Extent,multiplying, and proportionality rules in children's judgments of area

The study examined children's use of multiplying and proportionality rules in judgments of area. In two experiments children judged the area of rectangles. Seven-year-olds used linear extent as an index of area. Eight- and nine-year-olds replaced the extent rule with the height × width rule. In a third experiment 8-through 11-year-olds were presented with a rectangle and a horizontal line representing the width of a second rectangle. Children were asked to indicate the height that would make the second rectangle equal in area to the first. The correct response was proportional to the product of the ratio of the widths of the two rectangles and the height of the first rectangle. Graphical and statistical analyses indicated that children applied the ratio rule to these judgments. The implications for Piaget's theory of cognitive development were discussed.     

Some conditions for the dissociation of consummatory and instrumental behavior in rats

To investigate whether consummatory and instrumental behavior depend upon different motivational factors, rats were trained to press a bar for saccharin solution, then given various treatments designed to reduce the palatability of saccharin, and finally tested for bar-pressing in extinction and for free intake of saccharin. Prefeeding with dextrose, prefeeding with saccharin, and association of saccharin with injections of lithium chloride all reduced intake of saccharin compared to control treatments, but only prefeeding with dextrose also reduced barpressing in extinction. Thus, performance of an instrumental response may depend upon need for food rather than appetite for it.     

Phonological encoding and ideographic reading by the disconnected right hemisphere: Two case studies

The mute disconnected right hemispheres (RHs) of two commissurotomy patients are able to understand spoken words and read printed words by matching them with pictures of the objects named. In this paper we report the results of five experiments. The RH of one patient could “evoke the sound image” of a word to the extent of matching two pictures with homonymous names (experiment 1) or with rhyming names (experiment 2) without being able to name either one. This transformation of picture to covert sound does not depend on orthographic similarity of word ends as a clue to homonymy or rhyme, nor does it improve with short-term learning. Yet neither RH can translate print into sound by matching a spelled word with a picture that has a rhyming name (experiment 3) or by matching two orthographically dissimilar rhymes, be they meaningful (experiment 4) or nonsense words (experiment 5). We suggest that these RHs read “ideographically,” recognizing words directly as visual gestalts without intermediate phonetic recoding or grapheme-to-phoneme translation.     

Immediate and delayed reinforcers for flavor preferences in rats

When rats received, on alternate days, one flavored saccharin solution for 5 min and a differently-flavored saccharin solution for 60 min, they showed no consistent preference between the flavors. On the other hand, when they received one flavor in a concentrated saccharin solution and a different flavor in a dilute one, they preferred the first flavor in tests with saccharin concentration held constant; also, rats learned to prefer a flavor immediately followed by a concentrated saccharin solution to one followed by nothing. They showed no consistent preference, however, between a flavor followed 30 min later by a concentrated saccharin solution and one followed by nothing; but they learned to prefer a flavor followed 30 min later by a dextrose solution to one followed by nothing. In other words, consummatory responding did not reinforce flavor preference, sweet taste did so with immediate but not delayed reinforcement, and nutrition did so even with delayed reinforcement.     

Warned reaction times of sociopaths

A warned reaction time (RT) task was employed with eight male sociopaths and eight normal male Ss. A warning light appeared at a variable interval preceding a light to which the S responded with a key press. All Ss received both a regular and an irregular series with warning intervals of 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 sec. In the regular series, blocks of intervals were presented in an ascending order. In the irregular series each interval followed every other interval equally often. Sociopaths obtained reliably slower RTs than did control Ss, showing a constant decrement across all intervals in the two kinds of series.     

Negative attitudes toward masturbation and pelvic vasocongestion: A thermographic analysis

The present study examined differences in pelvic vasocongestion as a function of negative attitudes toward masturbation. Pelvic vasocongestion was measured thermographically, which is a noninvasive means of detecting and photographing individual heat patterns to indicate physiological condition and functional changes within. The results indicated that women, with positive attitudes toward masturbation, who read an erotic story, experienced the greatest increase in pelvic vasocongestion. This and other findings were discussed in terms of masturbation acting to facilitate the patterning of sexual arousal and orgasmic functioning, especially in regard to creating the capacity for pelvic engorgement.     

Primary versus secondary rehearsal in imagined voices: Differential effects on recognition

Subjects were asked to rehearse word trigrams in a particular prefamiliarized male or female voice for 5, 10, or 15 sec. In Experiment 1, recognition performance improved with the amount of primary (maintenance) rehearsal only if the speaker's voice at test matched the rehearsal voice, but recognition performance improved with the amount of secondary (elaborative) rehearsal regardless of the sex of the speaker at test. With a visual testing procedure in Experiments 2 and 3, the amount of primary rehearsal given to a trigram had no effect on recognition performance unless the original voice context was reinstated mentally at test. These results suggest that: (a) Secondary rehearsal builds up semantic associations, whereas primary rehearsal serves to associate items with their physical characteristics at presentation. (b) There is an important memory search component in recognition as well as in recall. (c) Imaginal operations can yield a product in memory that is similar to that left by perceptual operations.     

Context effects on the perceived physical attractiveness of faces

Four experiments were conducted to study the nature of context effects on the perceived physical attractiveness of faces. In Experiment 1, photos of faces scaled on attractiveness were presented in sets of three, with target faces appearing in the middle flanked by two context faces. The target faces were of average attractiveness, with the context faces being either high, average, or low in attractiveness. The effect of the context was one of assimilation, rather than contrast, regardless of whether the persons in the photos were portrayed to be associated. This result was interpreted in terms of a “generalized halo effect” for judgments of the physical attractiveness of stimuli within a group. Presenting the persons of a set as friends enhanced the perceived attractiveness of the target face but only when the context did not contain a face of low attractiveness. In Experiment 2, the assimilation effect was observed to carry over to influence ratings of the target faces several minutes after the context faces had been removed. Experiment 3 showed the assimilation effect to be robust regardless of whether the context was composed of two faces or one, but Experiment 4 showed the assimilation effect to be evident only when the context faces were presented simultaneously with the target.     

Conditioned approach and withdrawal behavior in pigeons: Effects of a novel extraneous stimulus during acquisition and extinction

Three experiments examined the effects of complete removal of reinforcement and of the introduction of a novel stimulus on conditioned approach and withdrawal behavior exhibited by pigeons in an autoshaping paradigm. Experiment 1 indicated that complete omission of food from the experimental situation resulted in the gradual disappearance of both approach and withdrawal behavior in subjects that had received either explicitly paired or explicitly unpaired conditioning. Subsequent presentation of a novel visual stimulus reinstated both approach and withdrawal. Experiment 2 replicated these findings in a within-subjects, discriminative paradigm. In Experiment 3, presenting the novel visual stimulus during acquisition when approach and withdrawal behaviors were asymptotic did not produce significant disruption of performance. These data suggest that removal of reinforcement leads to the disappearance of withdrawal as well as approach performance, and that subsequent presentation of a novel stimulys reinstates whatever behavior was dominant prior to extinction—a finding that seems analogous to results of experiments concerning proactive interference.     

Communicating the reasons for social rejection

Two studies examined the pattern of reasons given for rejecting dates and how they reflect concerns of the rejector. Study One examined retrospective accounts of rejection. Rejectors often reported withholding the reason for rejection from the rejected person. A content analysis of the reasons communicated to rejected persons was performed using Weiner's (Journal of Educational Psychology, 1979, 71, 3–25) attributional dimensions of locus, controllability, and stability. The stated reasons were found to be primarily impersonal, uncontrollable, and unstable. Study Two examined rejectors' willingness to communicate certain types of reasons. The true, privately held reasons for turning down dates were systematically varied as to locus, controllability, and stability. The types of reasons subjects offered to rejected persons were consistent with Study One. Reasons for refusal were less likely to be revealed when they related to the appearance or personality of the rejected person, particularly when the personal reasons were uncontrollable and stable. Rejectors were not as forthright when they controlled the reason for rejection as when they lacked control. The rejectors' actions were interpreted as being self-presentational, reflecting concerns about rejected persons' emotional reactions, expectancies for the future of the relationship, and blame for rejection.     

Effects of sex of subject,sex of stimulus cue,and androgyny level on evaluations in work situations which evoke sex role stereotypes

This study examined the differential evaluation of male and female stimulus cues and the effect of subject's androgyny level on their evaluations. Male and female college students filled out the Bem Sex Role Inventory (1974) and responded to set of five in-basket tasks taken from the Rosen, Jerdee, and Prestwich (1975) study of male managers. Sex of subject, sex of stimulus cue in the in-basket tasks, and androgyny level were varied in a series of 2 X 2 X 3 analyses of variance. On some tasks, male and/or female subjects responded in a sex role stereotyped manner. There were no effects for androgyny level. The discussion focused on circumstances under which stereotyping occurs and implications of the study.     

Interest as a predeterminer of the GSR index of the orienting reflex

Participants in the experiment were selected from among the membership of three university recreational clubs, surfing, fishing, and chess. Participants were further restricted to those having an exclusive recreational interest. Sixteen students selected in this manner were shown slides depicting scenes related to each of the three interests as well as unrelated filler slides. Students displayed significantly larger GSRs to slides depicting their recreational interest as compared to the other recreations and the filler slides. Results were interpreted as reflecting the expression of an OR induced by a significant stimulus.     

Focus of attention and causal attributions of actors and observers

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that actors' and observers' causal attributions are a function of their focus of attention. In the presence of observer-subjects, actor-subjects made a choice among several art works in a supposed decision-making study. The experiment was a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design with the factors (1) source of attribution (actors, observers); (2) camera (actor videotaped, actor not videotaped); and (3) situational stability (stable, dynamic environment). As predicted by the focus of attention-causal attribution notion, it was found that actors attributed more causality to the situation than observers under normal circumstances, when the camera was not operative, but that videotaping the actor reversed the usual actor-observer pattern such that actors attributed less causality to the situation than did observers. Further, when the environment was stable, actors attributed more causality to the situation in the no camera condition than in the camera condition, while observers attributed less to the situation in the no camera conditions than in the camera conditions. Additionally, both actors and observers attributed more causality to the situation when the environment was dynamic than when the environment was stable.     

Self-schemas,depression, and the processing of personal information in children

Recent research in information processing has yielded evidence supporting the self-as-schema model with adults. Further self-schema research with depressed and nondepressed persons has suggested the existence of negative self-schemas in depression, lending support to a content-specificity self-schema model. The present studies were designed to investigate the applicability of the self-as-schema model to children and to examine the extent of negative self-schemas in relatively depressed children. A depth-of-processing incidental recall memory paradigm was employed with two groups of normal third- to sixth-grade children. Results supported the self-as-schema model as applied to children, even the youngest group, by indicating superior recall for words encoded under self-reference instructions, compared to semantic or structural orienting instructions. The content-specificity hypotheses were tested with relatively depressed and nondepressed children, and were supported only for the nondepressed children, who recalled mostly positive content words. The relatively depressed children did not demonstrate content specificity in their recall, showing a more “confused” pattern, and the results were discussed in terms of a developmental model of acquisition of depression vulnerability requiring repeated depressive experiences over time. Although the results were consistent with a self-schema approach, current controversies over the implications of depth-of-processing methods require further research to clarify mechanisms of enhanced self-reference recall.     

Affiliation of opposite-sexed strangers

This study examined the effects of a subject's sex and affiliative tendency and the other's physical attractiveness on the cross-sexual interaction of strangers. Although previous studies showed that one's interest in an opposite-sexed other is a function of the other's physical attractiveness, the actual behavior of individuals in the presence of attractive and unattractive others had not been systematically examined. Subjects were individually placed in a 5-min waiting situation with a physically attractive or unattractive target of the opposite sex who behaved in a standard way. Conversations were recorded and subsequently analyzed; subjects also provided their impressions of the targets following the waiting period. Physical attractiveness of the opposite-sexed other did not significantly influence the subject's verbal affiliative behavior, but the combined influence of a subject's sex and affiliative tendency was predictive of cross-sexual affiliation. Although physical attractiveness did not account for differences in affiliative behavior, subjects preferred attractive over unattractive targets as potential dates or marriage partners.     

Children's judgments of numerical quantity: A new view of early quantification

Three experiments investigated the role of length, density, and number dimensions in children's numerosity judgments of linear arrays of beads. The number dimension is physically defined by a length × density rule. Judgments based, even in part, on the number dimension would show signs of a length × density rule. Experiment 1 examined numerosity judgments of large arrays. Results showed that judgments by 3- and 4-year-olds obeyed a length + density rule, providing cogent evidence for a general adding strategy in young children's judgments of quantity. The physical length × density rule emerged gradually with increasing age. Experiment 2 showed that numerosity judgments of small arrays by 3- and 4-year-olds obeyed a length × density rule, indicating response to the number dimension. This result was expected and thereby validated the linearity of the response scale at the youngest ages. Experiment 3 verified the integration rules for individual 3- and 4-year-olds. The integration rules were interpreted in terms of Piaget's stages of the development of quantification. No evidence for Piaget's initial stage was found. This leads to a new view of early quantification which grants young children the ability to integrate stimulus dimensions.     

Effect of perceived choice,expected outcome,and observed outcome of an action on the causal attributions of actors

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that actors' causal attributions for success and failure would be affected by the degree of perceived choice they had in taking an action. Actors either were assigned, or selected one of four therapeutic outlines which were expected to have either a positive or a negative effect, and which actually had either a positive or negative outcome on a purportedly phobic person. For negative outcomes, it was predicted that perceived choice would induce a sense of personal responsibility when a positive outcome was expected, and lead actors to attribute more responsibility to themselves as a result. Results supported this prediction. For positive outcomes, however, actors attributed responsibility to themselves regardless of expectancy or choice. Actors were also found to attribute generally more responsibility to themselves for positive than negative outcomes. Results were discussed in terms of self-esteem motivation and the information available to the actor.     

The perceived informational value and affective consequences of choice behavior and intermediate difficulty task selection

Four experiments were conducted that examine the affective and informational determinants of risk-preference behavior. In the initial two experiments, subjects classified according to their level of achievement needs expressed a preference among tasks varying in difficulty. In two of the experimental conditions, instructions, respectively, conveyed that performance at the task chosen should either maximize satisfaction or the information gained about one's ability and effort expenditure. It was found that the majority of all subjects preferred to undertake tasks of intermediate difficulty and that both positive affect and information gain were perceived to be optimal at or near the level of intermediate difficulty. Experiments III and IV investigated at what level of task difficulty individuals most desire information about their performance. Police trainees and high school students with disparate self-concepts of respective target shooting and high-jumping ability were able to receive limited but self-selected performance feedback at a series of achievement tasks that varied in difficulty. The data revealed that the tasks selected for feedback became objectively less difficult as the self-perception of ability decreased. In addition, the tasks chosen for feedback were near the intermediate subjective certainty of success level for all subjects. It was contended that the data contradict Atkinson's model of choice but support an attributional conception. The general issue of affective versus informational models of motivation was discussed.     

Rats respond for food in the presence of free food: How free is the “free” food?

An experiment conducted by A.J. Neuringer (Science, 1969,166, 399–401) in which he reported that rats maintained appreciable levels of bar pressing for earned food in the presence of freely available food was critically examined and replicated. Rats were trained to bar press, then housed in operant chambers and administered a 15-day preference test between free and earned food, followed successively by 10 days of free food only, a second 6-day preference test, and 7 days of earned food only. Throughout the experiment half of the animals were provided with tall free-food containers similar to those used by Neuringer; the other half were provided with short containers similar to those more commonly employed by other researchers. The former animals showed a consistent propensity to bar press for earned food across both preference tests, while the latter animals showed only an initial propensity to bar press which subsequently declined to very low levels. These results indicate that the maintenance of significant amounts of bar pressing by the rats in Neuringer's report was due to the relatively more effortful free-food source he employed. The utility of a neophobia-optimality model in explaining the present data is discussed.