A revised law of comparative judgment

In contrast to Thurstone's Law of Comparative Judgment, a model in which a comparison pair and its complement are assumed to give rise to two different distributions of differences is considered. The consequences of this revised model on scaling problems is developed.The research in this article was supported jointly by the Army, Navy, and Air Force under contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.     

Separation of data as a principle in factor analysis

Two systems of factor analysis—factoring correlations with units in the diagonal cells and factoring correlations with communalities in the diagonal cells—are considered in relation to the commonly used statistical procedure of separating a set of data (scores) into two or more parts. It is shown that both systems of factor analysis imply the separation of the observed data into two orthogonal parts. The matrices used to achieve the separation differ for the two systems of factor analysis.     

A vigilance task sensitive to the effects of stimulants, hypnotics, and environmental stress: The Scanning Visual Vigilance Test

The Scanning Visual Vigilance Test is a variable-length detection test designed to assess the ability of individuals to maintain visual alertness for sustained periods of time. The test was designed to be sensitive to changes in vigilance produced by subtle variations in performance, such as those produced by low doses of centrally acting food constituents, drugs, or environmental stress. The test has been shown to be sensitive to the effects of stimulants and sedatives, as well as cold stress and sleep loss. It requires the subject to continuously scan a video monitor to detect the occurrence of infrequent stimuli that are difficult to detect. The number of stimuli correctly detected, false alarms, and reaction times are recorded. The stimulus is a small rectangle displayed for 2 sec at random locations on a darker region of a video monitor at random or pseudo-random times. The brightness of the stimulus can be adjusted for each subject individually on an automated threshold detection test. Training and test session length are defined by the experimenter. Hardware requirements are an IBM-compatible personal computer (286 or higher) with a color or grayscale VGA monitor.     

Content analysis in negotiation research: A review and guide

Content analysis, a technique in which inferences are derived from the communication of interacting parties, is not utilized enough in mainstream negotiation research. The purpose of the present article is to outline the benefits and limitations inherent in the content analysis technique, to provide a comprehensive review of content analysis systems that have been used in the past, and to evaluate the existing systems in an effort to guide readers in the decision process. This article aids the potential consumer—any person considering the use of content analysis in negotiation research—in making informed choices regarding this technique. Choice among existing systems should be based upon one’s research question and upon accepted standards of quality. A system that is relatively comprehensive, well grounded in theory, and demonstrates acceptable levels of reliability is advocated. Specific recommendations regarding quality systems are provided.     

Most Admired Women and Men: Gallup,Good Housekeeping,and gender

In order to understand how gender roles influence the selection of people who are admired, we analyzed the results of the Most Admired Men and Women polls conducted annually by Gallup and Good Housekeeping. Most Admired Men were more likely than women to have achieved their fame without sponsorship of a well-known family or spouse. However, the proportion of Autonomous women was higher in the 1980s and 1990s than previously. Men were more likely to be admired for their service in the military, politics, religion, and economics; women were more likely to be admired because they belonged to a royal or political family, or because of their work as activists and reformers or in the area of entertainment and culture. A small percentage of both men and women had been the victim of personal tragedy. The great majority of the admired individuals were White Americans. No Hispanics or Native Americans made the lists, and all but one of the Asians were women. In short, both gender and ethnic stereotypes seem to have influenced the choice of Most Admired Men and Women.     

Personality of College Under-Achievers Who Improve with Group Psychotherapy

The 16 PF and a rating scale were given to a group of college underachievers and the following subgroups emerged: 38 test responders (TR) who were not interested in group therapy, an experimental (E) group containing 19 subjects who received group therapy, and a control (C) group containing 13 subjects who were interested in but did not receive group therapy. After an interval of about 17 weeks, and following the termination of group therapy for the E group, data on academic improvement were obtained. The results indicate: (a) significantly greater academic improvement in the E group than in the C group; (b) higher correlations between certain adaptive or “healthy” personality variables and academic improvement in the E group than in the TR and C groups.     

What's so logical about the “logical” axioms?

Intuitionists and classical logicians use in common a large number of the logical axioms, even though they supposedly mean different things by the logical connectives and quantifiers — conquans for short. But Wittgenstein says The meaning of a word is its use in the language. We prove that in a definite sense the intuitionistic axioms do indeed characterize the logical conquans, both for the intuitionist and the classical logician.