Teaching experimental psychology with on-line computers

The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of on-line computers in the teaching of experimental methodology. Computer models are featured.     

Perceived Similarity,Personality, and Attraction to Large Organizations1

Two separate studies tested the hypothesis that perceived similarity to members of an organization was related to attraction to that organization, but only for relationship-motivated persons, and not for task-motivated persons. Support for the hypothesis was obtained in both studies using Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) scores as measures of relationship and task motivation. For high-LPC persons only, perceived similarity of personality (study 1) and perceived similarity of values and attitudes (study 2) were related to attraction to the organization. The report seeks to integrate the literature on interpersonal attraction and on job satisfaction and suggests practical implications of the findings.     

Self-regulation in the modification of disruptive classroom behavior

This study compared self-regulation and external regulation procedures in the treatment of children's disruptive classroom behavior. After baseline data were collected, three of the four most disruptive children in each of 10 first- and second-grade classrooms received reinforcement for achieving low rates of disruptive behavior. The fourth child served as a control subject throughout the experiment. Two of the three experimental subjects were then taught to self-observe their own disruptive behavior. In the final reinforcement period, these subjects were given control over dispensing reinforcers to themselves, based on their self-collected behavioral data while subjects in the other experimental group continued with the externally managed reinforcement. In extinction, reinforcement was discontinued for all subjects, but one of the self-regulation subjects in each classroom continued overtly to self-observe. Results indicated that both reinforcement programs reduced disruptive behavior. The self-regulation procedures were slightly more effective in reducing disruptiveness than was the external regulation procedure, and this advantage persisted into extinction. These results suggest that self-regulation procedures provide a practical, inexpensive, and powerful alternative in dealing with disruptive behavior in children.     

Quintupling the speed of the PDP-8 DF32 disk system for real-time use

The author has noted some inefficiencies in the operation of the DF32 hardware/software disk system on the PDP-8. While such inefficiencies are not significant when the disk is used only as a store for programs which are called into core from the keyboard, they become important when the disk is used as a real-time backup for core. This paper isolates some of the problems, gives rules for avoiding them, and then describes how the system software was modified to obey these rules. The speed of the modified system is noticeable even when SAVEing and CALLing programs from the keyboard; successive blocks can be transferred between disk and core in one-fifth the previously required time.     

The equivalence of target and nontarget processing in visual search

A comparison of a forced-choice visual search task with an item recognition task did not support Neisser’s (1967) hypothesis of a preattentive stage that processes targets and nontargets differentially. In the forced-choice condition, Ss indicated which of two items in a visual display was a target; in item recognition, Ss determined whether or not the single item in the visual display was a target. The size of the memorized set of possible targets was varied from one to six items for both tasks. Latencies increased linearly with memory set size in both conditions; the slopes for forced choice and item recognition were 41.8 and 27.9 msec per item, respectively. The ratio of 1.38 between the two slopes was well fit by Sternberg’s (1967) item recognition model, which predicts a ratio of 1.50.