Some perceptual and cognitive factors in mirror tracing: their limits.

Three mirror tracing experiments were conducted to investigate the connection between perception and motor behavior. In the first experiment, some subjects traced a hex-maze, other subjects traced a hex-maze after observing a model trace, others traced a hex-maze after reading instructions on mirror images, and others traced a hex-maze after having observed a model and heard the instructions. There were no significant differences between the groups' error scores, but their time scores differed significantly, although not always in the predicted direction. In Experiment 2, the subjects were to trace selected letters of the alphabet. Error scores for the second experiment did not differ much from those for the first experiment. In Experiment 3, the experimenter gave each subject commands for the correct directions of movement, using the subject's body as a frame-of-reference. There was little improvement in motor performance. These results suggest that the visual information presented in the mirror captured the subjects' attention and blocked their motor tracing program.     

The role of attention in children's time perception.

This study tested the role of attention in 7- to 9-year-old children's time estimation. Based on an attentional model of time estimation, it was hypothesized that prospective estimates of short intervals are a function of the degree to which a child is occupied with the passage of time and is focusing his or her attention on estimating the exposure time of a stimulus. Two experiments with two different manipulations on attentional focus were conducted. Eighty children were exposed to two types of light bulbs, one a big bulb kindled with high intensity and the other a small one kindled with low intensity. The light bulbs were kindled for different intervals ranging from 3 to 10 s. In both experiments children estimated the lighting time of the bulbs in each condition by a reproduction method. In the first experiment prospective time estimates were found to be significantly longer than retrospective ones. In the second experiment children gave shorter time estimates when their attention was attracted away from the time estimation task than when it was not. In both experiments the attentional hypothesis was supported. In addition, support for the "more is more" hypothesis was obtained. Implications for understanding children's time perception processes are discussed.     

Information Load: A Test of an Inverted-U Hypothesis with Hourly and Salaried Employees

We surveyed 714 hourly and 516 salaried employees of a midwestern telephone company to test the effects of information load on work-related outcomes. Using curvilinear regression analyses, we found support for our hypothesis that employees are less satisfied with outcomes as the load of information deviates positively or negatively from some level. We also predicted, and found, that this quadratic function was more prevalent in the hourly group than in the salaried group. Implications, future research directions, and limitations of the present study are discussed.     

Prejudice Against a Progay Man in an Everyday Situation: A Scenario Study1

A scenario study was performed to investigate whether people in the street would be less likely to respond positively to a stranger's request for a small favor if the stranger wore a T-shirt bearing a progay slogan. One hundred and eighteen female and 112 male participants were each presented with six scenarios, all of which asked them to imagine being approached by a person requesting change for a banknote. The dependent variable in the study was the participant's judgment, on a 7-point scale, of how likely he or she would be to help. Five of the scenarios were included as distractors. In the critical scenario, the requester was described as wearing a plain T-shirt or one with either a progay or a control slogan printed on it. The male participants in the progay condition showed a significantly lower level of help than those in either of the control groups. The antigay pattern, however, was not obtained in the responses of the female participants. The results are discussed with reference to other findings in the literature, and their implications for people's responses to progay persons in everyday life are considered.     

The Discrediting Effect in Eyewitness Testimony1

Loftus (1974) had subjects read summaries of criminal trials that contained the testimony of either credible or discredited prosecution eyewitnesses, and found no effect of discrediting an eyewitness. Instead, almost as many subjects voted guilty with a discredited eyewitness as with a credible eyewitness; this led Loftus to the conclusion that jurors tend to overbelieve eyewitness testimony. Loftus's conclusion was subsequently challenged by others who reported a strong discrediting effect. A series of three experiments using college students was conducted to explore the characteristics of trial summaries that might account for the discrepancy in results, such as inclusion of judicial instructions concerning proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or an eyewitness's reaffirmation of his testimony following discrediting. In all cases, a strong discrediting effect was found. Apparently the discrediting effect appears regardless of wide variation in content of trial summaries. The present data do not support the overbelief claim.     

Developmental amnesia

The concept of developmental amnesia is proposed to describe the impairment of normal memories during a person's school age life. One hundred psychotherapy patients were interviewed and the age of earliest memories ranged from 1–12 years, with a mode of 5 years. Memory was continuous for 53% of patients by 1st grade, while 18% reported life memory was still episodic at age 18 or later. Parental alcohol problems were associated with delay of continuous memories.     

On the special status of "ego threats".

This article comments on a recent article by Heatherton, Herman, and Polivy (1991) in which they suggest that ego threats are a prerequisite to affectively induced disinhibition of food intake in restrained eaters and current dieters. In contrast, the present review suggests that mood induction procedures that involve no apparent threat (e.g., viewing a frightening film) can also prompt disinhibition in restrained eaters. Thus, any mood induction procedure that does not directly physically threaten the S may disinhibit restrained eaters. It is concluded that recommendations to focus future research on ego threats are premature and may serve to obscure the mechanisms by which changes in affective state influence food intake in dieters.     

Social support, depressed mood, and adjustment to stress: a genetic epidemiologic investigation.

A survey of 821 same-sex female twin pairs from a population-based registry assessed 8 dimensions of social support and social integration. Twin analyses documented significant common environmental influences on 5 of these 8 measures and significant genetic influences on 5 of the 8. A decomposition of the multiplicative association between support and a measure of stressful life experiences in predicting depressed mood--an association typically interpreted as providing evidence for a stress-buffering effect of social support--shows clearly that it is the environmental and genetic factors that cause support, rather than support itself, that buffer the effects of stress on mood in most cases. We discuss the implications of this result for future research on the relationship between social support and psychopathology.     

Coordination of knowledge in communication: effects of speakers' assumptions about what others know.

Two pairs of studies examined effects of perspective taking in communication, using a 2-stage methodology that first obtained people's estimates of the recognizability to others of specific stimuli (public figures and everyday objects) and then examined the effects of these estimates on message formulation in a referential communication task. Ss were good at estimating stimulus identifiability but were biased in the direction of their own knowledge. The amount of information in a referring expression varied inversely with the perceived likelihood that addresses could identify the target stimulus. However, effects were less strong than anticipated. Although communicators do take others' knowledge into account, the extent to which they do so involves a trade-off with other sorts of information in the communicative situation.