The relative intelligibility threshold for one's own name compared with other names

Two recent experiments (Moray, 1959; Oswald, Taylor and Treisman, 1960) have shown that in dichotic listening, and in sleep one's own name seems to be responded to selectively. We have shown for 10 subjects, each listening binaurally to the same recording of a list of their names repeated at random 10 times, and masked by noise, that the subject's own name had a significantly lower threshold than other names. The effect we found was not significantly different from the one found by Oswald et al. during sleep and by Moray for the dichotic situation.

These three experiments taken together suggest that the same pattern-analysing mechanism is involved in normal listening, dichotic listening to the rejected message, and in discrimination during sleep.     

An analysis of Guttman's simplex

Applying a Spearman formula for factor loadings to a variant of the diagonal method, the Guttman simplex model is factored algebraically inton/2 additive factors. The finding that communalities can be discovered such that the rank of a simplex becomesn/2 is contradictory to Guttman's contention that the minimal rank isn — 2. Certain matrices of 4 and 5 variables presented by Guttman as simplexes, can, in general, be considered 2-factor matrices, easily analyzed to simple structure without rotation. One example of 6 variables is factored by the method described to a 3-factor structure.Prepared under Contract 816(02) between the Office of Naval Research and Washington University and presented in part at a meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, St. Louis, Missouri, March 27, 1959. Permission is granted for reproduction, translation, publication, use, and disposal in whole and in part by or for the United States Government.     

TIME RELATIONS IN DREAMS: A preliminary note

Examples are given of hypnotically induced dreams, which support the notion that series of experiences corresponding to long spans of objective time may be represented in dreams of very short duration. Both stimulus and organismic factors determine the contents of such dreams.     

Choice reaction times for skilled responses

Two kinds of choice reaction time experiments are reported, both of which make use of a highly overlearned sensori-motor response. When a response is required for each stimulus presented, no increase in reaction time occurs as a function of the number of alternative stimuli available. It is proposed that the increase in choice reaction times commonly thought to accompany an increase in the number of alternative choices provided reflects the unpractised state of the responder. When a response is required for only one out of n possible stimuli, a slight but consistent increase in reaction time takes place with an increase in the number of alternatives. An analogy is drawn between the second experiment and a vigilance task and an expectancy hypothesis is invoked to explain the results.