Simple and contingent aftereffects of perceived duration in vision and audition

After repeated presentations of a long inspection tone (800 or 1,000 msec), a test tone of intermediate duration (600 msec) appeared shorter than it would otherwise appear. A short inspection tone (200 or 400 msec) tended to increase the apparent length of the intermediate test tone. Thus, a negative aftereffect of perceived auditory duration occurred, and a similar aftereffect occurred in the visual modality. These aftereffects, each involving a single sensory dimension, aresimple aftereffects. The following procedures producedcontingent aftereffects of perceived duration. A pair of lights, the first short and the second long, was presented repeatedly during an inspection period. When a pair of test lights of intermediate duration was then presented, the first member of the pair appeared longer in relation to the second. A similar aftereffect occurred in the auditory modality. In these latter aftereffects, the perceived duration of a test light or tone is contingent—dependent—on its temporal order, first or second, within a pair of test stimuli. An experiment designed to test the possibility of cross-modal transfer of contingent aftereffects between audition and vision found no significant cross-modal aftereffects.     

The effect of time-out release contingencies on changes in child noncompliance

This project evaluated the effect of time-out release contingencies on changes in child noncompliance to maternal instructions. Twenty-four clinic-referred, noncompliant, preschool children served as subjects. Each child was assessed under baseline conditions and then under one of three experimental conditions: Parent Release, Child Release, or Control. Children in the Parent Release and Child Release conditions experienced time-out contingent upon noncompliance. Temporal and behavioral time-out release contingencies were present in the Parent Release condition but not in the Child Release condition. A spanking procedure was used to inhibit premature escape from time-out for children in the Parent Release group. The results indicated that both time-out groups demonstrated increased compliance ratios. However, improvement associated with the Child Release condition was considered to be clinically insignificant.The authors wish to express their appreciation to Dave DeLawyer, Larry Snapp, and Mike Samac for their assistance in conducting the study.     

The association between perceptions of daily experiences and self- and spouse-rated mood

A recent study by L. P. Rehm (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1978, 46, 854–859) reported strong associations between the daily report of pleasant and unpleasant events and a global mood rating. This study examined desirable and undesirable events in an effort to replicate and extend Rehm's work by having 26 married couples complete a daily event and mood checklist about husbands for 14 consecutive days. The group averaging strategy generally used to describe event-mood correlations was compared to a tabulation of significant individual correlations. The observed correlations were consistent with a previous study of pleasant events by P. M. Lewinsohn and M. Graf (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1973, 41, 261–268) and a study of unpleasant events by P. M. Lewinsohn and J. Talkington (Applied Psychological Measurement, 1979, 3, 83–101), yet were considerably smaller than those reported by Rehm. Wives' ratings of their husbands' mood revealed the same relationship with experiences as did husbands' self-rated mood. Differences in the populations studied and the event and mood assessments between our study and Rehm's could account for this finding. A tabulation approach to the data showed that few subjects actually achieved statistically significant associations in contrast to the group approach which indicated small associations across all subjects.     

Commitment: A behavioral approach to job involvement

This study views job involvement and commitment as interchangeable labels for the same job behavior. Work commitment behaviors were defined as a special class of socially acceptable work behaviors that exceed formal and/or normative expectations relevant to work. The main purpose of this study was the development of a measure of work commitment based on this definition. A daily record measured the amount of personal time that each subject devoted to work-related activities beyond the required working day. For a sample of 54 female elementary school teachers, the work commitment measure demonstrated moderate correlations with two attitudinal measures of job involvement and a job satisfaction scale. The feasibility and usefulness of defining and measuring involvement behaviorally were demonstrated.     

Occupational expectations and the hypothesis of increasing realism of choice

A two-wave analysis of the dynamics of occupational expectations in a rural youth panel generally failed to support the hypothesis of ‘increasing realism of choice.’ An analysis of four multiple regression equations indicated (1) that Black youth tended to lower their levels of occupational expectations over time and (2) that occupational expectations tended to vary with changes in occupational aspirations and educational expectations. However, family SEI, perception of occupational goal blockage, three measures of self image and change in perception of occupational goal blockage, were not found to be associated with the dynamics of occupational expectation. Two alternate explanations for the findings were presented.     

Integrated pictures and relational imagery training in children's learning

The effects of integrated pictures of nouns, training in imagining relations between separate pictures of nouns, and the combination of training and integrated pictures on the recall of noun triplets were assessed in children from grades one, three, and six. The cued recall of nouns under these three conditions was from two to six times greater than that of the control group in all three grades. In grade six, those children who had been trained to generate their own relations between the pictured nouns recalled significantly more than those who had been shown integrated (i.e., already related) pictures of the nouns. It was suggested that encouraging young children to seek out and generate relations between items to be learned might help them become aware of and more confident in their ability to improve their own learning efficiency.     

CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON OF COGNITIVE CONSISTENCY

Une comparaison interculturelle portant sur le phénomène de consistance cognitive a été effectuée en appliquant à quarante-cinq sujets américains et quarante-cinq sujets grecs un questionnaire écrit basé sur trois paradigmes classiques de la théorie de l'équilibration. Comme prévu, d'importantes différences interculturelles sont apparues dans les réponses des deux groupes, l'effet de compensation équilibrante s'avérant inexistant chez les Grecs. De plus, à l'intérieur même du groupe américain, les sujets universitaires se distinguent de façon marquée du reste de leurs compatriotes. Les auteurs discutent la validité d'un modèle de consistance cognitive opérant universellement comme une tendance irrésistible à résoudre les déséquilibres cognitifs par un ajustement automatique des attitudes.     

On the nature of central processing in choice reactions

A procedure for generating values of central processing uncertainty was developed from positive response data in a varied-set version of the Sternberg choice reaction task. This is a logical extension of a previously validated procedure for data from a fixed-set version of the same task. Both procedures provide information on the additive components of reaction time. It was concluded that S resolves more uncertainty in the varied-set than in the fixed-set situation. It was concluded also that S performs a rechecking operation prior to emitting a negative response, and this rechecking apparently involves less information than does the original testing for stimulus classification. This, in turn, suggests that rechecking is a self-terminating process with regard to display information. The results also imply that stimulus classification is partially serial and partially parallel, so a hybrid model may be appropriate for this task.     

Locating clicks in sentences: Left,center, and right

There are currently two theoretical interpretations of the pattern of errors that Ss make in attempting to locate the position of a click in a message. One is based upon lexical sequences in the message (the linguistic hypothesis), and the other is based upon attenti6nal priorities, memory factors, and response biases (the attentional hypothesis). This experiment was designed to differentiate between them. By orthogonally varying the temporal location of the major syntactic break and the position of the click, it was possible to control for effects of serial position and memory. In addition, a subliminal control group was run to evalute Ss’ response biases. Little evidence was found to support the linguistic hypothesis; considerable support was found for at least a qualitative version of the attentional hypothesis.     

Perseveration of cardiac-rate effects in the rhesus monkey following pavlovian conditioning

The effects of Pavlovian conditioning on diurnal cardiac rate were studied in four rhesus monkeys. A three-hour conditioning period, consisting of 18 CS-UCS pairings with UCS an aversive tail-shock, produced cardiac-rate elevation which persisted for as long as 12 hours after the session.