An intimate mode of looking: Francesca Woodman's photographs

This essay considers the intimacy between Francesca's Woodman's self representation and her exploration of the photographic medium. I argue that the small scale of Woodman's photographs, combined with their examination of the workings of photography via a picturing of the self, works to produce an intimate experience between viewer and photograph.     

Reliability of looking time

Twenty-eight college students viewed two sets of 30 color photographs each under instructions to look at each picture for as long as they wished. Equal thirds of the stimuli in each set were selected from high, middle, and low complexity levels. The sets were presented 7–10 weeks apart. The results indicated significant between- and within-session correlations that were not dependent on stimulus complexity. It was suggested that the findings were indicative of a consistency in either the rate at which Ss process information or the amount of information they process or both.     

Stimulus motion and retrospective time judgments

The effect of stimulus motion on retrospective time judgments was investigated in four experiments. Subjects reproduced the duration of a 32-s interval which was filled by either a stationary or moving visual element presented on a computer monitor. In Experiments 1 and 4, the element moved horizontally back and forth, and in Experiments 2 and 3 it traced a circular pathway. In Experiments 1 and 2, the element moved at speeds of either 5 or 20 cm/s. In Experiment 3, it moved at a constant speed, alternating direction between clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation once every 1, 4, 8 or 16 s. In Experiment 4 the element moved at linear speeds of 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 cm/s back and forth along a 16 cm horizontal path thereby alternating between left- and rightward motion-directions once every 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1 s, respectively. Temporal reproductions were not systematically influenced by stimulus speed. Rather, the pattern of results indicated a nonmonotonic relationship between remembered duration and the frequency of motion-direction changes; whereas remembered duration was unaffected by either infrequent or very frequent rates of changes, moderate rates of motion-changes lengthens remembered duration. These findings are discussed in relation to the change models of retrospective timing, and the claim that stimulus speed, as distinct from changes in the direction of stimulus motion, is not an important determinant of retrospective timing.     

Complexity,information and time

Evolution proceeds in time. Time is experienced as change only, predominantly irreversible change. Measuring change in the form of information growth it is possible to define a measure for the amount of time produced during information increase. Systems creating information contribute to the generation of time. To be able to create information, a system has to be highly complex. The more complex a system is, the more it can contribute to generation of time. The rate of time generation is determined by the capability of the system to gain information. Complexity, information accumulation, and time generation are therefore synonyms.     

Evaluating models of remember-know judgments: Complexity, mimicry, and discriminability

Remember-know judgments provide additional information in recognition memory tests, but the nature of this information and the attendant decision process are in dispute. Competing models have proposed that remember judgments reflect a sum of familiarity and recollective information (the one-dimensional model), are based on a difference between these strengths (STREAK), or are purely recollective (the dual-process model). A choice among these accounts is sometimes made by comparing the precision of their fits to data, but this strategy may be muddied by differences in model complexity: Some models that appear to provide good fits may simply be better able to mimic the data produced by other models. To evaluate this possibility, we simulated data with each of the models in each of three popular remember-know paradigms, then fit those data to each of the models. We found that the one-dimensional model is generally less complex than the others, but despite this handicap, it dominates the others as the best-fitting model. For both reasons, the one-dimensional model should be preferred. In addition, we found that some empirical paradigms are ill-suited for distinguishing among models. For example, data collected by soliciting remember/know/new judgments--that is, the trinary task--provide a particularly weak ground for distinguishing models. Additional tables and figures may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, at www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Complexity, extremity, and affect in male and female judgments.

Two studies were conducted to elucidate aspects of the interpersonal judement process as it is applied to and by males and females. Measurement of judgments by means of the Role Construct Repertory Test allowed consideration of cognitive complexity scores, as well as the use of extreme ratings and a total affective rating. Consistent findings from both studies suggest that males and females differ in their use of extreme scores and total affective ratings, but not in complexity. Characteristics of the stimulus person affect each of the three dependent measures. Interrelationships among the three judgmental measures provide information about the methodological and conceptual interplay of various factors in interpersonal judgment.     

Sequences of similarity judgments as time series

Sequences of similarity judgments made to pairs of geometrical patterns with three variable elements were obtained from 22 subjects. Each subject made 100 judgments to a series which embodied random input, step transitions and impulse shifts. Three different instructions concerning the use of information from previous trials were used. Time series analyses gave linear transfer function coefficients whose ratios reflected the strategy employed by a subject. Evidence of local nonstationarity in the response gain functions is examined.     

Not looking yourself: The cost of self‐selecting photographs for identity verification

Photo‐identification is based on the premise that photographs are representative of facial appearance. However, previous studies show that ratings of likeness vary across different photographs of the same face, suggesting that some images capture identity better than others. Two experiments were designed to examine the relationship between likeness judgments and face matching accuracy. In Experiment 1, we compared unfamiliar face matching accuracy for self‐selected and other‐selected high‐likeness images. Surprisingly, images selected by previously unfamiliar viewers – after very limited exposure to a target face – were more accurately matched than self‐selected images chosen by the target identity themselves. Results also revealed extremely low inter‐rater agreement in ratings of likeness across participants, suggesting that perceptions of image resemblance are inherently unstable. In Experiment 2, we test whether the cost of self‐selection can be explained by this general disagreement in likeness judgments between individual raters. We find that averaging across rankings by multiple raters produces image selections that provide superior identification accuracy. However, benefit of other‐selection persisted for single raters, suggesting that inaccurate representations of self interfere with our ability to judge which images faithfully represent our current appearance.     

Rats' lever-press durations as psychophysical judgments of time

Hungry rats received food following lever-press durations exceeding a minimum value, which ranged from 0 to 6.4 sec. When no intertrial intervals separated successive presses, modal press durations remained at very short values as the minimum value required for food was increased. This was particularly true immediately after a food presentation. When an 8-sec intertrial interval followed each lever release, modal press durations were always at or beyond the minimum value required for food, and outcome of the preceding press had no effect on press duration. Possible reasons for the effects of intertrial intervals included punishment of short presses, increased delay of reinforcement of short presses, and reduced density of reinforcement. In addition, functions relating discrete-trials lever-press duration to minimum duration required for food were found to be qualitatively and quantitatively similar to the power functions recently proposed by Catania (1970) for interresponse time and response latency. This similarity was taken as support for a general psychophysical law of temporal judgments.     

Perceptual grouping affects pitch judgments across time and frequency

Pitch, the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency (F0), plays an important role in speech, music, and animal vocalizations. Changes in F0 over time help define musical melodies and speech prosody, while comparisons of simultaneous F0 are important for musical harmony, and for segregating competing sound sources. This study compared listeners' ability to detect differences in F0 between pairs of sequential or simultaneous tones that were filtered into separate, nonoverlapping spectral regions. The timbre differences induced by filtering led to poor F0 discrimination in the sequential, but not the simultaneous, conditions. Temporal overlap of the two tones was not sufficient to produce good performance; instead performance appeared to depend on the two tones being integrated into the same perceptual object. The results confirm the difficulty of comparing the pitches of sequential sounds with different timbres and suggest that, for simultaneous sounds, pitch differences may be detected through a decrease in perceptual fusion rather than an explicit coding and comparison of the underlying F0s.     

Temporal-order judgments and reaction time for stimuli of different modalities

Summary Reaction times and the relative latency evaluated by the temporal-order-judgment method for two stimuli of different modalities (visual and auditory) were measured. The difference between reaction times for visual and auditory stimuli was about 40 ms. The relative latency was slightly shorter, however; in conflict with Rutschmann and Link's (1964) previous result, the auditory stimulus must be delayed to be perceived simultaneously with the visual one.     

Some determinants of looking time under different instructional sets

Four groups of Ss were asked to look at sets of figures whose members differed in degree of complexity and asymmetry. Ss instructed to look as long as the figures were pleasing did so for a significantly shorter time than did Ss who were instructed to look as long as they cared to, as long as the figures were interesting, or until they could recognize the figures in a large group of similar figures. Results indicated that looking time was affected by both the complexity and the asymmetry/symmetry dimensions and led to the conclusion that looking time is primarily a measure of exploratory behavior.     

Stimulus complexity,free looking time,and inspective exploration

Fourteen Ss rated 59 objects on a seven point complexity scale. From these ratings 10 objects were chosen at the high, middle, and low levels of complexity, and 35 mm slides were made of these 30 objects. Fifteen Ss manipulated and inspected each of the objects for as long as they wished and a second group of 15 Ss viewed slides of the objects for as long as they wished. Analysis of the time scores from these two groups revealed that both inspective manipulation time and free looking time increased as a function of stimulus complexity. Inspective manipulation time was greater than free looking time except at the low complexity level.     

The structure of sensory events and the accuracy of time judgments

We investigated how does the structure of empty time intervals influence temporal processing. In experiment 1, the intervals to be discriminated were the silent durations marked by two sensory signals, both lasting 10 or 500 ms; these signals were two identical flashes (intramodal: VV), or one visual flash (V) followed by an auditory tone (A) (intermodal: VA). For the range of duration under investigation (standards = 0.2, 0.6, 1, or 1.4 s), the results indicated that both the marker length and sensory mode influenced discrimination, but no interaction between these variables or between one of these variables and standard duration was significant. In experiment 2, we compared, for each of four marker-type conditions (VV, AA, VA, AV; and standard = 1 s), intervals marked by two 10 ms signals with intervals marked by unequal signal length (markers 1 and 2 lasting 10 and 500 ms, or 500 and 10 ms). As in experiment 1, the results revealed significant marker-mode and marker-length effects, but no significant interaction between these variables. Experiment 3 showed that, for the same conditions as in experiment 2, perceived duration is not influenced by marker length and that the variability of interval reproductions does not depend on the perceived duration of intervals. The results are discussed in the light of a single-clock hypothesis: marker-length and marker-mode effects are presented as being non-temporal sources of variability associated mainly with sensory and memory processes.     

On the importance of looking back: The role of recursive remindings in recency judgments and cued recall

Suppose that you were asked which of two movies you had most recently seen. The results of the experiments reported here suggest that your answer would be more accurate if, when viewing the later movie, you were reminded of the earlier one. In the present experiments, we investigated the role of remindings in recency judgments and cued-recall performance. We did this by presenting a list composed of two instances from each of several different categories and later asking participants to select (Exp. 1) or to recall (Exp. 2) the more recently presented instance. Reminding was manipulated by varying instructions to look back over memory of earlier instances during the presentation of later instances. As compared to a control condition, cued-recall performance revealed facilitation effects when remindings occurred and were later recollected, but interference effects in their absence. The effects of reminding on recency judgments paralleled those on cued recall of more recently presented instances. We interpret these results as showing that reminding produces a recursive representation that embeds memory for an earlier-presented category instance into that of a later-presented one and, thereby, preserves their temporal order. Large individual differences in the probabilities of remindings and of their later recollection were observed. The widespread importance of recursive reminding for theory and for applied purposes is discussed.     

Speed reductions and judgments of travel time loss: Biases and debiasing

Priority decisions concerning maintenance or reconstruction of roads are made with the aim of road improvements with as little traffic disturbance and time loss as possible. However, it cannot be avoided that speed will be reduced and travel time increased during the time of construction. The present study shows how intuitive judgments of travel time losses are biased in a way similar to the times saving bias (Svenson, 2008), but not perfectly corresponding to that bias. This means that when speed is decreased from a slow speed <50 km/h, the time loss is underestimated and when speed is decreased from a high speed >80 km/h it is overestimated. Also, drivers, politicians and policy makers who do not make exact calculations are likely victims of the time loss bias. The time loss bias was weakened but not eliminated by a debiasing instruction including mathematical computations of travel times. When driving speed restrictions are implemented, in particular on fast motorways, it is necessary to consider and counteract the time loss bias and inform the public. This can be done, for example, in communications about travel time facts, by information in driver training and by mounting temporary road signs informing about the average travel time prolongation due to a road work.