Finite and infinite state confusion models

A confusion model is defined as a model that decomposes response probabilities in stimulus identification experiments into perceptual parameters and response parameters. Historically, confusion models fall into two groups. Models in Group I, which includes Townsend's (Perception and Psychophysics, 1971, 9, 40–50) overlap model, were developed on the basis of the notion that stimulus identification is mediated by a finite number of internal states. We call the general class of models that have this processing interpretation finite state confusion models. Models in Group II, which includes Luce's (R. O. Luce et al., Eds., Handbook of Mathematical Psychology (Vol. I), New York: Wiley, 1963) biased choice model, were not developed on the basis of an explicit processing interpretation. It is shown here that models in Group II are not finite state confusion models. We prove in addition that except for Falmagne's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1972, 9, 206–224) simply biased model models in Group II belong to a certain class of infinite state confusion models, namely, models asserting that stimulus identification is mediated by a continuous space of vectors representing detector activation levels.     

A critical analysis of the attention hypothesis of Zeaman and House: problems of parameter interactions in multiparameter models

The attention hypothesis of Zeaman and House [in N. R. Ellis (Ed.), Handbook of mental deficiency. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963] was examined through a systematic, computer-simulation analysis of the parameter interactions found in the One-Look model. The hypothesis states that mental retardates and normals differ in their initial attention habits but not in their learning rates in the context of discrimination learning. The analysis showed that possible differences in the learning rates cannot be ruled out. The result was used to suggest how shift designs can unconfound the effect of the attention habits from the effect of the learning rates and maximize chances of observing possible differences in the learning rates between retarded and normal children.     

Career choice and orality

The field of vocational psychology is replete with schemata for the determinants of career choice in adulthood (e.g., A. Roe, The psychology of occupations. New York: Wiley, 1956; D. E. Super, The psychology of careers. New York: Harper &Row, 1957; J. O. Crites, Vocational psychology: The study of vocational behavior and development. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969). A view not given much weight in empirical research in this area is that of psychoanalytic theory relating career choice to unresolved childhood conflicts and their derivatives. To examine the validity of this psychoanalytic prediction, students' Rorschach protocols were analyzed to yield an index of frustrated oral needs. The students were given decks of careers to rank from most to least preferable. Results showed that the ranking of the oral careers was a function of the Rorschach index of frustrated oral needs for women only but not for men.     

Young children's free responses to anomalous commands

Twelve children, 21–34 months old, six in R. Brown's Stage I and six in Stages II and III, responded to commands varying in length, grammaticality, and meaning. All of the children responded significantly less often when the commands were situationally anomalous and/or ungrammatical. Results failed to replicate the results of E. Shipley, E. Smith, and L. Gleitman (Language, 1969, 44, 332–342) and J. Wetstone and B. Friedlander (Child Development, 1973, 44, 743–750). The results also suggest that young children rely heavily upon situational cues in their earliest comprehension of adult speech, and this supports arguments made by J. Strohner and K. Nelson (Child Development, 45, 567–576) and R. Chapman and J. Miller (Journal of Speech and Hearing, 1975, 18, 355–371). Since subjects rely upon nonlinguistic cues to respond appropriately, syntactic competence cannot be inferred from apparent comprehension.     

On the form and location of the Psychometric Bisection Function for time

The Psychometric Bisection Function for time relates the discriminability of intermediate duration stimuli to a short and long training duration. Bisection Functions for animals (R. M. Church & M. Z. Deluty, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 1977, 3, 216–228) confirm Weber's Law and also show indifference between short and long reports at the geometric mean of the training durations. Two discrimination processes are studied which, in combination with different constructions of the subjective time scale, result in Bisection Functions which differ in form and location. The two discrimination processes use a likelihood ratio rule or a similarity rule to compare intermediate durations to the training durations. These rules in combination with two different constructions of the subjective time scale result in four models which conform to Weber's Law. For one of the scales subjective time is a power function of real time with the scalar property on variance (Scalar Timing). For the other, subjective time is a logarithmic function of real time with constant variance (Log Timing). Both Log and Scalar Timing assume normality on the subjective scale. Only three of these models also entail the geometric mean at the indifference point. The exception is Scalar Timing with the likelihood ratio discrimination rule. This model entails indifference at approximately the harmonic mean of the training stimuli. Variants of the remaining three models differ theoretically but alternatives are difficult to discriminate empirically. A contrast is provided by a Poisson Timing subjective scale in which variance increases directly with the mean. This scale results in indifference at the geometric mean for both discrimination rules but violates Weber's Law in both cases.     

Career roles,psychological success,and job attitudes

D. T. Hall's (Careers in organizations. Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear Pub., 1976) psychological success-based model of career development was investigated using path analyses across three faculty member roles and several performance indices. The model received moderate support for each role. While alternative paths from performance to job involvement and satisfaction with promotional opportunities were observed, they did not contradict the portions of the psychological success model studied.     

The role of need level and/or need salience as moderators of the relationship between need satisfaction and work alienation-involvement

Contrary to previous findings documenting the importance of higher-order need satisfaction, a recent study by G. J. Gorn and R. N. Kanungo (Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1980, 26, 265–277) has indicated that satisfaction of lower-order needs may lead to job involvement if such needs are salient. Data from a heterogeneous sample of 632 employees from six organizations were used to test six hypotheses concerning the effects of need level (higher vs lower order) and need salience as moderators of the relationship between need satisfaction and alienation-involvement. Three different ways of operationalizing need saliency were used, including a replication of Gorn and Kanungo's procedure. Higherorder need satisfaction was correlated with alienation-involvement scores to a significantly greater degree than was lower-order need satisfaction, even for those for whom lower-order needs were most salient. Need saliency was not found to moderate the need satisfaction-involvement relationship when need level was controlled. Issues regarding the operationalization of “need salience” were discussed and a new measure of alienation-involvement (the A-I Scale) was introduced. Implications for further empirical investigations of the need saliency issue were noted, as was the universal application of job enrichment programs aimed at promoting higher-order need satisfaction.     

Perceived causality for success in occupations

A representative group of occupations was examined within an attributional framework, utilizing the concept of perceived causality for success. Specifically, it was hypothesized that (1) success in different types of occupations would be attributed to different causes, (2) the causal attributions of incumbents would differ from those of nonincumbents, (3) standard occupational categories could be derived on the basis of perceived causality for success, and (4) perceived causality for success could be used as a basis for generating a circular ordering of occupations.Holland's (1973) occupational classification was used as a basis for categorization. College students, as well as six types of occupational incumbents, were administered a questionnaire in which they attributed causality for success in 35 occupations. The results supported the first three hypotheses and also revealed some systematic relationships between causes and between perceived causality for success and occupational prestige.     

The abstraction of visual prototypes by children

The present studies demonstrated that children as young as second graders could form prototypical representations from a set of highly similar stimuli. The prototype-plus-transformation model of this performance (Franks & Bransford, 1971) was contrasted with an attribute-frequency model (Neumann, 1974). Results supported the latter model when trigram stimuli were used to test differential predictions from the models.     

Brain responses related to semantic meaning

Evoked Potentials from electroencephalogram (EEG) recording were averaged to many visually presented word stimuli whose semantic meanings were specified along Osgood's semantic dimensions of Evaluation, Potency, and Activity [Miron &; Osgood, 1966, in R. B. Cattell (Ed.), Handbook of multivariate experimental psychology, Chicago: Rand-McNally; Osgood, 1971, Journal of Social Issues, 27, 5–63; Osgood, May, &; Miron, 1975, Cross-cultural universals of affective meaning, Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press]. Multivariate analyses classified the Evoked Potentials to six semantic classes with success rates more than twice chance expectation. The pattern of brain activity related to the six semantic classes was similar for (i) two sets of words, (ii) 10 subjects used to develop the analyses, and (iii) an added, new subject.     

Resistance to yielding and the expectation of cooperative future interaction in negotiation

The expectation of cooperative future interaction (ECFI) encouraged especially high joint benefit (the total of the two bargainers' individual outcomes) when resistance to yielding was high, but especially low joint benefit when resistance to yielding was low. Process data suggest that this finding can be explained as follows: When resistance to yielding is high, ECFI encourages problem solving and reduced contentious behavior; when resistance to yielding is low, ECFI encourages a collapse of aspirations. The results support Filley's (1975) dualconcern model and cast doubt on Deutsch's (1973) blanket assertion that a cooperative process leads to constructive conflict resolution.     

Evaluation,self-awareness,and task performance

Two contradictory hypotheses regarding the effect of self-attention or self-awareness on task performance are considered. Recent research on test anxiety indicates that self-awareness interferes with task performance by decreasing the proportion of attention paid to the task. Wicklund and Duval's (1971) theory of objective self-awareness predicts the opposite: that self-awareness will induce a person to try harder and to perform at a higher level. Experimental evidence indicates that both hypotheses are correct, each at a different level of evaluation. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for a unified social-psychological theory of evaluative self-awareness which could account for findings now classed under separate headings such as test anxiety, self-awareness, and social facilitation.     

Difference measurement and simple scalability with restricted solvability

Let A, B be two sets, with B ? A × A, and ≤ a binary relation on B. The problem analyzed here is that of the existence of a mapping u: A → R, satisfying:

$\text{(a,b) ? (}\text{a}\text{?}\text{,}\text{b}\text{?}\text{)}\text{iff}\text{∨∧ μ(b) ? μ(a) ? μ(}\text{b}\text{?}\text{) ? μ(}\text{a}\text{?}\text{)}$

whenever (a, b), (a′, b′) ∈ B. In earlier discussions of this problem, it is usually assumed that B is connected on A. Here, we only assume that B satisfies a certain convexity property. The resulting system provides an appropriate axiomatization of Fechner's scaling procedures. The independence of axioms is discussed. A more general representation is also analyzed:

$\text{(a,b) ? (}\text{a}\text{?}\text{,}\text{b}\text{?}\text{)}\text{iff}\text{∨∧ F[μ(b), μ(a)] ? F[μ}\text{b}\text{?}\text{]}$

, where F is strictly increasing in the first argument, and strictly decreasing in the second. Sufficient conditions are presented, and a proof of the representation theorem is given.     

Career exploration in adulthood

The study described was designed to examine career exploration in the adult years, as seen from the perspective of decision-making behavior. Using conceptual models provided by H. B. Gelatt (Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1962, 9, 240–245) and D. V. Tiedeman (Personnel and Guidance Journal, 1961, 40, 15–21), two research questions were posed: (1) To what extent does exploration occur prior to more terminal career behaviors? and (2) To what extent are exploratory and terminal career decision modes interdependent? These questions were addressed by examining the series of decisions made by 95 subjects over a period of 18 years. The results supported the expectation that decisions made at earlier stages of development are more likely to be of an exploratory nature and that decisions made at later stages are more likely to be of a terminal nature. In addition, support was found for the hypothesis that decision-making strategies at various stages of development are interdependent.     

Measured interests versus expressed interests as predictors of long-term occupational membership

This study compared the predictive accuracy of measured versus expressed interests over a 21-year period using as a criterion occupational membership at age 36. Subjects were 83 males whose measured and expressed interests were elicited at ages 15, 18, and 25. The Strong Vocational Interest Blank was used to determine measured interests while expressed interests were determined through a combination of questionnaires and interviews. C. McArthur's (Journal of Applied Psychology, 1954, 38, 346–353) method was employed to determine the predictive validity of subjects' measured interests. The predictive validity of expressed interests was determined by using A. Roe's (The psychology of occupations. New York: Wiley, 1956; Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1957, 4, 212–217) scheme for occupational classification to code occupational preferences and compare them to age 36 occupations. Results indicated that at each point in the study expressed interests were slightly better predictors of age 36 occupational membership than measured interests. Supplementary analyses revealed no relationship between the extent to which subjects' measured or expressed interests corresponded to age 36 occupations and either overall job or career satisfaction.     

Self-awareness and cigarette-smoking behavior

According to the theory of objective self-awareness (Duval & Wicklund, 1972), the concept of generalized drive is unnecessary, its explanatory function having been replaced by the concepts of self-evaluation and desire to be “correct”. An experiment was designed to compare alternative predictions from the drive and self-awarencess theories. Subjects listened to music in the presence of a mirror and, at another time, not in the presence of a mirror. The effect of self-consciousness on several habitual behaviors related to smoking was assessed. It was known that the subjects believed the number of cigarettes one should smoke “ideally” was significantly less than the number they actually smoked. Hence, the theory of objective self-awarencess predicts decreased smoking in the presence of the mirror, while a drive theory interpretation of self-consciousness predicts the opposite. Results generally supported the drive theory.     

The (Old) New Realism: What Holt Has to Offer for Ecological Psychology

As Ecological Psychology pushes into new areas, success will be made easier by a rediscovery its theoretical history, in particular the “New Realism”, lead in part by E. B. Holt. Three New Realists tenants seem particularly relevant: (1) we experience reality, (2) relations are real, and (3) things are what you see when you see those things. Though the two groups differ in terms of their conception of perception, and what can be perceived, their conceptions are related in very insightful ways. Further, the comparison reemphasizes the extent of unique empirical claims ecological psychologists make, and grounds those claims within a larger framework for psychology as a whole. This makes obvious the need for further work on the mathematics of invariants, the physiological mechanisms of information extraction, and the behaviors of perception.

Unclogging the bogus pipeline: A critical reanalysis of the Cherry,Byrne, and Mitchell study

The assignment of subjects to conditions on the basis of social desirability scores could not have been done in the manner described by Cherry, Byrne, and Mitchell (Journal of Research in Personality, 1976, 10, 69–75). Even if subject assignment procedures were not challenged the data do not support the authors' conclusions. Additional statistical analyses were carried out to test the hypotheses of the original study. It is concluded that either the demand cue manipulation was not successful or else paper-and-pencil and bogus pipeline measurement procedures are equally reliable measurement devices for the attitude similarity effect.     

The validity of the Holland and Basic Interest scales of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank: Leisure activities versus occupational membership as criteria

This study compared leisure activities with occupational membership as criteria for determining the concurrent validity of the Holland and Basic Interest scales of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (Form T399). Subjects were 89 thirty-six-year-old males representing a variety of occupations. R. H. Dolliver's (Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1975, 22, 199–203) two methods for assessing validity were used: highest single scores on relevant scales and scores above established cutoff points on relevant scales. Results indicated greater congruence between interest scales and occupations than interest scales and leisure activities, except when Basic Interest scale cutoff scores were used. After chance factors were taken into account, Holland scales were found to be more accurate than Basic Interest scales in identifying occupations and in identifying leisure activities when highest scale scores were used. Using cutoff scores, Basic Interest scales were more accurate than Holland scales in identifying leisure activities. Supplementary analyses indicated that the validity of the Holland and Basic Interest scales increases when they are presumed to reflect either current occupation or preferred leisure activity. Results of this study were compared with Dolliver's (1975) findings.