Are dolls real? Developmental changes in the child's definition of reality

Preschoolers (n = 20), second graders (n = 20), fifth graders (n = 20), and graduate-level college students (n = 20) were asked to determine the reality status of specific items, such as dolls and dreams, and to generate examples of real and not-real things. The criteria used for determining whether or not specific items were real differed significantly across the age range sampled and were strongly influenced by the type of items being judged. Criteria clearly changed with age, with item-specific criteria being substituted for more general verification criteria.     

Preference Reversals in Monetary and Life Expectancy Evaluations

Two experiments demonstrate a new type of preference reversal. In life expectancy evaluations, health items (e.g., a new treatment that would give you perfect 20/20 vision) were preferred to commodities (e.g., 1 day of vacation in Bermuda), but in monetary evaluations, commodities were preferred to health items. These reversals result from the pattern of similarity of commodities and health items to money and life expectancy and are therefore an example of Tversky, Sattath, and Slovic′s (1988) semantic compatibility principle.     

Age differences in enumerating things that move: Implications for the development of multiple-object tracking

The attentional theory of spatial enumeration (Trick & Pylyshyn, 1994) predicts that subitizing, the rapid process (40-120 msec/item) used to enumerate 1-4 items, employs the same mechanism that permits individuals to track 4-5 moving items simultaneously, whereas enumerating more items requires moving attentional focus from area to area in the display. To test this theory, enumeration of static and moving items was investigated in 8-, 10-, 12-, and 20-year-old participants using a number discrimination task. As was predicted, random independent item motion did not substantially impede enumeration of 1-4 items regardless of age. However, even movement within a 1.14 degree square area slowed enumeration of 6-9 items, although on average the interference decreased with age from 788 msec for the 8-year-olds to 136 msec for the 20-year-olds. The relevance of this finding for theories of enumeration, multiple-object tracking, visual working memory, and object-based attention is discussed.     

Causing Students to Choose More Language Arts Work: Enhancing the Validity of the Additive Interspersal Procedure

Research on the additive interspersal procedure was extended by exposing seventh-grade students to curricula-based (e.g., educationally valid) language arts assignments. In Experiment I, each student was given a control language arts assignment containing 20 discrete target items and an experimental assignment containing 24 equivalent target items, plus eight interspersed briefer items. After working on both assignments for 10 minutes, significantly more students chose a new experimental assignment for homework. Individual analysis showed that 85% of the students preferred or chose the assignment associated with higher discrete task completion rates. In Experiment II, students completed both assignments. Results extended previous research by showing that even after expending more effort to complete the 20% more target items plus the additional interspersed items on the experimental assignments, significantly more students chose an experimental assignment for homework. Applied and theoretical implications are discussed along with limitations of the current study and directions for future research.     

A Mirror Drawing Apparatus for the Instructional Laboratory

Eighteen pairs of parents of children with Down's syndrome were tested on self-concept items prior to and immediately following genetic counseling. There was significant improvement on five of 20 self-concept items, with mothers improving on four items, and fathers on two items. Only one item demonstrated improvement by both mothers and fathers. Genetic counseling was found to be of value in improving self-concepts of parents of children afflicted with at least one type of heritable disease.     

Sexism: A tri-dimensional phenomenon

A review of the existing sex-role scales indicated the need for a relatively short multidimensional scale with established validity and reliability. The scale reported herein, consisting of 20 self-administered items in Likert format with Guttman scoring option, measures attitudes toward sex roles in three broad areas: internal familial division of labor, external (economic) division of labor, and perceived sex differences. One hundred and ninety-seven carefully selected and worded items were pretested by administration to a diverse group of 154 respondents. The results were submitted to factor analytic procedures leading to one dimension comprising two sets of items — those measuring attitudes toward internal division of labor, and those measuring attitudes toward external division of labor — and another dimension comprising items measuring attitudes toward perceived sex differences. These sets of items were treated as three subscales and submitted to Guttman procedures. The coefficients of reproducibility and scalability for each subscale were deemed satisfactory. Furthermore, 17 of the 20 items on the scale were able to distinguish females' responses from those of males. The alpha coefficient of reliability for the 20 items was .94.Social Science Verification SystemsAdapted from a paper presented at the meeting of the Southwestern Sociological Association, Houston, Texas, April 12–15, 1978. The authors wish to acknowledge the helpful comments of their colleagues, Professor Raymond A. Eve, of the Department of Sociology, and Professor Richard Gorsuch, of the Graduate School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Arlington. The authors take full responsibility for the results and interpretations of the analyses.     

Item Level Improvements for Use of the MMPI With Adolescents

The decision to develop a separate adolescent form of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (i.e., the MMPI-A) raised questions about continued use of 20 original items that seemed unnecessarily ambiguous in content when employed with younger students (Ss). The responses of 362 academically gifted boys, aged 14 to 17 years, from an urban Catholic high school were compared on the experimental 704-item Form TX of the MMPI and a form containing 20 rewritten and 9 control items. The psychometric properties of the rewritten items indicated the same or better performance than that on the original versions while improving the items' face validity and reducing item ambiguity. Responses from 321 Ss to a follow-up questionnaire suggested eliminating offensive or irrelevant items and reducing the test's length would increase acceptance of the MMPI-A.     

Similarities between retrospective and actual anxiety states

The purpose of the study was to examine the fit and calibration of the items in Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene's (1970) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory during measurement of actual and retrospective anxiety. Subjects in the actual anxiety situation (n = 113) and in the retrospective anxiety situation (n = 55) were administered the inventory, and 20 scale items were analyzed individually by the probabilistic Rasch Model (Wright & Masters, 1982). Comparisons between the items' values in both situations revealed that 17 of the 20 items were rated similarly. In the retrospective anxiety state, 9 items (misfits) failed to discriminate between high- and low-anxious subjects, but only 6 failed to do so in the actual anxiety state. Despite the similarities, we recommend that the scales be modified to yield a more reliable measure of anxiety and to discriminate more accurately among subjects with varying levels of anxiety.     

Preview search and contextual cuing

We investigated the effect of contextual cuing (M. M. Chun & Y. Jiang, 1998) within the preview paradigm (D. G. Watson & G. W. Humphreys, 1997). Contextual cuing was shown with a 10-item letter search but not with more crowded 20-item displays. However, contextual learning did occur in a preview procedure in which 10 preview items were followed by 10 new items. Repeating the new items alone did not generate contextual learning, but repeating the preview items alone did, as long as they had a consistent spatial relation with the target. This was not merely due to the onset of the preview items being associated with the target location. No learning effect took place with a preview of homogeneous items that competed less for selection with new stimuli. The results provide evidence for old items being processed in preview search and providing a context for subsequent search of new items.     

Developmental changes in children's use of semantic information in recall

Third and seventh graders (age 9 and 13 years) were randomly assigned to three instructional groups and engaged in a sort/recall task. The instructions emphasized either (a) recall of the items, (b) meaningful organization of the items, or (c) meaningful organization and recall of the items. Regardless of instruction, seventh graders sorted 20 unrelated items into semantically-based groupings and exhibited elevated levels of recall. Third graders instructed to group items to facilitate recall formed seemingly random groupings and recalled significantly fewer items than third graders instructed to make semantically-based groupings, even when some of these latter subjects were unaware of a subsequent recall trial. The results indicated that young children are capable of adult-like organizational strategies but are unaware of their relevance to recall performance or conditions under which organization might be an appropriate strategy.     

The NEO-PI-3: a more readable revised NEO Personality Inventory

Use of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) in adolescent samples has shown that a few respondents have difficulty with a subset of items. We identified 30 items that were not understood by at least 2% of adolescent respondents and 18 additional items with low item-total correlations, and we wrote 2 trial replacement items for each. We used self-report and observer rating data from 500 respondents aged 14 to 20 to select replacement items. The modified instrument retained the intended factor structure and showed slightly better internal consistency, cross-observer agreement, and readability (Flesch-Kincaid grade level = 5.3). The NEO-PI-3 appears to be useful in high school and college samples and may have wider applicability to adults as well.     

Auditory list memory and interference processes in monkeys.

Memory of 2 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) was tested in a serial probe recognition task with lists of 4 natural or environmental sounds, different retention intervals, and different manipulations of interference. At short retention intervals, increasing the separation of list items reduced the primacy effect and produced a recency effect. Similar results were shown by increasing interference across lists through item repetitions or making the first 2 list items high-interference items. These results indicated that decreasing first-item performance reduced proactive interference on memory of the last list items. At long (20 s) retention intervals, making the last list items of high interference reduced the recency effect, reduced retroactive interference, and produced a primacy effect. Taken together, interference plays a role in determining the primacy and recency effects of the serial-position function.     

《太玄平议》商兑

《太玄平议》一文,在《太玄》研究中影响甚大。但错误不少。原文共59条,其中不乏卓见,然而值得商榷者,逾二十条。本文即对俞说可商者,在分析之后,提出己说。     

DEC performance in the psychology laboratory

A survey of the On-Line Psychology DEC Users’ Group was taken to evaluate DEC’s performance in the psychology research laboratory. Data were obtained for 20 rating scale items and 7 open-ended items in five categories. On a 10-point scale, DEC averaged about 6 on purchasing procedures and documentation, about 4 on delivery time and maintenance service, and about 7 on product satisfaction. The open-ended items provided users’ explanations for the ratings and new hardware and software that users would like to see from DEC in the near future.     

Relationships between proenvironmental attitudes and concepts of nature

The author investigated relationships between proenvironmental attitudes and concepts of nature. Proenvironmental attitudes were measured on a 5-point scale containing 27 items. The author developed a 5-point scale containing 20 items to assess concepts of nature. The author administered those 2 scales to 140 young adults and adolescents at 2 Japanese institutions of higher education. An investigation of 6 proenvironmental attitudes and 20 concepts of nature showed some significant relationships. Factor analysis of the 20 concepts of nature produced 2 factors: Positive Evaluation of Nature and Rejection of Manipulation of Human Life. Most relationships were significant between the scores for the 6 proenvironmental attitudes and those for the 2 factors of concepts of nature.     

A multiple replication of the three-factor solution of the Eysenck personality inventory identified using a two-step confirmation and the factor replication procedure,FACTOREP

For more than 20 yr there has been argument over the precise factor structure of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI). There has recently been some empirical support for the suggestion that this failure to find the original structure is a result of the discrepancy in size between the Neuroticism and Extraversion scales (24 items each) and the Lie scale with nine items. In a recent study the present authors identified the three-factor structure using a two-step process which involved a two-factor analysis of the Neuroticism and Extraversion items followed by a three-factor analysis of an equal number of items from all three scales. This process was repeated in the present study across the responses from two further independent subjects groups. The factor comparison procedure FACTOREP provided strong evidence of the robust and consistent replications of both the two-factor structure of the Extraversion and Neuroticism items and of the three-factor structure of the nine Extraversion, nine Neuroticism and nine Lie scale items.     

ON THE VALIDITY OF THE RORSCHACH TEST

Rorschach protocols of 20 persons (normals, depressives, and schizophrenics) were analysed, using the inverted, or Q , method of factoring. Three factors emerged from the analysis and corresponded to the three psychiatric categories. Groups of items, allegedly measuring the isolated factors, were applied to a second population of 42 persons resulting in validity values of an encouraging magnitude. Finally, published protocols are cited, together with a list of discriminating items and a score matrix based on such items, so that further verification can be made by the reader.     

Social influences on reality-monitoring decisions

A modified Asch (1951) conformity paradigm was used to study the impact of social influence on reality-monitoring decisions about new items. Subjects studied pictures of some objects and imagined others. In a later test phase, they judged whether items had been perceived in the study phase, had been imagined, or were new. Critically, for some items, the subjects were informed of a confederate's response before rendering a judgment. Although the confederate was always correct when they responded to old items, for new items, the confederate responded perceived, imagined, or new, or did not respond (baseline). In two experiments, we show that memory for new items was influenced by an erroneous response of the confederate. Social conformity was reduced by undermining the credibility of the confederate (Experiments 1A and 1B), and the confederate's influence was evident even after there was only a 20-min delay between study and test (Experiment 2), when the subjects were 87% accurate on new baseline items. These experiments reveal the power of social influence on reality-monitoring accuracy and confidence.     

A short-form measure of loneliness

The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-20) and a four-item short form (ULS-4) are widely used in personality research (Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980). In an exploratory factor analysis of the ULS-20, we identified eight items that loaded substantially on the first factor. These items were combined to form an alternative short-form measure, the ULS-8. The results of this study indicate that the ULS-8 is reliable, valid, and a better substitute for the ULS-20 than is the ULS-4. Consistent with the previous research, the loneliness measures (ULS-20, ULS-8, ULS-4) were strongly related to socially undesirable personality characteristics, but loneliness was uncorrelated with the six different health-related behaviors (exercise, meal regularity, alcohol use, hard drug use, smoking, and hours of sleep) assessed in this study.     

Interference processes in monkey auditory list memory

A rhesus monkey’s memory was tested for single items and four-item lists of natural and environmental sounds. Memory items were presented from a center speaker, followed by a retention delay and then a choice response to a test sound presented simultaneously from two side speakers. Recognition of the last item of four-item lists was much poorer than that of single items at 0-, 1-, and 2-sec delays, despite there being the same temporal relations between study and test. This result showed that the first three items proactively interfered with memory of the last list item. Proactive interference dissipated after 2 sec, revealing a recency effect that eventually equaled single-item performance. Recognition of the first item of four-item lists was much poorer than single items at 20- and 30-sec delays, showing that the last three items retroactively interfered with memory of the first list item. The results point to the critical nature of interference processes in the understanding of serial position functions.