The effect of experienced limb identity upon adaptation to simulated displacement of the visual field

Ss were confronted with a situation which mimicked the visuomotor consequences of an 11-deg lateral displacement of the visual field (leftward in Experiment I and rightward in Experiment II). The displacement was effected by having E place his own finger to one side of S’s nonvisible finger. Ss who were informed of this deception prior to the exposure period (informed group) manifested significantly less adaptation (“negative aftereffect” and “proprioceptive shift”) than did Ss who were told that their vision would be displaced by the goggles which they were wearing (misinformed group). It was concluded that adaptation to visual rearrangement is strongly influenced by S’s assumptions regarding the adequacy of his vision and the identity of the manual limb which he is viewing.     

Judgment stability and pseudorecognition of random and patterned configurations

Thirty six simple patterns were judged as “random” or “patterned” by adult Ss. Category judgments were consistent whether Ss were told that 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 of the patterns were random or if no proportion was specified. In a second experiment, Ss viewed a series of slides previously judged patterned followed by a recognition series with two additional patterned slides inserted in a series of otherwise random slides. Although slides were never labeled random or patterned, Ss made the most false recognitions for the two patterned slides. In another condition where random and patterned slides were reversed, most false recognitions were made for the two random slides. Both Gamer’s notion of hypothetical set size and an analysis of balanced elements fit the results, but the adequacy of both hypotheses can be questioned when applied to previous results with more complex patterns.     

Contradictory Information: Too Much of a Good Thing

Both I and Belnap, motivated the “Belnap-Dunn 4-valued Logic” by talk of the reasoner being simply “told true” (T), and simply “told false” (F), which leaves the options of being neither “told true” nor “told false” (N), and being both “told true” and “told false” (B). Belnap motivated these notions by consideration of unstructured databases that allow for negative information as well as positive information (even when they conflict). We now experience this on a daily basis with the Web. But the 4-valued logic is deductive in nature, and its matrix is discrete: there are just four values. In this paper I investigate embedding the 4-valued logic into a context of probability. Jøsang’s Subjective Logic introduced uncertainty to allow for degrees of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. We extend this so as to allow for two kinds of uncertainty—that in which the reasoner has too little information (ignorance) and that in which the reasoner has too much information (conflicted). Jøsang’s “Opinion Triangle” becomes an “Opinion Tetrahedron” and the 4-values can be seen as its vertices. I make/prove various observations concerning the relation of non-classical “probability” to non-classical logic.     

The probability-matching decision rule in the visual discrimination of order

In three experiments, human Ss were required to decide, on each trial, which of two spatially proximate, nearly simultaneous, lights was illuminated first. The right light preceded the left on either .33 or .83 of the trials. When Ss were frequently informed of these values, then, regardless of the accuracy of performance, Ss adjusted the rate at which they made “right” responses to approximate the rate at which the right-first pattern was presented. These results are in clear agreement with an adaptation of Atkinson’s three-state detection model.     

The prescriptive power of the television host. A transposition of Milgram's obedience paradigm to the context of TV game show

IntroductionToday's fascination with television makes us wonder whether it might not represent an authority capable of leading people in a television studio to inflict cruel acts on others, even though they condemn those acts.ObjectiveThe experiment reported here allows us to answer this question in the affirmative. Therefore, we transposed Milgram's famous experimental obedience paradigm to the context of a “real” TV game show, in the studio of a large television production company, with a live audience and no prizes.MethodWe set up several experimental conditions designed to tell us if, in such contexts, obedience was the dominant response, as it is in the often-replicated classic situation. We also wished to know if the introduction of variations would reduce obedience.ResultsThe results show that obedience to the host is the dominant response, as it is in Milgram's classic situation. However, variations that are assumed to reduce this obedience do not in fact demonstrate the expected effects. An additional experimental condition appears to demonstrate that a determining factor of obedience is the physical proximity of the host incarnating the televisual power.ConclusionWe offer a conclusion addressing the societal aspects of obedience.     

Confidence ratings in speech perception research: Evaluation of an efficient technique for discrimination testing

Discriminability of voice onset time was determined for four naive Ss in order to evaluate the relative efficiency of a testing procedure which utilized confidence ratings along with the conventional oddity task. Ss rated their judgments on oddity trials as “very very sure,” “somewhat sure,” or “just guessing.” Each S’s discrimination scores were given weights according to his ratings, yielding functions that were compared with those computed using unweighted percent correct scores. The confidence-rating technique produced readily interpretable results with about one-third as many judgments as are needed when the conventional procedure is used. Possible problems with the interpretation of the functions and the generalizability of the technique are discussed.     

Manipulation of study trials in recognition memory

Two experiments were performed for the purpose of ascertaining the effects of two processes in recognition memory: the Ss’ actual viewing time of verbal material and the E’s feedback. Recognition-memory performance was found to be superior for an Ednduced feedback over the S’s own “subjective, ” induced feedback (query loops), even though the time for total rehearsal was kept constant for each condition. The actual viewing time was not found to be a critical factor. Several hypotheses are advanced to account for this result.     

A Cross‐Cultural Comparison of Studies of Obedience Using the Milgram Paradigm: A Review

This report presents cross‐cultural comparisons of studies on obedience to authority using the classic Milgram paradigm, which provide answers to the following questions: 1. Overall, does the level of obedience found in the United States differ from that found in other countries? 2. Is the nature or pattern of sex differences in obedience the same or different in the United States and elsewhere? 3. How does Milgram’s “agentic state” conceptualization – that destructive obedience presupposes a shift in responsibility from the perpetrator to the authority – fare cross‐culturally?     

Tolerance of free-riding: The effects of defection size,defection pattern,and social orientation in a repeated public goods dilemma

Tolerance of free riding is defined as “the extent to which group members are willing to continue cooperation after observing other members’ defection behavior in a social dilemma.” We hypothesized that defection size (number of other members who defect), defection pattern (how other members’ defection choices are repeated), and social orientation (individual preference for different distributions of resources for self and/or others) would influence members’ level of tolerance in a repeated public goods dilemma. One hundred and ten business students participated in a computerized laboratory experiment in which four conditions were created: the same one (or two) members defect over all trials—a fixed pattern, or a different one (or two) members defect on different trials—a diffused pattern. Results show that the effects of social orientation and defection size were initially significant but diminished over trials. In contrast, the effects of defection pattern became increasingly significant over trials. Specifically, we found that members’ tolerance level was significantly higher in conditions where a diffused rather than a fixed pattern of defection was observed. A “perceived impact” hypothesis was proposed to explain these results.     

A comparison of verbal and non-verbal reports of fragmenting visual images

Sixty-eight Ss voluntarily restrained head, eye and blinking movements while viewing a luminous “HB” figure in a darkened room. All Ss were told that voluntary fixation would cause parts of the pattern to disappear; they were to report the parts that remained intact. Half of the Ss reported their disappearances verbally. The other half traced their disappearances on an outline “HB” figure. Results showed that the verbal method significantly favored the reporting of elements from the set H, h, B, b, 1, 11, +. These data suggest that response bias rather than perceptual organization may be responsible for the preponderance of meaningful disappearances noted in previous research.     

A comparison of verbal and non-verbal reports of fragmenting visual Images

Sixty-eight Ss voluntarily restrained head, eye and blinking movements while viewing a luminous “HB” figure in a darkened room. All Ss were told that voluntary fixation would cause parts of the pattern to disappear; they were to report the parts that remained intact. Half of the Ss reported their disappearances verbally. The other half traced their disappearances on an outline “HB” figure. Results showed that the verbal method significantly favored the reporting of elements from the set H, h, B, b, 1, 11, +. These data suggest that response bias rather than perceptual organization may be responsible for the preponderance of meaningful disappearances noted in previous research.     

The effects of interpolated US alone (USa) presentations on classical nictitating membrane conditioning in rabbit(Oryctolagus cuniculus)

The nictitating membrane (NM) response of 36 rabbits was classically conditioned using a 1,000-Hz tone (CS) paired with circumorbital shock (US) at a 250-msec CS-US interval. Two experimental groups received additional presentations of the US given alone (USa), either 30 seconds (Group E30) or 60 seconds (Group E60) following each CS-US pairing, and their performance was compared to that of control Ss (Group C60) which never experienced USa. Presentations of USa resulted in significant and approximately equal performance decrements in both experimental groups relative to the C60 controls. However, no significant differences among the groups appeared during an extinction phase. The effects of USa presentations were discussed in terms of Papsdorf’s consolidation interpretation and Rescorla’s (1967) contingency theory of conditioning, and appeared to favor the latter view. Additional analyses led to the conclusions that (1) the increased amplitude of the NM UR on paired CS-US trials relative to USa trials can be attributed, at least in part, to the simple laws of the reflex, independent of the conditioning processper se, and (2) the partial reinforcement extinction effects previously reported by Leonard and Theios (1968) cannot be attributed solely to the presence of USa in their continuous reinforcement control Ss.     

What does a person in a “TOT” state know that a person in a “don’t know” state doesn’t know

The purpose of this study was to examine the significance of Brown and McNeill’s (1966) findings regarding the “tip of the tongue” (TOT) phenomenon, A modified version of their procedure was used with 56 Ss. Although their findings that Ss in a TOT state can detect parts and properties of the missing word were generally replicated, a division of the TOT state into a variety of substates showed correct detection rate to vary greatly, depending on the substate involved. In addition, correct detection of partial information was demonstrated even when S declared he had no knowledge of the selected word (don’t know). It was suggested that a distinction be made between information detection based on knowledge of the characteristics common to the class of items of which the target is a member (“class detection”) and detection based on knowledge of characteristics specific to the target in question (“differential detection”). Both class and differential detection were found to obtain in TOT states as well as in the don’t know state. Some theoretical and methodological implications were suggested     

人情与公正的抉择:社会距离对第三方干预的影响

第三方干预(third-party intervention)是一种重要的利他行为,它包括惩罚和补偿两种措施。本研究结合情境性问卷与实验法,采用修改后的独裁者博弈范式(Dictator Game,DG),让被试作为第三方对朋友或者陌生人的不公平行为进行干预,考察社会距离对第三方干预的影响。研究发现:(1)对于朋友提出的不公平方案,个体对其的惩罚轻于陌生人,而对第二方(无权者)的补偿没有显著差异。(2)个体对朋友的不公平提议的公平性判断高于陌生人,但提议引发的情绪体验没有显著差异。上述结果表明,社会距离可能通过影响个体对不公平行为的公平感知,进而影响其第三方干预行为。     

Motivated changes of auditory sensitivity in a simple detection task

Recently both neurophysiological and psychophysical theories have suggested that the sensitivity of receptors, or of the whole organism, may change through “efferent control” or as a result of “motivation.” A psychophysical method has been devised to investigate changes in a listener’s ability to detect signals in a noisy background, which are elicited “on demand” by the E, and when the time course of the changes may be in the order of seconds rather than minutes orhours. Observed effects, which are consistent with the hypotheses of active control of sensitivity, are found to be orderly but quite small, generally less than that associated with a 1–2 dB increase in the level of a tonal signal. While the average increment in performance is thus slight, it is found that the variance between Ss is significantly reduced when strong motivating stimuli are introduced. This reduction in variance may reflect an upper limit on the performance of real listeners, which might be fruitfully compared with the theoretical limits proposed in the theory of signal detectability.     

The elusive tradeoff: Speed vs accuracy in visual discrimination tasks

Theoretical models for choice reaction time and discrimination under time pressure must account for Ss’ ability to trade accuracy for increased speed. The fast guess model views these tradeoffs as different mixtures of “all-or-none” strategies, while incremental models assume they reflect different degrees of thoroughness in processing the stimulus. Three experiments sought tradeoffs for difficult visual discriminations, using explicit payoffs to control and manipulate pressures for speed and accuracy. Although guessing was pervasive, the simple fast guess model could be rejected; Experiments II and III obtained tradeoffs even when fast guesses were purged from Ss’ data. Tradeoff functions fit by several formulations revealed: (1) slower rates of increase in accuracy for more similar stimuli, and (2) substantial “dead times” (80–100 msec slower than detection times) before discrimination responses could exceed chance accuracy. Errors were sometimes faster and sometimes slower than correct responses (depending on S’s speed-accuracy trade); the latter effect may reflect a ceiling on S’s achievable accuracy. A final discussion examines implications of the results for models of discrimination under time pressure; it suggests modifications in present models, focusing on the random walk model, and describes an alternative “deadline” model.     

Retrieval processes in recognition

Retrieval processes in the long-term recognition of well organized material showed the expected organizational effects on “slow” recognition responses. Ss sorted 100 words into two to seven categories until a stable organization was achieved. The data showed the usual correlations between organization (number of categories used) and recall and recognition. Recognition tests a week after the sorting task revealed no differences between Ss using many or few categories for the “fast” recognition responses, defined as the faster 50% of each S’s latency distribution. The organizational effect was clearly evident for the “slow” 50% of the responses. The data support the retrieval check hypothesis in recognition under the assumption that retrieval operations take additional time during the recognition process.     

Dyadic Influence in an “ESP Study” and TAT Measures of the Needs for Influence and Power

Ss “received ESP impressions” of the five standard ESP card symbols, for 100 trials. They were then randomly paired with same-sex Ss and asked to reach agreement on whatever disagreements existed on the first 50 trials. All Ss had previously taken a modified TAT, scored for the needs for Influence (n Influence) and Power (n Power). Ss with high n Influence prevailed significantly more often on the first disagreement, on disagreements during the first 25 trials, and over all 50 trials. N Power correlated only slightly with losses during the first 25 trials. Results were consistent with viewing n Influence as an interpersonal competence motive. N Power was apparently not engaged by the dyadic situation and its rewards.     

An Analytical Study of Self-Reliance

The present study compared the use of hostile verbs by youthful male prisoners with single offenses and those with multiple offenses. Ss chose between using a neutral verb (e. g., “visited”) or a hostile verb (e. g., “killed”) in constructing each of a series of 100 sentences. Ss with multiple offenses used hostile verbs significantly more than Ss with single offenses, and these differences were evident over all blocks of trials. There was a significant linear trend in hostile verb use for both groups. Implications for clinical research were discussed.