College Major Choice and Personal Adjustment

This investigation focused on the differences in reported personal adjustment problems between freshmen students who made a congruent college major choice and students who made an incongruent choice. Personal adjustment was defined operationally with the Mooney Problem Checklist. Congruent and incongruent college major choice groups were defined operationally using the Vocational Preference Inventory. In the analysis of variance of the adjustment scores, the interaction term involving congruence of major choice and sex and the test for the main effect of sex were not significant. The test for the main effect of congruence was found to be significant. Subjects who had made a congruent college major choice reported fewer personal adjustment problems when compared to subjects in the incongruent group.     

Reaction time as a function of the intensity and probability of occurrence of vibrotactile signals

Three Ss made judgments of the presence or absence of a burst of 60-cps vibration onthe index fingertip.The probability of S’s reporting the presence of a signal was found to be influenced by signal probability and signal intensity. Mean reaction time for reporting the presence of a signal decreased as a function of signal intensity and signal probability whereas mean reaction time for reporting the absence of a signal increased as a function of signal intensity and signal probability. On trials where no signal was presented mean R T for reporting a signal decreased with increases in the signal probability whereas mean RT for reporting the absence of a signal increased with increases in signal probability. The results were interpreted as support for the hypothesis that S’s decision time was longer the closer on the sensory continuum a particular observation was to his criterion.     

Relative distance of lights: An extension of Bugelski’s findings

Three lights in various orientations were presented to two trained Ss. The Ss adjusted the three lights until they appeared equidistant. The results supported earlier work of a similar nature, in that the higher light was perceived as closer and horizontal separation between lights produced no significant differences in depth settings. The phenomenon was shown to occur with monocular vision, fixated vision, large angular separation of the stimuli, and with different directions of regard with respect to the fixation point. The relationship to other research is discussed.     

Effects of pentobarbital on fixed-ratio reinforcement,

Certain doses of pentobarbital consistently increased the rate of pecking engendered by a fixed-ratio schedule of 30 responses in a group of 13 pigeons, and still higher doses produced decrements in rate of responding. For individual subjects, the dose-effect functions were qualitatively similar, but differed with respect to the doses producing the maximum increase and subsequent decrease in rate. In general, the maximum occurred at lower doses and the decrement was greater at the highest dose in the birds with the highest control rates. It was also possible to distinguish between the effects of pentobarbital and several other drugs on the behavior maintained by FR 30. The results indicate that changes in rate of responding on FR 30 after drug administration are dose-dependent, drug-specific effects.     

The effects of unavoidable shocks on a multiple schedule having an avoidance component

Two dogs were maintained on a multiple schedule having both a food reinforced and an avoidance component (Mult VI 1′ S^Δ Avoid_{SS20 RS20} S^Δ). The effects of superimposing an Estes-Skinner procedure for delivering unavoidable shocks on all components of the multiple schedule were observed. The buzzer-shock pairing of the Estes-Skinner procedure produced an increased rate of responding on the avoidance component of the schedule and also on the S^Δ components. No persistent change in rate was observed on the food component during the pre-shock stimulus. Control performances on all components could be regained by either extinguishing or eliminating the buzzer-shock pairing. Extinction of the avoidance responding had little effect on the increased rates of responding produced by the Estes-Skinner procedure on the S^Δ and avoidance extinction components and did not lead to a conditioned suppression of the food reinforced responding. Rate of responding during the pre-shock stimulus was observed to be relatively independent of changes in the maintaining schedules. Responding during the pre-shock stimulus could be conditioned and maintained after an extensive history of avoidance extinction.     

Sex differences in the duration of visual attention

Normal adult males and females looked at a series of photographs containing either a single adult male or female. Ss viewed each picture for as long as they wished. Assuming that measures of the duration of attention would reflect Ss attraction for the opposite sex, it was hypothesized that Ss would spend relatively more time viewing photographs of the opposite sex. The results failed to support the hypothesis. Although males did not differentially attend to the stimuli, females looked significantly longer at the females than they did at the males. The results were interpreted in terms of the “overt sexual content” of the stimuli and socially conditioned attentiveness and inattentiveness.