Optic array determinants of apparent distance and size in pictures

This study explored whether special mechanisms are operative in picture perception to correct for the distortion that occurs when pictures are viewed from the wrong station point. Five photographs were taken of a layout composed of two same-sized dolls positioned at different distances on a flat untextured ground. Perspective differences existed between the photographs as a function of varying the distance of the camera to the layout. Each picture was viewed from five station points along the normal by 12 adults who estimated the relative magnitude of the depth interval between the dolls and judged whether the rear doll was objectively smaller, larger, or the same size as the front doll. No evidence was found of a compensation mechanism operating to stabilize the pictured layout. Distance and size judgments were affected in a manner that was consistent with what would occur if an actual layout and the conditions under which it were viewed were similarly transformed.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for non-college-degreed black women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women. The VPI and the SDS were administered to 102 black women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. The results revealed that four scales of the VPI and four scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women.     

Mobility among young workers in a multi-ethnic community

The job experiences of a group of young people of English and Pakistani origin who had left school four years earlier at the age of 16 were investigated using interviews and retrospective data from careers-office files. Job-changing had been frequent during the first 18 months of employment, with changes being largely of a non-promotional kind. Those who had experienced regular non-promotional job-change tended to have had low attainment in basic educational skills and inadequately developed vocational attitudes and personalities when leaving school. Yet in the majority of cases early mobility had led to stability by the end of the fourth post-school year. It is suggested that early job-changing may serve a positive function for the individuals concerned Implications for careers guidance in school are discussed.     

The differential assessment of males and females as prospective employees by a sample of nonworking women

Thirty-eight women, members of a local parents' group, role-played personnel managers, assessing prospective employees in 12 occupations, defined a priori as masculine or feminine, and ranking the occupations in terms of a prestige hierarchy. Candidates described as female were somewhat devalued in high status masculine careers, but this trend was not consistent. Highly qualified applicants were preferred overall, but level of competence did not induce differential appraisals by sex of applicant. Failure to discover a more pervasive prejudice against women was postulated as reliant on subject sample, and exploitative advantage to the assessor was suggested as the strongest predictor of a promale bias.     

Response tempo and separable--integral responding: evidence for an integral-to-separable processing sequence in visual perception

Three experiments were conducted to examine the relation between response tempo and separable-integral responding. A restricted classification paradigm, in which similarity-based (integral) and dimensionally based (separable) classifications were pitted against one another, was used with the dimensions of length and density (all experiments) and size and brightness (Experiment 3). The subjects were college students (Experiments 1 and 2) and kindergarten, second-, and fifth-grade children (Experiment 3). In all three experiments, rapid responding was associated with fewer dimensional and more similarity responses than was slow responding. This result held when response tempo was simply measured (Experiments 1 and 3) and when it was manipulated by the experimenter (Experiment 2). The results were interpreted to be consistent with models of dimensional processing in which holistic, integral processing precedes analytic dimensional processing.     

On the primacy of the brain

It is well established that emotion is a product of complex interactions among the biological subsystems of the organism. The human nervous system must play a fundamental role in organizing and controlling the manifestation of these interactions. Since emotional disturbance is one of the major phenomena underlying maladaptive behavior, a solid understanding of its nature and mechanisms is essential for enhancing therapeutic practices. Although an increasing number of scholars now advocate the notion of the dependence of emotion on antecedent cognitive processes (e.g., Lazarus, 1982, 1984), and the relevance of both central and peripheral processes of the nervous system to emotional behavior (e.g., Panksepp, 1988; Pribram, 1984), Zajonc (1984) views emotion as independent of cognitive processes. This paper provides a critical evaluation of the basis of Zajonc’s (1984) argument from a neurobiological and psychotherapeutic point of view.     

Reading with and without eye movements: reply to Just, Carpenter, and Woolley

Just, Carpenter, and Woolley propose that measures of single-word processing times, such as gaze durations during normal reading or durations of reader-controlled exposures, can be used both for developing theories of comprehension and for determining the course of new reading technologies. We argue that better understanding of comprehension processes does not necessarily follow from observed correlations between text variables and eye-fixation parameters. Further, recent rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) research suggests that eye fixation data obtained from studies of normal reading might have little practical value in optimizing the readability of RSVP displays and other means of text presentation.     

Chronic effects of electrical stimulation of muscle on the fractionated components of audio response time

Six male volunteer subjects underwent five weeks (15 sessions) of electrical stimulation (ES) of the triceps brachii muscle (medial head), participated in a pretest, and five weekly post-treatment performance tests of an elbow extension task. Response time (RSP) was electronically fractionated into the two components of reaction time (RT): premotor reaction time (PMT) and motor reaction time (MT): and movement time (MVT) for 45 degrees of elbow extension. Acceleration characteristics of the movement were quantified via a piezoelectric accelerometer mounted on a specially-built mechanism that allowed the desired motion in a transverse plane. Statistical analysis did not indicate significant treatment effects on the criterion measures, however, a significant linear trend for MT and significant linear and quadratic trends for MVT were indicated. Neuromuscular adaptation to the passage of electric current through nerve and muscle tissue was indicated by a significant quadratic trend and significant differences between all weekly accumulative (treatment) voltages. An unexpected significant negative correlation between PMT and MT was considered cause for further study. The particular technique of ES administration, although it produced consistant changes in RSP components (Ward and Grabiner 1981) was not as effective as methods described by other investigators for increased human performance.     

An Assessment of the Psychometric Adequacy of the British Adaptation of the Career Development Inventory

The concept of 'vocational maturity' is defined, and the development of methods for assessing it is briefly outlined. The adaptation of one such measure - Super's Career Development Inventory - is described, and some results are reported from a study designed to assess the psychometric adequacy of this adaptation. These showed the measure to be reliable enough for use with groups but not with individuals. Scores were found to be more highly related to concomitant variables than to direct measures of vocational maturity, though this may have been due to the poor quality of some of the latter. The convergent validity of the measure was supported, but the discriminant validity was not. The implications of these results for using the measure, and particularly the need for further development work, are briefly considered. It is suggested that such work will also need to address the utility of the construct itself for Britain in the 1980s.