A perception experiment with time-critical graphics animation on the World-Wide Web

The World-Wide Web offers a potentially interesting tool to collect data from a large and heterogeneous audience. While questionnaires have become rather common on the Internet, its potential reaches far beyond text processing. In principle, it is possible not only to perform interactive, dynamic experiments on the Web, but also to include graphical animation and time-critical responses, such as reaction times. We implemented a visual motion extrapolation task on the Web using the programming language Java, which can be interpreted by standard Web browsers such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. The data collected with this method turned out to be reliable and differed little from data obtained in a controlled laboratory setting, with the exception of conditions with fixation instruction. Thus, the Web can, generally speaking, be used for data collection of large sample sizes. The strengths and weaknesses of dynamic visual simulation experiments on the Internet are discussed.     

Timing accuracy of Web experiments: A case study using the WebExp software package

Although Internet-based experiments are gaining in popularity, most studies rely on directly evaluating participants’ responses rather than response times. In the present article, we present two experiments that demonstrate the feasibility of collecting response latency data over the World-Wide Web using WebExp—a software package designed to run psychological experiments over the Internet. Experiment 1 uses WebExp to collect measurements for known time intervals (generated using keyboard repetition). The resulting measurements are found to be accurate across platforms and load conditions. In Experiment 2, we use WebExp to replicate a lab-based self-paced reading study from the psycholinguistic literature. The data of the Web-based replication correlate significantly with those of the original study and show the same main effects and interactions. We conclude that WebExp can be used to obtain reliable response time data, at least for the self-paced reading paradigm.     

单页和多页呈现设计对网页信息搜索效率及主观感受的影响

本研究以操作绩效和主观满意度为指标,对网页信息的单页和多页呈现方式进行研究。实验采用搜索任务,共有46名被试参加实验。研究结果表明：（1）在常用的页码翻页、下拉翻页、填写翻页和上页下页翻页四种多页操作方式中,页码翻页是最优的操作方式;（2）无论是在搜索绩效上还是主观满意度上,网页信息的多页呈现方式都要优于单页呈现方式。本实验结果可以为网页信息呈现设计提供科学的依据。     

Human versus machine: a comparison of the accuracy of geographic profiling methods

The current article addresses the continuing debate as to the accuracy of geographic profiling methods in predicting the location of serial crime offenders. In particular, the research addresses whether spatial distribution methods and humans using simple heuristics are as accurate at predicting home locations of offenders as more complex algorithm‐based methods such as RIGEL, DRAGNET, and Crimestat. Using a random sample of solved serial crimes, the research found that predictions by human judges and spatial distribution methods performed equally as well as more complex algorithm‐based methods. In addition to a discussion of findings, implications for police investigations and researchers are included. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Probability judgment accuracy for general knowledge. Cross-national differences and assessment methods

In this study we compare the probability judgment accuracy of subjects from the United States and Turkey. Three different response modes were employed — numerical probabilities, pie diagrams, and odds. The questions employed in the study were restricted to two-alternative, general-knowledge items. The observed pattern of differences in the components of probability judgment accuracy paralleled those of studies that have compared Western and Asian subjects. In particular, Turkish subjects exhibited better discrimination but worse calibration than their US counterparts. This result persisted across all three response modes. These findings lend support to previous assertions that observed cross-national differences arise from socioeconomic rather than Asian versus Western cultural differences. However, the consistency of the observed differences across response modes refutes a previous assertion that observed cultural differences are merely the result of response bias.     

A comparison of the accuracy and reactivity of methods of monitoring male sexual behavior

Two self-report methods of monitoring male sexuality have been compared—an ongoing method in the form of a diary card and one eliciting retrospective reports in the form of a monthly sexuality interview. Male volunteers were assigned at random to three testing conditions: (a) diary card and monthly interview for 3 months (N=29); (b) three monthly interviews (N=18); and (c) pre- and postinterview only, separated by 2 months (N=21). The correspondence among frequency reports, quality ratings, and number of sexual problems as obtained in diary card and interview measures was examined for respondents in the first condition, revealing that coital frequency and quality ratings were generally quite similar in the two modes of assessment. Interview responses for all subjects were examined for the existence of differential reactive effects according to the frequency of the assessment regimen. No differences emerged among conditions, although a trend for all groups over time was identified. Implications of the results are considered for clinical trials monitoring the effects of new contraceptive methods on sexual functioning.This study was supported by the World Health Organization's Special Programme of Research Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (Project Nos. 76297 and 79003) and was conducted at King's College Hospital, London.     

Influence of animation on dynamical judgments.

The motions of objects in the environment reflect underlying dynamical constraints and regularities. The conditions under which people are sensitive to natural dynamics are considered. In particular, the article considers what determines whether observers can distinguish canonical and anomalous dynamics when viewing ongoing events. The extent to which such perceptual appreciations are integrated with and influence common-sense reasoning about mechanical events is examined. It is concluded that animation evokes accurate dynamical intuitions when there is only 1 dimension of information that is of dynamical relevance. This advantage is lost when the observed motion reflects higher dimension dynamics or when the kinematic information is removed or degraded.     

Practical Modes of Presentation

The Intellectualist thesis that know‐how is a kind of propositional knowledge faces a simple problem: For any proposition p, it seems that one could know p without knowing how to do the activity in question. For example, it seems that one could know that w is a way to swim even if one didn't know how to swim oneself. In this paper I argue that this “sufficiency problem” cannot be adequately addressed by appealing to practical modes of presentation.     

强大的错误记忆效应:词表呈现时间与呈现方式的影响

本研究采用DRM范式(Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm),考察了词表项目的呈现时间与呈现方式对错误记忆效应的影响。结果发现,被试对关键诱饵的错误再认受到学习阶段词表项目的呈现方式的影响,表现为所有项目随机呈现条件下的错误再认明显低于分组呈现条件,尤其是在20ms的随机呈现条件下,观察到了对关键诱饵的最低错误再认率。说明在对词表项目的编码阶段产生了对关键诱饵的连续激活,而对关键诱饵的错误记忆则是基于连续激活的不断累积的结果,当词表项目的随机呈现阻断了连续激活过程时,便会有效降低错误记忆效应。而且,在所有实验条件下均发现了错误记忆效应产生中所伴随的强烈主观体验,证实了错误记忆是一种强大的效应。     

A hypertext-based tutorial with links to the Web for teaching statistics and research methods

An online tutorial for research design and statistics is described. This tutorial provides a way for students to learn how scales of measure, research design, statistics, and graphing data are related. The tutorial also helps students determine what statistical analysis is appropriate for a given design and how the results of the analysis should be plotted in order to effectively communicate the results of a study. Initial research suggests that students using the tutorial are more accurate in their decisions about the design and statistics associated with a study. Students are also more confident in the decisions and find them easier to make when using the tutorial. Furthermore, practice with the tutorial appears to improve problem-solving ability in subsequent design and statistics scenarios. Implications for teaching statistics and research design are discussed.     

Individual differences in mental animation during mechanical reasoning

In three experiments we tested the effects of spatial visualization ability on performance of a motion-verification task, in which subjects were shown a diagram of a mechanical system and were asked to verify a sentence stating the motion of one of the system components. We propose that this task involves component processes of (1) sentence comprehension, (2) diagram comprehension, (3) text-diagram integration, and (4) mental animation. Subjects with law spatial ability made more errors than did subjects with high spatial ability on this task, and they made more errors on items in which more system components had to be animated to solve the problem. In contrast, the high-spatial subjects were relatively accurate on all trials. These results indicate that spatial visualization is correlated with accuracy on the motion-verification task and suggest that this correlation is primarily due to the mental animation component of the task. Reaction time and eye-fixation data revealed no differences in how the high- and low-spatial subjects decomposed the task. The data of the two groups of subjects were equally consistent with a piecemeal model of mental animation, in which components are animated one by one in order of the causal chain of events in the system.