Vertical-horizontal illusion: One eye is better than two

The vertical-horizontal illusion is the tendency for observers to overestimate the length of a vertical line relative to a horizontal line that has the same length. One explanation of this illusion is that the visual field is elongated in the horizontal direction, and that the vertical-horizontal illusion is a kind of framing effect (Künnapas, 1957a, 1957b, 1957c). Since the monocular visual field is less asymmetric than the combined visual field, this theory predicts that the illusion should be reduced with monocular presentation. This prediction was tested in five experiments, in which the vertical-horizontal illusion was examined in a variety of situations—including observers seated upright versus reclined 90°, monocular presentation with the dominant versus the nondominant eye, viewing in the dark versus in the light, and viewing with asymmetrical frames of reference. The illusion was reliably reduced with monocular presentation under conditions that affected the asymmetry of the phenomenal visual field.     

PARENT EDUCATION PROJECT III: INCREASING AFFECTION AND RESPONSIVITY IN DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED MOTHERS: COMPONENT ANALYSIS,GENERALIZATION, AND EFFECTS ON CHILD LANGUAGE

We evaluated the effects of a parent training program consisting of verbal instruction, modeling, and feedback on the affection and responsivity of 3 developmentally handicapped mothers towards their children. The results indicated the following: First, the training package increased maternal physical affection, praise, and imitation of child vocalizations. These parenting skills increased to levels found in comparison groups of nonhandicapped mothers. Second, the training package was more effective than verbal instruction alone, the latter being the predominant method presently used by social service workers. Third, most maternal gains were maintained over a 3- to 18-month follow-up period, although one mother required a reinforced maintenance procedure. Fourth, instructing mothers to generalize served to increase the generalization of newly acquired skills from play times (the training context) to child-care tasks (e.g., diapering, feeding). Fifth, teaching the parents to imitate child vocalizations was related to gains in both the frequency and quality of verbal behavior of the two language delayed children as measured by standardized developmental tests and in vivo comparisons with age-matched children (who had nonhandicapped parents). These results show that behavioral instruction can improve important child-rearing skills of developmentally handicapped mothers, with corresponding benefits to their children.     

Toward an understanding of social consequences of “feminine immodesty” about personal achievements

Two studies examine the hypothesis that females who are immodest about their achievements are perceived more negatively than are males who are immodest. The assumptions that there are social consequences of immodesty, and that women and girls believe there to be such consequences, have been raised in self-presentational explanations of women's tendencies to undervaluate and underestimate their performances. This study provides a test of this assumption is a sample of 236 high school students and 144 teachers. Each judged the intelligence, personality, popularity, and adjustment of a very successful (hypothetical) high school student who was presented as male or female, mdoest or immodest. Two replications allowed this assumptions to be tested for diverse areas of success. Results showed consistent and negative social consequences of immodesty, which were, however, differentially worse for girls in only one of four tests. Other significant effects revealed that the characteristics of the judges was a factor. The findings are interpreted in the context of assumptions in both the popular culture and the research literature that feminine immodesty may be perceived differently than immodesty on the part of males. Directions for future research to elucidate these findings are offered.The help of Mr. W. Alden, Assistant Superintendent, and the teachers at Mt. Greylock High School is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank the Massachusetts teachers who participated in the study during their annual convention, as well as the high school students who participated. This study was supported by research funds from the Bronfman Science Center, Williams College.     

Relations among regular and irregular morphologically related words in the lexicon as revealed by repetition priming

Several experiments examined repetition priming among morphologically related words as a tool to study lexical organization. The first experiment replicated a finding by Stanners, Neiser, Hernon, and Hall (Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1979,18, 399-412), that whereas inflected words prime their unaffixed morphological relatives as effectively as do the unaffixed forms themselves, derived words are effective, but weaker, primes. The experiment also suggested, however, that this difference in priming may have an episodic origin relating to the less formal similarity of derived than of inflected words to unaffixed morphological relatives. A second experiment reduced episodic contributions to priming and found equally effective priming of unaffixed words by themselves, by inflected relatives, and by derived relatives. Two additional experiments found strong priming among relatives sharing the spelling and pronunciation of the unaffixed stem morpheme, sharing spelling alone, or sharing neither formal property exactly. Overall, results with auditory and visual presentations were similar. Interpretations that repetition priming reflects either repeated access to a common lexical entry or associative semantic priming are both rejected in favor of a lexical organization in which components of a word (e.g., a stem morpheme) may be shared among distinct words without the words themselves, in any sense, sharing a “lexical entry.”     

Social context shapes cognitive abilities: associative memories are modulated by fight outcome and social isolation in the crab Neohelice granulata

Animal Cognition - Cognitive abilities of an animal can be influenced by distinct social experiences. However, the extent of this modulation has not been addressed in different learning scenarios:...     

Misreadings by beginning readers of Serbo-Croatian

Errors in reading aloud by the beginning reader have been interpreted as reflecting the difficulty and the importance of phonemic segmentation for the acquisition of reading skills. Results from previous studies on English words patterned as consonant-vowel-consonant showed: (1) more errors on vowels than on consonants; (2) more errors on word final consonants than on word initial consonants; and suggested that (3) consonant errors were based on phonetic confusions while vowel errors were not. In contrast to their English counterparts, the beginning readers of Serbo-Croatian tested in the present study committed proportionally fewer errors on their reading of vowels than of consonants but in common with their English counterparts, their reading of final consonants was more vulnerable to error than their reading of initial consonants. This pattern of errors was found for both word and pseudoword consonant-vowel-consonant structures and the pattern of vowel confusion, like the pattern of consonant confusions, was rationalized by speech-related factors. The differences between the patterns of confusions for Serbo-Croatian and for English could be due to the difference between the two orthographies in the precision with which they represent the phonology or to the fact that the vowels of English are qualitatively less distinct phonologically than the vowels of Serbo-Croatian.