Measuring icon complexity: An automated analysis

Measures of icon designs rely heavily on surveys of the perceptions of population samples. Thus, measuring the extent to which changes in the structure of an icon will alter its perceived complexity can be costly and slow. An automated system capable of producing reliable estimates of perceived complexity could reduce development costs and time. Measures of icon complexity developed by Garcia, Badre, and Stasko (1994) and McDougall, Curry, and de Bruijn (1999) were correlated with six icon properties measured using Matlab (MathWorks, 2001) software, which uses image-processing techniques to measure icon properties. The six icon properties measured were icon foreground, the number of objects in an icon, the number of holes in those objects, and two calculations of icon edges and homogeneity in icon structure. The strongest correlates with human judgments of perceived icon complexity (McDougall et al., 1999) were structural variability (r _s = .65) and edge information (r _s = .64).     

The effect of text coherence and modality on metamemory judgements

This study examined the effects of text coherence and modality on the metamemory judgements of Ease of Learning (EOL) and Judgement of Learning (JOL), and on the object-level measure of recall. Previous work found that sentence material set in a coherent, ordered text context was not judged as more memorable than that presented in a context of sentences in a disordered sequence, even though an ordered sequence helped recall (Shaddock & Carroll, 1997). The current study modified Shaddock and Carroll's design by changing the texts used from expository to narrative text. The metamemory judgements and recall were now found to be significantly more sensitive to material learned in an ordered sequence than to material learned in a disordered sequence. Also, JOLs and recall were more sensitive to material that was originally learned in an auditory mode (spoken presentation) than in a visual mode (verbal presentation). The results are discussed in terms of a cue-utilisation approach to metamemory judgements.     

Adolescents' relationships to siblings and mothers: a multivariate genetic analysis.

Research has consistently demonstrated that children's behavior toward their siblings tends to resemble interactions occurring in the parent-child relationship. This study examined the relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences to the covariation between sibling relationships and mother-adolescent relationships. Reported and observed family interactions were assessed for 719 same-sex sibling pairs of varying degrees of genetic relatedness. The covariance between mother-adolescent and sibling interactions was decomposed into genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental components. The overlapping effects of shared environment on the two relationship subsystems explained most of the covariance. Smaller but significant genetic and nonshared environmental effects were also found. The consistency of these findings with family processes, such as modeling, is discussed.     

GENDER-RELATED PATTERNS OF HELPING AMONG FRIENDS

In this study, the social role theory of gender and helping (Eagly & Crowley, 1986) was applied to understand gender differences in helping behavior. Relationships among criterion variables of time spent helping and help quality; and key predictors of problem severity, empathic tendency, anger, sympathy, closeness, causal controllability, coping, and self-efficacy were applied. Participants from a large community sample ( N = 1,004) described situations in which they helped a friend and completed questionnaires describing factors that influenced their actions. Recipients of the help also filled out similar questionnaires. It was found that across many problem settings women spend more time helping, give higher quality help, and feel more empathy and sympathy in response to their friends' problems. Further, the presence of anger toward a friend is associated with more time spent helping but a lower quality of help. In contrast, men rate their friends' problems as more controllable/blameworthy and experience more anger. Further, controllability has a greater influence on a number of help-related variables. For both men and women, self-efficacy and perception of problem severity are the greatest direct predictors of helping.     

Individual differences in visual imaging and the voluntary control of heart rate.

The role of visual imagery in the bidirectional control of heart rate (HR) was explored in 24 subjects. While voluntary HR increases were reliably demonstrated with and without HR feedback, appropriate HR decreases were modest and inconsistent. Changes in respiration rate (RR) generally paralleled the alterations in HR. Eighteen of the subjects reported conventionally using visual imagery to effect HR changes. For these subjects, vividness of visual imagery scores and the extent of HR change showed indications of a direct relationship in the HR increase condition. However, in the HR decrease condition, it was concomitant RR changes which were associated with the vividness and the control of imagery production. The remaining six subjects, who reported not employing visual imagery, demonstrated superior HR acceleration to the imaging subjects. Further, while the imaging subjects did not benefit from the introduction of feedback, the six non-imaging subjects showed reliably greater HR acceleration as a result of feedback introduction.     

Self-report and physiological changes accompanying repeated imagining of a phobic scene.

Twenty female subjects were selected from a larger subject pool on the basis of their scores to the ‘snakes’ item on the Geer (1965) Fear Survey Schedule. Ten of the subjects were selected as phobic; the other ten were non-phobic controls. Heart rate, skin conductance and self-reports of fear and imagery vividness were continuously monitored while subjects repeatedly imagined a prescribed snake scene for a total of 15 trials. The phobic group reported more overall fear to the images. Further, while the nonphobic subjects reported progressively less fear over trials, the phobic subjects reported progressively more fear. The groups did not differ in rated imagery vividness. However, heart rate responses to the image differentiated the two groups. The non-phobic subjects showed a progression from cardiac acceleration in the early trials to a biphasic response pattern, deceleration preceding acceleration, in the later trials. In contrast, the phobic subjects demonstrated sustained acceleration in the later trials. The groups did not differ in skin conductance response amplitude.     

Creating names for things

Ten subjects rendered names for each of 168 novel entities. The entities were quite varied. Naming strategies in this task situation were assessed with several dependent measures: (1) the structural form of the name expression (compound noun, lexically modified noun, etc.), (2) the content analysis of the name (i.e., into morphological patterns that directly convey content properties of referents), (3) statistical measures (number of syllables), and (4) comments and ratings elicited from participants. Several general strategies were induced.This is a shortened version of Carroll (1979a).     

Development in moral judgment as indicated by rejection of lower-stage statements

Previous failures of preference rating scales to identify developmental differences in moral judgment may have occurred because the focus was on acceptance of high-stage reasons rather than on consistent rejection of lower-stage reasons. Attention focused on seventh-, ninth-, and eleventh-grade students' (N = 178) rejection of the lower-stage statements that they presumably comprehend but have to varying degrees dropped from their spontaneous-production repertoire. Students rated the adequacy of the reasons presented in statements written to exemplify Kohlberg's stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Ratings of Stage 1, 2, 3, and 4 statements showed clear age discrimination (all p's < .001). As in previous preference studies, higher-stage items produced no significant age differences. Implications for evaluation of change studies were noted.     

Consumer information processing strategies in middle and late adulthood

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the extent to which performance of a complex cognitive task of a type resembling that encountered in everyday life is maintained through adulthood. A total of 80 subjects participated; 20 in their thirties, 20 in their fifties, 20 in their sixties, and 20 in their seventies. Subjects were asked to make preference judgments with respect to 32 pocket-size notebooks of a sort they might encounter as consumers in a stationery or variety store. Independently, they were also asked to express their preferences with respect to each of the four dimensions on which the notebooks varied. With only minor differences across age groups, most subjects demonstrated the ability to integrate their individual dimension preferences into a complex preference judgment of an object embodying those dimensions, in a logically consistent manner.