The anomaly of anomaly

In order to determine whether mechanically generated sentences, often referred to in the literature as anomalous, are in fact anomalous, subjects in the present experiment were asked to do two different tasks: a paired-associates learning task involving anomalous sentences as responses, and a second task in which they were asked to interpret such sentences. These tasks were counterbalanced across different groups of subjects. Results of the interpretation task showed that a large proportion of subjects were able to give interpretations for anomalous sentences, while learning results indicated that anomalous sentences were more difficult to anticipate than natural sentencesonly when task order was Learn first, Interpret second. In the order Interpret-Learn, differences in ease of learning between anomalous and naturally occurring sentences did not appear. The results of this study demonstrate that anomalous sentences are interpretable, that a range of difficulty for such sentences can be established, that anomalous sentences are learned as easily as naturally occurring ones after interpretation, and that many of the interpretations given to such sentences are metaphoric in character. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for models of lexical organization.     

Differentiating psychiatrically disturbed children on the basis of a structured interview

A structured psychiatric interview designed for both clinical assessment and data collection was given to 50 pairs of well-matched pediatrie and psychiatric clinic children and their mothers. The two groups were shown to be dearly distinguished on the basis of numbers of symptoms. Behavior and school symptoms gave the sharpest distinction between the two groups. Neurotic and somatic symptoms were the poorest discriminators. The psychiatric children showed significantly more antisocial symptoms than their matched pediatrie peers. Age differences showed the expected trends with the widest divergence in the number of symptoms being in the oldest age group.This study was supported in part by NIMH Grant 05938.     

Orientation of stimuli and binocular disparity coding

An experiment is described which attempts to relate physiological work on disparity coding in the cat to a psychophysical situation using human subjects and Julesz stereograms composed of small line elements. It was found that depth perception occurred only if matching disparate lines in each stereogram shared a similar orientation. Depth began to deteriorate if an orientation difference exceeded 10° and it was extinguished at about 60°. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that shape-sensitive disparity detectors of the kind found in the cat exist also in man.     

Victim and Observer Characteristics as Determinants of Responsibility Attributions to Victims of Rape1

Two field studies were conducted to investigate the influence of observer and victim characteristics on attributions of victim and assailant responsibility in a rape case. In the first study, male and female subjects completed a measure of rape myth acceptance and were presented with a rape account after which they were asked to attribute responsibility to victim and assailant. In the second study, a new sample was asked to attribute responsibility to victim and assailant on the basis of one of two rape accounts in which victim's pre-rape behavior was manipulated. Results showed that both rape myth acceptance and victims' pre-rape behavior influenced the degree of responsibility attributed to victims and assailants. No significant effects of subject gender were found. A more complex conceptualization is suggested of the link between observer and victim characteristics in social reactions to and evaluations of rape victims.     

The “Friendly visitor” program data: A reply to Denney

Conclusion In summary, Denney's failure to obtain the original results with her reanalyses can be attributed to the fact that she (a) scored some variables differently, (b) included an inappropriate subjects who was not entered into the original analyses, (c) excluded appropriate subjects who were used in the original analyses, (d) included an additional invalid dependent measure previously dicarded, and (e) may have used a different residualization algorithm. In view of these differences, it is not surprising that the multivariate and unvariate results that she obtained were different from those originally reported.We hope that now the procedural differences that account for the inconsistencies alleged by Denney are clear.     

Androgyny on the TV screen? An analysis of sex-role portrayal

Characters in a random sample of dramatic television programs representative of family time and later viewing time in 1975 and equivalent time periods in 1976 were rated on sex-role portrayal, using traits from the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI). The family time concept, which eliminated violence and sex from programs shown between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. during 1975, had a significant effect on sex-role portrayal. Male characters were portrayed in a more realistic, though still highly masculine, way than their counterparts in other time periods. Female characters were portrayed as somewhat more feminine during family time than during other viewing hours. A significant interaction effect among viewing time, type of program, and sex of character suggested that content considered acceptable for younger viewers emphasized the stereotypical female role.This research was reported in part at the meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Seattle, April 1977. The author expresses appreciation to all those individuals who assisted with the project by serving as judges and as critics, and to the anonymous reviewer who made many helpful suggestions.     

Sex differences in competition—cooperation behavior of children at two age levels

Competitive or cooperative behaviors of children were observed in two experiments. In Experiment 1, 7- to 9-year-old boys and girls played a board game with same- or opposite-sex partners under instructions which stressed either group or individual performance. Girls' behavior varied as a function of both instructions and partner sex. Girls playing the game with boys showed more highly competitive behavior than did girls who played the game with girls. Boys were highly competitive under all conditions. In Experiment 2, preschool children were observed in a similar game. For both sexes, children who played the game with opposite-sex partners were more competitive and obtained fewer rewards than those who interacted with same-sex partners. Thus, with development, boys show a change from selective competitiveness to a very general tendency to compete, while girls show a consistent tendency to vary their game behavior according to situational cues such as those provided by instructions or the sex of a game partner.A report of the first experiment was made at the Third Biennial Southeastern Conference of the Society for Research in Child Development, Chapel Hill, March 1974. The authors would like to thank the personnel of St. Francis Cabrini School and the Children's House Montessori School of New Orleans, Louisiana, for their cooperation in providing research participants.     

Pictorial representations in adults and children

Reaction time to make same-object judgements was measured for pairs of identical pictures, picture synonyms, identical words, word synonyms, and picture-word combinations in adults and children. At all ages, synonym comparisons took longer than identical comparisons. Adults, but not children responded no faster to picture-word pairs than to picture synonym pairs. This is taken as evidence for the use of abstract pictorial information by adults but not by children. Children seem to compare two different exemplars of the same object verbally in the absence of well-integrated abstract pictorial representations.     

Some consequences of stereoscopic depth constancy

Retinal disparity decreases in proportion to the square of the distance of the corresponding objective depth interval from the eyes. Up to a distance of 2 m, stereoscopic depth perception compensates well for this decrease in disparity with observation distance; for a given disparity, experienced depth increases approximately in proportion to the square of the observation distance. When disparities are artificially produced, by anaglyphs or vectograms, or by spectacles, they decrease only in proportion to the first power of the observation distance. The same is true when the Pulfrich effect gives rise to equivalents of disparity. Depth perception, however, compensates for the normal disparity loss. As a result, there should be a net gain in perceived depth approximately in proportion to the first power of observation distance. When perceived depth caused by horizontal magnification in one eye or by the Pulfrich effect was measured, it was found to increase approximately in proportion to observation distance.     

Memory for faces: A social learning analysis

Recognition memory for unfamiliar faces was related to locus of control and anxiety. On the basis of Rotter's social learning theory, it was predicted that memory for faces would be associated with more internal locus of control in an unstructured memory task but not when encoding was controlled. In Experiment 1, where no specific instructions about encoding were presented, the predicted relationship was found for males. In addition, better recognition was associated with low anxiety for females. In Experiment 2, where encoding was controlled by having subjects judge the faces, no significant correlations between the personality measures and memory were found. The results are interpreted as supporting predictions made on the basis of social learning theory.