An inexpensive response-reading head for use with carousel slide projectors and serial anticipation tasks

An inexpensive response-reading head, using a binary code, is described. It can be attached to Carousel projectors and provides for the automatic recording of responses, response latencies, etc. in serial anticipation tasks.     

Right-hemisphere superiority for discriminating memorized from nonmemorized faces: Affective imagery, sex, and perceived emotionality effects

Sixty-four subjects, divided into four groups according to sex and type of memorization instruction, were given a manual RT task requiring discrimination of two memorized from two nonmemorized faces. Two types of memorization were employed, one emphasizing highly negative affective imagery about the faces being memorized (extreme sadness), the other relatively neutral imagery (feeling composed). Females in the affective imagery group were predicted to show left-visual-field superiority (LVFS), while females employing neutral imagery were not. Males were predicted to show LVFS regardless of imagery type because of their presumed strong right-hemispheric dominance for visual-spatial functions. Predictions were accurate for females; neither group of males showed significant LVFS. Post-experimental semantic differential ratings of the emotionality of the memorized faces showed that LVFS existed for faces rated as emotional, but not for faces rated as nonemotional. This effect was common to the sexes. Results indicate that right-hemispheric memory storage of faces can be induced in females through affective imagery and in both sexes via idiosyncratically perceived emotionality in the face stimuli. This effect of affectivity cannot be attributed to visual-spatial dominannce of the right hemisphere.     

Repetition of previously novel melodies sometimes increases both remember and know responses in recognition memory

Recognition memory for previously novel melodies was tested in three experiments in which subjects usedremember andknow responses to report experiences of recollection, or of familiarity in the absence of recollection, for each melody they recognized. Some of the melodies were taken from Polish folk songs and presented vocally, but without the words. Others were taken from obscure pieces of classical music, presented as single-line melodies. Prior to the test, the melodies were repeated for varying numbers of study trials. Repetition of the Polish melodies increased both remember and know responses, while repetition of classical melodies increased remember but not know responses. When subjects were instructed to report guesses, guess responses were inversely related to remember and know responses and there were more guesses to lures than to targets. These findings establish that remembering and knowing are fully independent functionally and, by the same token, they provide further evidence against the idea that response exclusivity causes increases in remembering to force decreases in knowing. The findings also suggest that simultaneous increases in remembering and knowing occurred because the Polish melodies came from a genre for which the subjects had relatively little previous experience.     

Effects of training in rapid decoding on the reading comprehension of adult ESL learners

We report an experimental investigation of the effects on comprehension of increasing the decoding speed of three adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). Participants were taught to read lists of 25 difficult words in isolation until they could read the entire list at a mean rate of not more than 1.5 secs per word. They were then asked to read passages containing these words. Decoding speed and accuracy measures, for both the word lists and passages, and passage comprehension measures, were obtained. In a temporally contiguous within-subjects repeated trials reversal design, decoding training on isolated words was shown to be associated with significant increases in decoding speed and accuracy both in isolation and context, and improvements in the participants' comprehension. With all participants rate and accuracy gains in context were maintained in the final reversal phase, though the comprehension score gains did not. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for a decoding sufficiency hypothesis.     

Gender role conflict,instrumentality, expressiveness,and well-being in adult men

This study examined gender roles and gender role conflict in relation to a broad range of indices of psychological well-being in men. Eighty-eight community adult primarily white men (median age = 50) completed ten inventories assessing masculine role constructs and measures of psychological well-being. Whereas instrumentality continued to be the strongest correlate of traditional measures of well-being, the canonical analysis confirmed the Sharpe and Heppner 1991 study indicating that at least two roots or variates are needed to understand psychological well-being in men, and that expressivity and emotional well-being accounts for a third of the variance in adult men. The results also suggest a weak association between gender role conflict and psychological well-being. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Inverse duration effects in partial report.

In partial-report experiments, an array of stimuli is displayed briefly, followed by a probe indicating the items to be reported. When exposure duration of the array is increased, 2 contrasting outcomes have been found: Some experiments find that performance improves (direct-duration effect); others find that it deteriorates (inverse-duration effect). The objective here was to identify the reasons for the discrepant results. This was done by investigating the roles played by 5 factors that differed between the 2 sets of contrasting studies. An inverse-duration effect was obtained in each of 6 experiments; its magnitude was affected by retinal eccentricity and by the number of items denoted by the probe. The effect was independent of array configuration and of number of items in the array. The direct-duration effect was shown to arise from a confounding of exposure duration and brightness.     

Relationship Between Anger Expression and Stress in Predicting Depression

In this study the authors examine the relationship between anger expression and stressful life events as predictors of depression among college students. Measures of anger expression, stressful life events, and depression were completed by 247 undergraduates. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that anger directed inward and stressful life events were significant orthogonal predictors of depression. Because anger directed inward and stressful life events seem to be independent and additive predictors of depression, both play an important role in the assessment of depression. Counseling strategies based on such assessments may need to be multimodal and individualized     

The role of the hospital in the evolution of elite cultures of medicine

Rosenberg argues that a culture of medicine articulates a unique medical vision reflecting scientific ideologies and perceptions, professional values and rewards, career patterns, and the work context of each generation of physicians (Rosenberg, 1987, p. 7) It might be more accurate, however, to recognize multiple cultures of medicine. This papers traces American hospitals' contributions to three specific aspects of certain elite cultures of medicine. Its first section introduces and explores these aspects transhistorically. They are: a stratified paradigm of the physician-patient relationship, the equation of competence with specialization, and a pattern within a stratified model of medicine called the “Lone Ranger syndrome.” A brief historical profile subsequently highlights changes in the structure and function of American hospitals in the 19th century. The three remaining sections chart the ebb and flow of the prominence and power of these specific aspects of elite cultures of medicine across three historical periods: the late 19th century, 1910–1930, and the post World War II era.     

An integrated model of meaning and sense activation and disambiguation.

A simulation of meaning and sense selection is presented. In the model, distributed representations are used for both unrelated meanings and related meaning senses; however, related meaning senses are assumed to be correlated. Related meaning senses are assumed to be learned associatively in similarly correlated contexts. Our model is sufficient to account for the contrasting results obtained in priming paradigms by Whitney, McKay, Kellas, and Emerson (1985) and Tabossi (1988).     

Context and homograph meaning resolution.

We describe an activation-based model of word recognition and apply it to the process of resolving the meaning of homographs presented in context. The interpretation of homographs was assessed by asking participants to decide whether a target word was related to the meaning of a sentence containing a homograph. These relatedness decisions varied systematically with the relative frequency of the homograph meanings, delay, and the nature of the sentence context. In the model, it was assumed that orthographic and contextual information combine additively to determine the activation of word meanings, and that the probability of a "related" response is determined by the activation level of the related meaning. The model accurately accounts for all observed effects, as well as their interaction. We conclude that the core process of lexical ambiguity resolution may be quite simple.