Contextual connections to puns in fables: perceived humor.

Adding material that provided an associative connection to a pun enhances perceived humor, as shown in a previous series of studies. Because those results had been based on one-sentence statements that may have relied, in part, on brevity for humor, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate reactions to context and puns (mostly spoonerisms) with more lengthy material to add generality to those findings. Three within-subject studies were conducted in which short fables were manipulated systematically such that the final sentence was or was not a pun and contextual information pertaining to both meanings of the pun was or was not present in the body of the stories. Results showed that the pun itself was a powerful contributor to perceived humor and cleverness and that contextual information amplified those perceptions. Arousal, surprise, and detection of appropriate incongruity are discussed.

Does humor in radio advertising affect recognition of novel product brand names?

The authors proposed that item selection during shopping is based on brand name recognition rather than recall. College students rated advertisements and news stories of a simulated radio program for level of amusement (orienting activity) before participating in a surprise recognition test. Humor level of the advertisements was varied systematically, and content was controlled. According to signal detection analysis, humor did not affect the strength of recognition memory for brand names (nonsense units). However, brand names and product types were significantly more likely to be associated when appearing in humorous advertisements than in nonhumorous advertisements. The results are compared with prior findings concerning humor and recall.

Contextual connections within puns: effects on perceived humor and memory.

The supposition that perceived humor or cleverness would be enhanced by adding separate content to the alternative meanings of a pun was explored, using Tom Swifties as the research vehicle. Because detecting a punning word relationship might induce arousal, requiring more effort and attentional resources for processing than noting a contextual connection, memory strength for adverbs was also examined using a recognition procedure. Five studies were conducted in which college students were asked to judge 24 Swifties (content counterbalanced across participants) in which presence of pun and context were manipulated. The punning relationship was primarily responsible for perceived humor and cleverness. Presence of a pun also enhanced memory strength (d') as long as the familiarization task focused on humor and cleverness. Coherent context enhanced perceived cleverness inconsistently. It was suggested that a coherent contextual connection may make a greater contribution in more lengthy forms of pun-based word play, such as fables or "shaggy dog" stories.

Learned industriousness: replication in principle.

Undergraduate students completed a series of training tasks consisting of solving anagrams, performing addition problems, and making perceptual discriminations, to validate findings of learned industriousness. The group that received high-effort training was given difficult and demanding tasks, whereas the group that received low-effort training was given easy tasks. Controls were given no preliminary training activity. For the criterion task, all participants were provided with a series of pencil and paper mazes to complete. They were allowed to "pass" on whatever mazes they wished (they could progress to the next maze but could not return to any that had been passed). Participants who had received high-effort training passed on significantly fewer mazes than did those in the control and low-effort conditions, thus supporting the generality of effects of reinforced high effort.

Consequences of error production in a perceptual-motor task.

In 2 experiments, U.S. college students engaged in a computerized version of a tracing task in which a cursor on a monitor screen could be guided through 16 segments of an 8-pointed, star-shaped track into targets at the vertices of the track by moving a joystick handle. The presence or absence of consequences for errors was manipulated. With restricted consequences, the cursor was confined to the track, freezing in position if the joystick handle was moved to an unsuitable position. With unrestricted consequences, the cursor always moved corresponding to the position of the joystick handle, even through and beyond the borders of the track. Time to reach each of the 16 successive targets was recorded on each of 4 training trials, as well as on 2 transfer trials in which consequences were unrestricted, but only the cursor and next target were visible (the contextual cue of the star-shaped track was absent). Times were longer on diagonal segments and when consequences were unrestricted, but there was no consistent carryover to the test trials. The results suggest that feedback, to serve an effective "guidance" function in skill learning, requires production of unrestricted feedback about errors. True guidance, however, prevents response errors, so consequences and feedback about errors are precluded.

Rule-governed performance and sensitivity to contingencies: what's new?

Human operant performance was treated as an instance of instrumental problem-solving behavior. All subjects completed the same series of six water jug problems, the first three requiring an elaborate formula, and the last three allowing simpler solutions. Experimental subjects were informed that all problems could be solved using the same (elaborate) formula. Experimental subjects solved quickly but failed to use more efficient solutions. Instructions led to more reported compliance with perceived "demand characteristics," continued use of the more elaborate solution for the sake of speed and convenience, and the expectation that fewer problems allowed alternative solutions. It was suggested that sensitivity to contingencies and the Einstellung Effect (as explicated by Luchins 50 years ago) appear to be homologous phenomena and may be expected to share common behavioral processes.

Sexual transmission of Candida.

Mycotic cultures of 33 couples, in which the women had a diagnosis of chronic recurrent vulvovaginitis, were prepared from the oral cavity, the rectum, the vagina, and the male ejaculate. Reservoirs of infection were found in the oral cavities of 36% of the couples, the rectum in 33%, and the ejaculate in 15%. Prostatic cultures of the male were negative in each case. In most instances, the same organism was present in the reservoir and in the vagina. Elimination of the mycotic organisms in each site and restriction of sexual contact with the reservoir of mycotic organisms effected cures in these previously recurrent vulvovaginitis patients.

Candida tropicalis vulvovaginitis.

In a majority of patients with candidal vulvovaginitis, drug therapy is convenient and effective. A small but significant group of patients remain symptomatic with recurrent, chronic candidiasis. A study of 805 patients was undertaken to delineate microbiologically candidal species. The study revealed that the recurrence rate for Candida tropicalis was twice the rate for Candida albicans, and that despite continuous medical care and multiple therapies, the recurrent C tropicalis patients remained symptomatic with persistence of the organism. The difficulty encountered with eradication of C tropicalis may have been due to the lack of susceptibility of the cell membrane to the commonly used antifungal agents.

Sugar chromatography studies in recurrent Candida vulvovaginitis.

Because of the apparent increase in vulvovaginitis caused by Candida species, the chronic disability caused by this infection and its stubborn resistance to current therapy, a study of 100 women was undertaken to attempt to gain insight into the role of dietary sugar ingestion in the pathogenesis of this disease. Urinary sugar patterns of glucose, arabinose and ribose were elevated. These excretion patterns correlated well with the excessive oral ingestion of dairy products, artificial sweeteners and sucrose. Eliminating excessive use of these foods brought about a dramatic reduction in the incidence and severity of Candida vulvovaginitis.

Perceptual isolation and position judgment.

Prior findings showed that perceptual isolation of one item in a low similarity list facilitated total-list learning of order. A reconstruction procedure in which a spatial framework was provided during test trials, was used in those studies. In order to extend the generality of those findings, a position judgment procedure was used in the present experiments; subjects estimated ordinal position of each item following each of six study trials in which the 12 CVC items were displayed in a fixed sequence. That to-be-learned sequence was defined temporally in Experiment 1, which failed to corroborate prior findings, but was presented simultaneously and spatially in Experiment 2, which did. Interpretation focused on conditions necessary for finding homologous effects for supplied anchors and isolating stimuli, suggesting that absolute judgment can be regarded as a special case of serial learning, and vice versa, and on circumstances allowing utilization of an isolating stimulus as an organizational device.

Perceptions about social work and mental retardation.

This article discusses a research project undertaken to develop a quantitative instrument for assessing the level of societal concern for mentally retarded persons. The responses from parents and professional workers disclosed several value judgments of interest to social workers relating to counseling and other social services, the provision of financial assistance, and the role of social workers in providing habilitative and supportive services.