Disturbance of the oculomotor system due to lateral fixation

Three experiments are reported on the effects of previous lateral deviation of the eyes. There is a large effect on their subsequent resting position, and a smaller instantaneous effect on voluntary eye centring. Both are in the direction of previous fixation. The latter effect becomes insignificant within 30 s. The treatment produces errors in visually guided reaching away from the previous direction of fixation. The effects are consistent with a change in registered eye position, an effect also produced by exposure to prisms. Despite this similarity, the disturbance to the oculomotor system caused by these two treatments is sharply differentiated by the resting position. Prisms cause subsequent low frequency, high amplitude oscillations of the eyes (Craske and Templeton, 1968), whereas following lateral deviation the mean resting position returns gradually towards the pre-treatment position.     

Driver performance due to small unmanned aerial system applications in the vicinity of roadways

Small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS), or drones, have become increasingly utilized for a myriad of applications in the vicinity of roadways and can offer a low-cost alternative to many labor-intensive data collection techniques, including infrastructure inspection, roadway marking data collection, and more. To collect much of this data with a desired degree of accuracy, sUAS must be flown near moving vehicles, pedestrians, and/or bicyclists. However, sUAS, and their operators, have the potential to be a distraction to drivers. Through a full-immersion driver simulator study and post-experiment questionnaire, this study furthered the current state-of-the-literature and investigated the potential for sUAS to be flown in the vicinity of roadways in the future as well as potential safety implications of those circumstances. Specifically, driver performance due to drone height and the presence of drone operators was evaluated. The results of the driving simulation study revealed that participants were more visually distracted in situations where the operators and drone were both present compared to the drone only scenarios. Furthermore, in 11% of all analyzed situations, drivers were critically visually-distracted as shown by a continuous glance of two seconds or more at the drone or operators. The post-experiment questionnaire revealed that approximately 30% of participants had seen a drone in flight near a roadway prior to this study. Ultimately, this research provides recommendations to policymakers for creating regulations on the use of sUAS in the vicinity of roadways.     

Requirement for and position of partial clinical treatment in the system of psychiatric care

Reference is made to the level of development of psychiatry in the USSR and the general principles of psychiatric care accepted in the country. Part of the development in the GDR is then described, followed by an argument in favour of day and night care for patients. This is an area where much remains to be done. This partial clinical treatment is to fill the gap between inpatient and outpatient facilities and should be available in the residential area of the patient.     

Learning due to the response-shock contingency in signalled punishment

Three experiments examined some of the parameters that affect the degree of response-specific learning in signalled punishment. Each of the experiments used a within-subject procedure in which the shocks received in the presence of a stimulus signalling response-independent shocks (CER) were yoked to the number and distribution of shocks received in a stimulus signalling punishment. Experiments 1 and 2 used different values of variable-interval (VI) or fixed-ratio (FR) schedules of shock priming, respectively, during the punishment stimulus, and Experiment 3 varied the delay of punishment. The results of all three experiments supported the conclusion that the degree of additional suppression produced by the response contingency during the punishment stimulus compared to the CER stimulus was a function of the strength of contingency between the response and the shock.     

Voice onset and articulatory constriction requirements in a speech segment and their relation to the amount of stuttering adaptation

This study evaluated the hypothesis that the amount of stuttering adaptation increases as the number of requirements for the prompt onset of phonation and complete articulatory constriction across passages decreases. To test this prediction, three special reading passages were constructed. The number of requirements for the quick initiation of phonation and complete articulatory constriction decreased from passages I to II to III. Eleven stutterers read each passage five times. Of these individuals, seven exhibited the well-known adaptation effect on all three selections. However, adaptation increased significantly from passage I to II to III. Among the remaining four subjects, three failed to adapt on passage I which contained the greatest number of requirements for the prompt onset of phonation and complete articulatory constrictions. These results were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis under test.     

Changes in grasping kinematics due to different start postures of the hand

It was proposed that grasping is a relatively stereotyped movement pattern which can be subdivided into the components of manipulation, transport, and orientation of the hand. However, it is still a matter of debate whether these components are independent of each other. In three experiments we altered the start posture of the hand by either changing the size of the start aperture or the orientation of the hand prior to movement onset. The variation of the aperture size primarily affected the manipulation component of the grip resulting in an overall change of the pre-shaping profile. In contrast, an alteration of the start orientation affected the manipulation and the transport components to a similar extent. These results give further evidence that hand orientation is neither planned nor controlled independently from the other movement components. Moreover, when the grip had to match specific object properties, adjustments were mainly achieved within the first movement part. In contrast, when there were no movement constraints the final finger positions were influenced by the initial start posture of the hand. We found no evidence for a fixed spatial or temporal coupling of the grasp and the transport component in our experiments.     

Order effects in sequentially judged options due to the direction of comparison

Many real-world judgment tasks present options in sequence. Typically, these judgments are made step-by-step, immediately after considering each option, or end-of-sequence, after all have been seen. We report similar order effects in both procedures, due to direction of comparison. It appears that judges form an impression of each new option by comparing it to those that preceded it. Using that option’s features as a “checklist,” more weight is given to unique ones than to ones shared with previous options. This unidirectional comparison process produces increasing ratings in options with unique positive features, and decreasing ratings when options have unique negative features. By manipulating the barriers to making multiple comparisons, we show that the direction-of-comparison effect is not limited to judgment tasks with sequential presentation. Even simultaneously presented options may show order effects, if they are judged one at a time—in sequence. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.     

Compatibility due to the coding of the relative position of the effectors

Response latencies emitted with the hands crossed are slower than those emitted with the hands uncrossed. Two explanations are available for the so-called crossed-hand effect. One attributes it to the non-natural posture of the arms in the crossed position, whereas the other is in terms of a conflict between the code describing the hand and the code describing its position. Experiment 1 disproved the postural hypothesis by showing that crossing the hands has no effect on response latencies in a simple reaction time task. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated the crossed-hand effect in a choice reaction time task and showed that it depends on the relative position of the two hands. In other words, responses are slower when the hand is located in the “wrong” position with respect to the other (e.g., the right hand is located to the left of the left hand), whereas the absolute position, that is the side of the body where the responding hand is located, does not seem to effect the speed of response.     

Constant errors in judgements of collinearity due to the presence of neighbouring objects

If a line (the pointer) is aligned with a dot (the target) that stands on another line (the induction line) which is at an angle to the pointer, the pointer and the dot may no longer appear collinear. Whether they do or not depends upon the angle formed by the pointer with the induction line: the smaller the angle, the greater the misalignment effect. Misalignment is always in the direction of the induction line, which is why this alignment illusion is called attraction-caused misalignment (attraction misalignment for short). Three experiments are described in which this illusion is explored further. In the first it is shown that the induction line can exert its influence even when not contiguous with the target, though the size of the effect varies inversely with the distance of the induction line from the target. In the second experiment it is demonstrated that a dot as well as a line can induce attraction misalignment and that similarity between the induction and target items increases misalignment. Evidence in support of the theory that the termination of the induction line, as well as the part contiguous with the target dot, may induce attraction misalignment is provided in the third experiment.     

Causal discounting in the presence of a stronger cue is due to bias

People use information about the covariation between a putative cause and an outcome to determine whether a causal relationship obtains. When there are two candidate causes and one is more strongly related to the effect than is the other, the influence of the second is underestimated. This phenomenon is called causal discounting. In two experiments, we adapted paradigms for studying causal learning in order to apply signal detection analysis to this phenomenon. We investigated whether the presence of a stronger alternative makes the task more difficult (indexed by differences in d′) or whether people change the standard by which they assess causality (measured by β). Our results indicate that the effect is due to bias.     

The left-to-right bias in inhibition of return is due to the direction of reading

Previous research has shown a left-to-right bias in the inhibition-of-return effect. This bias was found in a sample of English-speaking participants who read in a predominantly left-to-right manner. The goal of the current study was to examine the role that the direction of text reading plays in this bias. The findings replicated the left-to-right bias with an English sample, but showed the opposite bias in an Arabic sample, who read text from right to left. Thus, the regularity of shifting attention in a particular way during text reading seems to be the cause of the bias observed.     

Resistance to continuous delay of reinforcement or extinction following partial delay or partial reinforcement in acquisition: A direct comparison

Rats received either partial reward (PR) or partial delay (PD) in acquisition with one, two, or three delay or nonreward trials followed by an immediately rewarded trial or one delay or nonreward trial followed by an immediately rewarded trial. These four groups were then split in half and given either continuous delay or continuous nonreward (extinction) in a “response persistence” phase. In addition, two continuously reinforced groups, one experiencing continuous delay, and the other experiencing extinction were included. The results showed that response persistence was greater when PD groups were given continuous delay rather than extinction, but the opposite was true for PR groups. The “length” (1, 2, or 3 versus 1 nonreward or delay trial) also transferred to the response persistence phase with the length 1, 2, and 3 conditions being more persistent than the 1 length conditions. The results were discussed with respect to theoretical notions of response persistence.     

Letter-by-letter acquired dyslexia is due to the serial encoding of letters

Letter-by-letter acquired dyslexia (pure alexia) is assumed to be related to the serial encoding of letters, but the evidence for this assumption is somewhat indirect. Here, we demonstrate that the deficit is indeed due to serial encoding by comparing the performance of a letter-by-letter dyslexic reader with the performance of normal readers who were forced to read letter by letter; the data patterns are remarkably similar.