Software for advanced ANOVA courses: A survey

In response to a survey of faculty regarding their commercial software preferences for advanced analysis of variance courses, it was found that the most frequently used packages were SAS, SPSS^x, and BMDP, all originally mainframe packages. The fourth choice, SYSTAT, was written for microcomputers but is currently also available for other host computers. Difficulty for students was the most frequently cited reason fornot using one of these four packages. The most important criteria for choosing software packages were variety of designs, accuracy, and ease of use. Cost was a factor only for microcomputer licenses. Packages using the general linear model approach were paramount to some, while others would not consider such packages. Instructors decried the lack of the “ideal program,” but the diversity of their desires makes it clear that no program could be ideal for all of them. Many faculty seemed unaware of newer software packages or of the extent to which older packages (particularly Minitab) have been modified; some had their choices constrained by departmental limitations. Better dissemination of information about statistical software is needed, whether it be from software publishers or through the professional literature.     

Are children reliable reporters?

Fifty children, ranging in age from 6 to 16 years, and their mothers were interviewed using the same structured interview, which in its content follows the usual psychiatric examination of a child. Their answers were compared and it was found that there was an 80% average agreement on all questions. The agreement (between child and parent) was highest on questions relating to factual information (84%) and the agreement (between child's interviewer and parent) was lowest in the section dealing with mental status (69%). Girls were more reliable informants than boys.     

The preschool child's perception of adult approval in “nondirective” statements

Twenty children of nursery school age participated in a study of adult approval/ disapproval as conveyed by nondirective statements relating to play aggression. Though all sentences were tape recorded in a neutral voice, 10 of 15 conveyed disapproval in a significant proportion of judgments. All statements explicitly mentioning aggression were judged disapproving. It was concluded that nondirective play therapists must convey acceptance through other modes in order to avoid suppressing aggressive play.     

Patterning of the minority's responses and their influence on the majority

In reaction to the decades of research that tended to assume that social influence is synonymous with conformity, recent work has concentrated on the ability of a minority, by having a system of answers of its own, to influence the majority in the direction of their judgments. A study by Moscovici, Lage and Naffrechoux (1969) demonstrated this phenomenon but found that consistency of response, in the sense of repetition, was necessary for minority influence to be effected. They assumed that repetition was necessary to give the minority judgment the same value as that of the majority and to intensify the conflict that was engendered by the differences in opinion. Our position is that the lack of repetition in that study was construed to mean that the minority did not really have a position in which they were confident. As such, they were discounted. Thus, it is the attribution of consistency and confidence that leads to minority influence, not intensification of the conflict. The present study found that non-repetitious behavior by a minority could be seen as reflecting consistency and confidence and could lead to minority influence provided the inconsistency was patterned with some property of the stimulus. Such ‘inconsistency’ was perceived as favorable and as effective as any other condition and even more effective than one of the repetitious conditions.     

Eye fixations in prediction of recognition and recall

Eye fixations were recorded at viewing of picture-label stimuli presented under either recall or recognition instructions; both retention tests were administered. Ss performed substantially better on the retention test of which they were informed, indicating differential encoding of the same stimuli in anticipation of test type. There was no correlation between recognition and recall of items, evidence that different information from the encoded stimuli was utilized in performing each test. Encoding strategies had no effect on how Ss regarded the stimuli, but viewing patterns were related to memory performance: More word fixations was associated with better verbal recall, while fewer picture fixations was associated with better recall and with better picture recognition.     

Luminous targets: Visibility fluctuations modified by similar verbal responses

Ss reported visibility fluctuations in a luminous target consisting of small, medium, and large circles. Each S had previously learned a response to each of the three circles. The experimental group learned two words which were free associates of each other and a third unrelated word. The control group learned three unrelated words. Concurrent visibility for the pair of circles associated with related words was greater than for the pairs associated with unrelated words. Thus word associations influence perception of stimuli for which the words are responses.     

Perceived common rotary motion of ambiguous stimuli as a criterion of perceptual grouping

Apparent common behavior of contours with respect to a property for which each contour is ambiguous (in this case direction of rotary motion in depth) was used as a criterion of the unitary processing of the contours or “grouping.” Grouping was found to decrease as a monotonic function of the difference in line orientation and, for fixed orientations, to decrease as a monotonic function of line separation. These results are tentatively attributed to the distribution of line detectors in the projection area.     

On the division of attention: A disproof of the single channel hypothesis

In dichotic listening, subjects are apparently unable to attend simultaneously to two concurrent, auditory speech messages. However, in two experiments reported here, it is shown that people can attend to and repeat back continuous speech at the same time as taking in complex, unrelated visual scenes, or even while sight-reading piano music. In both cases performance with divided attention was very good, and in the case of sight-reading was as good as with undivided attention. There was little or no effect of the dual task on the accuracy of speech shadowing. These results are incompatible with the hypothesis that human attention is limited by the capacity of a general-purpose central processor in the nervous system. An alternative, “multi-channel”, hypothesis is outlined.     

Reacting to reactance: An Interpersonal interpretation of the need for freedom

This study was designed to investigate the conditions under which the negative consequences of social influence attempts can be mitigated by freedom-affirming interventions. Eighty-eight high school girls received an influence message, presumably written by a co-worker, containing either a threat or a promise. In addition, subjects were or were not given a choice option as to mode of compliance, if they chose to comply with the message. In half the cases, the Interpersonal condition, subjects received their choice/no choice option from their co-worker; in the other half of the cases, the Noninterpersonal condition, subjects were assigned the choice/no choice option by a random event unknown to the influencing agent. As anticipated, in the Interpersonal as compared to the Noninterpersonal condition, (a) threats produced greater compliance when a choice was offered than when it was not, and (b) promises and threats were more equivalent in gaining compliance when a choice was offered than when it was not. These results, which suggest that in a social setting individuals' concerns about freedom are interpersonally motivated, are discussed in terms of their relation to and implications for reactance theory.