Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Comparative Study Of The Experimental Characteristics Of A Group Of Peptic Ulcer And Non-Ulcer Subjects, Frank George Mullen Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

Introduction: The research about to be reported is one part of a larger research project being conducted at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. The objective of this research program is to attempt to systematically study psychological factors related to peptic ulcer by means of a behaviorally-oriented approach.

The problem in this study is a comparison of duodenal ulcer patients and a matched control group of non-ulcer subjects on various measures of reported behaviors of important persons in the early lives of the subjects. The major purpose of these comparisons is to generate hypotheses concerning the etiology of peptic …

The Cue Value Of Certain Attributes Of Faces, Joseph William Openshaw

Doctoral Dissertations

Of all the objects considered to be members of the broad class of things called "stimuli," undoubtedly the most important subset for the understanding of human behavior is other humans. The present research investigates some aspects of the complex stimulus provided by the appearance of another person and the function of selected dimensions of variation of such stimuli in a learning situation. It is an attempt to produce information regarding the relative effectiveness of certain kinds of cues provided by a person's face, when one is required to learn to respond differently to faces. The importance of research in …

The Role Of Learning In Olfactory Sensitivity, Monroe P. Friedman

Doctoral Dissertations

INTRODUCTION: In recent years the psychological literature has reflected an increasing interest in the role of learning in perception. On the theoretical level, this interest is expressed principally by the considerable attention given to two current attempts to account for perceptual learning (Gibson & Gibson, 1955a: Postman, 1955). On the empirical level, the problems of industry and the military have generated a multitude of investigations in this area. These problems range in diversity from the training of military personnel in the identification of aircraft to the training of tasters in the food industry.

The remainder of this chapter will be …

Partial Reinforcement And Generalization, Henry C. Rickard

Doctoral Dissertations

Introduction: The present investigation was designed to study the interaction of two experimentally established parameters of a habit; partial reinforcement and stimulus generalization. Studies concerning the effects of partial reinforcement have occupied a prominent place in the psychological literature since Skinner's (1938) first major treatment of schedules of reinforcement. Numerous stimulus generalization experiments have been reported since Pavlov's (1927) recognition of the generalization phenomenon. The present study explored the effects of applying the partial reinforcement parameter in conditioning and the stimulus generalization variable in extinction. More specifically, groups of human subjects were conditioned to a verbal response under different schedules …

Experiments In Conditioning Operant Verbal Behavior, Edwin O. Timmons

Doctoral Dissertations

In general, the writer's interests lie in the application of the principles of learning theory to the prediction and modification of gross human behavior. It is difficult to overemphasize the role of speech in the formation, shaping, and modification of an individual's behavior, and in the past few years a steadily growing body of investigators have been experimenting directly on speech, treating it as in uncontrollable, supra-human phenomenon. Those who experiment in the area called verbal behavior generally follow Skinner's (45) operant conditioning procedures which entail using the free speech of the S as the dependent variable and the verbal …

The Effect Of Stabilized And Nonstabilized Hunger Drive, Age, And Situation Complexity Upon Exploratory Behavior, Stanley Wechkin

Doctoral Dissertations

Summary: An experiment was conducted to ascertain the effects of nonstabilized food deprivation, stabilized food deprivation, runway complexity, and age on exploratory behavior of male albino rats both during and across five five-minute trials. Three levels of deprivation: zero, twenty-three, and forty-seven hours were used. The stabilization dimension included groups stabilized on the twenty-three hour schedule for zero and fourteen days prior to the beginning of the experiment. The two age groups were respectively about thirty-five and ninety days old at the beginning of the experiment. All groups were equally divided into simple and complex runway groups. The simple runway …

A Developmental Study Of Performance On The Hunter-Pascal Concept Formation Test, Ernest R. Larsen

Doctoral Dissertations

When psychology was closely allied to philosophy, it was defined as the study of "consciousness" or "mind." Its' methodology was investigating introspection, and by necessity, this limited any experimentation to the human species. In Europe, the initial research emphasis was on sensation and perception.

Although this philosophical orientation was questioned by a few investigators, this prevailing theoretical climate was irreversibly changes in America with the arrival and wide acceptance of Watson and his Behaviorism. Behavior then became the proper object of interest, and since all organisms behave, the object of study of psychology increased a thousand-fold.

In America, psychology's interest …

Geology Of English Mountain And Vicinity, Cock, Jefferson And Sevier Counties, Tennessee, Robert Carl Greene

Masters Theses

Statement of the Problem: English Mountain is interpreted by Rodgers (1953, Geologic Map of East Tennessee) as a remnant of rocks of the Chilhowee group, resting on a prong in the overthrust sheet of the Great Smoky fault. He showed the structure of the Chilhowee rocks to be synclinal in the central portion, monoclinal on the northern end, and monoclinal in the westward extension.

Objective of the present writer were: 1) to check the major structure and detail the contacts, 2) to accurately locate the position of the Great Smoky fault, 3) to map the minor structures, 4) to study …

A Comparative Study Of The Experiential Characteristics Of A Group Of Alcoholic And Non-Alcoholic Subjects, Hugh C. Davis Jr.

Masters Theses

The problem in this investigation is a behavioral comparison of a group of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. The primary purpose of these comparisons is to generate hypotheses about covariate factors related to alcoholism and secondly to gain understanding about the etiology of the alcoholic process. Three steps were involved in carrying out these purposes: (1) defining alcoholism behaviorally, (2) ascertaining current functioning of the subjects, (3) ascertaining early learning experiences. Alcoholism is the dependent variable--criterion--of this investigation. A quantifiable behavioral drinking scale developed by Jenkins and Davis (15) yielded scores which defined the criterion. The U-T Deprivation Scale was used to …

The Relationship Between Experiential Variables And The Occurence Of Duodenal Ulcer, William W. Lothrop

Doctoral Dissertations

INTRODUCTION The research about to be reported is part of a larger research program with duodenal ulcer patients carried out at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, under the direction of Drs. Gerald R. Pascal. and William O. Jenkins of the University of Tennessee Psychology Department. This research program has attempted to bring a systematic, behaviorally-oriented approach to the problem ot duodenal ulcer. The early work of Bergmann (3) has been followed by sufficient expermental research, notably that of Wolf and Wolff (28), Mittelmann and Wolff (16), Gantt (8) and Sawrey (24, 25), to make tentative the hypothesis that …

The Relationship Between Experimental Variables And The Occurence Of Duodenal Ulcer, William W. Lothrop

Doctoral Dissertations

The research about to be reported is part of a larger research program with duodenal ulcer patients carried out at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, under the direction of Drs. Gerald R. Pascal and William O. Jenkins of the University of Tennessee Psychology Department. This research program has attempted to bring a systematic, behaviorally-oriented approach to the problem of duodenal ulcer. The early work of Bergmann (3) has been followed by sufficient experimental research, notably that of Wolf and Wolff (28), Mittelmann and Wolff (16), Gantt (8) and Sawrey (24, 25), to make tentative the hypothesis that there …

The Effect Of Cue Change And Drive On A Running Response, Warren A. Young

Doctoral Dissertations

In studying the learned behavior of organisms, experimenters usually focus on some particular response and its relationship to systematically varied external stimuli and/or deprivations operations. Any given response can be considered to vary in three ways: It can be strengthened, it can be weakened, or it can be maintained at a more or less constant level. The strength (or weakness) of a response can be indexed in several ways. One can, for instance, measure the latency of the response, the amplitude of the response, the number of response elicitations to produce experimental extinction, the probability of response occurrence, the frequency …

Directory Of Tennessee Municipal Officials 1959-60, Mtas

Municipal Directories

A directory of Tennessee cities that includes personnel and municipal data, such as number of employees, population, charter form, size in square miles, and election date, for 1959-60.