Shape correlates of visual and tactual size judgments: A contrast with complexity

Pattern correlates of perceived size were studied by obtaining category judgments of the size of 100 random forms from 40 Ss who explored the forms visually and 40 Ss who explored them factually. Comparison of the modalities and contrasts with perceived complexity were made via intercorrelations of judgments and latencies, multiple regression analyses using factored form dimensions, and correlations with original form measures. By holding area of the forms constant, it was shown that perceived size can be related to characteristics of shape.     

Contributions of specific cell information to judgments of interevent contingency

College students considered the possible effect of an experimental drug on a skin rash. The information came from a 2 x 2 contingency table involving receipt or nonreceipt of the drug and improvement or nonimprovement of the rash: Cell A = receipt-improvement; Cell B = receipt-nonimprovement; Cell C = nonreceipt-improvement; Cell D = nonreceipt-nonimprovement. Without numerical information. Ss judged cells to be ordered A greater than B greater than C greater than D. The same order held when the contribution of each cell was derived from the contingency judgments of other subjects given numerical information. No such consistency was seen when one group of Ss made both judgments: whether individual Ss equally or unequally assessed the importance of the four cells, their contingency estimates showed cell use to be ordered A greater than B greater than C greater than D. These findings may result from strong biases that Ss harbor in processing contingency information.     

On the perception of a class of bilaterally symmetric forms

Two experiments were performed to determine the manner in which people perceive a class of bilaterally symmetric forms. In the first experiment, paired, comparison dissimilarity judgments and unidimensional single stimulus ratings were collected from the Ss. The second experiment involved the collecting of semantic differential and paired comparison dissimilarity judgments from two groups of Ss. The judgments and ratings from both experiments were compared to each other and to a set of objective measures of the forms by a series of multivariate statistical techniques. It was found that three primary attributes, orientation, convexity-concavity, and curvature, accounted for the perceptual reports, but the manner in which the attributes were used differed for different response procedures and for the same response on different occasions.     

Dissociation of short- and long-range apparent motion in visual search

The visual search paradigm was used in four experiments to investigate apparent motion perception. The addition of distractor items led to a linear increase in reaction time under long-range (LR) conditions (greater than 35 min of arc displacement), whereas reaction time was independent of displays size under short-range (SR) conditions (less than 18 min of arc). Although clear performance differences were obtained, Ss had difficulty in distinguishing between the two types of apparent motion displays when asked to make such judgments (Experiment 2). Experiments 3 and 4 explored some variables that may constrain the search process. Search times under LR conditions were reduced when some of the distractors were stationary or the motion of the distractors was homogeneous. Form and motion were found to be separable, whereas color and motion were not. Varying the color (and brightness) interfered with the processing of motion information.     

Visual discrimination between rectangular and nonrectangular parallelopipeds

Twenty-seven university students judged whether each of 128 drawings of parallelopipeds appeared to represent three-dimensional rectangular boxes. Half the pictures could not geometrically have been projections of rectangular boxes. The null hypothesis that Ss’ judgments were unrelated to geometry was rejected at the .001 level of significance, and the correlation between Ss’ judgments and perfect discrimination averaged .86 over three variations of the experiment. The results support a general hypothesis about the perception of simple space forms according to which viewers impose geometric constraints, such as rectangularity and symmetry, but only when the constraints are projectively possible.     

Perceptual judgments with discrepant information from audition. and proprioception

Fifteen blindfoleded Ss judged the spatial- orientation of a bar. which rotated in the horizontal plane, by using proprioceptive and/or auditory information. Judgments were made when information from the two modalities was made to yield the same or conflicting spatial orientations of the bar. Both modalities were Individually capable of providing equally accurate judgments, yet, when an auditory-proprioceptive discrepancy was introduced, auditory judgments were strongly biased by proprioceptive input. Proprioceptive judgments were only minimally influenced by conflicting auditory information.     

An individual differences analysis of interdimensional additivity in multidimensional scaling

Comparative judgments of the dissimilarity between schematic faces varying on 1, 4, 7, or 10 binary attributes were obtained under two instructional sets. Using the Tucker-Messick procedure, three subgroups of like-perceiving Ss were isolated and the nature of cue-utilization by each described. Perceptual independence of attributes was demonstrated both within and between instructional sets for Subgroups 1 and within instructional sets for Subgroup 2. The Subgroup 3 results indicated an interaction of the attributes. Data from the Shot cognitive elements test differentially characterized Subgroups 1 and 2, but did not uniquely characterize Ss requiring more complex models for the combination of attributes. The study illustrates the possible usefulness of an individual differences approach to the study of selective attention and information processing.     

Investigating the effect of stimulus range on attribute weight

Classic economic theories of choice assume that trade-offs are made consistently and are not swayed by irrelevant contextual variables. One possible source of trade-off inconsistency is investigated by asking whether attribute weights are affected by variations in the range of the stimuli presented. Ss should be influenced by the range of the stimuli only when distributional characteristics provide information about the value of the stimuli. In six experiments, Ss made judgments when the range (a) did not provide information about the value of the scores on the scales, (b) might provide such information, and (c) certainly provided this information. In Experiments 1-5, Ss were not influenced by the range of the stimuli. The only exception was Experiment 6, which required Ss to judge hypothetical job candidates on the basis of stimulus scales with which the Ss had no previous experience. In this experiment the meaning of the scales was determined entirely by the location of each stimulus within the presented distribution. In general, the results support the classical view of decision making: that attribute weights exist independent of situational demands, and that Ss' judgments are not influenced by irrelevant stimuli.     

Dimensional salience as a function of educational attainment and method of discrimination training

The effects of three methods of selective-attention training with 4-sided forms on the salience of an invagination physical dimension in discrimination judgments with a stimulus domain of 12-sided forms were examined for 6-year-old Ss of low and high educational attainment. The results demonstrated that training procedures involving perceptual demonstration or manipulation increase the invagination dimension salience in the 12-sided stimulus domain more than a verbal training procedure for low educational attainment Ss. Implications for the psychophysical study of relatedness of stimulus domains are discussed.     

Tests of product and additive scaling axioms

A product axiom for ratio judgments and an additive axiom for difference judgments were tested for six Ss judging brightness. The product axiom was rejected for all six Ss whereas the additive axiom was accepted for two Ss. Power functions did not fit the data well, although somewhat better for difference judgments than ratio judgments. A two-stage model fitted somewhat better, but failed to satisfy one important implication of that model, previously confirmed for lifted weights. The data gave stronger support for a theory of brightness estimation based on an additive axiom for difference judgments than a product axiom based on ratio judgments.     

Accountability: a social magnifier of the dilution effect

This research demonstrated that accountability can not only reduce judgmental bias, but also exacerbate it--in this case, the dilution effect. Ss made predictions from either diagnostic information alone or diagnostic information plus mixtures of additional data (nondiagnostic information, additional diagnostic data pointing to either the same conclusion or the opposite conclusion). Relative to unaccountable Ss, accountable Ss (a) diluted their predictions in response to nondiagnostic information and (b) were more responsive to additional diagnostic information. The accountability manipulation motivated subjects to use a wide range of information in making judgments, but did not make them more discriminating judges of the usefulness of that information.     

Kategorien der Personwahrnehmung und ihre kulturelle Bedingtheit

Summary This research was undertaken in order to find out (1) whether the socio-cultural background of S has any influence on how he perceives and judges other people, (2) whether the thematic emphasis of his judgments mirrors the culturally determined aspects of his personality. Specifically, it was intended, by analyzing the social judgments of a group of Thai Ss, to gain information on the nearly unexplored characteristics of their personality as compared with a German group of Ss which served as a match.40 students of the College of Education in Bangkok were presented a list of 32 pairs of words (a noun and an adjective). Ss were instructed to take these word-pairs as metaphors serving to characterize people and to reinterpret them in concrete, non-metaphorical terms of personality characteristics. The same procedure was administered with a comparable group of 42 German students.The responses of the Ss were classified and the frequency of occurence of each category of response determined for each S. A comparison of the frequency of occurence of the responses between the Thai and German group yielded significant differences in a great number of response categories. The first hypothesis was thus confirmed.The categories of responses in which significant differences were obtained were grouped into clusters in order to reduce the multiplicity of differences to a limited number of underlying trends. These trends were found to reflect basic differences of the cultural values between the Thai and German, and, more generally, between the Asian and Western people.     

Familiarity effects in visual comparison tasks and their implications for studying human intelligence.

Two experiments were carried out to study the effect of prior knowledge on cognitive processes related to human intelligence by examining its role in defining task novelty. In Experiment 1, Ss performed a letter-matching task involving same-different judgments based on 4 rules of sameness: physical identity, form, system, and name. When the stimuli were unfamiliar, performance on the name classification task was correlated with measures of fluid abilities, whereas when the stimuli were familiar, performance on this task was not correlated with measures of fluid abilities. In Experiment 2, Ss performed 3 different forms of a mental rotation task. When the stimuli were unfamiliar, the slope of the rotation function was correlated with a test of fluid ability, whereas when the stimuli were familiar, the slope of the rotation function was not correlated with a test of fluid ability. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the nature of task complexity and the way knowledge and processing interact in the development of skilled performance.     

Judgments of similarity and spatial models

Ss judged the similarity between all pairs of stimulus objects under 3 conditions: when the objects were (a) Munsell 5R color patches varying in value and chroma; (b) parallelorams varying in size and tilt; and (c) circles-with-radius varying in diameter and angle of radius. For each set of judgments, the pattern of deviations from the Euclidean model was used to diagnose the most appropriate spatial model. The results confirm previous findings that the Euclidean space is appropriate for judgments of color patches, but that the city block space is appropriate for judgments of geometrie forms which vary on perceptually distinct dimensions.     

Recognition memory for object form and object location: An event-related potential study

In this study, the processes associated with retrieving object forms and object locations from working memory were examined with the use of simultaneously recorded event-related potential (ERP) activity. Subjects memorized object forms and their spatial locations and made either object-based or location-based recognition judgments. In Experiment 1, recognition performance was higher for object locations than for object forms. Old responses evoked more positive-going ERP activity between 0.3 and 1.8 sec poststimulus than did new responses. The topographic distribution of these old/new effects in the P300 time interval was task specific, with object-based recognition judgments being associated with anteriorly focused effects and location-based judgments with posteriorly focused effects. Late old/new effects were dominant at right frontal recordings. Using an interference paradigm, it was shown in Experiment 2 that visual representations were used to rehearse both object forms and object locations in working memory. The results of Experiment 3 indicated that the observed differential topographic distributions of the old/new effects in the P300 time interval are unlikely to reflect differences between easy and difficult recognition judgments. More specific effects were obtained for a subgroup of subjects for which the processing characteristics during location-based judgments presumably were similar to those in Experiment 1. These data, together with those from Experiment 1, indicate that different brain areas are engaged in retrieving object forms and object locations from working memory. Further analyses support the view that retrieval of object forms relies on conceptual semantic representation, whereas retrieving object locations is based on structural representations of spatial information. The effects in the later time intervals may play a functional role in post-retrieval processing, such as recollecting information from the study episode or other processes operating on the products of the retrieval process, and presumably are mediated by right frontal cortical areas. The results support the view of functionally dissociable object and spatial visual working memory systems.     

An informational analysis of absolute judgments of torque

Five male Ss participated in seven experiments involving absolute judgments of stimuli selected from a continuum of torque. Experiment 1 required Ss to make judgments on the intensity of 16 stimuli separated by equal intervals. These results were used in the construction of individual scales of equal discriminability. These scales were then used to select the stimuli for the remaining six experiments, in which 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, or 16 stimuli, separated by subjectively equal intervals, were used. An informational analysis was performed to determine the capacity of the kinesthetic system to transmit information derived from the inducement of torque. Maximum values of 1.680, 2.050, and 2.524 bits of information transmitted were obtained when the response was considered the output, and the input variables were, respectively: the stimulus; the stimulus and the S; the stimulus, the S, and the previous stimulus. These results were discussed in relation to information theory and the use of torque information in closed-loop control of movement.     

Describing and testing a moderator of the moral judgment and action relationship

The relationship between moral judgment development and action for Ss who differ in the degree to which justice-based moral judgments influence moral decision making was investigated. First, a method for quantifying Ss' use of justice-based moral judgments in moral decision making (the utilizer variable) is described. Second, 5 moral judgment and action studies are reanalyzed to assess the moderating effect of the utilizer variable information. Results indicate that the relationship between moral judgment scores and action intensifies as utilization increases. Moreover, the utilizer effect appears uniform across different age and educational levels and behavioral domains. These findings support the validity of the utilizer variable and are consistent with recent multiprocess models of moral action that suggest that moral judgements are a necessary, but insufficient, factor in the production of moral action.     

Can intuition improve deception detection performance?

Two studies examined the role of processing style (intuitive vs. deliberative processing) in a deception detection task. In the first experiment, a thin slicing manipulation was used to demonstrate that intuitive processing can lead to more accurate judgments of deception when compared with traditional deliberative forms of processing. In the second experiment, participants who engaged in a secondary (concurrent) task performed more accurately in a deception detection task than participants who were asked to provide a verbal rationale for each decision and those in a control condition. Overall, the results converge to suggest that intuitive processing can significantly improve deception detection performance.