Visual Elaboration Scale as a measure of imagery

We studied the correlation of one measure of imagery ability, the Visual Elaboration Scale, with two others, absorption of image and effort required to form a mental image. Significant correlations were obtained between the Visual Elaboration Scale and the other scales, with the exception of Absorption for women.     

Generalized approaches to the maxbet problem and the maxdiff problem,with applications to canonical correlations

Van de Geer has reviewed various criteria for transforming two or more matrices to maximal agreement, subject to orthogonality constraints. The criteria have applications in the context of matching factor or configuration matrices and in the context of canonical correlation analysis for two or more matrices. The present paper summarizes and gives a unified treatment of fully general computational solutions for two of these criteria, Maxbet and Maxdiff. These solutions will be shown to encompass various well-known methods as special cases. It will be argued that the Maxdiff solution should be preferred to the Maxbet solution whenever the two criteria coincide. Horst's Maxcor method will be shown to lack the property of monotone convergence. Finally, simultaneous and successive versions of the Maxbet and Maxdiff solutions will be treated as special cases of a fully flexible approach where the columns of the rotation matrices are obtained in successive blocks.The author is obliged to Henk Kiers for computational assistance and helpful comments.     

A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice (Mus musculus): III. Behavioral mediation by heightened reactivity or immobility?

This research was designed to investigate development and behavioral mediation in lines of ICR mice that have been selectively bred for aggressive behavior. General behavioral reactivity and behavioral immobility have been implicated as potential mediators by prior analyses of preattack interactions. To evaluate the separate roles of these dispositions, the emergence of attacks in genetically selected lines was tracked for 11 years by three levels of analysis: over successive generations, over development, and over dyadic interactions. Convergent outcomes were observed in all three levels with respect to two findings: (a) Robust line differences were obtained in attack behaviors, and (b) strong associations were found between line differences in attacks and line differences in behavioral immobility. Conversely, all three levels of analysis indicated a weak and inconsistent association between line differences in attacks and measures of social and nonsocial reactivity.     

Solving the rod-and-frame test in a tachistoscopic presentation: Effects of stimulus size and perceptual style

This research was undertaken to demonstrate, with correlational evidence, that presenting the rod-and-frame test (RIT) with either limited (tachistoscopic) or unlimited (Oltman’s, 1968, portable RFT) exposure time does not significantly affect the ranking of subjects. The underlying hypothesis is that the intersubject variability of performance on the portable RFT is due essentially to differences in sensitivity to the optostatic vection that appears automatically and almost immediately. Results of the tachistoscopic test show that the effect of angular size of the stimulus is similar to that described in the literature for unlimited time situations, and that subjects’ ranking is very similar regardless of the exposure time (W = .80). However, although a difference is observed between the means of low and high achievers in both types of RFT, intraindividual intertask homogeneity (correlation coefficient) is not verified in each of these subgroups. From these results, one can distinguish two processes in the RFT: the first, vections, has to do with the subject’s postural orientation and seems to playa great role in organizing interindividual differences. The second process, a more cognitive one, has a less striking effect and has to do with the selection of reference frames in perceptual organization.     

The Relation of Altruistic Orientation to Human Relationships and Moral Judgment in Chinese People

The altruistic orientation and moral judgment of 811 Chinese subjects were studied. Three hypotheses were examined: (1) The altruistic orientation of an actor at any level of moral judgment is larger to a recipient of closer relationship in any situation; (2) an actor at a higher level of moral judgment would be more willing to sacrifice their life for any recipient than an actor at a lower level of moral judgment; (3) an actor at a higher level of moral judgment would be less willing to: (a) Give up rescuing a stranger and turn to rescue close relatives or best friends; or (b) help close relatives or best friends by covering up their crime than an actor at a lower level of moral judgment. The empirical findings supported clearly the aforementioned hypotheses.     

From Monroe to Moreau: an analysis of face naming errors.

Functional models of face recognition and speech production have developed separately. However, naming a familiar face is, of course, an act of speech production. In this paper we propose a revision of Bruce and Young's (1986) model of face processing, which incorporates two features of Levelt's (1989) model of speech production. In particular, the proposed model includes two stages of lexical access for names and monitoring of face naming based on a "perceptual loop". Two predictions were derived from the perceptual loop hypothesis of speech monitoring: (1) naming errors in which a (correct) rare surname is erroneously replaced by a common surname should occur more frequently than the reverse substitution (the error asymmetry effect); (2) naming errors in which a common surname is articulated are more likely to be repaired than errors which result in articulation of a rare surname (the error-repairing effect). Both predictions were supported by an analysis of face naming errors in a laboratory face naming task. In a further experiment we considered the possibility that the effects of surname frequency observed in face naming errors could be explained by the frequency sensitivity of lexical access in speech production. However, no effect of the frequency of the surname of the faces used in the previous experiment was found on face naming latencies. Therefore, it is concluded that the perceptual loop hypothesis provides the more parsimonious account of the entire pattern of the results.     

儿童理解数量词“几个”、“很多”的发展特点

本工作采用了一种研究儿童理解不精确量词的经验方法,初步探讨了四岁至十岁儿童理解数量词“几个”、“很多”的发展特点。结果提示:儿童对两个数量词的理解与实验给出的论域(数量范围)关系密切;数量词“几个”比“很多”较早被年幼儿童所理解。其发展特点:四岁至十岁儿童在[0,10],[0,20]范围上,均能较好理解“几个”;六岁以上儿童只能在[0,10]的范围上理解“很多”的词义;四岁儿童则表现出把“很多”与“全部”混同。     

Search behavior in various breeds of adult dogs (Canis familiaris): object permanence and olfactory cues.

Human analog tests of object permanence were administered to various breeds of adult dogs (Canis familiaris). Experiment 1 showed that the performance of terriers, sporting, and working dogs did not differ. Dogs succeeded in solving invisible displacement problems, but performance was lower than in visible displacement tests. Familiarity with the task had some influence because invisible displacement tests were more successful if they were preceded by visible displacement tests. In Experiment 2, odor cues from the target object and the hiding screens were available or were masked. Results confirmed that success was lower in invisible than in visible displacement tests and that these problems were solved on the basis of representation of visual information rather than on the basis of olfactory cues or of local rule learning. Dogs are compared with other species that display Stage 6 object permanence.