A computer-based programmable tachistoscope for nonprogrammers

A set of programs for on-line control of reaction time experiments is described. These programs allow a wide range of experiments to be coded in a simple form that eliminates the need for any knowledge of programming.     

Demonstration experiments in perception and cognitive psychology for the Macintosh computer

A package of programs demonstrating psychology experiments widely cited in perception and cognitive psychology textbooks is described. The programs are suitable for laboratory research projects and in-class demonstrations. An attractive feature of the programs is that they have provisions for changing experimental parameters to allow students to design different experiments from the original programs. Iconic memory, memory scanning (using the additive factors approach), lexical decision, target detection, speeded classification, picture recognition/picture memory, and the Phi phenomenon can be demonstrated.     

Teaching cognitive processes: Software for laboratory instruction in memory and cognition

This paper describes a set of computer programs that allow students to participate as subjects in well-known experiments selected from the current literature on memory and cognition. The experiments address five major areas: levels of processing, encoding specificity, semantic memory, sentence-picture verification, and constructive processes in prose comprehension.     

An operating subsystem for continuous monitoring studies

A set of programs has been developed to allow efficient operator control over the recording of physiological and behavioral measures in experiments of several hours’ duration. Important features include menu-driven selection among possible measurements, minimal data loss in the event of system failure, on-line correction or deletion of incorrect data both during and after collection, and selective reporting of individual statistics and time periods. These programs can be extended to include new measurements with minimal interference with existing measurements.     

Computer programs to facilitate detailed analysis of how people study text passages

Three computer programs are described for an IBM Personal Computer; these programs enable the gathering of detai3led data on reading and study processes. The programs (A) present any text of the experimenter’s choosing and permit subjects to study the lines and pages of that text in any order; (B) allow for the subject’s use of a light pen to record study time per line, to answer questions, and to indicate lines that are, for instance, important or difficult by “highlighting” them (i.e, changing them to reverse video); (C) allow for multiple study sessions and a review session; (D) present and score multiple-choice questions; (E) permit the use of fill-in test items; (F) calculate 176 values, including detailed data on highlighting, quality of study, testing, and times and frequencies on 18 different categories of lines in study and in review; and (G) make a printout of the raw data and the 176 summary statistics. Also described is one example of a 28-page text and a test that have been used in conjunction with the programs. Data are provided to illustrate the usefulness of the programs.     

An accurate millisecond timer for the Commodore 64 or 128

The use of the Commodore 64 or 128 as an accurate millisecond timer is discussed. BASIC and machine language programs are provided that allow the keyboard to be used as the response manipulandum. Modifications of the programs for use with a joystick or external switches are also discussed. The precision, flexibility, and low cost of these machines recommends their use as laboratory instruments.     

“ Time,” a time-sharing moniter for the DEC LINC-8, PDP-8, and PDP-12

A system is available for an 8K, or larger, Linc-8, PDP-8, or PDP-12 with RF/RS08 disk(s), to allow virtually simultaneous execution of any mix of PDP-8 and/or Line programs. The programs need little or no modification to run within “Time,” and up to eight may be in the mix at a given time. “Time” also incorporates a file system with access and write protection. The system is intended to be used with conversationally oriented programs. “Time” is in the public domain.     

Changing Kinematics as a Means of Reducing Vulnerability to Physical Attack1

Three experiments investigated whether women can change their walking style and hence reduce their vulnerability to physical attack. In Experiment 1, women were videotaped walking normally and when imagining themselves in a situation of low personal safety. Women were rated as harder to attack in the low safety condition. Differences in walking style accounted for differences in ease‐of‐attack ratings. Experiment 2 compared walking styles and vulnerability of women before and after completing a self‐defense course. No differences were seen across sessions. Experiment 3 investigated walking styles and vulnerability of women before and after completing individualized walking training programs. Differences in vulnerability between sessions were revealed and could be accounted for by changes in walking‐style features.     

ASSESSING THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF PERSONNEL PROGRAMS ON WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY

This article describes and illustrates the adaptation of the linear-regression-based decision-theoretic equations used to estimate the dollar impact of valid selection procedures on workforce productivity to the evaluation of intervention programs designed to improve job performance. The appropriate equations are derived and explained, methods for estimating equation parameters are discussed, and the use of these equations is illustrated by means of a hypothetical example. It is concluded that in the future these methods and equations will allow psychologists to make more accurate assessments of the impact of intervention programs on workforce productivity than has heretofore been the case.     

Component analysis of ECG by computer

The present paper describes a set of interactive computer programs and methods (i.e., cardiac component analysis, CCA) that allow the collection, summation, and averaging of the time durations of the various ECG components. The programs are written in FORTRAN and run on a Texas Instruments minicomputer using an Intecolor 8001 terminal as the display device. The program’s features include analog-to-digital conversion, color display of individual heart-beats, operator interaction, and statistical summation with tabular output. Subroutines are well structured and easily transported to other machines. Although these programs may be used on-line, it has been more efficient to perform the analyses off-line, after a subject has completed the task. Various versions of the program have been used to analyze human, baboon, and dog ECGs in 2- to 30-sec epochs, at sample rates of 258 and 1,000 samples/sec. Preliminary results from an experiment of the effects of meditation and cognitive overload are discussed.     

Nonmonotonic abductive inductive learning

Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) is concerned with the task of generalising sets of positive and negative examples with respect to background knowledge expressed as logic programs. Negation as Failure (NAF) is a key feature of logic programming which provides a means for nonmonotonic commonsense reasoning under incomplete information. But, so far, most ILP research has been aimed at Horn programs which exclude NAF, and has failed to exploit the full potential of normal programs that allow NAF. By contrast, Abductive Logic Programming (ALP), a related task concerned with explaining observations with respect to a prior theory, has been well studied and applied in the context of normal logic programs. This paper shows how ALP can be used to provide a semantics and proof procedure for nonmonotonic ILP that utilises practical methods of language and search bias to reduce the search space. This is done by lifting an existing method called Hybrid Abductive Inductive Learning (HAIL) from Horn clauses to normal logic programs. To demonstrate its potential benefits, the resulting system, called XHAIL, is applied to a process modelling case study involving a nonmonotonic temporal Event Calculus (EC).     

Visual cortical evoked potentials under conditions of sequential blanking

Two separate experiments were conducted to study the visual evoked potential (VEP) correlates of sequential blanking, a phenomenon in which up to one-half of a discrete train of stimulus inputs are not perceived for certain orders of input. A PDP-7 digital computer was used to present stimuli (from 2 to 5 letter Xs) on a CRT display in both experiments. In Experiment 1 there were four basic conditions designed and counterbalanced to indicate the nature of the VEP when stimuli were blanked and when Ss reported all stimuli. All of the stimuli were of equal intensity. The main finding was that although the eight Ss did not perceive and report blanked stimuli, they did respond to them physiologically as indicated by the VEP. The implications of these findings were discussed in relation to recent studies of visual masking and metacontrast in which VEP was recorded. In Experiment 2 the normally blanked and the normally blanking stimuli were alternately increased in intensity to determine the effect on sequential blanking and the VEP. Six Ss were tested under three basic counterbalanced conditions. It was found that sequential blanking could be reliably overcome by increasing the intensity of the normally blanked stimuli. In addition, when the normally blanking stimuli were of greater intensity than the blanked stimuli, not only did perceptual suppression occur, but the evidence indicated that there was no VEP to the first of the two blanked stimuli.     

Reduction and calibration of eye monitor data

The present paper presents FORTRAN programs for reducing eye monitor output to fixations and for mapping these fixations to locations in the stimulus space. Flexible parameters of the fixations program allow for determination of the beginning and end of fixations under different resolution criteria and for indicating loss of accurate measurement. The calibration program is based on a rectangular 9-point fixation grid. Each fixation is rescaled within this grid by solving for a quadratic equation. The rescaled values are output in a flexibly determined rectangular coordinate system that is related to the stimulus space, such as character position on the screen. The programs were developed for the 60-Hz Applied Sciences corneal reflection eye monitor, but they may be used with a number of other systems.     

Two SPSS programs for interpreting multiple regression results

When multiple regression is used in explanation-oriented designs, it is very important to determine both the usefulness of the predictor variables and their relative importance. Standardized regression coefficients are routinely provided by commercial programs. However, they generally function rather poorly as indicators of relative importance, especially in the presence of substantially correlated predictors. We provide two user-friendly SPSS programs that implement currently recommended techniques and recent developments for assessing the relevance of the predictors. The programs also allow the user to take into account the effects of measurement error. The first program, MIMR-Corr.sps, uses a correlation matrix as input, whereas the second program, MIMR-Raw.sps, uses the raw data and computes bootstrap confidence intervals of different statistics. The SPSS syntax, a short manual, and data files related to this article are available as supplemental materials from http:// brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

VT125 graphics hardcopy on an epson MX-80 serial printer for RT-11 and TSX-Plus

A collection of computer programs is presented that allows the user of a DEC VT125 graphics terminal to generate hardcopy of REGIS graphics on an inexpensive Epson MX-80 serial matrix printer. These programs allow easy production of hardcopy graphics without the user’s having to purchase more expensive devices.     

PSAAL: A LabVIEW 3 program for data acquisition and analysis in psychophysiological experiments

PSAAL (Physiological Signals Acquisition and Analysis in LabVIEW language) is a group of seven programs, written in LabVIEW 3.0 language and specialized for acquisition, analysis, reduction, and display of peripheral and central physiological data. The main characteristics of the programs are the wide range of use for most short-duration psychophysiological paradigms and the easy-to-use graphic interface. In addition, two noteworthy features of LabVIEW are included: the portability of the programs on Macintosh, PowerMac, IBM, HP-UX, and SUN computers, and the capability of handling acquisition on many National Instruments A/D boards, including the low-cost ones. PSAAL performs acquisition and simple reduction of peripheral physiological responses with 12- or 16-bit resolution according to the A/D board used. Analysis includes conversion of electrocardiogram into heart rate, the elaboration of the main parameters of skin conductance responses, electromyogram, startle reflex, and averaging of evoked potentials or other event-related physiological responses, under different experimental conditions. The programs allow the user to perform the organization of the data in a spreadsheet ready for most statistical packages and without the use of other spreadsheet applications.     

High-speed 2-D and 3-D animation on the IBM PC/XT/AT

This article describes programs for performing high-speed two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) animation on IBM PC/XT/AT and compatible machines that use the color/graphics adapter. Machine language routines interfaced through BASIC allow the user to store screen images in memory as they are created by user software and then to display the sequence of images at rates of up to 60 frames per second. A BASICA 3-D graphics editor that can be used with the routines permits the user to create wire-frame objects and to move them about rigidly in conceptual space while projecting them onto the display screen. These programs should find application in the study of visual perception and cognition.     

A Christian Faith-Based Recovery Theory: Understanding God as Sponsor

This article reports the development of a substantive theory to explain an evangelical Christian-based process of recovery from addiction. Faith-based, 12-step, mutual aid programs can improve drug abstinence by offering: (a) an intervention option alone and/or in conjunction with secular programs and (b) an opportunity for religious involvement. Although literature on religion, spirituality, and addiction is voluminous, traditional 12-step programs fail to explain the mechanism that underpins the process of Christian-based recovery (CR). This pilot study used grounded theory to explore and describe the essence of recovery of 10 former crack cocaine-addicted persons voluntarily enrolled in a CR program. Data were collected from in-depth interviews during 4?months of 2008. Audiotapes were transcribed verbatim, and the constant comparative method was used to analyze data resulting in the basic social process theory, understanding God as sponsor. The theory was determined through writing theoretical memos that generated key elements that allow persons to recover: acknowledging God-centered crises, communicating with God, and planning for the future. Findings from this preliminary study identifies important factors that can help persons in recovery to sustain sobriety and program administrators to benefit from theory that guides the development of evidence-based addiction interventions.