Artificial intelligence and animal psychology: A response to Boden, Margolis and Sloman

We propose the elements of an epistemological framework in which to situate the fundamental problem of ascribing mentalistic concepts to animals and machines that is posed by Margaret Boden's, Aaron Sloman's and Joseph Margolis' discussion of artificial intelligence and animal psychology.     

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.     

Effects of a timing signal on simple reaction time with a rectangular distribution of foreperiods

It was hypothesized that the time course of preparation during a variable interstimulus interval (ISI) of a simple reaction time (RT) experiment was partly determined by the subjective distribution of conditional probabilities of the executive signal (ES). Sixty subjects performed a simple auditory RT task with various ranges of six ISI durations organized in rectangular frequency distributions. In order to give the subjects information about elapsed time during ISI, a recurring time-marking click, the periodicity of which was varied, was introduced during the ISI in one of the three series of trials each subject performed. A strong decreasing RT--ISI relationship was observed supporting the main hypothesis. However, a clear increase of mean RT over all ISIs combined, was also found. Because these two mixed effects were greatest when the click intervened at the possible times of ES occurrence only, three functions of time-information given by the click are discussed: (a) a reduction of the usual increase of time estimation error with increased ISI; (b) an increase of the subjects knowledge of the ISI range resulting from the discontinuity of the time-marking click which makes easier a discrete time-intervals numbering process; (c) a change of the simple-RT task into a discrimination task.     

A measurement technique for stability as applied in rifle shooting

A technique is described for the measurement, in the field, of stability and steadiness. Apparatus and method are provided along with suggested scoring procedures.     

Repetition effect with picture stimuli: Possible implications for clarity

Increasing recognition accuracy with repeated presentations was demonstrated for complex pictorial stimuli (real-world photographs) by accuracy, signal detection, and confidence of decision indicators. Consistent with other research, the effect occurred only for short stimulus durations. The effect occurred for both old and new pictures, the rate of improvement being greater for old than for new pictures. Experiment II utilized focus-degraded stimuli to demonstrate that amount of information artifacts were not responsible for the observed differences between responses to old and new pictures.     

Effect of the length of the runs of repetitions on the simple RT-ISI relationship

In a simple RT task the temporal organization of the preparatory processes during a given trial depends upon the time characteristics of the total experimental situation as well as upon the information gathered during one or more previous trials. The present experiment was run in order to determine whether or not these long and short term effects operate independently or interact. The effects of the preceding ISI durations on the simple RT for an ISI 1 (1.5 s) or an ISI 2 (3.0 s) are analysed in 3 experimental conditions differing in the maximum number of successive repetitions (2, 3 or 7) of trials with the same ISI. The results show that the distribution of the preparatory activity during a given trial depends firstly on the number of successive ISIs of the same duration preceding this trial, and secondly on the maximum number of repetitions. An explanation of the subjects' strategy based upon “cost of preparation” is proposed.     

Nurturing and mythus bearing in clergy work motivation

The nature of Protestant clergy work motivation has been unclear. Attempts at clarification by clinical, sociological, and theological investigators have not been generally accepted. This study hypothesized that positive clergy motivation is based upon a preference for anurturing orientation to life and upon satisfaction achieved inmythus-bearing work tasks. One hundred and five parish ministers of a United Church of Christ Conference in the Middle Atlantic states were given the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Work Task Rating Sheet. Responses were evaluated according to preferences for feeling and thinking orientations and according to satisfaction levels in the performance of work tasks. Although three of four specific hypotheses were not supported by statistically significant results, enough support was found fornurturing preference and satisfaction inmythus bearing to warrant further study of these concepts.     

Phonological and semantic priming: Evidence for task-independent effects

The questions asked in the present experiments concern the generality of semantic and phonological priming effects: Do these effects arise automatically regardless of target task, or are these effects restricted to target tasks that specifically require the retrieval of the primed information? In Experiment 1, subjects produced faster color matching times on targets preceded by a masked rhyming prime than on targets preceded by an orthographic control or an unrelated prime. This result suggests that automatic priming effects on the basis of phonological similarity can be obtained even when the target task does not make use of phonological information. This claim was reinforced in Experiment 2 in which a rhyme priming effect and a semantic priming effect were found in a semantic categorization task. In Experiment 3, the target task was phonological (rhyme detection), and, again, both phonological and semantic priming effects were observed. Finally, in Experiments 4 and 5, in a replication and an extension of Experiment 1, phonological and semantic priming effects were found in a color matching task, a task involving neither phonological nor semantic processing. These results are most straightforwardly interpreted by assuming that both semantic and phonological priming effects are, at least in part, due to automatic activation of memorial representations.     

Prejudice Toward Immigrants1

In the present study, 4 variables (realistic threats, symbolic threats, intergroup anxiety, and negative stereotypes) were used to predict prejudice toward immigrants from Cuba, Mexico, and Asia in samples of students from states in the United States that are affected by immigration from these areas (Florida, New Mexico, and Hawaii, respectively). All 4 variables were significant (or marginally significant) predictors of attitudes toward these immigrant groups. Evidence is presented that the predictor variables are conceptually and empirically distinct. However, these variables do appear to be tied together by an underlying theme: They all concern threats to the in-group or its members. Some of the implications of the results for intergroup relations are discussed.