TIME RELATIONS OF OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE REACTIONS TO D-AMPHETAMINE AND PENTOBARBITONE

Successive measurements of pulse rate, blood pressure, objective and subjective reaction speed, and six mood variables were made on 12 healthy subjects during 135 min. periods following the intake of either 15 mg d-amphetamine, 200 mg Pentobarbitone, or a placebo. It was shown that (1) the two drugs had essentially opposite effects on all objective and most subjective variables; (2) after d-amphetamine subjective effects appeared earlier and reached their maximum more rapidly than objective effects; (3) both types of reaction were less pronounced after Pentobarbitone than after d-amphetamine under the present dose conditions; and that (4) after Pentobarbitone maximum objective effects were attained at an earlier point in time.     

STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF A NEW DRUG (DIETHYLPROPION)

In a 'triple blind' study on 30 subjects, 50 mg diethylpropion was compared with 10 mg dexamphetamine, 50 mg phenmetrazine, 250 mg caffeine, and placebo. The effects were measured in 5 subjective variables at 40 minutes intervals up to 4 hours. Clear trends were obtained in 'happiness', 'alertness' and 'pleasantness'. Peak effects were seen at about two hours, but in pleasantness the effects of phenmetrazine were increased even after that time. The demonstrated effects were discussed in relation to data on abuse of diethylpropion and phenmetrazine.     

The explicit learning of new names for known objects is improved by dexamphetamine

A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, between subjects study design (N=37) was used to investigate the effects of dexamphetamine on explicit new name learning. Participants ingested 10mg of dexamphetamine or placebo daily over 5 consecutive mornings before learning new names for 50 familiar objects plus fillers. The dexamphetamine group recognised and recalled the new names more accurately than the placebo group over the 5 days and 1 month later. Word learning success was not associated with baseline neuropsychological performance, mood, cardiovascular arousal, or sustained attention. These results may have implications for the pharmacological treatment of acquired naming difficulties.     

Impact of Youth Strengths and Objective Strain on the Experiences of Subjective Strain Among Caregivers of Youth with Behavioral Health Conditions

Caregivers of youth with behavioral health conditions often experience significant and chronic caregiving strain. Caregiving strain is thought to consist of three dimensions: objective strain (observable negative events), subjective internalized strain (negative feelings directed inwardly), and subjective externalized strain (negative feelings directed outwardly). Based on a modified stress process model, the aims of this study were to: (1) examine whether the association between youth emotional-behavioral problem severity (measured with the Child Behavior Checklist/6–18) and subjective internalized and subjective externalized caregiving strain is mediated by objective strain for caregivers, and; (2) identify other predictors of subjective internalized and subjective externalized strain, particularly related to youth emotional-behavioral strengths as measured by the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-Parent Rating Scale. We also explored the extent to which the association between youth emotional-behavioral problem severity and subjective internalized and subjective externalized strain may be moderated by perceived youth emotional-behavioral strengths. One-hundred and eighty-five (N = 185) caregivers of youth served by a community-based system of care participated in structured survey interviews at program enrollment. Regression analyses indicated that objective strain was found to fully mediate the association between youth emotional-behavioral problem severity and subjective externalized strain. Greater youth strengths related to family involvement were also associated with lower subjective externalized strain. Higher caregiver age, lower education, biological parent relationship to youth, greater youth emotional-behavioral problem severity, higher objective strain, and lower youth strengths related to school functioning were associated with higher subjective internalized strain. A significant interaction was found between youth problem severity, youth affective strengths, and subjective internalized strain such that caregivers who reported higher levels of youth affective strengths experienced stronger effects from youth emotional-behavioral problem severity on subjective internalized strain. These findings shed light upon the complex set of circumstances that may lead caregivers of youth with behavioral health conditions to experience subjective internalized and subjective externalized strain.     

An information theory analysis of visual complexity and dissimilarity

The subjective complexity of a computer-generated bitmap image can be measured by magnitude estimation scaling, and its objective complexity can be measured by its compressed file size. There is a high correlation between these measures of subjective and objective complexity over a large set of marine electronic chart and radar images. The subjective dissimilarity of a pair of bitmap images can be predicted from subjective and objective measures of the complexity of each image, and from the subjective and objective complexity of the image produced by overlaying the two simple images. In addition, the subjective complexity of the image produced by overlaying two simple images can be predicted from the subjective complexity of the simple images and the subjective dissimilarity of the image pair. The results of the experiments that generated these complexity and dissimilarity judgments are consistent with a theory, outlined here, that treats objective and subjective measures of image complexity and dissimilarity as vectors in Euclidean space.     

What is the Strength of the Link Between Objective and Subjective Indicators of Urban Quality of Life?

Urban quality of life is usually measured by either subjective indicators using surveys of residents' perceptions, evaluations and satisfaction with urban living or by objective indicators using secondary data and relative weights for objective indicators of the urban environment. However, rarely are subjective and objective indicators of urban quality of life related to each other. In this paper, these two types of indicators were linked using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to both locate respondents to the “2003 Survey of Quality of Life in South East Queensland” and also to gather objective indicators about their urban environment within the region with regard to services, facilities and overcrowding. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), the strength of the relationships between these objective indicators and subjective indicators was examined. The results show that relationships between objective and subjective indicators of urban QOL can be weak, and suggests care should be taken when making inferences about improvements in subjective urban QOL based on improvements in objective urban QOL. However, further research is needed into the links between objective and subjective indicators of urban QOL including examining other aspects of the urban environment, non-linear relationships, and moderating effects for individual differences.     

Fatigue risk management based on self-reported fatigue: Expanding a biomathematical model of fatigue-related performance deficits to also predict subjective sleepiness

Biomathematical models of fatigue can be used to predict neurobehavioral deficits during sleep/wake or work/rest schedules. Current models make predictions for objective performance deficits and/or subjective sleepiness, but known differences in the temporal dynamics of objective versus subjective outcomes have not been addressed. We expanded a biomathematical model of fatigue previously developed to predict objective performance deficits as measured on the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) to also predict subjective sleepiness as self-reported on the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS). Four model parameters were re-estimated to capture the distinct dynamics of the KSS and account for the scale difference between KSS and PVT. Two separate ensembles of datasets – drawn from laboratory studies of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, simulated night work, napping, and recovery sleep – were used for calibration and subsequent validation of the model for subjective sleepiness. The expanded model was found to exhibit high prediction accuracy for subjective sleepiness, while retaining high prediction accuracy for objective performance deficits. Application of the validated model to an example scenario based on cargo aviation operations revealed divergence between predictions for objective and subjective outcomes, with subjective sleepiness substantially underestimating accumulating objective impairment, which has important real-world implications. In safety-sensitive operations such as commercial aviation, where self-ratings of sleepiness are used as part of fatigue risk management, the systematic differences in the temporal dynamics of objective versus subjective measures of functional impairment point to a potentially significant risk evaluation sensitivity gap. The expanded biomathematical model of fatigue presented here provides a useful quantitative tool to bridge this previously unrecognized gap.     

The topography of training-induced visual field recovery: Perimetric maps and subjective representations

The cognitive representation of blind regions varies considerably between patients with vision loss and may influence compensatory behaviour and treatment motivation. We therefore measured “objective” visual field topography (perimetry) in 19 patients with postgeniculate visual system lesions and related this to the subjective scotoma representation as expressed by patients’ drawings of the defect and monitored changes of these measures during training-induced recovery of function. Blind regions were mostly adequately represented; however, central regions were overestimated and peripheral areas underestimated in size. Perimetric and subjective defect size decreased significantly during training. Again, training-induced visual field border shifts in central regions were larger in subjective than in perimetric maps but vice versa in the peripheral field. Thus, vision restoration therapy improves “objective” visual field size along with its cognitive representation. The subjective topography is shaped by the functional importance of visual field regions and is a function of cortical magnification, thus resembling the neural representation in visual cortex.     

Exploring the hardship of ease: Subjective and objective effort in the ease-of-processing paradigm

Numerous studies examined the role of processing effort in judgments using the “ease-of-processing” paradigm in which participants generate or retrieve few or many issue-relevant thoughts. Because earlier studies only assessed the subjective effort, it is unclear if this paradigm also mobilizes objective effort, and how such effort relates to subjective effort. These questions were addressed in two experiments modeled on standard tasks from the processing effort literature: “ease of argument generation” (Study 1) and “ease of retrieval” (Study 2). In both experiments we simultaneously measured subjective effort (via self-report) and objective effort (via cardiovascular reactivity). The results showed that processing ease manipulations (generation or retrieval of few vs. many exemplars) influence not only subjective effort, but also objective effort, as reflected especially by increases of systolic blood pressure in the many exemplars condition. However, only subjective effort was related to judgment. In the discussion, we consider the role of various forms of effort and other relevant variables in “processing ease” effects.     

The interaction of objective and subjective organizations in a localization search task

We investigated how both objective and subjective organizations affect perceptual organization and how this perceptual organization, in turn, influences observers’ performance in a localization search task. Two groups of observers viewing exactly the same stimuli (objective organization) performed in significantly different ways, depending on how they were induced to parse the display (subjective organization). In Experiments 1 and 2, the observers were asked to describe the location of a tilted target among a varying number of vertical or horizontal distractors. Subjective organization was induced by instructing observers to parse the display into either three horizontal regions (rows) or three vertical regions (columns). The position of the target was critical: location performance, as assessed by reaction time and errors, was consistently impaired at the locations adjacent to the boundaries defining the regions, producing what we refer to as thesubjective boundary effect. Furthermore, the extent of this effect depended on whether the stimulus-driven and conceptually driven information concurred or conflicted. This made location information more or less accessible. In Experiment 1, the strength of objective grouping was a function of the proximity of the items (near or far conditions) and their orientation in a 6×6 matrix. In Experiment 2, the strength of objective grouping was a function of similarity of color (items were color coded by rows or by columns) and the orientation of the items in a 9×9 matrix. The subjective boundary effect was more pronounced when the display promoted grouping in the direction orthogonal to that of the task (e.g., when observers parsed by rows but vertical distractors were closer together [Experiment 1] or color coded [Experiment 2] to induce global columns). In contrast, this effect decreased when the direction of both objective and subjective organizations was parallel (e.g., when observers parsed by rows and horizontal distractors were closer together [Experiment 1] or were color coded [Experiment 2] to induce global rows). A localization search task proved to be an ideal forum in which objective and subjective organizations interacted. We discuss how these results indicated that observers’ performance in a localization task was determined by the interaction of objective and subjective organizations, and that the resulting perceptual organization constrained coarse location information.     

Using subjective and objective measures to predict level of reading fluency at the end of first grade

This study compared reading rate to reading fluency (as measured by a rating scale). After listening to first graders read short passages, we assigned an overall fluency rating (low, average, or high) to each reading. We then used predictive discriminant analyses to determine which of five measures—accuracy, rate (objective); accuracy, phrasing, pace (subjective)—would best predict our fluency ratings. The objective measure of rate and the subjective measure of phrasing were clearly the best predictors, classifying approximately 90% of the cases correctly. The results support the use of reading rate as a proxy for reading fluency in first grade.     

Correlates of subjective health in older adults: a meta-analysis

Age-associated changes of subjective health and associations of subjective health with physical health, functional health, and mental health were meta-analyzed in older adults (M age > 60 years). An age-associated decline of subjective health, which was stronger in old-old samples than in young-old samples, was found. Subjective health was correlated with the indicators of objective health, but the association with physical health was stronger than with functional health. Correlations of subjective health with physical health and functional health were lower in the old-old than in the young-old samples, whereas associations of subjective health with mental health were stronger in older samples. Furthermore, the size of the association between subjective and objective health varied by the method of assessment of objective health, showing highest associations with symptom checklists and results of medical examinations due to strict protocols.     

PREDICTORS OF OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE CAREER SUCCESS: A META-ANALYSIS

Using the contest- and sponsored-mobility perspectives as theoretical guides, this meta-analysis reviewed 4 categories of predictors of objective and subjective career success: human capital, organizational sponsorship, sociodemographic status, and stable individual differences. Salary level and promotion served as dependent measures of objective career success, and subjective career success was represented by career satisfaction. Results demonstrated that both objective and subjective career success were related to a wide range of predictors. As a group, human capital and sociodemographic predictors generally displayed stronger relationships with objective career success, and organizational sponsorship and stable individual differences were generally more strongly related to subjective career success. Gender and time (date of the study) moderated several of the relationships examined.     

Objective and subjective socioeconomic status and susceptibility to the common cold.

OBJECTIVE: We ask whether subjective socioeconomic status (SES) predicts who develops a common cold when exposed to a cold virus. DESIGN: 193 healthy men and women ages 21-55 years were assessed for subjective (perceived rank) and objective SES, cognitive, affective and social dispositions, and health practices. Subsequently, they were exposed by nasal drops to a rhinovirus or influenza virus and monitored in quarantine for objective signs of illness and self-reported symptoms. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Infection, signs and symptoms of the common cold, and clinical illness (infection and significant objective signs of illness). RESULTS: Increased subjective SES was associated with decreased risk for developing a cold for both viruses. This association was independent of objective SES and of cognitive, affective and social disposition that might provide alternative spurious (third factor) explanations for the association. Poorer sleep among those with lesser subjective SES may partly mediate the association between subjective SES and colds. CONCLUSIONS: Increased Subjective SES is associated with less susceptibility to upper respiratory infection, and this association is independent of objective SES, suggesting the importance of perceived relative rank to health.     

Burden,Interdependence, Ethnicity,and Mental Health in Caregivers of Patients with Schizophrenia

Caring for a patient with schizophrenia often results in high levels of perceived burden and poorer overall mental health. Using a sample of 176 caregivers of patients with schizophrenia, the present study examined how two components of burden (objective and subjective) interacted with interdependence and ethnicity to influence relatives' overall mental health. In line with study hypotheses, and with the stress‐appraisal‐coping model developed by Lazurus and Folkman (1984), we found that subjective burden mediated the relationship between objective burden and mental health. In other words, subjective appraisals of caregiving appeared to partially underlie the association between the concrete costs of caregiving and psychological outcomes in schizophrenia caregivers. Also as hypothesized, we found that interdependence, or the perceived interconnectedness of individuals within a group, moderated the relationship between objective burden and subjective burden. In other words, when levels of interdependence were high, the objective components of burden appeared to have a weaker relationship with subjective burden. When interdependence was low, on the other hand, objective burden was more likely to be associated with subjective burden. This finding suggests that helping caregivers to value harmony and connection with others over individual self‐interests may reduce the likelihood that objective stressors (which are often inevitable in schizophrenia) will result in subjective distress. On the basis of prior research, we also tested several hypotheses regarding the role of ethnicity and its association with burden, interdependence, and mental health. However, contrary to expectations, no ethnic patterns were observed.     

Discrepancy between subjective autobiographical reliving and objective recall: The past as seen by Alzheimer’s disease patients

This paper investigated whether Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients may demonstrate a discrepancy between subjective autobiographical reliving and objective recall. To this end, 31 AD patients and 35 controls were asked to retrieve three autobiographical memories. For each memory, participants were asked to rate its subjective characteristics (e.g., reliving, travel in time, visual imagery…). Besides this subjective assessment, we analyzed recall objectively with regard to specificity. Results showed poorer subjective autobiographical reliving and objective recall in AD patients than in controls. A discrepancy (i.e., higher level of subjective reliving than of objective recall) was observed in AD but not in control participants. Despite a compromise in their objective recall, AD patients seemed to attribute a high value to their subjective autobiographical experience. This discrepancy can be attributed to a potential genuine consciousness experience in which mild AD patients can, to some extent, experience some subjective features of the past.     

Emotional reaction to past and future events as a function of temporal distance

In three experiments with 30 Ss, imagined past and future events were used as stimuli. Scales were constructed by the ratio estimation method for (a) subjective temporal distance and (b) emotional reaction to the events. It was found (1) that subjective temporal distance was a power function of chronological distance, (2) that emotional reaction to past events could be described as an exponential function of subjective temporal distance; a simple relation thus exists between the two psychological variables, whereas emotional reaction is related in a more complicated way to the objective variable, and (3) that emotional reaction to future events could be described about as well by a power function as by an exponential function of both subjective and objective temporal distance.     

SUBJECTIVE TIME AS AFFECTED BY GRAVITATIONAL STRESS

Subjective time as affected by positive radial acceleration in a human centrifuge was studied by a modification of the method of ratio production. Auditory signals (1–20 sec.) were used as stimuli. The results showed a marked change in subjective time during gravitational stress. Subjective time, as measured by the methods employed, was a positively accelerated function of objective time and the positive acceleration was enhanced during centrifugation. The demonstrated change in time experience was caused by a difference in retention of preceding time intervals, retention being impaired during centrifugation.     

Evaluation of personality measures for the selection of textile employees

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of a measure of personality constructs for the selection of operating employees in the textile industry. A commercial paper-and-pencil test measuring ten personality dimensions was used. Two measures of performance were obtained: an objective measure of performance based on individual output, and subjective ratings of performance by supervisors. The results indicated that two personality dimensions measured by the test were significantly related to employee performance. The results are discussed in relation to the potential of personality dimensions for predicting employee performance.     

How do objective and subjective career success interrelate over time?

The present research is concerned with the direction of influence between objective and subjective career success. We conducted a prospective longitudinal study with five waves of measurement that covered a time span of 10 years. Participants were professionals working in different occupational fields (N=1,336). We modelled the changes in objective success (income, hierarchical position), in other‐referent subjective success (subjective success as compared to a reference group), and in self‐referent subjective success (job satisfaction) by means of latent growth curve analysis. Objective success influenced both the initial level and the growth of other‐referent subjective success, but it had no influence on job satisfaction. Most importantly, both measures of subjective success and both their initial levels and their changes had strong influences on the growth of objective success. We conclude that the ‘objective success influences subjective success’ relationship is smaller than might be expected, whereas the ‘subjective success influences objective success’ relationship is larger than might be expected.