Shorter articles and notes left-right differences in auditory perception of verbal and non-verbal material by children

One hundred and twenty children, 60 boys and 60 girls, varying in age between 6 and 12 years were presented with a series of digits and Morse-like sound patterns to earch ear separately. As predicted, sound patterns were found to better retained when presented to the left ear than when presented to the right ear. Series of digits however were not retained better via the right ear than via the left ear. The dominance of the left ear for non-verbal material decreases with increasing age. For verbal material a quadratic relation between the dominance of the right ear and age was established.     

Shorter articles and notes probability-learning in the monkey

Tested in a choice-situation, two rhesus monkeys showed a correspondence between choice-ratios and reinforcement-ratios. The basis of this event-matching proved to be different in the monkey from that in lower forms.     

Shorter articles and notes two more visual theorems

The basis of the widely held opinion that the spectral sensitivities of the mechanisms determining trichromacy must be linearly related to the spectral mixture functions is examined, and a proof from simple assumptions is stated.

It is proved also that, on the van der Velden hypothesis of independent sensitive units, a spatial or temporal summation law of the form AIⁿ = c implies a frequency-of-seeing curve of the form Q = I—e^-KIn (Q = probability of detecting a stimulus of size A and intensity I; n, c and K are constants).     

Shorter articles and notes noise and the shifting of attention

An experiment was carried out to test the hypothesis that performance on a task which involves a shift of attention between spatially separated sources would be lower under noise conditions than one which involved no such shift. The results indicated that the hypothesis was not proved; rather they showed that the subject's performance on the shift of attention task was better under noise than under quiet. An attempt is made to put forward possible reasons for this occurrence.     

Shorter articles and notes the interpretation of the passive voice

It was hypothesized that sentences in the passive voice emphasize the importance of the things referred to by their grammatical subjects to a greater extent than sentences in the active voice. Each subject had to produce simple diagrams to represent two sentences, one active and one passive, and it was assumed that the size of areas in these diagrams could be taken as an index of importance. In Group EQ, the sentences specified an equivalent arrangement of colours, e.g. “Red follows Blue,” “Blue is followed by Red”; in Group CO, they specified converse arrangements, e.g. “Red follows Blue,” “Red is followed by Blue.” The predictions, that (i) the subjects of all sentences would tend to be represented as larger than the objects, and that (ii) the subjects of passives would be represented as larger than those of actives, were confirmed.     

Shorter articles and notes grouping strategies with simultaneous stimuli

Broadbent (1956) reports that two lists of digits, each presented to one ear separately so that the items in the two series coincide in time, are grouped together according to the ear-of-arrival, and that these two lists are accordingly recalled separately, one after the other. To ascertain whether such a tendency reflected some built-in mechanism or whether it was due to an optional tactic, adopted through success in making sense of message sequences in other situations, an experiment was designed in which a meaningful message would emerge for the subject if the ear-of-arrival cue was ignored. In this experiment, words broken up into syllables, and phrases broken up into their monosyllabic constituent words were presented to the subject, with the constituents alternating between the two ears. At the same time lists of digits were presented to whichever ear was unoccupied. The results show that recall by meaning rather than by ear-of-arrival, when these are in conflict, can occur and is no less efficient.     

Shorter articles and notes an optimum interval in the assessment of pain threshold

When the Limiting Method is used to measure heat-pain threshold, the observed threshod has been shown to depend on the size of the stimulus increment used (Haslam, 1965). An experiment is reported here which repeats a finding of the experiment referred to above that the variablility of threshold is relatively large when the stimulus increment is small. A statitistical analysis of the data shows that the previously untested hypothesis that pain threshold is uniform over the population (Hardy, Wolff and Goodell, 1952) is a reasonable one. The psychological implications of threshold variability are discussed in the light of a theoretical model, and a criterion for an optimum interval in the assessment of heat-pain threshold is discussed.     

Shorter articles and notes: A case of fluctuation of awareness with the pulse

The case is described of a man in whom certain percepts of central origin (after-images of hallucinations) fluctuated rhythmically with the arterial pulse. The phenomenon is explained in terms of contemporary theories of consciousness and the inhibitory effects of baroceptor impulses.

In a previous communication (Oswald, 1957) it was described how some persons may experience visual after-images not only after retinal stimulation but also after the prolonged contemplation of a voluntary vivid image (hallucination). One of those described, Subject Wi, is further discussed below. It is relevant to this case and to the interpretation suggested, to recall that Griffits and Gordon (1924) described the rhythmical increase and decrease of the size, intensity, or apparent distance of vivid images (hallucinations) with rhythmical fluctuations of vasomotor tone, of pulse rate and, by inference, of blood pressure.     

Shorter articles and notes conservation of quantity in children: The effect of vocabulary and participation

In this pilot experiment some new tests for conservation of quantity were devised. The experimental group given these tests was able to make correct judgements, while a control group, matched for age and intelligence, failed to show conservation of quantity in the standard tests used by Piaget. The difference between the tests was analysed, and some factors emerged which, it is suggested, can serve to facilitate the child's performance.     

The perception of interleaved melodies

If the notes of two melodies whose pitch ranges do not overlap are interleaved in time so that successive tones come from the different melodies, the resulting sequence of tones is perceptually divided into groups that correspond to the two melodies. Such “melodic fission” demonstrates perceptual grouping based on pitch alone, and has been used extensively in music.Experiment I showed that the identification of interleaved pairs of familiar melodies is possible if their pitch ranges do not overlap, but difficult otherwise. A short-term recognition-memory paradigm (Expt II) showed that interleaving a “background” melody with an unfamiliar melody interferes with same-different judgments regardless of the separation of their pitch ranges, but that range separation attenuates the interference effect. When pitch ranges overlap, listeners can overcome the interference effect and recognize a familiar target melody if the target is prespecified, thereby permitting them to search actively for it (Expt III). But familiarity or prespecification of the interleaved background melody appears not to reduce its interfering effects on same-different judgments concerning unfamiliar target melodies (Expt IV).     

Children's perception of melodies: the role of contour, frequency, and rate of presentation

Children 4 to 6 years of age were exposed to repetitions of a six-tone melody, then tested for their detection of transformations that either preserved or changed the contour of the standard melody. Discrimination performance was examined as a function of contour condition, magnitude of contour change, rate of presentation, and the presence of novel frequencies. Performance was superior for transformations that changed contour compared to those that did not, for greater changes in contour, and for faster presentation rates. Melodies transformed by a reordering of component tones were no less discriminable than those transformed by the addition of novel frequencies.     

Sex differences in the perception of touching

Sex differences in the perception of touching were investigated by having 25 male and 25 female college students rate how likeable a touch would be under different conditions. The women produced a more favorable affect than the men when they touched, and women were perceived as liking to be touched more than men. Perception of touching in general was correlated positively with Self-esteem for men, negatively with Machiavellianism for women, and positively with Trust for women. Results were discussed in terms of traditional sex-typing of touching behavior.     

Emotion perception explains age-related differences in the perception of social gaffes

Young (<36 years) and older (>59) adults viewed videos in which the same individual committed a faux pas, or acted appropriately, toward his coworkers. Older participants did not discriminate appropriate and inappropriate behaviors as well as young participants. Older participants also scored lower than young participants on an extensive battery of emotion recognition tests, and emotion performance fully mediated age differences in faux pas discrimination. The results provide further evidence for the role of emotion perception in a range of important social deficits.