Performance on a mirror-drawing task by non-right-handers.

Left-, mixed-, and right-handed (each n = 10, N = 30) adolescent boys who were classified on the basis of a hand preference inventory performed a mirror-drawing task with a bilateral transfer of a skill paradigm. Participants' hand preference and the magnitude of bilateral transfer of skill were assessed in terms of errors committed and time taken to complete the mirror-drawing task. Mixed-handed participants exhibited significantly less habit interference for mirror drawing, and they performed the task significantly faster than the left-handers did; the group difference was not significant for the frequency of errors committed. These groups did not differ in terms of the magnitude of bilateral transfer of skill; the trend, however, showed that the transfer of skill was minimum in mixed-handers. These findings extend the theory that mixed-handed participants' inability to transfer motor skill from one hand to the other could be attributable to their lack of a clear pattern of lateralization. Their ability to perform well either at initial or later trials may be a function of less interference from their normal motor habits.

Deprivation, context, and processing of textual materials.

Levy's (1983) familiarization and proofreading paradigm was used to examine the context-processing relationship during reading of Hindi textual materials. Sixty high- and 60 low-deprived male students in Classes 11 and 12 were asked to proofread error-filled passages of easy and difficult text. Familiarity was manipulated by presenting error-free versions of the passages to some subjects but not to others for a single reading before their actual proofreading. Familiar passages were processed faster than unfamiliar passages irrespective of students' deprivation and passage difficulty. Slow processing was recorded for highly deprived subjects and for easy passages. Faster processing was associated with higher error detection and higher short-term retention scores, whereas the opposite was true for slower processing. Familiarity enhanced short-term retention, suggesting some involvement of conceptually driven process even after familiarization. Findings are discussed in light of interactive processing models of reading.

Induced arousal and orienting tasks as determinants of intentional recall.

In this study, the author examined the effects of intention to learn, noise, and different types of orienting tasks on short-term and long-term recall for 15 Hindi paired-associates. Intention to learn improved recall, as did encoding of semantic features, and noise impaired both short-term and long-term recall. The analysis of short-term recall scores indicated that there were no significant interactions between these factors, but the analysis of long-term recall scores indicated that there were significant interactions between noise and orienting tasks and between intentionality and orienting tasks.

Effects of shock inputs on perceptual vigilance.

This study concerns the role of an accessory shock stimulus in varying the level of performance of subjects in reporting pairs of tachistoscopic words. On half the trials received either a high or low level of shock together with a pair of words presented for one of two durations. The results indicate that intensity of shock interacted with sex such that for female subjects performance deteriorates with intensity in shock while for male subjects it increases. The role of phasic and tonic arousal is discussed.