Preschool children's understanding of the coordinators “and” and “or”

The development of the understanding of the words and and or was studied. Children in the age interval 2:0–7:6 received two tests of word understanding, varying in the degree to which the context of the test items contributed in determining the meaning of the connectives, and one test of spontaneous usage. The results from the tests of word understanding showed that the context variable facilitated small children's responding, and that most reponses were correct at the age of four and beyond. The results from the production test indicated that and was used to express enummerations and or to express alternatives. The difference between the linguistic and the logical meaning of the connectives was discussed.     

Ästhetische Befriedigung und Unbestimmtheitsreduktion

Zusammenfassung Vpn mußten unter standardisierten Bedingungen zweidimensionale Farbmuster herstellen, die ihrer Meinung nach ästhetisch maximal befriedigend, bzw. maximal unbefriedigend waren. Die beiden Gruppen von Bildern wurden untersucht, wobei sich eine Gruppe von ästhetisch befriedigenden und zwei Gruppen von ästhetisch unbefriedigenden Bildern zeigten. Eine weitere Analyse ergab, daß sich die ästhetisch befriedigenden Bilder von den ästhetisch unbefriedigenden statistisch darin unterscheiden, daß bei den ästhetisch befriedigenden Bildern die Farbelemente in hohem Maße zum Aufbau komplizierter und tiefer Hierarchien von Zeichen höherer Ordnung verwendet wurden, wohingegen bei den ästhetisch unbefriedigenden Mustern übergeordnete Konfigurationen entweder nur in einfacher Form und flachen Hierarchien auftreten (1. Gruppe) oder Zeichen höherer Ordnung gar nicht vorhanden sind (2. Gruppe). Aufgrund der empirischen Ergebnisse wird die Hypothese aufgestellt, daß ästhetische Befriedigung auf Unbestimmtheitsreduktion gegen Widerstand zurückgeführt werden kann. In einem nachfolgenden Experiment wurde diese Hypothese geprüft und bestätigt.

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Aesthetical appreciation and the reduction of uncertainty

Summary Subjects were asked to construct colored pictures which they considered to be aesthetically maximally pleasing or unpleasing. These two groups of pictures were analyzed and it was found that the aesthetically pleasing pictures showed a statistically significant increase in the number of higher order configurations of color elements and a greater hierarchical organization of such configurations. Furthermore, the higher order configurations of the aesthetically pleasing pictures were of a more complicated structure than the higher order configurations of the aesthetically unpleasing pictures. Considering these results, the hypothesis was raised that aesthetical appreciation may be based on the reduction of uncertainty against the resistance of a complicated system of ordering relations within a stimulus. This hypothesis was tested and verified in a subsequent experiment.

     

Generative theories in language and music descriptions

The style of a set of Swedish nursery tunes is described in terms of a generative rule system. A generative rule system producing melodically similar versions of an old Swedish folk song is also presented. Examples of melodies generated by these two rule systems are given.Both these rule systems are similar in several respects. Thus, the marking of the hierarchical constituent structure seems to be one of the important principles in composing simple melodies.The rule systems also show a number of similarities with the Chomsky & Halle (1968) generative phonology of English. For instance, the procedures used for deriving a stress contour from a tree diagram are almost identical. Moreover, in sentences as in melodies this stress, or prominence contour is of decisive importance to the generation of the surface structure, such as meter, harmony, and sequences of pitches. It is believed that such parallels between language and music reflect characteristics of man's perceptual and cognitive capacities.     

Obsessional-compulsive checking: Experimental replication and development

The purpose of this experiment was to resolve some inconclusive findings from an earlier study on the effects of compulsive checking rituals. Twelve obsessional-compulsive checkers carried out a provoking act followed by their compulsive checking ritual, in natural situations, under two conditions—E present and E absent. The provoking act produced subjective discomfort, tension, worry and anxiety; these feelings were reduced after completion of the checking ritual. Both the increases and post-ritual decreases in discomfort were more pronounced in the spontaneous occurrence condition (E absent). The results are consistent with the hypothesis that compulsive rituals serve to reduce discomfort.     

NOTE ON SIMULTANEOUS DISCRIMINATION OF VISUAL ATTRIBUTES

van der H eijden A. H. C. Note on simultaneous discrimination of visual attributes. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1972, 13 , 71–72.—A tachistoscopically presented stimulus, provided it is above threshold, results in a visual image with a minimum duration of about 250 msec. In experiments on visual information processing, therefore, the results must be interpreted in terms of 'effective stimulus duration' (exposure time and duration of visual image) rather than exposure time alone.     

Psychische und physische Reaktionen auf Geräusch verschiedener subjektiver Wertigkeit

Zusammenfassung In dieser Untersuchung wurde die Abhängigkeit der physischen und psychischen Komponenten der Lärmwirkung von der Wertigkeit des Lärms analysiert.Hierbei wurde physikalisch identischem Lärm einmal eine positive, einmal eine negative, einmal keine Valenz experimentell verliehen. Die Ergebnisse weisen in Richtung der gestellten Hypothesen. Die Verschiedenheit der emotionalen Valenz beeinflußt die Stellungnahme der Vp zu der Lärmsituation, sie beeinflußt das Ausmaß der durch den Lärm bewirkten Muskelspannung und das Ausmaß der durch den Lärm bewirkten Hörschwellenverschieung. Nach der Darstellung der verschiedenen Versuchsergebnisse wurden Spekulationen über eine mögliche psychologische Interpretation angestellt.

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Psychological and physiological reactions to noise of different subjective valence (TTS and EMG)

Summary The hypothesis is proposed that physiological and psychological reactions to noise are not independent from one another. 2 groups of Ss were exposed to an identical tape of interrupted white noise of 95 dB. For group A noise was the signal that they had made an error in a pseudo-tracking task; for the other group (B) the same noise was the signal that they were on target in the pseudo-tracking task. A third group (C) of Ss heard the same noise without any task.The dependent variables were: a) temporary threshold shift (TTS), b) muscle tension as measured by electromyography, c) subjective scaling of the amount of annoyance and disturbance induced by the noise and of the general sensitivity for noise of the S.Results: Ss who invest the noise with a positive emotional valence feel themselves less disturbed, less annoyed and in general less susceptible to noise than Ss who receive the same noise with negative valence.Muscle tension is highest for group A, less for group B, least for group C.The amount of TTS is dependent upon the valence of the noise: noise with negative valence results in a TTS of 18.1 dB, whereas noise of neutral or positive valence leads to a TTS of only 11.0 resp. 12.8 dB.The results are discussed in relation to noise research and to activation theory and detection theory.

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Diese Untersuchung entstand, als die beiden erstgenannten Verfasser am Psychologischen Institut der Freien Universität Berlin und H. Gummlich am Institut für Technische Akustik der Technischen Universität Berlin (Direktor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. L. Cremer), Lehrgebiet Geräuschbekämpfung (Prof. Dr. E. Lübcke) tätig waren. Wir danken Herrn Prof. Cremer dafür, daß er die Camera silenta seines Instituts und neben anderen Apparaturen das Békésy-Audiometer zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Herrn Prof. Lübcke danken wir für seinen wertvollen Rat. Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft hat die Untersuchung großzügig unterstützt.     

Sequence influence on the organization of meaningless serial stimuli: economy after all

This article provides evidence for an extension of structural information theory, a theory which describes perceptual organization formally, into a more general theory of representation that takes the role of organizations obtained earlier into account. In eight experiments, subjects study series of colored dots. Each series contained 6-8 dots of different colors, and viewing time was between 400 ms and 60 s. In several experimental procedures, subjects recalled the series presented. The experiments systematically varied the economy of the organizations of the series as described by structural information theory as well as a number of aspects of the context in which the series were presented, like order of presentation of a series, order between the series, viewing span, viewing time, and recall procedure. Recall was influenced both by the economy as well as by the context. It is shown how the context influences the relative strength of the most economical organization as compared with rival, local organizations. A structured network model is presented that accounts for the influence of both the economy and the context.     

Agoraphobia and Locus of Control

This study investigated whether external locus of control, as measured with the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, is a specific feature of agoraphobia or whether it characterizes neurosis in general. Forty agoraphobic patients, 81 nonagoraphobic neurotic controls, and 49 normal controls completed the Dutch version of the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. Agoraphobic patients were found to have a more external orientation as compared to the normal controls, but as a group, they could not be identified as being different from neurotic controls.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon 560-268-001).