Infant sensitivity to figural coherence in biomechanical motions

Two experiments assessed infant sensitivity to figural coherence in point-light displays moving as if attached to the major joints of a walking person. Experiment 1 tested whether 3- and 5-month-old infants could discriminate between upright and inverted versions of the walker in both moving and static displays. Using an infant-control habituation paradigm, it was found that both ages discriminated the moving but not the static displays. Experiment 2 was designed to clarify whether or not structural invariants were extracted from these displays. The results revealed that (1) moving point-light displays with equivalent motions but different topographic relations were discriminated while (2) static versions were not, and (3) arrays that varied in the amount of motion present in different portions of the display were also not discriminated. These results are interpreted as indicating that young infants are sensitive to figural coherence in displays of biomechanical motion.     

The efficient assessment of need for cognition

A short form for assessing individual differences in need for cognition is described.     

Considering the opposite: a corrective strategy for social judgment

It is proposed that several biases in social judgment result from a failure--first noted by Francis Bacon--to consider possibilities at odds with beliefs and perceptions of the moment. Individuals who are induced to consider the opposite, therefore, should display less bias in social judgment. In two separate but conceptually parallel experiments, this reasoning was applied to two domains--biased assimilation of new evidence on social issues and biased hypothesis testing of personality impressions. Subjects were induced to consider the opposite in two ways: through explicit instructions to do so and through stimulus materials that made opposite possibilities more salient. In both experiments the induction of a consider-the-opposite strategy had greater corrective effect than more demand-laden alternative instructions to be as fair and unbiased as possible. The results are viewed as consistent with previous research on perseverance, hindsight, and logical problem solving, and are thought to suggest an effective method of retraining social judgment.     

Challenge seeking and the type A coronary-prone behavior pattern

The present investigation sought to further delineate the Type A coronary-prone behavior pattern and to elucidate the psychophysiological process through which this behavioral disposition is translated into heart disease. Type A and Type B male subjects engaged in tasks that required varying degrees of activity before an assessment of challenge-seeking tendencies. Type A participants sought greater degrees of challenge than did their Type B counterparts. In addition, the more active the person with Pattern A had been immediately before the challenge-seeking opportunity, the greater the degree of challenge sought. Precedent activity level did not significantly influence challenge seeking in the Type B population. The Type A subjects also had significantly faster heart rates during performance of a challenging task. Pattern A behavior may be translated into heart disease through the cumulative deleterious effects of chronic and excessive challenge-induced cardiovascular excitation.     

Depressive attributions: selection of different causes or assignment of dimensional meanings?

Attributional models of depression suggest that depression is associated with internal, stable, and global causal explanations of events. However, the models do not specify whether the depressive attributional process involves the selection of certain causes, the assignment of dimensional meanings to those causes, or both. A distinction between these two processes was suggested by the findings that the choice of causes does not reliably indicate the perceived dimensions and that there is poor convergence between existing methods that assess causes and those that assess dimensions. When causes and dimensions were each measured in a manner that avoided confounding by the other, each made a unique contribution to the prediction of depression scores. Cause ratings alone were significantly associated with depression scores, but the optimal prediction of depression included both causes and dimensions. The implications of the distinction between these two processes for experimental manipulations of attributions and for reattribution training programs are discussed.     

Using “Props” to Enhance Your Counseling

The use of props as counseling aids can add a new dimension to any counselor's current repertoire of skills.     

Stress Inoculation Training: A Generic Approach for the Prevention of Stress-Related Disorders

Stress inoculation, a cognitive-behavioral approach for preventing stress-related disorders, is described and applied to academic, occupational, social, medical, and environmental stressors.     

Variables related to reported learning in brief experiential groups held at professional meetings

Reports of learning from 119 participants of 18 general psychodynamic groups from the 1981 and 1982 annual meetings of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association were investigated. Two main learning factors emerged from a factor analysis of participant ratings, learning about oneself in a small group (factor one) and learning how to be an effective leader with professional skills (factor two). Participants reported moderate to considerable learning for both factors even though the stated task of the groups did not emphasize the learning of professional skills. Relationships between several classes of variables (group, leader, demographic) and reported learning were studied. Results that were consistent with several previous investigations were found. The discovery of a participant, sex-difference finding, i.e., greater reported learning by the women, generated a number of questions that may be addressed in future investigations.This article was derived from a paper presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association, October 27, 1983, Banff, Canada.     

Do letter features migrate? A note of caution

Summary The feature-integration model of visual information processing (Treisman & Gelade, 1980) predicts perceptual errors based on the incorrect grouping of stimulus features in multi-element displays. Experiment 1 examined the frequency of such errors with a tachistoscopic bar probe task using letters and novel patterns with a production response. A substantial proportion of the errors did involve figures that were not present in the display but contained combinations of features which had been present. Such errors were especially prominent with novel patterns. The results with letters suggested that such responses were due to guessing, not feature migration, and this was confirmed by Experiment 2. In the second study, responses were collected for single character displays but were scored as if they had been responses to the multielement displays in Experiment 1. The results showed the same high proportion of illusory conjunction errors as the previous results and it was concluded that both results were due to guessing. Spatial confusions in the bar probe task with letters appear to involve whole characters, not character features.This research was supported by grant A-9581 from the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada to the senior author. This research was reported as a paper to the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Toronto, 1981. Ian Morrison is now a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Psychology, Carnegie-Mellon University.