Shape and contour: the points of maximum change are least useful for recognition

Attneave hypothesized that recognition of a shape would be best if the eye was given those parts of the shape most different from a straight line, ie regions of maximum direction change (MAX points). Experiments are reported which show that MIN points-the points midway between MAX points-are actually better for shape recognition. But by far the best parts of the shape for recognition were found to be the regions intermediate between MAX points and MIN points. It is suggested that these regions are especially suitable for shape extrapolation and interpolation because they are evenly distributed.     

Ordinal data,ordered scale points,and order statistics

This paper concerns ordinal responses. An ordered Dirichlet distribution describes prior and posterior beliefs about the cumulative probabilities of response categories. Associating the response categories with intervals of a latent random variable then induces a distribution on the order statistics of that variable. The psychometrician can use the asymptotic theory of order statistics to learn how distributional assumptions about the latent variable effect inference. An example relates the skewness of a latent variable to the proportional odds and proportional hazards models of McCullagh [1980].     

Reliability formulas for independent decision data when reliability data are matched

A distinction is made between reliability data and decision data. Each of these sets of data may be matched or independent, depending on whether the same instruments (tests, judges, etc.) are applied to every individual in the group or the instruments to be applied to each individual are selected independently for him. Reliability formulas are developed (for both single observations and for composites ofk observations) for the case where reliability data are matched but decision data are independent. Formulas previously reported in the literature are inappropriate for this case.This paper was prepared under USPHS Grant M-1839, in which the author is associated with Lee J. Cronbach and Goldine C. Gleser, and is an outgrowth of a more comprehensive conceptualization of reliability being developed in that study. The author is indebted to Dr. Frederic M. Lord for numerous suggestions.An unpublished paper prepared in 1958 entitled A generalization of Kuder-Richardson reliability formula 21.     

Sensitive but not sentimental: Emotionally intelligent people can put their emotions aside when necessary

Are emotionally intelligent people sentimental? Does their greater sensitivity handicap them or are they able, as theory would expect, to experience and regulate emotions flexibly, depending on their goals? We examined this issue in organizational settings. Good managers are indeed expected to be both attuned to feelings (theirs as well as their subordinates’) and able to put them aside when needed to take tough (but necessary) decisions. Our results show that emotionally intelligent managers do make better managers, as reflected by greater managerial competencies, higher team efficiency and less stressed subordinates. Moreover, and most importantly, emotionally intelligent managers are not just nicer managers. As our results show, emotional intelligence has nothing to do with sentimentality. Actually, it is managers with low EI who have the greatest difficulties to put their emotions aside and not let them interfere when inappropriate.     

Making friends with your data: Improving how statistics are conducted and reported1

Aim: This paper highlights some of the areas where there are problems with the way that statistics are conducted and reported in psychology journals. Recommendations are given for improving these problems. Sample: The choice of topics is based largely on the questions that authors, reviewers, and editors have asked in recent years. The focus is on null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), choosing a statistical test, and what should be included in results sections. Results: There are several ways to improve how statistics are reported. These should improve both the authors' and the readers' understanding of the data. Conclusions: Psychology as a discipline will improve if the way in which statistics are conducted and reported is improved. This will require effort from authors, scrutiny from reviewers, and stubbornness from editors.     

Category scales of sweetness are consistent with sweetness-matching data

Category scales were obtained for the sweetness of sucrose, fructose, and glucose, with care being taken to preclude methodological bias. These category scales were then used to predict the outcome of scale-free sweetness matching with the same three sweeteners. The matching concentrations predicted from the category scales were found to agree well with those actually obtained in several sweetness-matching studies.     

Drugs employed in the treatment of alcoholism: rat data suggest they are unnecessarily severe

A tacit assumption, which has often been made by practitioners of both chemical aversion therapy (CAT) and deterrent therapy of alcoholism, is that efficacy of a drug depends mainly on how noxious it is. We conducted two experiments which challenge this assumption. These experiments compared five noxious drugs employed in the treatment of alcoholism, with lithium, in regard to their ability to reduce rats' drinking of a familiar, readily consumed, ethanol (10% v/v) solution. In both experiments, the dose of lithium was equivalent, in terms of body weight, to the largest daily recommended human dose: the dose of each of the five, noxious drugs was twice this equivalent. In the first experiment, the CAT drugs emetine, ipecac and succinylcholine were compared with lithium: in the second, the deterrent therapy drugs citrated calcium carbimide and disulfiram were compared. Despite the use of comparatively smaller doses of lithium, none of the noxious drugs administered in either experiment produced stronger ethanol aversions than lithium. This supports the use of lithium in CAT, and suggests that unnecessarily noxious drugs are being used in the treatment of alcoholism.     

Estimation for the multiple factor model when data are missing

A maximum likelihood method of estimating the parameters of the multiple factor model when data are missing from the sample is presented. A Monte Carlo study compares the method with 5 heuristic methods of dealing with the problem. The present method shows some advantage in accuracy of estimation over the heuristic methods but is considerably more costly computationally.This paper is based on the author's doctoral dissertation at the Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The author gratefully acknowledges the aid of Drs. Robert Bohrer, Charles Lewis, Robert Linn, Maurice Tatsuoka, and Ledyard Tucker.     

Seriousness checks are useful to improve data validity in online research

Nonserious answering behavior increases noise and reduces experimental power; it is therefore one of the most important threats to the validity of online research. A simple way to address the problem is to ask respondents about the seriousness of their participation and to exclude self-declared nonserious participants from analysis. To validate this approach, a survey was conducted in the week prior to the German 2009 federal election to the Bundestag. Serious participants answered a number of attitudinal and behavioral questions in a more consistent and predictively valid manner than did nonserious participants. We therefore recommend routinely employing seriousness checks in online surveys to improve data validity.     

Actigraph data are reliable, with functional reliability increasing with aggregation

Motion sensor devices such as actigraphs are increasingly used in studies that seek to obtain an objective assessment of activity level. They have many advantages, and are useful additions to research in fields such as sleep assessment, drug efficacy, behavior genetics, and obesity. However, questions still remain over the reliability of data collected using actigraphic assessment. We aimed to apply generalizability theory to actigraph data collected on a large, general-population sample in middle childhood, during 8 cognitive tasks across two body loci, and to examine reliability coefficients on actigraph data aggregated across different numbers of tasks and different numbers of attachment loci. Our analyses show that aggregation greatly increases actigraph data reliability, with reliability coefficients on data collected at one body locus during 1 task (.29) being much lower than that aggregated across data collected on two body loci and during 8 tasks (.66). Further increases in reliability coefficients by aggregating across four loci and 12 tasks were estimated to be modest in prospective analyses, indicating an optimum trade-off between data collection and reliability estimates. We also examined possible instrumental effects on actigraph data and found these to be nonsignificant, further supporting the reliability and validity of actigraph data as a method of activity level assessment.     

Cognitive reference points

Two methods were used to test the hypothesis that natural categories (such as colors, line orientations, and numbers) have reference point stimuli (such as focal colors, vertical and horizontal lines, and numbers that are multiples of 10) in relation to which other stimuli of the category are judged. In Experiment I, subjects placed pairs of stimuli into sentence frames consisting of linguistic “hedges” such as “— is essentially—.” Results were that the supposed reference stimuli were most often placed in the second (reference) slot. In Experiment II, the subject placed a stimulus in physical space to represent his feeling of the psychological distance of that stimulus from another spatially fixed stimulus. Results showed that, when supposed reference stimuli were fixed, other stimuli were placed closer to them than vice versa. The results have substantive implications for the understanding of internal structure of categories and methodological implications for the mapping of reference points, quantification of linguistic intuitions, and the assumption of symmetry in psychological distance judgments.     

Fitting cross-classification table data to models when observations are subject to classification error

Individuals are classified in a cross-classification table where two behavioral observations on each individual determine the classification. The problem is to test certain structural models assumed to underlie the cross-classified observations. A minimum chi-square test procedure is proposed.