Visual texture perception and Fourier analysis

The relationship between the Fourier spectra of visual textures (represented by four hypothetical visual channels sensitive to spatial frequencies) and the perceptual appearance of the textures was investigated. Thirty textures were synthesized by combining various spatial frequencies of different amplitudes. Twenty subjects grouped the textures into 2, 3, 4, and 5 groups based on the similarity of their appearance. The groupings were analyzed by means of linear discriminant analysis using the activity of the four channels as predictor variables. The groupings were also examined by multidimensional scaling, and the resulting stimulus configuration was canonically correlated with the channel activity. The results of both analyses indicate a strong relationship between the perceptual appearance of the textures and their Fourier spectra. These findings suport a multiple-channel spatial-frequency model of perception.     

Occupational change in mid-career: An exploratory investigation

Twenty-five people who had made voluntary, radical occupational changes in mid-career were interviewed and compared and contrasted with people remaining in matched occupations. Four categories of factors emerged from the data as being important to mid-career occupational change: factors associated with the first occupation, factors associated with the second occupation, obstacles to change, and personal factors. Dissatisfaction with the first occupation and attraction to a second occupation are both necessary for change to occur but do not in all cases cause change. Dissatisfaction results from a lack of congruence between a person's work orientations and the rewards of an occupation, and attraction results from a perceived congruence between the two. Obstacles to change are most financial in nature and can deter or delay change even when dissatisfaction and attraction exist. Differing personal beliefs about the control one has over one's life and one's ability to succeed in new areas in large part determine whether obstacles deter change or not.     

Beauty Is Only "Name" Deep: The Effect of First-Name On Ratings of Physical Attraction

College students ( n = 197) voted to select a beauty queen from among six photographs equivalent in physical attractiveness, as determined by rankings of 35 students from a separate university. Half the photographs bore a desirable first-name and half were assigned an undesirable first-name. As predicted, firstname had a significant effect on physical attraction: Girls with desirable firstnames received 158 votes to 39 for those with undesirable names. These data were discussed in terms of an additive, rather than an interactive, effect, due to the nature of the task. The strength of these findings was related to the study's ecological validity.     

Structure and pragmatics of a self-theory of memory

Eight hundred ninety-three students completed statements from a questionnaire concerning their perceptions of their memory abilities. Twenty-nine memory domains and experiences, such as memory for smells or memory for names, were distributed across 60 statements in the questionnaire. A factor analysis yielded three meaningful factors: (1) a verbal memory factor, which included memory for names, trivia, and words; (2)a personal past memory factor, which included memory for childhood, dreams, painful experiences, and smells; and (3) an appointments factor, which included memory for appointments, personal articles, anniversaries, and so on. Factor scores from the first factor were used in two subsequent experiments: In one, factor scores correlated with performance on a trivia questionnaire; in the other, factor scores correlated with the amount of play money wagered in a twocontestant trivia quiz. Results of both studies suggested that attempts to validate the factors with behavioral measures would succeed. The framework of self-theory of memory was used in discussing the results and in suggesting directions for future inquiry.