Effect of stimulus pulse duration and interstimulus interval on cross-modal matching of auditory and lingual vibrotactile stimuli

Cross-modal matching functions for eight intensity levels of a 1000-Hz auditory stimulus and a 250-Hz lingual vibrotactile stimulus were obtained for two groups of subjects. Group 1 adjusted the vibrotactile stimulus to match the auditory stimulus, and Group 2 adjusted the auditory stimulus to match the vibrotactile stimulus. Stimulus-pulse durations and interstimulus intervals were varied over six experimental conditions for both groups. The variations in stimulus-pulse durations and interstimulus intervals had no appreciable effect on mean matching-function exponents for the two groups. A possible regression effect consistent with data from other psychophysical scaling studies was noted for matching functions of the two stimuli.     

Direct retrieval from elaborated memory traces

Four experiments were performed to investigate the beneficial effects of elaborative processing on recall performance. Specifically, the experiments investigated J. R. Anderson's (1983) claim that increasing the number of associative pathways between propositions in a memory trace improves recall performance through direct retrieval. In this study, procedures were used that allowed the amount of elaboration to be systematically varied while the use of inferential reconstruction to aid recall was eliminated, thus providing a test of J. R. Anderson's model. Across all experiments, the results showed that recall of a name was better when it had been stored in a less elaborated memory trace. The results suggest that when reconstructive processes are eliminated, elaboration decreases rather than increases recall performance.     

The sin of subjectivism: A reply to Shapiro

Shapiro criticises our book on two grounds. He first outlines a series of mistakes. None of them we believe, in fact, have been made and this is usually quite clear from our book. His second criticism rejects our ‘subjectivist’ approach to measurement. We argue that he misrepresents our methods and fails to grasp their ability both to collect accurate data and deal adequately with possible sources of bias. Indeed in these, in its attention to the dating of both independent and dependent variables, and in the flexibility of its approach to the respondent, we feel our approach is better equipped than other existing instruments to tackle the problem of the aetiological role of psycho-social factors in illness.     

An acoustical analysis of stutterer''s speech prior to and at the termination of speech therapy

The speech of nine adult stutterers was analyzed acoustically prior to and at the termination of a modified Van Riperian procedure to determine if therapy produced discernable changes in their post-therapy fluent speech. The findings indicate that stuttering frequency decreased significantly and reading rate decreased by a statistically insignificant amount during the course of therapy. Vowel duration and the occurrence of voicing during the stop consonant production increased significantly. These findings support the hypothesis that stuttering therapy can affect more than the fluency and rate characteristics of the stutterer's posttherapy speech.     

Microcomputers big and little: Selecting a low-cost laboratory computer network

Characteristics of microcomputers are described affecting suitability for low-cost laboratory network use. Assuming a network of small microcomputers with interfaces for applications and a larger one for program development, 6502-based hobbyist computers appear cheapest at this time, while microcomputers imitating minicomputers have the best hardware and software support.     

Short-term visual memory: The importance of the spatial and temporal separation of successive stimuli

When two successively presented letters are visually identical (for example, AA) rather than identical in name only (for example, aA) subjects can more quickly name the second letter and can more quickly decide if the two letters have the same name. For both tasks the maximum interstimulus interval (ISI) over which this visual priming effect is observed depends upon the relative spatial positioning of the two stimuli. When they are superimposed the effect can survive an ISI of between 6 and 15 s, but when they appear in increasingly different spatial locations the maximum ISI is reduced to between 0.5 and I. O. S. With successive letters spatially separated in the naming task the visual priming effect is replaced by a comparable name priming effect as the ISI is extended beyond 0.5-1.0 s. Previous studies of letter matching (for example, Posner and Keele, 1967) have underestimated the durability of visual memory, a fact that is difficult to reconcile with the “levels of analysis” approach to visual memory.     

A statistical review of the literature concerning the self-serving attribution bias in interpersonal influence situations1

Based upon his review of the self-serving attribution bias literature, Zuckerman (1979) concluded that research employing an interpersonal influence setting was less likely than other research paradigms to produce significant differences in self-attribution for success and failure. A survey of the research reviewed by Zuckerman as well as a more current survey of the relevant literature were undertaken. Statistical combinations of these two sets of evidence revealed Zuckerman's assessment may have been too conservative, at least with respect to two of three experimental paradigms. Additionally, a general tendency of individuals to assume more personal responsibility for success than failure on interpersonal influence tasks was found in the more comprehensive survey. Finally, the evidence concerning interactions of performance outcome with either contextual variables or individual differences indicated that the self-serving bias may be stronger under certain conditions than others and for certain types of individuals. Discussion centered on the conceptual distinctions between interpersonal influence and other achievement settings.     

Equity judgments in hypothetical,four-person partnerships

Subjects' ratings of the fairness of a set of suggested allocations in hypothetical, four-person partnerships demonstrated that an ordinal relationship between inputs and outcomes is not a sufficient definition of equity. Subjects' suggestions for fair distributions of outcomes failed to conform to G. W. Walster's (Representative Research in Social Psychology, 1975, 6, 65–67) increasing-profits and profit-sign criteria, and were better fit by R. J. Harris' (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1976, 12, 194–209) linear formula than by any other formula thus far proposed.