Writing programs on the Apple for the student psychology laboratory: Routines,subroutines, and sources of information

Writing programs for the student psychology laboratory on the Apple II series of microcomputers presents the programmer with a number of problems. Among these are increasing program execution speed, obtaining precise response and interval timing, reducing program memory requirements, obtaining efficient disk I/O, providing good error trapping, and presenting clear screen displays. Since Applesoft BASIC is not equipped with many of the desirable features of a more advanced language, ways to solve these problems are not obvious. This paper suggests a number of potential solutions and provides additional sources of information.     

A comparison of inexpensive statistical packages for apple II microcomputers

The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare some inexpensive software packages that calculate a variety of statistics on the Apple II microcomputer. For each package, hardware requirements, program capacity, limitations, constraints, accuracy, editing, error handling, and other features were studied.     

Writing high-quality statistical software for Apple II microcomputers

The purpose of this paper is to describe some principles and techniques that programmers should consider when trying to improve or create a statistical package. Four computational issues are discussed: accuracy, speed, computing probabilities, and error trapping. A single-array data structure is proposed for use within the program. Several other input-output issues are covered, including menus, command languages, questions, data input and editing, CRT and printer formatting, and graphics.     

Gender and sex-role attributes as predictors of utilization of natural support systems during personal stress events

This study was an empirical investigation of gender and sex-role attributes as they relate to the utilization of natural support systems during personal stress events. Compared to male subjects, female subjects reported significantly higher levels of requested assistance and perceived more help as being available from their natural support systems during the most stressful event encountered during the previous year. Subjects' scores on the femininity dimension of the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire were significantly correlated with amount of support asked for during stress events. Along with the variable of perceived level of stress, gender and femininity score accounted for 36% of the variance of natural support system utilization during a personal crisis. The results of the study are discussed in the context of current research on (a) the utilization of natural support systems and (b) the relationship between person variables and psychophysiological disease.     

Focal changes in cerebral blood flow produced by monetary incentive during a mental mathematics task in normal and depressed subjects

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effect of incentive-induced arousal on the diffuse and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) response during cognitive activation for normal and depressed groups. Two normal rest CBF measurements were followed by two mental mathematics activation CBF measurements. For the first activation measurement, half the subjects in each group were offered monetary incentive for correct performance and half the subjects received no monetary incentive. All subjects were offered monetary incentive on the final activation run. The effect of monetary incentive on the first activation run was to increase CBF activation at four detectors in the left hemisphere. Incentive did not affect the CBF activation response when introduced following practice on the activation task (on the final run). Depressed groups had lower resting blood flow than normals, but the distribution of flow and the CBF response to incentive were almost identical in the two groups.     

The linkage between stimulus frequency and covert peak areas as it relates to monaural localization.

Head-related transfer functions for differently centered narrow noise bands were obtained on 6 subjects. Derived from these measurements were covert peak areas (CPAs), defined as the spatial constellation of loudspeakers that generates maximal sound pressure at the entrance of the ear canal for specific bands of frequency. On the basis of previous data, we proposed that different frequency bands served as important spectral cues for monaural localization of sounds from different loci and that location judgments were directed toward the CPAs associated with the different bands. In the first study, the stimuli were bandpass filtered so that they contained only those frequencies whose associated CPAs occupied either the monaural listener's "upper" or "lower" spatial regions. Loudspeakers, separated by 15 degrees, were stationed in the left hemifield, ranging from 0 degree to 180 degrees azimuth and -45 degrees to 60 degrees elevation. Subjects reported the loudspeaker from which the sound appeared to originate. Judgments of the sound's elevation were in general accord with the CPAs associated with the different frequency segments. In the second study, monaural localization tests were administered in which different 2.0-kHz-wide frequency bands linked with specific CPAs were notch filtered from a 3.5-kHz highpass noise band. For the control condition, the highpass noise was unfiltered. The data demonstrated that filtering a frequency segment linked with specific CPAs resulted in significantly fewer location responses directed toward that particular spatial region. These results demonstrate in greater detail the relation between the directional filtering properties of the pinna and monaural localization of sound.