The role of instructions and familiar size in absolute judgments of size and distance.

The effects of familiar size and instructions (apparent, objective) on direct reports of size and distance were evaluated. Subjects estimated the size and distance of two different-sized playing cards or two unfamiliar stimuli under either apparent or objective instructions. The stimuli were presented successively at a distance of 5.48 m under reduced-cue conditions. The form of the instructions selectively influenced the effect of familiar size on absolute judgments of size and distance, with apparent instructions minimizing, and objective instructions promoting, familiar-size effects. The ratio of the distance judgments of the first to the second presented stimuli approximated the relative retinal sizes of the two objects under both apparent and objective instructions, while the ratio of size judgments tended to be either influenced by or independent of the object's relative retinal sizes under apparent and objective instructions, respectively. These results are consistent with Gogel's theory of off-size perception and, in particular, with the claim that, in comparison with apparent instructions, objective instructions are more likely to direct observers to base their judgments on cognitive, as opposed to perceptual, sources of spatial information.     

The detection of surface curvatures defined by optical motion.

The detectability of surface curvatures defined by optical motion was evaluated in three experiments. Observers accurately detected very small amounts of curvature in a direction perpendicular to the direction of rotation, but they were less sensitive to curvatures along the direction of rotation. Variations in either the number of points (between 91 and 9) or the number of views (from 15 to 2) had little or no effect on discrimination accuracy. The results of this study demonstrate impressive visual sensitivity to surface curvature. Several characteristics of this sensitivity to curvature are inconsistent with many computational models for deriving three-dimensional structure from motion.     

Self-perceived information needs and concerns of elderly persons.

The research was intended to identify the dimensions underlying self-perceived information needs and concerns of an elderly population. The spontaneously mentioned needs and concerns expressed in 271 letters from a sample of the population were extracted and a multidimensional scaling procedure was used to represent the 58 most frequently mentioned items in configurations of varying dimensionality. To interpret the multidimensional spaces, another sample of 176 elderly subjects was asked to rate the 58 concerns on eight properties. These ratings were then regressed onto the multidimensional configurations. The results indicate that the most frequently mentioned information needs and concerns of elderly persons can be parsimoniously understood in terms of three underlying dimensions: (1) Improving the Quality of Life vs Securing the Necessities of Life, (2) Health-related vs Not Health-related, and (3) Individual vs Societal Responsibility.     

Consistency of use of phonological processes by a sample of educable mentally impaired children.

A group of 10 educable mentally impaired children (M age = 10 yr., 4 mo.) were assessed for use of phonological process under three speaking conditions: production of single words, imitated sentences, and connected speech samples. Only the process of gliding showed significant differences in use among conditions. Results generally indicated that any of those three speaking conditions were viable for eliciting use of phonological processes by such subjects. Results are also discussed in terms of individual differences.     

Auditory subliminal stimulation: a re-examination.

Unconscious or subliminal perception has historically been a thorny issue in psychology. It has been the subject of debate and experimentation since the turn of the century. While psychologists now agree that the phenomenon of visual subliminal stimulation is real, disagreement continues over the effects of such stimulation as well as to its existence in other sensory modalities, notably the auditory. The present paper provides an overview of unresolved issues in auditory subliminal stimulation which explains much of the difficulty that has been encountered in experimental work in this area. A context is proposed for considering the effects of auditory subliminal stimulation and an overview of current investigations in this field is provided.     

Relationships among age, sex, and depth of sport experience with initial open-task performance by 4- to 9-year-old children.

The purpose of this study was to assess the relative interrelationships of age, sex, and depth of sport experience on initial practice of a soccer task for 46 4- to 9-yr.-old children. Each child practiced 1 transfer trial and 3 blocks of 3 trials. Measures recorded were performance time, goal attainment, and movement accuracy. Multivariate analyses of variance and multiple regressions yielded evidence for (a) a speed-accuracy tradeoff, (b) a relation of age to goal attainment, movement accuracy, and performance time on the transfer trial, and (c) a relation of age with Block 1 performance time. Experience was more related than sex to all variables except movement accuracy in Block 1 and consistency of goal attainment. Conclusions are that age and experience are the most important to the quality of performance, and no constructs were related to consistency on this task for this age group.     

Effects of noise on sleep inertia as a function of circadian placement of a one-hour nap.

The purpose of the present study was to analyse the arousing effects of noise on sleep inertia as a function of circadian placement of a one-hour nap. In a first experiment, we measured the effects of sleep inertia in a neutral acoustic environment after a one-hour nap placed either at 0100 or 0400 on response time during a spatial memory test. In a second experiment were analysed the effects of an intense continuous noise on sleep inertia. The results showed that noise produced a total abolition of sleep inertia after an early nap (0000 to 0100). This may be due to the arousing effect of noise; however, results are less clear after a late nap 0300 to 0400 as noise seems to be ineffective. This result is discussed in terms of either a function of time-of-day effect or of prior sleep intensity. Moreover, our data suggest a possible interaction of noise with partial sleep deprivation leading to a slight deleterious effect those subjects who did not sleep at all.     

Degree of learning,interpolated tests,and rate of forgetting

The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to observe the effects of degree of learning, interpolated tests, and retention interval, primarily on the rate of forgetting of a list of words, and secondarily on hypermnesia for those words. In the first experiment, all the subjects had one study trial on a list of 20 common words, followed by two tests of recall. Half of the subjects had further study and test trials until they had learned the words to a criterion of three correct consecutive recalls. Two days later, half of the subjects under each learning condition returned for four retention tests, and 16 days later, all the subjects returned for four tests. Experiment 2 was similar, except that all the subjects had at least three study trials followed by four recall tests on Day 1, intermediate tests were given 2 or 7 days later, and they all had final tests 14 days later. The results showed that rate of forgetting was attenuated by an additional intermediate set of tests but not by criterion learning. Hypermnesia was generally found over the tests that were given after a retention interval of 2 or more days. The best predictor of the amount of hypermnesia over a set of tests was the difference between overall cumulative recall and net recall on the first test of the set.     

Supernatural beliefs,natural kinds,and conceptual structure

This article presents cross-cultural evidence in support of the notion that adults' natural kind concepts are theory based but may be informed by knowledge/belief systems other than the biological. Three groups of subjects from western Nigeria--rural, urban, and elite--participated in the study. Subjects heard stories describing alterations of appearance; that is, one natural kind was made to resemble another in both ritual and nonritual contexts. Subjects then were required to judge the identity of the altered item and to give an explanation for the category judgment. It was predicted that subjects would make more nonpreservation-of-identity category judgments supported by supernatural explanations in the ritual contexts and that subjects' use of supernatural explanations would reflect the extent of their engagement with the supernatural. The first prediction was borne out; the second prediction was only partially supported. Discussion of the results emphasizes the importance of exploring the role of sociocultural factors in conceptual structure.