Observational Learning in Pigeons: The effects of Model Proficiency on Observer Performance

Observational learning of a successive visual discrimination problem by pigeons was studied using conspecifics as models performing at proficient or at nonproficient levels. During the observational period, observers were confined without response opportunity and were subsequently trained in the model's discriminative task. Significantly better performance in subsequent learning was found for observers of nonproficient models. In contrast, no significant differences in learning of the visual discrimination task were found between pigeons that observed proficient models and pigeons that had undergone only confinement in the observation apparatus or those trained without prior observation or confinement experience. The apparent paradox of less proficient models producing better learners may be related to the consequences of observing additional negative-stimulus responding per se or to observation of models' behavior changing from less proficient to more proficient with consequent improvement in reinforcement opportunity.     

High and Low Reading Comprehension Achievers' Strategic Behaviors and Their Relation to Performance in a Reading Comprehension Situation

This study aimed at investigating the actual strategic behaviors of high and low achievers in reading comprehension and their relation with respective performance. The participants were 45 individually examined third graders, 20 high and 25 low reading comprehension achievers. Cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational aspects of the participants' strategic behaviors during text comprehension was directly recorded by two observers by means of a structured observation form. The results revealed a relatively different profile of strategic behaviors between high and low achievers. Students' strategic behaviors during dealing with text comprehension were strongly related to respective performance for both groups.     

Perpetrators' Freedom of Choice as a Determinant of Responsibility Attribution

Abstract

In the present study, a swindler had high versus low freedom of choice while deciding to commit a crime. He actually swindled Polish university students (involved observers) out of a large versus a small amount of money (high vs. low loss). Other students (noninvolved observers) were informed about the swindler's action. All students suggested the punishment that they believed the swindler deserved (the punishments chosen were used as an index of responsibility attribution). Involved students assigned more severe punishments than noninvolved students did. In the high-loss condition, involved observers were more punitive than they were in the low-loss condition. The judgments of the swindler's victims were determined by the magnitude of their loss; they ignored information about the swindler's freedom of choice. In contrast, the responsibility attributed by the noninvolved observers was influenced by the swindler's freedom of choice, but only in the low-loss condition. Noninvolved observers informed that the swindler had high freedom of choice were insensitive to information about the magnitude of the consequences for the victim.     

PRIMARY TEACHERS' ASSIGNMENT AND SUPERVISION OF STUDENTS' READING SEATWORK

Twelve primary teacher were observed by trained observers during their assignment and supervision of students' seatwork tasks for a minimum of seven scheduled reading periods. Data were collected during each observation by recording what the teacher did in assigning seatwork and what the students did in completing the assignment. Observation data for each teacher were summarized over the seven observations. Teachers' behaviors were then compared to recent recommendations found in the teacher effectiveness and direct‐instruction literature. The results indicated that teachers failed to follow the majority of recommendations found in the literature and did not assume a central role in students' learning. The use of modeling, guided practice and feedback were lacking in these teachers' assignment and supervision of students' reading seatwork.     

Witnesses appearing live versus on video: effects on observers' perception,veracity assessments and memory

The study is an experiment examining how different presentation modes (live vs. video) affect observers' perception, veracity assessments and memory of witnesses and their statements. Three weeks after seeing a staged accident, six truth telling and six lying witnesses testified about the event. Mock jurors (N = 122) viewed the witnesses' testimony either live or on video and rated their perception of the witnesses' statement and appearance as well as the credibility of the witnesses. Live observers rated the witnesses' appearance in a more positive way and perceived them as being more honest than did video observers. Truth tellers were rated as having to think less hard than liars. Moreover, observers were not better than chance in assessing veracity, regardless of presentation mode. Live observers incorrectly believed they had a better memory of the witnesses' statements than video observers. Observers who had watched truthful statements showed a significantly better memory performance than observers who had watched deceptive statements. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE EFFECTS OF OBSERVER PRESENCE ON THE ACTIVITY LEVEL OF FAMILIES1

In the present study, the possibility that the act of observing behavior may result in changes in those behaviors was investigated. An investigation of reactivity is important to the validity of research findings because the result obtained when observers are present may not generalize to situations when observers are absent. The effects of observer presence were assessed with five families, each consisting of a mother and two children, in a laboratory setting designed to resemble a typical family living room, containing a table, couch, chairs, toys, books, and a bathroom and kitchen area. The families were each exposed to a sequence of four 30-minute conditions during which an observer was alternatively physically present or absent from the room. From behind an unobtrusive one-way mirror, family members' locations were recorded every 15 seconds on gridded floor-plan diagrams drawn to the scale of the room. After all data were collected, lines were drawn for each family member connecting the numbers sequentially and a map-reading device was then used to measure the distance covered during each minute of observation. The presence of observers markedly reduced the activity level of all families, with the average reduction approximating 50%. However, more extended observations in natural family settings may reveal that families habituate to observer presence in a relatively short period of time. If so, the solution to the reactivity problem would involve extending the observation sessions. However, if families do not habituate, new forms of data collection might be required to guarantee the validity and generalizability of data collected by obtrusive observers.     

College Students' Perceptions of a Psychotherapist's Treatment of a Religious Issue: Partial Replication and Extension

A study of the influence of a counselor's treatment of a client's religious values, observers' religiosity, and their interaction on observers' perceptions of counseling (Morrow, Worthington, & McCullough, 1992) was partially replicated and extended. Religious beliefs were differentiated from religious values as determinants of observers' perceptions of counseling. Student observers (N = 148) viewed one of two videotaped counseling interactions in which a counselor either supported or challenged a client's religious values. Dividing observers into high and low levels of Christian belief did not result in their perceiving religiously supportive or challenging counseling differently. Dividing observers into high and low levels of religious values produced consistent differences in how they perceived religiously supportive and challenging counseling. Findings supported the theory that people with strong religious values perceive counseling differently than people with weaker religious values.     

Intention in motor learning through observation

The purpose of this experiment was to assess whether learning an action through observation is enhanced by the intention to reproduce the observed behaviour. Two groups of participants observed a model practise a timing task and performed a 24-hour delayed retention test. Participants in the first group of observers were explicitly instructed that they would be required to execute the timing task that they had observed as accurately as possible during the delayed retention test. Observers in the second group were instructed that they would be required to describe as accurately as possible the behaviour that they had observed. A control group of participants, who did not observe the model, was also administered the delayed retention test. The results of the retention test indicated that absolute timing (parameterization) was learned by the observers to the same extent with or without intention to reproduce the task. Indeed, on the retention test absolute timing for the two groups of observers was as effective as that for the models. However, observing with an intention to reproduce the task was beneficial for learning the movement's relative timing structure. Results are discussed with respect to a potential mechanism by which intention enhances observation.     

Reexamining Bases of Power From an Attributional Perspective1

Four replications of Rodrigues' (1995) study on genotypical similarities of Raven's (1965) power taxonomy are reported. Rodrigues found that compliance induced by reward, informational, and referent power is perceived as more internal and controllable than compliant behavior induced by expert, legitimate, and coercive power. The replications included 4 new aspects: (a) subjects are highly ego-involved in the hypothetical situation presented; (b) subjects are actors rather than observers; (c) subjects are from another culture; and (d) subjects are asked to play the role of a supervisor and apply sanctions to the person who complied as a result of the influence attempt, thus affording an empirical testing of Weiner's (1995) thought-affect-action sequence when responsibility judgments are made. The results of all 5 studies, with a total of 570 subjects, support Rodrigues' (1995) findings and confirm Weiner's (1995) hypothesis     

THE TRUTH-DECEPTION ATTRIBUTION: EFFECTS OF FAMILIARITY ON THE ABILITY OF OBSERVERS TO DETECT DECEPTION

This study investigated the relationship between an observer's familiarity with the normal, truthful communicative behavior of an individual, and the observer's ability to detect deception on the part of that individual. Specifically, an attempt was made to provide an experimental test of the degree of linearity between familiarity and judgmental accuracy in detecting deception. After exposure to varying amounts of a communicator's normal, truthful behavior (baseline segment), observers made judgments of a communicator's veracity following observation of truthful or lying behavior (test segment). The results indicate a significant deviation from linearity in the relationship between familiarity and judgmental accuracy, and that the relationship is better described by an inverted parabolic curve (quadratic function). The possibility of information overload, the possibility of communicator-specific characteristics which provide clues to deception, and the possibility of observer fatigue were proposed as possible explanations of these results.     

Rebutting accusations: When does it work,when does it fail?

Three studies address the question of how observers react to rebuttal statements and which variables are crucial in determining observers' evaluations of the initiator of the rebuttal. The first study showed that devaluation of the initiator of the rebuttal was higher when observers were confronted with the isolated rebuttal than when observers first learned about an existing accusation and then about the corresponding rebuttal. The second study qualified this finding by revealing that the devaluating effect of an isolated rebuttal was especially pronounced if the event in question was of high impact for observers. The third study included an additional variable, namely, the credibility of the source of the accusation. The drop in devaluation from rebuttal-only to accusation + rebuttal conditions was obtained only for high impact observers when the accusation came from a noncredible source. The findings are explained within a framework of attributional and belief perseverance notions. Implications are discussed.     

Can Deception by Salespersons and Customers Be Detected Through Nonverbal Behavioral Cues?1

Experiments on behavioral lie detection have indicated that observers can detect a communicator's lies with above-chance accuracy, and that detection accuracy may be enhanced when observers pay special attention to certain vocal and body-movement cues. The present experiment asked whether deception in (simulated) sales communications by retail salespersons and automobile customers could likewise be detected nonverbally. Contrary to much of the prior literature, deception-detection in this study was not above chance, apparently because the salespersons' and customers' nonverbal cues simply were not correlated with lying. Though the observers seemed quite suspicious and did not give communicators the “benefit of the doubt”, they could not discriminate the communicators' deceptive communications from their truthful ones. Many—perhaps most—of the lies in sales communications may be told by confident, well-practiced deceivers whose nonverbal behavior is unlikely to reveal their lying.     

Object-based attentional selection and awareness of objects

This study examined whether object-based attentional selection depends on the observer's awareness of objects, using objects defined by perceptual completion. As an indicator of object-based attention, we studied the same-object advantage, where observers respond faster to a target within a cued object than within a noncued object. The same-object advantage was not found in the condition where observers were unaware of the objects (inattentional blindness). On the other hand, the same-object advantage was observed in the condition where observers were aware of the objects. These results suggest that the intensity of object representations can be influenced by observers’ awareness of objects, which affects the occurrence of object-based effects. We propose that attention/inattention (or awareness/unawareness) is graded and observers’ awareness of the objects might serve to boost an otherwise noisy/low signal representation for obtaining object-based effects.     

The effects of instructions and calculation procedures on observers' accuracy, agreement, and calculation correctness

Although the quality of observational data is generally evaluated by observer agreement, measures of both observer agreement and accuracy were available in the present study. Videotapes with a criterion protocol were coded by 16 observers. All observers calculated agreement scores both on their own and their partner's data and on a contrived data set misrepresented as data collected by other observers. Compared with agreement scores calculated by the experimenter, observers erroneously inflated their own agreement scores and deflated the agreement scores on the contrived data. Half of the observers (n = 8) had been given instructions emphasizing the importance of accuracy during observation while the other half had been given instructions emphasizing interobserver agreement. Accuracy exceeded agreement for the former group, whereas agreement exceeded accuracy for the latter group. The implications are that agreement should be calculated by the experimenter and that the accuracy-agreement relationship can be altered by differential observer instructions.     

Perceptions of neonatal behaviors by different caregivers

The current study compared nurses', mothers', and NBAS examiners' perceptions of infant behavior along dimensions of the NBAS using the Newborn Behavior Inventory (NBI; Anderson & Standley, 1979). The hypothesis was that the three observers would differ in their perceptions based on their unique backgrounds. A total of 26 high-risk premature infants and 28 healthy full-term infants were assessed on the Brazelton Neonatal Scale (Brazelton, 1973), which provided a reference point for comparing the observers' views. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that the preterm infants obtained significantly lower scores on the cluster of autonomic regulation and on the reflex cluster. A two-way analysis of variance for repeated measures was performed to analyze the NBI data. Rater disagreement appeared on four NBAS clusters of orientation, regulation of state, range of state, and motoric processes. Agreement among observers on the autonomic cluster reflected actual group differences on the NBAS. The variability in ratings is discussed in relation to the observers' differential experience with the infants.     

The Social Spotlight Increases Blindness to Change Blindness

The results of research on change blindness and the spotlight effect suggest that (a) others are unlikely to notice changes in our appearance and (b) we are likely to overestimate the extent to which others notice changes in our appearance. However, little research has directly addressed the latter possibility. In Study 1, target persons overestimated the extent to which observers noticed a change in their sweatshirt. In Study 2, observers who followed the target persons throughout the study overestimated the extent to which other observers noticed the change in the target persons' sweatshirt, but target persons' overestimations were significantly higher. The results suggest that the spotlight effect increases blindness to change blindness.     

In‐court versus out‐of‐court testimonies: Children's experiences and adults' assessments

The study examined the effects of different presentation modes on child witnesses' experiences and adults' perception and assessments of the same witnesses. Child witnesses (N = 108) were interviewed about an event that they had either experienced or imagined. Adult mock jurors (N = 240) watched the children's testimonies live, via two‐way closed‐circuit television (CCTV), or via a pre‐recorded video. The results showed that the live observers perceived the children in more positive terms than did the two‐way CCTV observers, who in turn perceived the children in more positive terms than did the video observers. Briefly, it seems as the more proximal the presentation mode, the more positive the observers' perception. Somewhat in contrast to these results, a significantly smaller proportion of the children who testified on video stated that they were nervous, compared to the children who testified live or via two‐way CCTV. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Apparent depth of pictures reflected by a mirror: The plastic effect

We investigated the plastic effect in picture perception, in which the apparent depth of a picture is increased when it is reflected by a mirror. The plastic effect was well known in the mid-18th century, but very few studies have elucidated its nature. In Experiment 1, we examined how often the plastic effect occurs in different ocular conditions. A group of 22 observers compared directly observed pictures and their mirror-reflected images in each of free-binocular, free-monocular, and restrictive-monocular conditions. When the observers were forced to choose the picture that appeared greater in depth, 73?% of them chose the reflected pictures, regardless of oculomotor condition. In Experiment 2, we examined how often the plastic effect is detected as a function of observation time. When 22 observers compared a directly watched movie and its mirror-reflected movie for 5?min, the number of observers who judged the reflected movie to be greater in depth was about 55?% at the onset of the trial but was 86?% at the end. In Experiment 3, we examined transfer of the plastic effect. Ten observers judged the change in apparent depth of directly observed pictures after prolonged exposure to the same reflected or actual pictures. Transfer was confirmed and was greater for pictures that represented greater depth (r = .88). We suggested that the plastic effect is mainly induced by the double apparent locations of a reflected picture. From the long incubation time and the transfer to real pictures, we also suggested that it involves perceptual learning regarding visual skill.     

Perspective Effects on Causal Attributions of Success and Failure

The performance attributions of actors (participants on a task or in an interaction), active observers (co-actors who make observations of the actor) and passive observers (non-participants who observe but do not interact with the actor) were compared on a task in which actors succeeded or failed after competing or working independently. Contrary to Jones and Nisbett's (1971) divergent perspectives hypothesis, the results indicated that the subjects' person attributions were influenced interactively by the actor's outcome and the subjects' perspective while their situation attributions were influenced interactively by their perspective and the nature of the task. The implications of these findings for the divergent perspectives hypothesis were discussed.