Neutral vs ego-orienting instructions: Effects on judgments of magnitude estimation

Three experiments were performed to examine the relative constancy of the exponent in the psychophysical power law under varying motivating conditions. The method of magnitude estimation was used to obtain judgments of apparent tactual roughness or of apparent area size of squares. Patterns of the qualitative observations of the three Es and of the various exponents for the six groups of Ss indicated that neutral instructions and “ego-orienting” instructions, which were perceived as unbelievable coming from an equal fellow student, both yielded exponents identical to those reported in the literature. Believable ego-orienting instructions given by an E of clearly perceived higher social status produced a statistically significantly lower exponent than neutral. Intermediate conditions, wherein Ss apparently disbelieved both types of instructions, but assumed that the superior-status E was “analyzing” them, yielded exponents of intermediate size. Results and supplementary trend analyses are discussed as possible, highly sensitive indicators of motivational impacts on sensory judgments.     

Errors and error detection in typing

The errors and error detections made by qualified and trainee typists were examined, when they were given a passage of prose that included pseudo-words and words made up of random consonants. It was shown that trainees make more and detect relatively fewer errors. For all typists errors are made more often per letter in long or degraded words and are relatively less likely to be detected.     

A behaviour modification technique for the hyperactive child

This paper describes a procedure for the conditioning of attending behaviour in a brain-injured hyperactive boy.

Observations of the behaviour of two hyperactive children were made in the classroom setting. These observations were made from an observation bootn adjoining the classroom and provided data on the frequency of occurrence of the following high rate responses: walking, talking, distraction, “wiggling”. Each child was observed for a minimum of ten minutes a day, four days a week. Following several weeks of baseline observation, the conditioning procedure was begun with the expel imental subject. The conditioning trials took place in the classroom setting. During each time interval in which one of the high rate responses did not occur, S received an auditory stimulus (secondary reinforcer). This auditory stimulus had previously been paired with the delivery of candy and pennies. The stimulus was dispensed by a radio device which activated an earphone worn by the subject. At the end of each conditioning trial, S received whatever candy or pennies he had “earned”.

The data show that the control subject showed no significant change in the frequency of occurrence of the high rate responses during the three month period. The experimental subject showed a significant decrease in non-attending behaviour. This reduction in rate was maintained over a four week extinction period.     

Drive level effects on tasks of narrow and broad attention

Easterbrook (1959) has predicted that (a) performance on tasks involving the use of a wide range of cues will be impaired under high-drive conditions and that (b) performance on tasks requiring the use of only a narrow range of cues will be facilitated under such conditions.

Using the Porteus Maze Test, relatively clear evidence was obtained to support the first prediction. Using the Stroop Colour Word Interference Test some evidence was obtained in support of the second prediction.     

Maximizing the discriminating power of a multiple-score test

Maximizing the discriminating power of a multiple-score test involves maximizing the homogeneity of each subtest and minimizing the correlations between subtests. A method is presented for constructing such tests from items whose intercorrelations are not too high. Under certain restrictions the saturation, defined as the proportion of inter-item covariance to total variance, is maximized for each subtest. The nucleus of each subtest is three items with high covariancesinter se. All items which will lower the saturation are discarded; the one item is added which will maximize the saturation of the resultant test. This process is repeated until all the items are included or discarded for that subtest. If the correlation between any such subtests approaches the geometric mean of their saturations, their items form a new pool for one or more subtests. Formulas are presented for deciding which items to eliminate in order to reduce further the correlations between subtests.This research was supported in part by the United States Air Force under Contract AF 33(038)-10588 with Human Resources Research Center, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. Permission is granted for reproduction, translation, publication use and disposal in whole and in part by or for the United States Government.     

Conceptual transfer insimple insight problems

Three experiments explored the conditions under which information presented in the first part of an experiment facilitates the subsequent solving of simple insight problems. We argue that previous unsuccessful attempts to obtain such facilitation are attributable to the experimenters’ failure to present this information in a form that induces the conceptual operations needed to solve the problem. Substantial facilitation is obtained if the information is presented in a form that induces a few seconds of puzzlement and then a clue is presented that leads to an appropriate reconception; if identical information is presented without such a period of puzzlement and reconception, no facilitation is observed. The results demonstrate that conceptual processing operations, not merely informational content, must be relevant if conceptual transfer is to occur. One possible mechanism involved in such transfer is the indexing of concepts such that they contain pointers to conceptually anomalous episodes     

Memory access: The effects of fact-oriented versus problem-oriented acquisition

This study examined the effects of similarity between the processing of acquisition and the processing of test materials on performance in a problem solving task. Previous work by Perfetto, Bransford, and Franks (1983) demonstrated that uninformed subjects’ failure to utilize relevant acquisition information in a later problem solving task is the result of a failure to spontaneously access such information. The present study demonstrated that spontaneous access can be enhanced when both acquisition and test materials are processed in a similar manner, that is, in a problem-oriented manner. Furthermore, the present findings indicate that the processing similarity leading to enhanced access is specific to particular acquisition and test items, rather than a general problem solving set induced at acquisition and the subsequent testing situation. Results are interpreted within a transfer-appropriate processing perspective.     

The consequences for memory of imagining in another person’s voice

Subjects listened to and imagined words and then attempted to discriminate words they had heard from words they had imagined. Discrimination was better when subjects imagined themselves saying the words (Experiments 1 and 2) than when subjects imagined the words in the speaker’s voice. Subjects also had more difficulty discriminating imagined from perceived words when they imagined in the speaker’s voice than when they imagined words in a voice other than their own or the speaker’s (Experiment 1). The results are consistent with the idea that reality monitoring is affected by the degree of similarity in sensory characteristics of memories derived from perception and from imagination (Johnson & Raye, 1981).     

Application of a Temporal Persistence Model to Community Residents' L]ong-Term Beliefs about the Three Mile island Nuclear Accident1

Little is known about the conditions under which beliefs and attitudes about an issue or event will persist over time. The present research took advantage of a “natural experiment”, namely, the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear accident, in order (a) better to understand the nature of individuals' b]eliefs about a major event to which they were exposed and (b) to evaluate a conceptual formulation developed from laboratory-based experimental literature concerning when beliefs and attitudes are likely to be temporally persistent. Data were collected over a 3-year period following the accident from two samples of community residents: mothers of young children who lived within a 10-mile radius of TMI and TMI nuclear power plant employees. Samples of mothers and workers from a western Pennsylvania comparison site were also included in the study design. Results supported the persistence model in several respects. First, TMI subjects' b]eliefs, although more extreme than comparison subjects' v]iews, showed virtually no change during the study period. Second, the factors that the model suggests should account for the observed persistence were indeed consistently important predictors of TMI subjects' b]eliefs over time. Implications of the results for future applied work on long-term reactions to major events are discussed.     

The Edinburgh Masker: A clinical analog study

This article will describe the effects of instructions and practice on the vocal intensities of normal speakers and stutterers while reading in the presence of masking moise generated by the Edinburgh Masker. Both the normal speakers and the stutterers reacted in similar ways: They increased vocal intensity with the introduction of the noise, reduced vocal intensity in the presence of the noise, given instructions and practice, but failed to reduce vocal intensity to pre-noise reference levels. While these results are hardly reflective of long-term change in clinical behavior, a recommendation is made for a reexamination of the role of the increased vocal intensity as at least one factor, of perhaps many, responsible for whatever the long-term clinical effectiveness of the Masker.