Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

T W Allen

Publications and source records attributed to T W Allen.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1980

Intratask distractibility in hyperkinetic and nonhyperkinetic children.

Previous laboratory studies that have either introduced extraneous enviromental stimulation or tested children in cubicles have failed to provide support for the common clinical notion that hyperkinetic children are highly distractible. Based on the Rosenthal and Allen (1978) proposal, distractibility was investigated by introducing irrelevant information within the task context. Intratask distractibility was examined by comparing the performance of hyperkinetic and nonhyperkinetic children on a speeded classification task. Errors measured for responses to slides containing either zero, constant, one varying, or two varying irrelevant stimulus dimensions. Dimensional salience of the three dimensions used in the study was measured for each child. The data indicate that hyperkinetics made more errors than nonhyperkinetics when constant irrelevant or two varying irrelevant dimensions were presented, but the two groups made equal errors when there was no irrelevant information presented within the stimulus array. No group differences in distractibility were found when the irrelevant dimension was low salience. It was concluded that salience of distractors presented within the task context may be useful in specifying the particular task conditions in which hyperkinetic children exhibit high distractibility.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1979

Children's sensitivity to intraword redundancy in spoken words.

Kindergarten, third-grade and fifth-grade children were tested on a same-different auditory discrimination task. Stimuli consisted of familiar and unfamiliar 3-letter words which were subdivided into high and low positional frequency word pairs. Analysis of correct same and different judgments supported the hypothesis that prereaders who have had normal language experiences develop sensitivities to intraword-redundancy relations. Children made significantly more correct same or different judgments when word pairs were high rather than low in summed positional frequency.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1978

Memory effects and sensory integration: an examination of sensory modality translation models of intersensory functioning.

The sensory modality of a task and the modality of a retroactive interfering activity were systematically covaried in order to test Connolly and Jones' and Pick's translation models of intersensory functioning. Forty 10-year-old boys and girls were asked to recall distance and location cues of length under intrasensory and intersensory task conditions (visual and kinesthetic). Visual and kinesthetic interpolated activities were used in an attempt to provide modality specific interference with the recall of length under the various sensory task conditions. Results of the data analyses provided no support for the Connolly and Jones model of modality specific storage with translation. Rather, the findings of the study were interpreted as supportive of Pick's hypothesis which emphasizes the coding of stimulus information (regardless of modality of input) into a form specific to whatever modality is specialized for detection of the information.

Child↗