; and (b) least difficulty under 1IR with exemplar start cards and equal difficulty for both start cards under 2IR.

Hierarchies in concept attainmen in the selection mode with exemplar and non-exemplar start cards

The purpose of this study was to investigate the generality of the hierarchy of concepts to the selection mode with exemplar or nonexemplar start cards. The logical hierarchy of concepts in which lower level concepts form the components of higher level concepts was found to operate empirically in the context of the selection mode with a complete learning task. Furthermore, the Type of Start Card was found not to affect the relative difficulty of the levels of the hierarchy. Also noted was a faster time-per-trial for females over males and a Type Concept by Type Start Card interaction on per cent correct card choices.

Eyemovements as a Function of Attention and Rate of Change in thought Content

Previous investigators have inferred that increased rate of eyemovement was due to increased attention or increased rate of change in thought content. Studies testing one position were interpretable in terms of the other. This study was carried out to end this methodological confound. Two groups (n = 12) at normal and high attention performed mental tasks involving both a low and a high rate of change of thought content. The results indicated that increased rate of eyemovement occurred with an increase in attention regardless of rate of change of thought content and with an increase in rate of change of thought content only when the attention level was high.