Out-of-Body experiences in the blind

The theoretical significance of out-of-body experiences in blind people is explored. In this context I report results of a survey of a small sample of blind adults. It is concluded that we have yet to locate a case of an out-of-body experience in the blind that has critical implications for the interpretation of the experience among the general population.Acknowledgement hereby is given to the efforts of Margaret Kerr, Coordinator of Field Services for the Royal Blind Society of New South Wales, Australia, in supervising the collection of data reported in this paper.     

The Importance of Contraceptive Attributes Among College Students

This study assessed how ratings of the importance of contraceptive attributes varied with gender, age, relationship status, and contraceptive method usually used. In a classroom setting, 210 male and 217 female university students completed the 55-item Contraceptive Attribute Questionnaire (CAQ). Significant differences on importance ratings were found between women and men, age groups, women using barrier methods and women using the pill, and by relationship status. The underlying dimensions of the CAQ were investigated through factor analysis, and somewhat different factors emerged for men and women. Implications for the provision of family planning services to college students are discussed.     

Dichotic sequence discrimination: The effect of stimulus intensity and background noise level

Dichotic temporal discrimination of clicks over the range of separation of 2 ≤ Δt ≤ 96 msec is nonmonotonic, being V- or U-shaped with two maxima, one at very short separations (?t≤4 msec) and one at long separations (Δt ≥ 64 msec). Decreasing the level of the stimuli or increasing the level of background noise results in an overall decrement in discrimination level and a widening of the base of the function to make it more U-shaped. These effects are expressed in shorter Δt thresholds for the left limb of the function and longer Δt thresholds for the right limb of the function     

An optimum value for detection probability

In many psychoacoustic experiments, an experimenter wishes to determine the effects of one or more treatments Ito the subjects, or to the stimuli, or to both) with as little experimental labor as possible. The experimenter is often able to control the similarity of the stimuli and is thus free to choose a base level of performance before the treatment is applied. On the basis of the model presented in this paper, the base level of performance that best enables any change in performance due to the treatment to be detected is predicted. A relatively high base-level performance of 95% correct discrimination results from the model, although practical constraints may dictate a somewhat lower value. An experiment (involving pitch discrimination) that provides data supporting the model is also reported. The model is applicable only to the two-alternative/forced-choice experimental paradigm.     

Speech competence of children vulnerable to psychopathology

Verbal productivity and cohesion and reference patterns of children of schizophrenics (N=23), unipolars (N=43), bipolars (N=38), and normals (N=53) were assessed using the Rochester and Martin (1979) evaluation system. Children of all offspring groups could be discriminated from one another, with children of schizophrenics showing the most deviant speech performance across all dependent measures. Children of schizophrenics were less verbally productive and had poorer patterns of cohesion between ideas than children of normals. In addition, they produced more unclear and ambiguous references to previously mentioned ideas than did children of normals. The consistency of deviance and performance on specific dependent variables in these children at risk for schizophrenia was similar to the speech performance of thought-disordered schizophrenics. Possible explanations for these similarities were discussed and evaluated.This research was supported by grant number MH21145 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by funds from the William T. Grant Foundation. The authors would like to thank Lina Jandorf for her invaluable assistance in data collection and scoring.     

Willingness to Help a Stranger: The Effects of Social Context and Opinion Similarity1

Two field experiments investigate how information about aspects of the social environment affects willingness to help others who are similar or dissimilar. Subjects were pedestrians who found a lost packet of materials containing information about the opinions of the packet's loser and a survey report which claimed that the quality of life in the neighborhood had either improved or deteriorated. In the fiist study, the opinions were varied in order to create different degrees of opinion similarity between the loser and subject. Results showed that relatively slight differences between the loser's and subject's opinions made subjects unwilling to help (return the lost packet) when information about the social environment suggested a negative state of affairs, e.g., quality of life deteriorating. However, when information about the social environment suggested a positive state of affairs, subjects were willing to help, even if there was little similarity of opinion. In the second study, subjects learned that the loser of the packet agreed with their views on one opinion but disagreed on another. In this study, one of the two opinions concerned the same social issue as the one described in the survey report. Results demonstrated that subjects helped when there was agreement on the social issue that was also highlighted in survey reports of a negative state of affairs in the social environment and withheld help when there was disagreement on this issue. There were trends for the same result with information about a positive state of affairs in the social world.     

Determinants of perceived choice,number of options,and perceived time in making a selection

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of number of choice options and perceived time taken to make a selection upon perceived choice. College students were asked to make a selection from a set of options which varied in numerosity; after making their selection, they were given information which varied their perception of time in making the selection. As predicted, perceived choice was found to be greater (1) the greater the number of options when a person perceived that he had taken a relatively short time; (2) if the selection involved a moderately large number of options than if it involved either a small or a very large number when a person perceived that he had taken a relatively long time; (3) the longer the time a person thought he had taken, except when the selection involved a very large number of options-in which case, perceived choice was greater the shorter the perceived time. The experiment also provided evidence about the relationship between perceived choice and perceived competence.