The effects of alcohol and variable amount of cognitive stress on the estimation of time

Abstract.— The estimated durations of 4 standard intervals, 3, 5, 7, and 9 sec, and of the total experimental period, 11.5 min, were studied (a) in the absence of stress, during the rising and falling blood alcohol level phases, and (b) in situations involving variables stress (maximum, control, and anti-stress). Alcohol was found to lead to underestimation (a verbal estimate smaller than a given standard) in the absence of stress, but did not affect the estimates when stress was involved. A pronounced central effect was found under maximal stress which was not affected by alcohol. Ss under stress tended to overestimate the length of the experiment when compared to Ss under anti-stress. The Ss rated their current mood on 16 variables, but no significant effects could be related to their time estimates.     

The role of construal processes in overconfident predictions about the self and others

Overconfident behavioral predictions and trait inferences may occur because people make inadequate allowance for the uncertainties of situational construal. In Studies 1-3, Ss estimated how much time or money they would spend in various hypothetical, incompletely specified situations. Ss then offered associated "confidence limits" under different "construal conditions". In Study 4, Ss made trait inferences about someone they believed had responded "deviantly"--again with situational details unspecified and construal conditions manipulated. In all 4 studies, Ss who made predictions or trait inferences without being able to assume the accuracy of their situational construals offered confidence limits no broader than those of Ss who made their responses contingent on such accuracy. Only in conditions where Ss were obliged to offer alternative construals did they appropriately broaden their confidence limits or weaken their trait inferences.     

Evidence of preliminary response preparation from a divided attention task

In a divided attention situation, preliminary response activations produced by stimuli on one channel were revealed through their effects on responses to stimuli on a secondary probe channel. Subjects performed concurrent but independent four-choice reaction-time tasks using the same four response fingers (middle and index fingers on both hands). In the main task, targets were large and small Ss and Ts, and medium-sized Ss and Ts sometimes appeared as distractors. Targets in the probe task were squares differing in location. A response to a probe square was faster if a distractor letter presented just before it had the same name as the target letter corresponding to that square (i.e., assigned to the same response key) than if the distractor letter had a different name--a result indicating that distractor letters cause partial response preparation. The timecourse of the effect demonstrated that preparation was based on preliminary information about distractor name that was available before distractor size had been determined. The results support models in which response preparation can sometimes begin before stimulus recognition has finished.     

Recoding processes in recognition: Some effects of presentation rate

Character classification time was studied in a situation in which Ss sometimes had to decide whether a probe item was a translation of a remembered item according to a previously learned translation scheme. When translation between probe and remembered items was necessary, the rate at which the to-be-remembered items had been presented affected the form of the memory-scanning functions. This result seemed to contradict Cruse and Clifton’s (1973) hypothesis that Ss translated all remembered items into the form of the probe after the probe was presented. An alternative model claimed that, when time permits, Ss translate to-be-remembered items into their alternate form at the time of presentation and scan the resulting translated items at a relatively slow rate if the probe matches them in form. If Ss are unable to translate the to-be-remembered items when they are presented, they resort to the strategy of translating the probe item into the form in which the remembered items had been presented.     

Effects of task on the perceptual organization of sentences

Children and college students listened to sentences and responded to a question or a probe word after each sentence. To prevent Ss from using different perceptual strategies in performing the two tasks, question items and probe items were presented in mixed lists. In the probe task, the relationship between sentence structure and correct response latencies resembled the findings of an earlier study with block lists. The results from the question task were less similar to those obtained earlier, perhaps because, with mixed lists, Ss tended to organize all sentences in a manner especially suited to the probe task. A different type of organization might be used in the process of comprehending a sentence solely for the purpose of answering questions.     

The encoding of ignored information

An experiment was conducted to study the dimensions of encoding of verbal material in short-term memory as a function of other demands placed on Ss attention. Eighty Ss shadowed one of two simultaneous lists, under instructions to remember the shadowed or the nonshadowed list, A single recognition probe followed each shadowing trial. Ss judged whether the probed item was (1) identical to, (2) a rhyme of, or (3) a synonym of one of the to be remembered items. Results indicated that acoustic information was encoded from all inputs, regardless of the focus of attention. Evidence for semantic encoding, however, was limited to those conditions in which retention of shadowed material was required. The data were interpreted as contradicting “late selection” theories of attention, which propose that all inputs are analyzed for meaning prior to the focusing of attention.     

Memory search: When does semantic analysis occur?

This study was addressed to the determination of the stage at which semantic analysis occurs during a STM recognition task. A list of exemplars (memory set), drawn from 13 different categories, was presented at a rate of 11/2 sec/item, followed by a category name probe. Ss then indicated whether any of the exemplars in the memory set belonged to that category. List length was varied from 5 to 7, with each memory set containing items from either two or three categories. It was found that RT was independent of list length, but did increase by 60 msec as the number of categories represented in the list increased from two to three. From this, it was concluded that activation of a superordinate category representation occurred upon presentation of each memory-set item, and that the memory scan was done on these superordinate categories.     

Size constancy in extended haptic space

When a stick is used to extend the boundaries of the world perceived by touch, haptic parallels to visual angle and size constancy appear. In a pilot study, Ss using a stick to feel an out-of-reach gap were more likely to underestimate its size than were Ss feeling a nearby gap with the index finger, but size constancy was relatively high with the stick. The main study, comparing judgments of gaps at intermediate and far positions, confirmed these findings. Errors were greater for the more distant gap, but constancy was high in both positions. Correlations between far and intermediate judgments indicated that Ss were consistent in the type of error made. Similar findings emerged from a partial replication with blind and partially sighted Ss.     

Coding position in a sequence by rhythmic grouping

It has been suggested that a perceived rhythmic organization may mediate remembering musical and other stimuli. This experiment examined whether or not Ss could register and remember position in a sequence using rhythmic grouping. Sixteen Ss heard tapped sequences 24–63 beats long, accented to encourage grouping by 4s. Ss tapped responses revealing whether or not they remembered the sequence length-the last tap’s position. Significantly more incorrect responses were off by multiples of 4 beats than by adjacent amounts; these frequent errors of whole rhythmic groups of 4 showed that Ss coded sequence length rhythmically. Ss proved 53% accurate over four response conditions, with individual’s scores ranging from 8% to 87%. It was concluded that Ss could count with rhythmic hierarchies, essentially equivalent to counting with a nonstandard number base, to code sequential position.     

Similarity judgments of line length

Nine Ss judged similarity of pairs of lines on a scale from 0 to 100, and 14 Ss made magnitude estimations of similarity of pairs of lines. The two scales of similarity were linearly related. Scale values for subjective length were obtained in one dimension using a nonmetric multidimensional analysis. Subjective length was found to be logarithmically related to objective length, and similarity was found to be an exponential     

Experimental treatment of habitual smoking

Habitual cigarette smoking in 42 Ss was used as a model of problem behaviour to which 3 different therapies were applied by therapists. Two of the therapies were based on techniques associated with “behaviour therapy” while a third consisted of supportive counselling. The experiment was designed to test the effects of different therapists as well as different therapies. Amount of change in smoking behaviour was significantly related to therapists but unrelated to the particular therapy administered. Ss were significantly effective predictors of their own level of success. Relatively successful Ss tended to evaluate the therapists to whom they were assigned more negatively than did unsuccessful Ss.     

Adult age differences in attentional allocation during memory search.

Young and older adults performed a memory search task in which, before probe onset, a cue indicated which of 4 memory-set items the probe was most likely to be. The results were consistent with an attentional allocation model in which performance represents a weighted combination, across trials, of focused (i.e., selective) versus distributed attention. The model significantly underestimated the reaction time required by miscued trials, probably because of the response inhibition occurring on these trials. The degree to which Ss relied on focused attention was significantly greater for older adults than for young adults. The estimated time required to shift attention between memory-set items was equivalent for the 2 age groups.     

Processing of ambiguous and unambiguous feedback by depressed and nondepressed college students: schematic biases and their implications for depressive realism

Explored schematic processing as a mechanism for predicting (a) when depressed Ss would be negative relative to nondepressed Ss and (b) when depressed and nondepressed Ss would show biased or unbiased (i.e., "realistic") processing. Depressed and nondepressed Ss performed multiple trials of a task under conditions in which the two groups held either equivalent or different schemas regarding this task. Ss received either an unambiguous or objectively normed ambiguous feedback cue on each trial. In full support of schematic processing, depressed Ss showed negative encoding relative to nondepressed Ss only when their schemas were more negative, and both depressed and nondepressed Ss showed positively biased, negatively biased, and unbiased encoding depending on the relative feedback cue-to-schema match. Depressed and nondepressed Ss' response latencies to unambiguous feedback also supported the occurrence of schematic processing. We discuss the methodological, treatment, and "realism" implications of these findings and suggest a more precise formulation of Beck's schema theory of depression.     

Individual psychophysical functions for 28 odorants

Individual scales of odor intensity were obtained for 28 different chemical compounds by the method of magnitude estimation. Eleven Ss participated in an experiment with 196 olfactory stimuli which differed in both quality and intensity. It was found (1) that power functions described the relationship between partial vapor pressure of the odorants and their subjective odor intensity for all Ss, (2) that all exponents were less than one but varied greatly between Ss, (3) that consistent intraindividual differences in the exponents of different odorants exist, and (4) that these are attributable to perceptual differences rather than to response bias.     

A comparison of auditory monitoring performance in blind subjects with that of sighted subjects in light and dark

Two experiments were performed in which blind Ss, sighted Ss working in the dark, and sighted Ss working in the light were compared as to their efficiency on an auditory watchkeeping task. Absolute and differential auditory thresholds were measured in both experiments, and in the second experiment the groups also underwent a signal detection session under alerted conditions. There was some inconsistency as to relative performance of the sighted groups, but in both experiments the blind Ss were superior on the auditory watchkeeping task as to signals detected and effective sensitivity (d’). 1 This difference was not attributable to a difference in auditory sensitivity or to a criterion adopted for     

Detection measures in real-life criminal guilty knowledge tests.

The present study provides a first attempt to compare the validity of the respiration line length (RLL) and skin resistance response (SRR) amplitude in real-life criminal guilty knowledge tests (GKTs). GKT records of 40 innocent and 40 guilty Ss, for whom actual truth was established by confession, were assessed for their accuracy. When a predefined decision rule was used and inconclusive decisions were excluded, 97.4% of the innocent Ss and 53.3% of the guilty Ss were correctly classified with the SRR measure. For the RLL measure, the respective results were 97.2% and 53.1%. The combination of both measures improved detection of guilty Ss to 75.8% and decreased detection of innocent Ss to 94.1%. The combined measure seems to be a more useful means of identifying guilty suspects than each physiological measure alone. The results elaborate and extend those obtained in a previous field study conducted by Elaad (1990).     

Effect of different delayed auditory feedback intervals on a music performance task

The effects of 12 different delay intervals were studied in a musical task involving performance on an electronic organ. Disruption was found to occur to a degree comparable to similar studies involving verbal and rhythmic tasks under DAF. Maximal disruption was found with a delay of 0.27 sec, a value rather greater than that typically found to be most disruptive in speech. Three of the 12 Ss showed speeded performance under part of the range of DAF intervals, as compared with performance under immediate feedback; however, their performance also reached a peak of slowing at a delay of about 0.27 sec. No significant differences were found between male and female Ss’ performance. These findings were discussed without the context of control processes operating in music performance, and compared with the possibly analogous mechanisms of speech.     

Instructional Effects on Word Association Commonality in High and Low “Schizophrenic” College Students

In an attempt to assess the ability of normal Ss to give uncommon word associations and of “schizophrenic” Ss to give common ones, the effects of three types of instruction on the word association performance of 144 college students were measured. All Ss, including those with valid MMPI profiles suggestive of schizophrenia were able to increase their response commonality under instructions to give the word “most people” would give, and to decrease their commonality under instructions to give a word “no one else” would give, relative to the free association condition. Though Ss with high MMPI Schizophrenia scores produced more original associations under all conditions, there was an apparent floor effect on the production of popular responses under the “no one else” instructions.     

Reciprocation of generosity and knowledge of game termination in the decomposed Prisoner's Dilemma Game

Sahlins proposed a model of reciprocity for social interaction citing three forms drawn from observations of kinship systems. The model describes an altruistic form of reciprocity, a balanced or economic form and a negative form in which individuals try to outdo each other. This model was applied to a two-person variation of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game where Ss were presented with a confederate who responded over trials entirely generously, contingently generously or non-generously. Half of the Ss were informed that there would be ten trials while the other half were uninformed. Basically, Ss tended to match the generosity level of the confederate and were less generous when trial number was known. Evidence for Sahlins' model is provided by Ss reports of reasons for their choices in the game. Those in the generous condition gave reasons for reciprocating based on a general feeling of obligation, trust and desire to cooperate. Those in the contingently generous condition gave reasons for reciprocating based on economic exchange and a desire to maintain a balance of resources. Ss in the non-generous condition gave reasons based on a desire to take what profits one could before the other got them. In addition, Ss indicated a significant tendency to exploit the other on the final trial under the informed condition for the contingently generous but not for the generous condition.     

Effects of serial position and set size in auditory recognition memory

Auditorially presented lists of from one to six digits were memorized by Ss with instructions to scan the memory set to determine the presen’ce or absence of a single auditorially presented probe digit. Results showed cooccurrence of parallel linear increases in decision time with list length for positive and negative responses and effects of serial position of probes in the memory lists. A comparison with two previous studies using visual presentation of materials suggests faster encoding of auditorially presented probes but similarity in processing time in memory once probes have been encoded.