Spatial attention and expectancy for colour, category and location: further evidence against the spotlight model.

A study of spatial attention is reported in which different colours and categories of object tended to appear at different locations. Subjects made speeded orientation judgements to alphanumeric characters that could appear either above or below the centre of a display. In the Colour Condition subjects were informed that red characters tended to appear at one location (p = 0.8), while green characters tended to appear at the other. In the Category Condition letters tended to appear at one location, and digits at the other. Before each trial subjects were cued to expect either a red or a green character (Colour Condition); or a letter or a digit (Category Condition). It was found that spatial selectivity varied according to the colour, or category of object presented. The latter finding replicated an earlier report (Lambert 1987). Spatial selectivity was appropriate for the character presented, even when it was in the uncued colour (or category). It is concluded that subjects are able to form and make use of complex attentional expectancies concerning combinations of colour with location, and category with location. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

Stereotypes and social judgment: the effects of typicality and group heterogeneity

Two experiments showed that when subjects believed a group to be heterogenous, they based their liking for a particular group member on their liking for the group as a whole, independently of and in addition to the target's behavior, and regardless of the target's typicality. When they believed the group to be homogenous, however, they treated the target's typicality as a favorable or unfavorable attribute, which affected their evaluation. The latter subjects used their group stereotype as a standard of comparison in judging the implications of the target's behavior for a trait to which it was relevant. All subjects' stereotypes had a positive influence on judgments of stereotyped-related traits for which the target's behavior was uninformative. A conceptualization is proposed to account for these findings.     

Naturalistic assessment of children's compliance to teachers' requests and consequences for compliance

Naturally occurring levels of teacher commands, child compliance to those commands, and positive and negative teacher feedback were studied in 19 teachers and 130 children in kindergarten through third grade. Seventy-five of the children had been identified as "making a good social adjustment" to school (high-rated) and 55 children were identified as "not making a good social adjustment" to school (low-rated). Results of intensive observation over a 4-wk period showed that: (a) individual teachers differed significantly in their overall use of commands; however, they did not differentially respond to high- versus low-rated children; (b) high-rated children were more likely to comply with commands than were low-rated children; (c) although the overall level of positive social consequences was extremely low, there was some indication that high-rated children were more likely to receive positive feedback for compliance than were low-rated children; (d) low-rated children received significantly more positive feedback than high-rated children for noncompliance; (e) teachers gave negative feedback for noncompliance at an equal level to both groups of children; and (f) although repeated teacher commands following noncompliance were equal across groups, low-rated children were exposed to significantly higher levels of repeated commands following compliance than were high-rated youngsters.     

Recent Publications in Journals

[Authors are asked to send offprints of articles in learned journals on subjects relevant to this section. Offprints of articles in other publications will not normally be reported on here, likewise offprints of articles in books since they may constitute part of a volume that can be made the subject matter of a review.]     

Avoidance conditioning with shock contingent upon the avoidance response

Rats learned either a lever-press response, a shuttle response or a one-way crossing response, which produced one immediate shock but was instrumental in avoiding five identical shocks scheduled to occur later. These responses were acquired both with and without support of an escape contingency. These results support shock-frequency reduction as a sufficient condition for the acquisition and maintenance of avoidance.     

Reviews

F rey -R ohn , L iliane , From Freud to Jung: a comparative study of the psychology of the unconscious.
H illman , James. Re-visioning psychology.
W ilhelm , H elmut . Change: eight lectures on the I Ching.
P incus , L ily . Death and the family: the importance of mourning. Pantheon
P arkes , C olin M urray . Bereavement: studies of grief in adult life.
E isenstein , S amuel A. Boarding the ship of death.
H enderson , J ames L. A bridge across time.     

The effects of spontaneous and voluntary facial reactions on surprise and humor

Two investigations were conducted to determine the nature of the relationship between facial reactions and surprise and humor ratings as suggested by the facial feedback hypothesis. In the correlational investigation, individual subjects showed a positive correlation between their spontaneous facial reactions and funniness ratings over 36 cartoons (within subjects). Subjects who were facially more reactive to all the cartoons, however, did not rate them as funnier than did subjects who were less facially reactive (between subjects). In the experimental investigation, spontaneous facial reactions were evoked by a discrepant weight and also were inhibited or amplified on verbal demand. Surprise and funniness ratings varied with spontaneous facial reactions but were unaffected when those reactions were voluntarily inhibited or amplified. The results were interpreted as not supporting the facial feedback hypothesis and suggested that facial reactions may only correlate with emotional experience.These investigations were supported by Ball State University Research Grants.     

The sensitization of humor responses to cartoons

It was hypothesized that a humor response to a cartoon in a series depends upon arousal or increased salience, both of which may be produced by preceding cartoons. A humor response, however, should eventually decline owing to habituation. Three experiments were conducted in order to determine if responding to cartoons with the same theme depends upon the cartoon's serial position. Facial responses and ratings of funniness increased over the first few cartoons, reflecting the effect of arousal or salience. It appears that the initial cartoons make the person more sensitive to later cartoons. A downward trend in responding was more apparent for facial responses than for funniness ratings. The evidence for habituation was weak, however, and did not seem occur to the experimenter-defined cartoon theme. Cartoons even representing the same theme may be too variable to permit habituation. It was suggested that cartoon researchers be aware of the effect of a cartoon's serial position on humor responses.The investigators would like to thank Michael Davis, Michael Mullins, and Elizabeth Weaver for their assistance in data collection and analyses.     

Principal components analyses of behavior problems in Jamaican clinic-referred children: Teacher reports for ages 6–17

Factor analyses of child behavior problems have often yielded two broadband syndromes, Overcontrolled (e.g., worrying, fearfulness, withdrawal) and Undercontrolled (e.g., restlessness, fighting, disobedience). We explored whether these two broad-band syndromes might be identified for youngsters in Jamaica. We obtained teacher reports for 320 clinic-referred Jamaican youngsters on a 24-item problem checklist designed by Jamaican clinicians for the assessment of child behavior problems and subjected these to principal components analyses. Regardless of whether the sample was split according to age or sex, the analyses revealed factors similar to the Over- and Undercontrolled syndromes most often found in other cultures. The analyses also revealed school absence factors in each age and sex group; school avoidance was correlated with crying in children (aged 6–11) but with conduct problems in adolescents (aged 12–17). The findings suggest important similarities and possible differences between the factor structures of child behavior problems in Jamaica and the United States.This study was supported through grants from the University Research Council of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, which we gratefully acknowledge. We thank Frank Knight, Patricia Smykle, Mary Desouza, Larry Galpert, Kathay Overly, and Bernadette Walter for this assistance with data gathering and data reduction.