The effect of set size on hemifield asymmetries in letter recognition

Single letters were presented tachistoscopically in the left or right hemifield to right-handed observers. Superior recognition of letters on the right was found for letters chosen from subsets containing four items, but no differences were found when any letter, or any symmetrical letter, could appear. In a second experiment, the right hemifield advantage was found under conditions requiring the subject to determine the subset only when the subset chosen was appropriate. Results were discussed in terms of the adequacy of language-based explanations of hemifield asymmetries in letter recognition.     

Sources of visual field interference in children and adults

Subjects at three grade levels, third, sixth, and college (8, 11, and 20 years of age, respectively), were asked to identify briefly presented words accompanied by either words or letter strings in the same or opposite hemifield. Results indicated two sources of visual field interference, one relating to the presence of alphanumeric information elsewhere in the visual field and the second concerning the meaningfulness (lexical identity) of that information. The former showed a decrease in importance with age, and the latter an increase. Results were discussed in terms of the development of selective attention and hemispheric interaction.     

What's in a face: Individual differences in face perception

White and black females judged the similarity of all pairs of white and black male faces. An individual difference multidimensional scaling analysis of the similarity judgments indicated that most of the dimensions underlying the perceptions of male faces involved affective (honest, tense, attractive) characteristics rather than simple physical features (eye width, mouth height). The major physical dimension was face shape (long vs. wide). The dimensions were similar for black and white subjects. An individual difference hypothesis that we pay attention to those characteristics that we possess was partially confirmed.     

Social influence on attitudes and on anchoring of congeneric attitude scales

Criteria for distinguishing between attitude and response scale effects in “after-only” studies of source-recipient discrepancy were developed and applied in two experiments. These criteria refer to congeneric scales (i.e., multiple measures of the the same property, which may differ in origin, unit, and reliability). Persuasive information may function as a scale anchor, in which case it is expected to affect only that response scale to which it directly pertains. Alternatively, it may convice recipients to change attitudinal positions, and produce effects on all congeneric scales. In one experiment, the self-proclaimed leniency-sternness of a presiding judge in a manslaughter case was varied along with the sentence he imposed and his trustworthiness. In the second study, only the sentence was manipulated, while both leniency ratings and sentencing were measured as dependent variables. Both analyses revealed support for the response scale interpretation, in that effects were observed only on those scales that were directly manipulated.     

Uncertainty and social comparison

Two experimetnal tests were conducted of a model which predicts social comparison choices of extreme scores on a personality inventory. In groups of nine, subjects completed a bogus personality inventory that ostensibly measured a desirable or undesirable trait, and were told that either the highest or the lowest obtained score was a positive instance of the trait. The highest score was located for the subjects either with certainty or uncertainty, and the two experiments employed different manipulations of this factor. In both experiments the pattern of subjects' social comparison choices of other subjects' scores was fit best by a model comprising main effects of each factor and interactions between desirability and positive instance and between desirability and certainty.     

Probe similarity and recognition of set membership: A parallel-processing serial-feature-matching model

A model for memory scanning is proposed in which the encoded representation of a probe is compared in parallel with encoded representations of each item in the positive set. The within item matches are serial feature by feature comparisons that terminate when either a positive or negative criterion is reached. This model is shown to predict the results of a probe similarity experiment. The serial location of a similarity within an item affects negative reaction times, but the number of items in the positive set to which the probe is similar has no main effect. The model is also shown to yield predictions consonant with existing data on the relation between reaction times and set size and speed-accuracy trade offs.     

Evidence for direct visual access to letter identities

Subjects were presented with two letters from the set BCDFGHLNPORTVZ, one in upper case and one in lower case. Subjects were required to decide, as quickly as possible, whether the two letters on each trial were the same (e.g., Bb) or different (e.g., Bd). Because letters were always physically different, subjects presumably must name the letters in order to respond. Reaction times were predicted by the visual similarity of the letters, and not by their phonemic distinctive feature similarity. Consistent with previous work showing that a word's meaning can be assessed directly from visual information, the findings suggest that visual analysis of a capital or small letter can result in knowing the latter name without further linguistic processing. These results were interpreted as an example of automatic detection as described by Schneider and Shiffrin (1977).     

A sociolinguistic approach to the belief-similarity model of racial attitudes

This study examined the belief-similarity model of prejudice from a sociolinguistic perspective. It was hypothesized that normatively regulated speech styles strongly affect observers' assumptions about the cultural background of the speaker. These linguistically based cultural assumptions were expected to override racial characteristics in controlling intergroup attitudes. Stimulus speech styles were Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Standard English (SE). Speech style was expected to strongly affect prejudicial attitudes, with such effects mediated by assumed cultural similarity. Racial label and speech style were expected to be most salient to ratings of “intimate” behavior and among more ethnocentric subjects. Subjects heard taped statements in either BEV or SE, ostensibly delivered by a White or a Black speaker. Subjects rated the speaker on perceived cultural similarity, general evaluation, perceived aggressiveness, and social distance. Speech style had a substantial main effect on each of these variables. Racial label had a marginally significant effect on evaluation, and interacted with ethnocentrism for perceived similarity and social distance. All effects of speech, race, and ethnocentrism were substantially attenuated or eliminated when similarity was used as a covariate. Thus, speech style had substantial effects on prejudice, as did race within more ethnocentric subjects. Both effects were largely mediated by assumed cultural similarity.     

The right hemisphere and temporal processing of consonant transition durations: electrophysiological correlates

Auditory evoked responses (AER) were recorded from frontal, temporal, and parietal scalp regions to a series of consonant-vowel syllables which varied in the duration of the consonant transition. Multivariate analyses of the AER waveforms identified one component of the AERs occurring only over right hemisphere regions which discriminated between differences in transition durations. A second component detected over only left hemisphere areas discriminated differences in place of articulation. These data are consistent with previous behavioral and electrophysiological reports that the right hemisphere is sensitive to temporal discriminations.     

A review, analysis, and some new data on hand-posture distributions in left-handers

Different methods have been employed to assess handwriting posture in left-handers, and different dimensions of hand posture have been used for categorization. Within North American samples, there is a remarkable consistency between studies in the distributions when the same assessment method is used, but there are very large and highly significant differences for different methods of assessment. The various methods and dimensions of categorization evidently index different variables, and these are likely to have different relations with neuropsychological factors. It is possible, however, to gather questionnaire data on handwriting posture that closely resemble direct experimenter observation, as a brief report on left-handed males shows.     

Dependency and fault as determinants of helping

In a natural setting, helping was investigated as a function of a female requestor's dependency on the subject for help and whether or not she was at fault for her plight. Based on previous research and the hypothesized operation of two norms, it was predicted that the negligent requestor would be more likely to receive help than the victim of circumstance when her dependency was high, but would be less likely to receive help when her dependency was low. Randomly selected telephone subscribers received a “wrong number” telephone call from a stranded women motorist. The woman asked the subject to make a phone call for her; the dependent variable was whether the subject helped by making the call. Results were consistent with predictions. When dependency is high, the victim's negligence appears to operate as an indication of greater need, whereas when dependency is low, it seems to operate as a sign that the victim is less deserving of help. Results were discussed in relation to different social norms that may be activated as a function of the dependency of the requestor.     

A stochastic model for paired comparisons of social stimuli

A stochastic model for paired comparisons of multiattribute social stimuli is proposed where one objective is to find the relative importance of the attributes for a judge. The model can be conceived as a special strict binary utility model, i.e., a BTL-model, and is related to of the stimuli are linear combinations of functions of the attributes of the stimuli. The model neither assumes that the functions are fixed in advance nor that different judges have the same set of functions. The choice among such functions, however, is admitted only within a finite scope. Within the framework of exponential families, maximum likelihood estimators and tests are derived and applied to data coming from two psychological experiments.     

Statistical analysis of binary relational data: Parameter estimation

Binary interaction data, measuring the presence or absence of a relation between pairs of actors in a “dyadic interaction situation,” are commonly gathered to study the social structure of the group of actors. Recent developments have made the statistical analysis of such data statistically easier and more substantively sophisticated. These developments allow researchers to simultaneously study several sociometric structural properties, such as reciprocity, differential popularity, and equivalence of actors. Building on this research, we review the stochastic models responsible for this breakthrough, and discuss methods for estimating expected values and model parameters. Throughout, we also highlight recent advances designed to incorporate nodal or actor attribute data into the relational data analysis. We conclude with an example illustrating these ideas based on conversational activities among actors in a group of eight people.     

Left hemisphere sensitivity to consonant sounds not displayed by the right hemisphere: electrophysiological correlates

Auditory evoked responses (AER) to a series of consonant-vowel syllables were recorded from frontal, temporal, and parietal scalp locations from 14 right-handed college students. Averaged AERs were submitted to principal components analysis and analysis of variance. Six components of the group's AERs were found to reflect various aspects of the stimulus parameters. One component reflected changes over only the left hemisphere to different consonants. A second component changed systematically over both hemispheres but did not discriminate between all consonants.     

Cognitive biases in blaming the victim

Past research on cognitive biases has demonstrated the existence of a hindsight effect, whereby the receipt of outcome knowledge increases the perceived likelihood of the reported event. Three experiments were conducted that tested and supported the hindsight effect as a cause of victim blaming. Subjects read detailed accounts that were identical except for the concluding sentence, which provided outcome information. Half the subjects in each experiment were informed that the woman narrating the account was raped; the other half read a neutral outcome. Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects were unable to ignore the influence of outcome knowledge, leading to an exaggerated perception of how likely the outcome appeared. In Experiment 2, the woman was blamed more by subjects who read the rape outcome than by those who read the neutral outcome, despite the presentation of identical behaviors and personality traits prior to outcome information. The increased blame attributed by rape outcome subjects was behavioral, and not characterological, in nature. Experiment 3 found a direct association between the hindsight effect and victim blaming and also demonstrated that an attempt to reduce the negative impact of the hindsight effect on victim blaming was ineffective due to the salience of the rape outcome. Explaining how a neutral outcome was possible given the same account did not reduce victim blaming by subjects who received a rape outcome. Rather, those who received a neutral outcome increased their victim blaming when asked to explain a rape outcome. The implications for victims are discussed.     

The use of categorial organization: Not an all-or-none situation

Second and fifth graders memorized each of two lists of words that differed in category representativeness. In addition, they received one of three memory instructions: standard free recall, repetition, or categorial processing. Recall performance was about equal for standard vs repetition, and both were lower than category processing, especially with the highly representative items. Age did not enter this interaction, so it is concluded that at both age levels, the accessibility of categorial information influences children's use of it. This suggests multiple types of possible production deficiencies.     

Coalition formation in characteristic function games: Competitive tests of three theories

Two experiments tested the bargaining, minimum resource, and minimum power theories of coalition formation in situations involving different payoffs for some of the winning coalitions (characteristic function games). In the first experiment, a triadic resource distribution was employed and payoffs for the coalitions were specified in such a way that each of the three theories predicted the formation of a different coalition. The coalition predicted by minimum power theory formed the most frequently, and the mean divisions of the payoffs among coalition members were also closest to the predictions of minimum power theory. However, the most frequent coalition was not only the one predicted by minimum power theory, it was also the one having the largest payoff per member. There-fore, a second experiment was conducted, which employed a tetradic resource distribution and specified the coalition payoffs in such a way that (a) each of the theories predicted the formation of a different coalition and (b) none of the predicted coalitions was the one with the largest payoff per member. Although the mean payoff divisions in the coalitions in this experiment were closest to those predicted by bargaining theory, the coalition that formed most frequently was not one of those predicted by any of the theories. Rather, it was the one having the largest payoff per member. None of the three theories is able to account adequately for the results of both experiments. The difficulties that the theories have in dealing with coalition formation in situations in which there are different payoffs for winning are discussed.