Ineffective deception in conformity research: Some causes and consequences

Suspiciousness of deception threatens the internal validity of the conformity experiment, and analyses suggest it is becoming more widespread. After being led to believe their own ability in a visual judgment task was higher, lower, or the same as the ability of the other group members, 65 undergraduate women made visual and informational judgments in the Crutchfield apparatus. Major findings include treatment effects on suspiciousness, less conformity by suspicious Ss, and ‘significant’ treatment effects on conformity only when suspicious Ss were removed from the analyses. Measures of self-confidence and confidence in others were significantly related to and likely determinants of suspiciousness. Implications for improving deception in conformity research are discussed.     

The legalization of the school psychologists’ world

Discusses the increasing tendency of legal rules to shape school psychologist's conduct. Court cases, legislation, and empirical studies treating with this issue are analyzed. The article suggests that “the legalization of the school psychologist's world” may afford an opportunity to reshape, in more “non-formal” and collegial ways, relationships with other school professions, students, and parents.     

Self-consciousness, self-awareness, and self-attribution

Self-awareness was either manipulated by a mirror (experimental) or not (control). Subjects were selected for being high or low in private self-consciousness (disposition to attend to one's thoughts, feelings, motives). Private self-consciousness had a stronger effect on self-attributions than did self-awareness. These findings have implications for attribution, self-consciousness, and the relationship between manipulations and dispositions.     

Cardiovascular responses to avoidance conditioning in the dog: Effects of alpha adrenergic blockade

Laboratory dogs were trained to press a response panel to postpone shocks during daily one-hour avoidance conditioning periods. Each dog was also confined in the experimental environment for 5 hours prior to the avoidance periods. Blood pressure and heart rate were monitored continuously during these experiments from chronically indwelling arterial catheters. Extended training resulted in the emergence of a cardiovascular response pattern during the pre-avoidance interval characterized by gradual increases in blood pressure together with decreases in heart rate. Elevations in both blood pressure and heart rate were sustained during the avoidance periods. During sessions in which alpha adrenergic activity was suppressed by phenoxybenzamine, absolute levels of blond pressure were found to be lower than during control (non-drug) sessions, but a progressive rise in blood pressure continued to be observed during pre-avoidance. These results suggest that sustained cardiovascular responses during avoidance periods are associated with activation of the sympathetic nervous system, but that the gradual rise in blood pressure during pre-avoidance is due to other factors.     

Stimulus probability and same-different classification

Three experiments investigated the effect of stimulus probability on same-different classification time. In Experiments I and II, subjects made same responses on the basis of name matches of simultaneously presented letters. Half of the same trials involved letters that were also physically identical. Experiment I showed that the presentation probability of specific letters affected name matches and different responses, but not physical matches. Experiment II varied stimulus contrast as well as probability. Contrast had a main effect but did not interact with probability at any level of processing. In Experiment III, subjects were switched to the physical level of processing. Stimuli that now had the same name but differed in case were called different. In this condition, the probability effects obs(irved in Experiment II disappeared. These results are interpreted as demonstrating that stimulus probability has its effect during the process that derives the name of the stimulus from the visual representation. This process takes place before the name comparison is made, and the name comparison process precedes the determination of the different response.     

Biasing power law exponents by magnitude estimation instructions

This study investigates the influence of attention loading on the established intersensory effects of passive bodily rotation on choice reaction time (RT) to visual motion. Subjects sat at the center of rotation in an enclosed rotating chamber and observed an oscilloscope on which were, in the center, a tracking display and, 10° left of center, a RT line. Three tracking tasks and a no-tracking control condition were presented to all subjects in combination with the RT task, which occurred with and without concurrent cab rotations. Choice RT to. line motions was inhibited (p < .001) both when there was simultaneous vestibular stimulation and when there was a tracking task; response latencies lengthened progressively with increased similarity between the RT and tracking tasks. However, the attention conditions did not affect the intersensory effect; the significance of this for the nature of the sensory interaction is discussed.     

Selective looking with minimal eye movements

Neisser and Becklen (1975) showed that one of two visually superimposed events could be followed without interference from the other. Neisser and Becklen allowed their subjects to move their eyes without restriction. The present experiment eliminated the possibility that the tracking eye movements of the subjects, which could have been used to maintain the stability of the event on the retina, were instrumental in following the desired event. The experiment of Neisser and Becklen was essentially replicated with one exception: subjects were required to fixate a spot in the center of the visual field during one-half of the trials. It was no more difficult for subjects to follow either a single event or one of two superimposed events when fixation was required. The suggestion was made that eye movements do not initiate a perceptual act, but rather are dependent upon perceptual anticipations.     

Periodicity pitch perception and its upper frequency limit in cats

We have established a procedure for behavioral assessment of periodicity pitch perception in the cat. This procedure requires the training of cats to make a differential response to two different pure tones, and then testing for the transfer of learning when complex stimuli known to produce periodicity pitch sensations in humans are substituted for the pure tones. Complex stimuli consisted of three to five harmonically related frequencies of the same amplitude and phase. Eight cats were the subjects of these experiments. Two of them were controls. It is demonstrated here that cats do perceive periodicity pitch. We also used this procedure to measure the upper frequency limit of periodicity pitch perception for two cats. The frequencies tested were 100, 200, 300, 400, 600, 800, 900, and 1,200 Hz. The data indicate that the upper frequency limit of periodicity pitch perception in the cat is on the order of 600 to 800 Hz. There is a trend of decreasing prominence of the perception of periodicity pitch as the component frequencies are increased. These results are parallel to the human psychophysical data.     

Attention to pure tones

Listeners were required to detect increments of intensity or frequency in trains of pure tone bursts under different conditions of attention. The data were analysed taking into account contralateral events when more than one stimulus train was present. Marked changes in d' and β were found and the changes were positively correlated.

If targets are rare and attention is divided the values of β and d' are the same as in undivided attention provided that the contralateral event is a correct rejection, but fall if the contralateral events are hits or false alarms. If targets and non-targets are equi-probable no such difference is found. The data suggest that the observers can make use of the statistical properties of the stimulus sources. The results are compared with those in recent experiments using pure tones in a discrete trial paradigm and in experiments using semantic stimuli.