Attentional biases and the right-ear effect in dichotic listening

Most dichotic listening experiments permit subjects to deploy attention in any way they choose. We argue that this adds uncontrolled variance to the observed right-ear advantage. In the first experiment, more robust laterality effects were obtained in an identification task with focused than with divided attention. Such differences were not found in the second experiment, when a detection procedure was used. Virtually all the laterality effect observed in the second study could be attributed to subjects who were biased attenders, in the sense that they exhibited more intrusions from the right ear to the left than vice versa. However, rather than indicating that laterality effects are simply attentional bias, this effect can be attributed to an asymmetry of perceptual discrimination.     

Framework for formal ontology

The discussions which follow rest on a distinction, first expounded by Husserl, between formal logic and formal ontology. The former concerns itself with (formal) meaning-structures; the latter with formal structures amongst objects and their parts. The paper attempts to show how, when formal ontological considerations are brought into play, contemporary extensionalist theories of part and whole, and above all the mereology of Leniewski, can be generalised to embrace not only relations between concrete objects and object-pieces, but also relations between what we shall call dependent parts or moments. A two-dimensional formal language is canvassed for the resultant ontological theory, a language which owes more to the tradition of Euler, Boole and Venn than to the quantifier-centred languages which have predominated amongst analytic philosophers since the time of Frege and Russell. Analytic philosophical arguments against moments, and against the entire project of a formal ontology, are considered and rejected. The paper concludes with a brief account of some applications of the theory presented.     

Psychometric detection of schizotypy: perceptual aberration and physical anhedonia in relatives of schizophrenics.

We administered scales of Perceptual Aberration (PERAB) and Physical Anhedonia (PHYSAN), traits that may be related to risk for schizophrenia, to 54 schizophrenics, 146 of their first-degree relatives (evaluated for schizophrenia-related disorders), and 178 normal subjects (screened for psychotic disorders in them or their relatives). For both scales, there was a significant effect of group membership. For the PERAB scale, the schizophrenics had higher scores than the normal subjects, who had higher scores than the relatives. For the PHYSAN scale, schizophrenics had higher scores than their relatives, who had higher scores than the normal subjects. Patterns of familial correlations also suggested that physical anhedonia, but not perceptual aberration, may be familial among schizophrenics and their relatives. The PHYSAN scale, but not the PERAB one, may be a useful indicator of liability for schizophrenia among the relatives of affected probands.     

Self-Consciousness and Strategic Self-Presentation

ABSTRACT People who are publicly self-conscious have been characterized as being especially concerned about their social identities and oriented toward gaining approval and avoiding disapproval. In two experiments, it was found that “pure publics” (i.e., those high in public and low in private self-consciousness) were the most concerned about matching their deeds and words. These subjects presented themselves to a partner consistently with their publicly known, prior performance on a supposedly valid test of social sensitivity. However, they presented themselves in a uniformly positive manner if the test could be dismissed as invalid and/or if their performance was unknown. In contrast, subjects low in public or high in private self-consciousness did not display these strategic patterns and presented themselves positively in all cases. Pure publics are thus the most likely to engage in patterns of self-presentation that have been shown to maximize approval and minimize disapproval in social interactions.     

Word repetitions in sentence recognition

When some items on a list are strengthened by extra study time or repetitions, recognition of other, unrelated, list items is not harmed (Ratcliff, Clark, & Shiffrin, 1990). Shiffrin, Ratcliff, and Clark (1990) accounted for this list-strength finding with a model assuming that different items are stored separately in memory, but that repetitions are accumulated together into a single stronger memory trace. Repeating words in the context of different sentences might cause separate storage of the repetitions of a given word, because either word or sentence traces are stored separately. Separate storage would, in effect, convert a list-strength manipulation into a list-length manipulation and thereby induce a positive list-strength effect. In Experiment 1, this result was produced for single-word recognition and for two types of sentence recognition. In Experiment 2, both words and sentences were repeated together, which should have caused repetitions to be stored in a single, stronger, trace. As expected, the list-strength effect was eliminated. A sentence trace model was fit to the data, supporting the account of Shiffrin et al. (1990) and supporting an account of word and sentence recognition in which activation is summed for representations of all list items. The results from the two studies are inconsistent with most current models of memory (as shown by the theoretical analyses of Shiffrin et al., 1990) and pose an additional challenge for theory.     

Rater information acquisition processes: Tracing the effects of prior knowledge, performance level, search constraint, and memory demand

Research on performance ratings has tended to neglect factors affecting raters' acquisition of ratee performance information. The present research examined the dynamic effects of this rater information acquisition process. Study 1 examined the effects of prior ratee knowledge (familiarity) and ratee performance level on subsequent acquisition of ratee performance information under varying levels of constraint. After exposure to prior ratee information, raters acquired additional information concerning a set of ratees using a computer controlled information board procedure. The results indicated significant effects on the amount of search for prior knowledge, search constraint, and the interaction between prior knowledge and performance level. Study 2 extended the research by including a memory component (time delay) between the exposure to prior information and subsequent search. Results were congruent with Study 1. They indicated significant main effects on the amount of search for prior knowledge, ratee performance level, search constraint, and on the interaction between prior knowledge and performance level. In addition, the results indicated a significant interaction between memory demand and prior knowledge. Implications of these results, limitations, and extensions of this research approach are discussed.     

Communication and language in severely deaf adolescents

One of the most important psychological effects of early severe or profound deafness is an impairment in natural language-processing ability, with a consequent reduction in communicative skill secondary to the sensory deficit. Prelingual damage blocks the development of certain sequential/syntactical skills necessary for the acquisition of normal linguistic competence. Educators of the deaf in the UK have typically attempted to improve linguistic ability using amplification and intensive training in lip-reading, but evidence from several psychological studies suggests that communication systems based upon manual signing are more productive of both linguistic and basic cognitive skills. This paper reports an experimental study of the communicative characteristics of both oral and total communication systems as a function of language structure. For almost all types of structure investigated, the total system was found to be the more effective method of communication.     

A constructivist analysis of the Rotter I-E scale1

A conception of locus of control attribution was advanced as an alternative to the generalized expectancy view presented by Rotter. That alternative stems from regarding the individual as actively constructing a pattern of specific choice consequence relations out of his/her ongoing experience. An integration of structural and factor approaches was used to analyze the Rotter I-E scale. The structural analysis categorized items on four dimensions (focus, area, self-attribution and world attribution) and indicated that the I-E scale unevenly represents the domain it encompasses. Nevertheless, specification of that structural matrix helps to provide a more comprehensive framework for interpreting I-E response patterns of 216 high school juniors and seniors. For example, male responses cohered around asserting active control over tasks hut attributing control to external sources with regard both to personal issues and to more abstract systems-related issues. Females organized their senses of self-efficacy with a central theme being that of a passive agent stance, plus an expectation that circumstances would provide equality of opportunities to which they could respond. Thus the present approach has demonstrated its utility in interpreting I-E findings and its conceptual advantage for personality research on locus of control and on similiar attributional characteristics.