Iconic memory: A reply to Professor Holding

Professor Holding has argued that the partial report superiority normally taken as evidence for the existence of iconic memory might instead be due to cue anticipation or output interference. I have suggested that both of these alternative explanations are inconsistent with the finding that the partial report superiority diminishes rapidly with increasing cue delay. In addition, Sperling’s original partial report experiment was designed in such a way that cue anticipation could not have occurred; and both his results with selection by letter vs number and Averbach and Coriell’s bar-marker results indicate that output interference effects are absent or negligible in tachistoscopic experiments. Consequently, I have concluded that the partial report superiority, and especially its decline with increasing delay, remains as strong evidence in favor of the conventional view of iconic memory. Furthermore, if this view were wrong, there would remain no way of giving a satisfactory account of (a) Averbach and Coriell’s results, (b) “direct” investigations of visual persistence, or (c) integration and interruption effects in backward visual masking.     

Evidence for an integration theory of visual masking

When letters are superimposed upon a pattern of black and white squares, they are easier to identify when the pattern is regular than when it is random. If backward masking consists of the superimposition of a masking pattern upon the decaying visual trace of a target display, a regular pattern should be less effective as a backward mask than a random pattern. This was found to be so for both multiple-letter and single-letter displays. This result is predicted by an integration theory of visual masking but not by an interruption theory.     

Social support and coping: A longitudinal analysis

This paper examined the interrelation between social support and coping in a longitudinal study of 380 clinically depressed individuals. A two-wave, two-variable panel analysis revealed that connections between support and coping varied by gender and across the specific sources of support and modes of coping examined. In the family context, increases in support were related to increases in problem-solving coping among women and to a decline in emotional discharge coping among men. In the work context, increases in social support were related to a greater reliance on affective regulation among women and to more information/support seeking among men. Overall, the results suggest that specific aspects of support and coping processes jointly mediate the link between stress and adjustment among depressed individuals.     

Effects of awareness and motor involvement on autonomic conditioning in chronic schizophrenics

Chronic schizophrenics under neuroleptic medication were compared with normals, matched for age and education, in two conditioning experiments. Both experiments employed a differential paradigm with long conditional stimulus-unconditional stimulus (CS-UCS) intervals. Skin resistance (SR) and finger pulse or heart rate (HR) were recorded. In Experiment 1, half of the subjects were trained in categorizing the to-be conditional stimuli. In a further step, half of the subjects were informed about the CS-UCS contingency. The UCS was an electric shock. Information improved discrimination of SR responses only of normals, and discrimination training had no effect at all on autonomic responses. In Experiment 2, only electrodermal responders were included. Each subject was tested in two sessions, using a loud tone as UCS in one, and a reaction time signal in the other. Again, half of the subjects were informed about the contingency. Information improved discrimination of SR responses of both diagnostic groups. Decelerations of HR following CS onset showed informed schizophrenics to discriminate better with the loud tone UCS than with the reaction time signal. General autonomic responsivity seems to determine not only discriminative conditioning of schizophrenic patients but also the reports of awareness and the effects of manipulations of awareness. However, when subjects are matched for electrodermal responsivity and are equivalent in terms of SR response conditioning, patients react to information about the contingency with enhanced HR deceleration to the CSs, possibly reflecting a heightened sensitivity of the cardiovascular system.     

Research and publication trends in experimental social psychology: 1971–1980—a thematic analysis of the journal of experimental social psychology,the european journal of social psychology,and the zeifschrift für soziaipsychologie

The present study was designed to map out the area of research in experimental social psychology during the past decade. First of all, we found a broad range of topics that can be grouped info 21 general content domains. Theories in Social Psychology, Group Processes and Social Interaction, Social Judgement, Personality Variables and Specific Social Behaviour as well as Attitudes were the jive most widely researched fields of study. During the ten-year period 1971–1980 Attribution Theory showed a significant increase in the number of articles published. Cooperation and Conflict as well as Risky-Ship are lines of research which have nearly been abandoned. Finally, in rigorous experimental social psychology the analysis of Social Problems is evidently underrepresented. But a survey of the literature on Social Problems in the Psychological Abstracts from 1971 to 1980 revealed that social psychologists are currently serving both theoretical and practical ends.     

Is the holocaust relevant to sociobiology?

Sociobiologists have emphasized that altruism and benevolent behavior are part of the genetic repertoire of most animals and certainly of man. They have constructed a theory of ethics as a biological phenomenon without reference to the concept of evil. It is concluded here however, that holocaust behavior is not equivalent to the natural manifestation of an incompletely tamed animal flashing its teeth. Biologists have been too rigid in trying to equate ethical behavior with social behavior. The added dimension of ethical behavior is a special kind of sensitivity to the needs of others, just as evil is the total lack of it. The evolution of this moral sense may itself have important selective value for the human species, whose survival depends on creating maximal diversity in its gene pool.