Attitude accessibility,attitude-behavior consistency,and the strength of the object-evaluation association

Two experiments were conducted in order to examine the accessibility of attitudes from memory as a function of the manner of attitude formation. The findings of the first experiment indicated that subjects could respond more quickly in a response-time task to inquiries about their attitudes when the attitudes were based upon direct behavioral experience with the attitude objects than when they were based upon nonbehavioral experience. It was suggested that, relative to indirect experience, behavioral experience may facilitate the attitude formation process and increase attitude accessibility once the attitude is formed. A second experiment found support for both of these notions. Two additional experiments indicated that repeated association of the attitude object and the attitudinal evaluation enhanced both attitude accessibility and attitude-behavior consistency. It was suggested that the strength of the object-evaluation association is a critical determinant of accessibility, which, in turn, acts as a central factor in the process by which attitudes affect later behavior. It was further suggested that the manner of attitude formation affects attitude-behavior consistency because direct experience produces a stronger object-evaluation association and, hence, a more accessible attitude than does indirect experience.     

Orienting versus learning instructions in children's free recall: New evidence

Ninety-six first graders were given a list of either words or pictures to process under three types of incidental orienting instructions (semantic, directed at list organization; semantic, directed at individual item characteristics; and physical) and an intentional-learning instruction. For pictures and words, list organizational instructions were the most effective, and were superior to intentional-learning instructions. In contrast, individual item-orienting instructions were not better than intentional-learning instructions on either list. Additionally, different patterns of instructional effects emerged on the two list types, which were interpreted with respect to both available data and contemporary processing theories.     

Functional constraints on sentence processing: A cross-linguistic study

English and Italian provide some interesting contrasts that are relevant to a controversial problem in psycholinguistics: the boundary between grammatical and extra-grammatical knowledge in sentence processing. Although both are SVO word order languages without case inflections to indicate basic grammatical relations, Italian permits far more variation in word order for pragmatic purposes. Hence Italians must rely more than English listeners on factors other than word order. In this experiment, Italian and English adults were asked to interpret 81 simple sentences varying word order, animacy contrasts between the two nouns, topicalization and contrastive stress. Italians relied primarily on semantic strategies while the English listeners relied on word order—including a tendency to interpret the second noun as subject in non-canonical word orders (corresponding to word order variations in informal English production). Italians also made greater use of topic and stress information. Finally, Italians were much slower and less consistent in the application of word order strategies even for reversible NVN sentences where there was no conflict between order and semantics. This suggests that Italian is ‘less’ of an SVO language than English. Semantic strategies apparently stand at the ‘core’ of Italian to the same extent that word order stands at the ‘core’ of English. It is suggested that these results pose problems for claims about a ‘universal’ separation between semantics and syntax, and for theories that postulate a ‘universal’ priority of one type of information over another. Results are discussed in the light of the competition model, a functionalist approach to grammar that accounts in a principled way for probabilistic outcomes and differential ‘weights’ among competing and converging sources of information in sentence processing.     

Response to Requests for Abortion: The Influence of Guilt and Knowledge1

Participants who varied in their levels of sex guilt and sexual knowledge indicated the extent of their approval for abortion in response to 10 case histories of abortion applicants. The case histories were varied in terms of the circumstances under which conception had occurred. Sex guilt was significantly related to abortion decisions while sexual knowledge registered little effect. Low sex guilt students were more favorable toward abortion requests than were high sex guilt students, but both groups were more favorable toward abortion when conception was the result of failure of a contraceptive method than when it was due to the applicant's inconsistent use of the method. In addition, high sex guilt students' abortion decisions were significantly influenced by the relationship of the applicant to her coital partner. When the relationship was “steady,” they approved the request, whereas abortion was denied to the applicant who conceived with a casual partner. The results were discussed within the context of the debate over the morality of abortion and the problem of unwanted adolescent pregnancy. It was suggested that sex guilt may play a larger role in these issues than has been previously recognized, and that presenting the “facts” (sexual knowledge) may have little impact in abortion related decisions.     

The cross-situational validity of risk as a value

Demand characteristics and risk are confounded on the choice dilemma items. Thus, it is difficult using that instrument to determine if individuals view themselves as more risky than others because of a cultural value of risk or instructional demand characteristics. The present study asked Ss to make judgments for themselves and for others on either the choice dilemmas (with risk-oriented or risk-neutral instructions) or on one of three other measures of risk taking (behavior prediction scale, risk of aversive consequences, zero expected value bets) which have exhibited the risky shift but do not have the instructional problems of the choice dilemmas. Only on the choice dilemmas did Ss view themselves as being more risky. On all other measures, Ss viewed themselves as either equal to or more conservative than others. These findings cast doubt on the validity of value type theories as general explanations for the risky shift.     

An index of factorial simplicity

An index of factorial simplicity, employing the quartimax transformational criteria of Carroll, Wrigley and Neuhaus, and Saunders, is developed. This index is both for each row separately and for a factor pattern matrix as a whole. The index varies between zero and one. The problem of calibrating the index is discussed.The research reported in this paper was supported in part by the Office of Computing Activities, National Science Foundation.     

Semantic memory: Searching for attributes vs searching for names

The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether searching for a word that has a particular attribute (a fruit that is yellow) involves a different process than searching for a word whose name has a particular form (a fruit whose name begins with "p"). Ss saw category nouns paired with adjectives or letter restrictors presented on a series of blocked trials and a series of mixed trials. The Ss had to produce a word that fell in the space defined by the noun and the restricting adjective or letter. RT was fastest when trials were blocked and when a letter followed the presentation of the noun. This finding suggested the existence of two retrieval plans that can be executed when S has knowledge of the forthcoming type of item.     

Lasting effects of early blindness a case study

A young woman, blinded by the development of corneal opacity at the age of 3 years, was given a corneal graft at the age of 27. Though the image-forming powers of the eye were largely restored, the patient showed little recovery of functional vision. Six months after operation she could detect and locate conspicuous objects and had some degree of ambient spatial vision but she could not learn to recognize simple visual patterns. Eventually she reverted to the life of a blind person. Her failure to recover is discussed in terms of the known deleterious effects of restricted early visual experience on the development of the visual cortex in animals.