The act frequency analysis of interpersonal dispositions: Aloofness,gregariousness, dominance and submissiveness1

A series of studies explores the act frequency analysis of personal dispositions, which entails the identification of categories of prototypical acts, delineation of internal structuring within act categories (from central to peripheral), and the assessment of individuals' dispositions in terms of the relative frequency of performing prototypical acts over a period of observation. These studies were designed to replicate the research of Buss and Craik (1980) on dominance. Through nomination procedures, 100 acts were assembled for each of three dispositions: aloofness, gregariousness, and submissiveness. The internal structure of these categories was examined through judgments of the degree to which each act is a prototypical member of the category. Prototypicality judgments for each act category by three independent panels display a substantial degree of composite reliability. Multiple-act criteria based on highly prototypical acts are predicted with significantly greater success by relevant personality scales than are multiple-act criteria based on more peripheral acts within each category. This finding holds for dominance, replicating the Buss and Craik study, and for aloofness and gregariousness. The multiple-act criteria for submissiveness, however, are not well predicted by matching personality scales. This anomaly is discussed in terms of the bipolarity of behavioral domains, the selection of matching personality scales for specific act categories, and the appropriate conceptualization of submissiveness.     

SALTNESS, SWEETNESS, AND PREFERENCE: A study of quantitative relations in individual subjects

Individual scales were constructed for saltness and preference in an experiment with eight subjects and for sweetness and preference in a second experiment with seven of these subjects. It was found (1) that power functions described the individual relations between sodium chloride and sucrose concentration, on the one hand, and the subjective variables of saltness and sweetness, on the other hand, (2) that the exponents exceeded 1 but varied greatly between subjects, and (3) that there was a great variation over individuals with regard to the form of the saltness/preference and the sweetness/preference relations.     

Mixed-modality psychophysical scaling: Double cross-modality matching for “difficult” continua

In mixed-modality psychophysical scaling, stimuli from different modalities are presented alternately for judgment on the same scale. The usual purpose is to produce cross-modality matching functions without actually doing cross-modality matches. This paper reports the results of two experiments that extend the method to situations in which the responses, themselves crossmodality matches on an easy-to-control continuum (duration), are used to derive matching functions for two difficult-to-control continua (here loudness and brightness). Derived cross-modality matching functions are highly similar to those obtained from magnitude estimation or category judgment responses. First- and second-order sequential dependencies also closely resemble those found in data from the methods that employ numerical response scales, with one exception. For the first time in these studies of mixed-modality scaling, current responses sometimes were found to be weakly contrasted to the values of previous stimuli of different modality from the current stimulus. The various sequential dependencies found may arise from different levels of processing, with intramodal response-stimulus contrast arising from sensory differentiation, inter- and intramodality response-response assimilation from perceptual categorization processes, and intermodality response-stimulus contrast from cognitive expectancies.     

Context effects in judging taste intensity: A comparison of variable line and category rating methods

The effect of stimulus range and stimulus spacing was examinedwhen subjects registered the perceived intensity of sweet liquids using either a matching procedure (Experiment 1) or category rating (Experiment 2). The matching procedure is conceptually similar to absolute magnitude estimation, whereby subjects match their impression of number size to their impression of the subjective magnitude of a stimulus. In Experiment 1, subjects matched their impression of the stimulus to their impression of the magnitude of the length of a continuously variable line under their control. In Experiment 2, subjects rated perceived sweetness on a vertical 13-point scale with five equally spaced verbal labels. In both experiments, three sets of four sucrose concentrations were employed. In two of these sets, a set of weaker solutions and a set of stronger solutions, concentrations were separated by 0.25 log units. In a third set, which spanned the range of concentrations used in the other two sets (0.87 to 27.36% w/v), solutions were separated by 0.5 log units. An examination ofboth individual and group data showed the matching procedure to be less susceptible to a range bias than the rating procedure. In particular, a single intensity function accommodated data from individual ranges better when the matching procedure was used than when the rating procedure was used. No effect of stimulus spacing was evident in the data from either procedure.     

On the stability of the arousal strength of warning signal words

Studies are reported that demonstrate the stability of scales of the arousal strength of warning signal words. We demonstrate that these scales are not an artefact of the measurement technique employed, nor are they influenced by the effects of experimental context. In addition, we generalize previous findings on the arousal strength of signal words to the UK population. Separate studies revealed a high level of agreement in signal word arousal strengths derived from magnitude estimation, category estimation, and cross‐modality matching. In addition, the relative arousal strengths of signal words were shown to be independent of the composition of the warning stimulus set. These findings suggest that arousal strength scales of signal words are robust and that signal words can be used with confidence to achieve hazard matching between the hazard inherent in a product/situation and the hazard implied by the associated warning. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceptual integration of tertiary taste mixtures

Integration psychophysics was used to explore the taste perception of mixtures of sucrose, fructose, and citric acid. Three levels of each stimulus were varied in a 3 x 3 x 3 factorial design. Subjects rated total intensity, sweetness, and acidity of the 27 mixtures on graphic rating scales. Consistent with earlier work, the perceived total intensity of the tertiary mixtures was found to be dictated by the intensity of the (subjectively) stronger component alone (i.e., either the integrated sweetness or the acidity, whichever was the more intense). In contrast, the sweetness and acidity of the mixture were susceptible to mutual suppression: Sweetness suppressed acidity, acidity suppressed sweetness. There was, however, a difference between sucrose and fructose in their interactions with citric acid, fructose being the more susceptible to suppression. This selectivity of suppression indicates that the two sweetnesses could not have been inextricably integrated. Implications for taste coding are discussed, and the findings are reconciled in terms of two separate coding mechanisms: one for taste intensity, another for taste quality.     

Judgments of average lightness and darkness: A further consideration of inverse attributes

Twenty subjects judged the average lightness and darkness of paired Munsell gray papers according to magnitude estimation and category rating instructions. The data from category rating were approximately consistent with an averaging model but those from magnitude estimation were not. An analysis in terms of a two-stage model suggested that category ratings and magnitude estimates of each attribute were produced on the basis of the same composition rule, but implicated different output transformations. In judging darkness, subjects appeared to have reversed the scales employed in judging lightness, by a linear transformation in the case of category rating and by a reciprocal transformation in the case of magnitude estimation. However, differences between the input parameters obtained from judgments of lightness and darkness suggested that the scales of these attributes constructed from judgments of average magnitude may be biased.     

Assessment of the taste interaction between two qualitatively similar-tasting substances: a comparison between comparison rules

The taste interaction between sucrose and fructose was assessed by using three different comparison procedures: the summated response comparison, the factorial plot comparison, and the equimolar comparison rule. The perceived sweetness intensities were obtained on a ratio scale by using a functional measurement approach in combination with a two-stimulus procedure. The conclusions obtained from each of the three comparison rules were identical. The taste interaction between sucrose and fructose could be explained to a large extent, but not completely, by the apparent taste "interactions" within sucrose and fructose as single substances. It is argued that the apparent taste interaction within a large number of single sugars and between two of these sugars in a mixture is somewhat synergistic at low sweetness levels, additive at intermediate sweetness levels, and suppressive at high sweetness levels.     

The cross-modal matching of brightness to loudness by children

According to Stevens' explanation of cross-modal matching, the recruitment-like effects of masking seen in intramodal loudness judgements should be reflected in a brightness-to-loudness matching task. In an experiment with child observers, this failed to occur. The results are explicable in terms of category mediation of the cross-modal, but not the intramodal, task. In support of this account, it is shown that cross-modal judgements are unaffected by explicit category mediation. However, intramodal judgements, explicitly mediated in the same way, produce a pattern of results similar to those obtained in the cross-modal task. The experiments suggest that cross-modal matching does not provide a useful test of loudness recruitment in the bilaterally hearing impaired.     

Stimulus range,number of categories,and the “virtual” exponent

Three different stimulus modalities (line length, number, and sound pressure) were judged by magnitude scaling techniques and by 7-, 15-, 31-, and 75-point category scales. All of the 40 subjects were given the same number stimuli, but two different sound-pressure ranges were presented (each to 20 subjects) and four different line-length ranges were presented (each to 10 subjects). Analyses of lack of fit for various simple functions were performed to determine bestfitting functions. The simple power function was often found to be an adequate fit to the data for all the response modalities used, although all of the response modalities were sensitive to changes in stimulus range. For simple power functions, the category-scale exponent was a function of both the range of stimuli and the number of categories provided. Category scales did not always produce exponents smaller than those obtained with magnitude estimation, which calls into question the concept of a virtual exponent for category scales.     

Scaling of saturation and hue

The study concerns the relation of saturation to the purity and luminance of aperture colors viewed in a dark surround. For the primary hues, red, yellow, green, and blue, and the intermediate hues, orange and yellowish green, the saturations increased as power functions of colorimetric purity. An IS-dB increase in luminance caused a threefold increase in the exponent for yellow, but luminance had little effect on the exponents of the other colors. The direct heterochromatic matching of saturation to saturation confirmed the validity of the scales determined by magnitude estimation and led to the construction of families of saturation scales based on a common unit called a crome. Equisection and jnd scales were also determined. Their nonlinearity suggests that saturation is a prothetic continuum. It was found that mixing red or green with yellow behaves much the same as mixing red or green with achromatic light. The changes in hue behave as prothetic continua, for the equisection and jnd scales are nonlinearly related to the power-function scales obtained by magnitude estimation and matching.     

Relative olfactory intensity perception as mediated by ratio-range category scale responses

Scales whose categories are labeled with ranges of ratio values are compared with verbal category scales and magnitude estimation. Relative perceived intensities of Eugenol odor were scaled by power law methods, using 102 Ss, five scaling methods-one verbal, two numerical, and two magnitude estimation-and making comparisons against two alternate odor reference standards. Variations in the psychophysical exponent values derived under each condition were examined. Comparisons between scale types were made: numerical ratio-range category scales may behave as magnitude estimations or as category scales depending on the way responses are scored by the experimenter.     

Investigating the functioning of a middle category by means of a mixed-measurement model

Researchers have studied whether there are classes of people who differ systematically in the way they respond to polytomous ordered scales with a middle category such as ?. The mixed-partial credit model was fitted to a number of scales of a personality questionnaire. Most of the scales fit better with the use of 2 latent subpopulations. The most consistent difference among the latent classes was related to the functioning of the middle response category. For most of the examinees, the probability of choosing the middle category was very close to zero, but a nonnegligible percentage of people selected this category with much higher probability. The total scores from the 2 subpopulations were incommensurate. Some personality factors contributed to explaining class membership.     

Response bias in category and magnitude estimation of difference and similarity for loudness and pitch

Interval scales of sensory magnitude were derived from magnitude and category estimates of loudness differences, loudness similarities, pitch differences, and pitch similarities. In each of the four loudness experiments, a loudness scale was constructed from a nonmetric analysis of the rank order of the judgments. The four loudness scales so constructed were found to be equivalent to one another and indicated that loudness was a power function of sound pressure with an exponent of .29. A similar analysis for the four pitch experiments found the pitch scales derived in each case to be equivalent to one another and linear with the mel scale of pitch. Thus the same sensory and similarities for two distinct perceptual continua. For both pitch and loudness, these sensory scales were used to generate scales of sensory differences. A comparison of the category and magnitude estimates of sensory differences with the scale of sensory differences derived from the nonmetric analyses indicated the presence of significant response biases in both category and magnitude estimation procedures.     

Mixed-method mixed-modality psychophysical scaling

Four experiments are reported in which the direct psychophysical scaling methods of magnitude estimation, category judgment, and cross-modality matching were mixed in the same series of trials, both with a single stimulus modality and in a mixed-modality situation. The mixed-method scaling situation gave results consistent with those obtained when methods are used alone, and it has several advantages. Interactions between the methods were consistent with the idea that judgments made under all three are mediated by a primitive process of categorization that is influenced by heuristics used to achieve a single category identity for each stimulus.     

Testing the speech unit hypothesis with the primed matching task: Phoneme categories are perceptually basic

The basic speech unit (phoneme or syllable) problem was investigatedwith the primed matching task. In primed matching, subjects have to decide whether the elements of stimulus pairs are the same or different. The prime should facilitate matching in as far as its representation is similar to the stimuli to be matched. If stimulus representations generate graded structure, with stimulus instances being more or less prototypical for the category, priming should interact with prototypicality because prototypical instances are more similar to the activated category than are low-prototypical instances. Rosch (1975a, 1975b) showed that, by varying the matching criterion (matching for physical identity or for belonging to the same category), the specific patterns of the priming × prototypicality interaction could differentiate perceptually based from abstract categories. Bytesting this pattern forphoneme and syllable categories, the abstraction level of these categories canbe studied. After finding reliable prototypicality effects for both phoneme and syllable categories (Experiments 1 and 2), primed phoneme matching (Experiments 3 and 4) and primed syllable matching (Experiments 5 and 6) were used under both physical identity instructions and same-category instructions. The results make clear that phoneme categories are represented on the basis of perceptual information, whereas syllable representations are more abstract. The phoneme category can thus be identified as the basic speech unit. Implications for phoneme and syllable representation are discussed.     

Hemispheric differences in semantic processing: Category matching is not the same as category membership

Two closely related semantic processing tasks were studied under identical procedural conditions in order to examine lateral visual field effects on reaction times. In Experiment 1, reaction times did not differ as a function of visual field when subjects decided whether a lateral word was a member of a foveally presented category word (category membership task). On the other hand, reaction times were faster for right than for left visual field stimulus presentations when subjects decided whether two words, one lateral and one foveal, belonged to the same category (category matching task), although this advantage did not occur immediately. In Experiment 2, the laterality effect in the category matching task was studied as a function of word familiarity. Two groups of subjects performed the matching task for two blocks of trials, one group receiving the same word list in each block and the other receiving different lists. No visual field differences in reaction times were observed for either group during the first block of trials, but a distinct right field advantage appeared for both during the second block. The data from these experiments suggest that category matching strategies rely upon structures or processes localized in the left hemisphere, although their influence is not immediate. Category membership strategies, on the other hand, do not depend upon such localized structures.     

Context in category scales: is “fully agree” equal to twice agree?

Trough the “cross modality matching” approach this research examines the perceived intensity of verbal qualifiers used in agreement scales. Also, the effect on perceived intensity resulting from the scaling context in itself (i.e. number of response categories and the chosen verbal qualifiers) is investigated. Results show a low amount of inter-individual variability between subjects concerning the perceived intensity of verbal qualifiers. A category scale with five response alternatives is least prone to context effects and the use of supplementary extreme answer categories on the left and the right ends of the scale does not improve the metric properties of the scale.     

On theoretical and realizable ideal conditions in psychophysics: Magnitude and category scales and their relation

By spacing 10 stimuli (white noise) between 40 and 110 dB according to two criteria [equal response ambiguity (ERA) and equal discriminability (ED)], an attempt was made to construct an “ideal” case for magnitude estimation and category rating. The “ideal” case is defined by linear and constant Weber functions (SDs as a function of scale values) for the two scales, respectively. Altogether, three group and two individual magnitude and category rating experiments were run with these two spacings. It was found that the ERA spacing approximated the ideal case well for both Weber functions and the ED spacing only for the Weber function of the category scale. The general psychophysical differential equation that relates scale values and Weber functions for the two scales allowed good prediction of the category scales from the magnitude scales and the Weber functions. The data suggested a distinction between phenotypic (empirical) and genotypic Weber functions, analogous to “real” and “ideal” cases in physics.     

PSYCHOPHYSICAL SCALES OF THE ODOR INTENSITY OF AMYL ACETATE

The paper presents psychophysical scales of amyl acetate in benzyl benzoate sniffed from cotton. Four scales obtained by direct scaling procedures, ratio estimation and magnitude estimation, yield functions of the form R = kSⁿ , with n ranging from 0.39 to 0.57. These data support earlier findings that the intensity of smell is a negatively accelerated function of stimulus intensity. In addition, comparison of magnitude and category scales indicate that the subjective intensity of smell is a prothetic continuum. Finally, further analysis of subjective ratios as a function of stimulus ratios again shows that ( a ) the magnitude scale is a ratio scale and ( b ) the function obtained conforms to the power law.