Visual imagery ability and the recognition of verbal and nonverbal stimuli.

High and low visual imagers, defined as such primarily on the basis of spatial manipulation test performance, were required to identify tachistoscopically-presented pictures, concrete words, and abstract words varying in familiarity. Two recognition paradigms were employed, recognition threshold and recognition latency. High imagers were faster in picture recognition under both paradigms when a nonverbal set or strategy was primed and when pictures were relatively unfamiliar in the threshold paradigm. No relationship was found between imagery ability and word recognition in the visual modality, nor was visual imagery ability related to the auditory recognition of verbal and nonverbal stimuli, such as words and environmental sounds. Commonalities between these findings and others in the imagery ability literature were noted.     

Study-time of sentences as a function of their specificity and of semantic exploration

In self-paced learning conditions the study-time of sentences is supposed to depend jointly upon the information content of the material and upon its exploration by the subject in the course of learning. In exp. 1 informative content was varied by using sentences constituted either of general or of specific words; study-time was found to be significantly longer for the latter sentences than for the former and the recall performance to be equal. Differential semantic exploration and storage were instigated by presenting in the series either pairs of similar, and thereby contrasted sentences, or isolated sentences. In exp. 2, study-time of the sentences was longer than that of the latter; but the first recall performance recorded with the constrasted sentences was also higher. The divergent effects of the nature of the material and of the activity of the subject upon study-time and recall performance were emphasized.     

Assumptions underlying psychological testing

Tests purporting to reflect the learning aptitudes of school children differ much more than generally is recognized. However, error in assesing such learning aptitude inheres much more in the users of the tests than in the tests themselves. Assumptions fundamental to such assessment, or even testing, are considered. It is particularly important that the assessor, or tester, constantly be sensitive to the nature of the relationship between the psychological demands of test items or tests and the learning demands confronting the child. Even tests that generally are grossly or crudely used often can yield psychoeducationally meaninful information if their results are differentially perceived in terms of the light they throw on the psychological operations fundamental to learning, “process,” as contrasted with that thrown on the results of the functioning of such operations, “product.”     

Acute pain in a clinical setting: Effects of cognitive-behavioural skills training

The present study evaluated the efficacy of cognitive-behavioural skills training, patterned after stress-inoculation training, as a preventive intervention for the attenuation of acute clinical pain during a noxious X-ray procedure—the knee arthrogram. Thirty-six adult male outpatients were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Skills Training. Attention-Placebo, and No-Treatment Control. An experimental pain test was administered before and after the interventions, as a generalization measure. Arthrogram pain was assessed by three dependent measures: patient's ratings, radiologist's ratings and videotape ratings completed by two‘blind’ raters. The results failed to support the efficacy of skills training for the attenuation of acute clinical pain, or its generalization to the experimental pain test. Although Skills Training subjects reported using significantly more coping strategies during the arthrogram. many subjects in the two control groups also reported using their own spontaneous strategies. Equivocal data were obtained on the role of ‘self-efficacy’ expectancies in mediating pain behaviour and experience. Experimental pain threshold but not pain tolerance was significantly related to acute clinical pain experienced during the arthrogram.     

Dimensions of perception of posture in dance

This study reports a preliminary investigation designed to assess the possibility of using a semantic differential in the appraisal of expressive characteristics of posture in dance.Twenty still photographs of postures displayed by one female dancer were judged on 25 bipolar scales by 50 Ss. Ratings of eight of these Ss were used for estimating reliabilities of the scales — resulting in elimination of five scales. Intercorrelation matrices of the 20 remaining scales were obtained for each of the 42 remaining Ss. Consideration of homogeneity of the distribution of these matrices led to the exclusion of four of them, leaving 38 matrices for further analysis.After random division of these matrices into two equally sized subgroups, principal component analyses with VARIMAX rotation were carried out on the average intercorrelation matrix for each subgroup. This resulted in two very similar three-factor solutions. The three factors, identified as similar to Osgood's well-known factors of activity, evaluation and potency, accounted for about 55% of the total variance. The results, discussed in terms of Berlyne's conception, suggest that the semantic differential may be a reliable instrument for measuring connotations of posture in dance.     

Postural determinants of frontal-position advantage in listening to speech

Previous work has shown that when a subject is seated with body, head, and eyes oriented in the same direction, speech coming from the front is better perceived than speech coming from other directions. The question asked was which segments of the body are critical in determining the advantage of the frontal position. It was found that the effect does not depend exclusively on the orientation of the head relative to the source, since the advantage is reduced not only when the head is deviated laterally towards a competing source, but also when the gaze or the trunk and the limbs are deviated in that direction. Frontal position advantage is thus not a purely acoustical or auditory phenomenon, but depends, at least partly, on interactions at deeper levels.     

Four probability-preserving properties of inferences

Different inferences in probabilistic logics of conditionals preserve the probabilities of their premisses to different degrees. Some preserve certainty, some high probability, some positive probability, and some minimum probability. In the first case conclusions must have probability 1 when premisses have probability 1, though they might have probability 0 when their premisses have any lower probability. In the second case, roughly speaking, if premisses are highly probable though not certain then conclusions must also be highly probable. In the third case conclusions must have positive probability when premisses do, and in the last case conclusions must be at least as probable as their least probable premisses. Precise definitions and well known examples are given for each of these properties, characteristic principles are shown to be valid and complete for deriving conclusions of each of these kinds, and simple trivalent truthtable tests are described for determining which properties are possessed by any given inference. Brief comments are made on the application of these results to certain modal inferences such as Jones may own a car, and if he does he will have a driver's license. Therefore, he may have a driver's license.