Conformity as a function of task generalization and relative competence

Subject correctness and group agreement were varied for college subjects engaged in a light discrimination task. On another task, employing multiple-choice questions about Canada, the dependent variable of conformity was assessed to examine generalization of relative competence formed on the light discrimination task. It was seen that (1) relative competence was seen to mediate conformity for a specific task (Canadian Knowledge Inventory), but did not generalize across tasks (i.e. from the light discrimination task to the Canadian Knowledge Inventory); (2) with respect to the Canadian Knowledge Inventory, subjects who perceived themselves as more competent than the group did not conform as much as those who either perceived themselves as less competent than or as competent as the group; (3) the experimental manipulations did not affect conformity, further supporting the findings that perceived competence does not generalize across classes of tasks; (4) females conformed more than males: and (5) nonsuspicious subjects conformed more than suspicious subjects.     

VALUE SYSTEMS OF STUDENTS IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA AND AUSTRALIA

The Rokeach Value Survey was administered to 12 groups of indigenous respondents fluent in the English language and enrolled in tertiary institutions and training programmes in Papua New Guinea (over 1,100 subjects). Average value systems of these respondents were compared with those of three Australian student groups (secondary and tertiary). Marked differences were found in the relative importance assigned to particular values. Values assigned relatively high importance by the Papua New Guinea groups were discussed in relation to lower-order safety and security needs that may become salient in a developing country, and in terms of the traditional culture and the history of Papua New Guinea, especially the missionary influence, the extended family and wantok (”one-talk”) systems, possible expatriate influence on occupational roles, and present concern with emerging nationhood. Values assigned relatively high importance by the Australian groups were discussed in relation to higher-order needs that might become prepotent in a more affluent society. Factor analyses indicated that all 12 groups in Papua New Guinea were fairly similar in their average value systems.     

Modification of depth judgment following exposures to magnification of uniocular image: Are changes in perceived absolute distance and registered direction of gaze involved?

Two studies were designed to determine whether the perceptual learning that has been demonstrated to occur during exposure to uniocular image magnification can be explained by either a modification in the perception of egocentric distance or the direction of gaze. Experiment 1 was designed to determine whether exposure to uniocular image magnification produces changes in perceived absolute distance. Experiment 2 tested the possibility that exposure to uniocular image magnification modifies the registration of direction of gaze. The results showed that, despite the occurrence of adaptive shifts in perceived depth, no significant changes in perceived absolute distance or in registered direction of gaze occur. These findings bolster confidence in the hypothesis that adaptation to uniocular image magnification is the result of a recalibration of retinal disparity.     

Interactive scaling with individual subjects

A metric multidimensional scaling (MDS) procedure based on computer-subject interaction is developed, and an experiment designed to validate the procedure is presented. The interactive MDS system allows generalization of current MDS systems in two directions: (a) very large numbers of stimuli may be scaled; and (b) the scaling is performed with individual subjects, facilitating the investigation of individual as well as group processes. The experiment provided positive support for the interactive MDS system. Specifically, (a) individual data are amenable to meaningful interpretation, and they provide a tentative basis for quantitative investigation; and (b) grouped data provide meaningful interpretive and quantitative results which are equivalent to results from standard paired-comparisons methods.This report was supported in part by a PHS research grant, No. M-10006, from the National Institute of Mental Health, in part by a Science Development grant, No. GU-2059, from the National Science Foundation, both granted to the Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina, and in part by a PHS research grant, No. MH-16474, from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service, granted to the second author. The major portion of this research was performed while the second author was the L. L. Thurstone Distinguished Fellow at the Psychometric Laboratory of the University of North Carolina while on leave from the University of Southern California. The authors are indebted to Amnon Rapoport and Thomas S. Wallsten for their critical evaluations of an earlier version of this report. While this paper was entirely a cooperative effort on the part of both authors, the first author was primarily responsible for the algorithms, and the second for developing the mathematical model.     

INTERINDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SIMILARITY ESTIMATES OF PAINTINGS

KÜNNAPAS, T. & NORMAN, M. Intel-individual differences in similarity estimates of paintings. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 161–167.–Nine paintings by Cézanne were studied by the method of multidimensional similarity analysis. Three different groups of painters, students, and art school pupils participated in three experiments. Three factors were found: Factor I is called 'Complex horizontally arranged motive'; Factor II, 'Vertical central figure'; and Factor III, 'Central figure without background'. Comparison of different groups showed (1) that for paintings with the greatest loading in one of these factors no differences were obtained, (2) that differences between the groups are smallest in Factor I and greatest in Factor III, (3) that differences between the painters and students are greater than those between the painters and pupils, or between the pupils and the students, and (4) that interindividual differences between the groups are due, at least partly, to the formal artistic aspect which is most dominant in painters, in lower degree in pupils, and very little in students.     

Restricted ranking

This paper is a study of certain aspects of restricted ranking, a method intended for use by a panel ofm judges evaluating the relative merits ofN subjects, candidates for scholarships, awards, etc. Each judge divides theN subjects intoR classes so thatn _i individuals receive a gradei (i = 1, 2, ...,R; Σn _i =N) where theR numbersn _i are close toN/R (n _i =N/R whenN is divisible byR) and are preassigned and the same for all judges. This method is superior in several respects to other likely alternatives. Under the null hypothesis that allnR =N subjects are of equal merit, four tests of significance are developed. The effectiveness of the method is investigated both theoretically by means of the asymptotic relative efficiency and more generally by simulation studies. When the numbersn _i are not restricted to values close to or equal toN/R but instead are given values conforming to a normally distributed pattern, the resulting method is known as theQ-sort, so designated by certain investigators in psychotherapy. The simulation studies reveal that restricted ranking is only slightly inferior to complete ranking and generally superior in the cases considered to theQ-sort, although there are likely to be other situations when the latter is superior. The authors are indebted to Dr. Clyde Kramer of Virginia Polytechnic Institute for bringing theQ-sort ranking technique of psychotherapy to their attention.     

Mechanisms of aural encoding: IV. Hear-see,say-write interactions for vowels

Six vowel sounds were presented in rondom orders for recall from short-term memory. Four groups of 25 Ss each in a2by 2 design either heard or saw the words, and either had to say them or write them. In general, accuracy was greater when the sounds were seen rather than heard, especially when they were verbatty reported. The major concern was the degree to which the major distinctive feature systems could predict the intrusion errors in each of the four conditions. The best prediction occurred in the auditory-input/verbal-output condition, as would be expected from the models on which distinctive feature specifications are based. However, as in a previous study by these authors, the most accurate predictions were not always made by the same combination of distinctive features. It is concluded that distinctive features are identifled in the initial encoding bef ore any retrieval processes are activated and that further errors made at the time of retrieval are aho related to distinctive features. Most importantly, however, both at initial registration and at retrieval, different features are implicated, depending upon the sound presented for recall and the input-output modalities involved.     

Processing of sequentially presented letters

The effect on the number of letters S can report of the duration of each sequentially presented letter was compared with that of processing time, defined as the time from the onset of a letter to the onset of the next letter. Four Ss were each shown 1250 common English words, from four to eight letters long, one letter at a time. Each letter acted as a visual noise field for the preceding letter. The duration of each letter and the interval between letters was varied independently. The S reported the letters he saw after each word was displayed. It was found that the processing time (onset to onset) predicted the number of letters correctly reported, regardless of the partition between on time and off time. A calculation was made of the number of milliseconds of on plus off time that are needed to ensure correct report of each letter. This time was independent of the duration of the processing time, but was positively correlated with the number of letters in the word. This correlation is probably in part artifactual, so that no claim can be made that it takes longer to process a letter of a long as compared to a short word.     

The “idealized individual” interpretation of individual differences in multidimensional scaling

It is shown that several variants of the Tucker-Messick points of view procedure are interpretable in terms of their idealized individual concepts. It is contended that the main function of the method is that it allows the computation ofseveral vectors of mean judgments instead of only one and that each of these may be used to stand for the actual judgments of a subgroup of subjects. Vectors that do not correspond to the judgments of any subjects are to be avoided. It is alleged that Ross's interpretation of points of view is quite different from that intended by Tucker and Messick.The preparation of this paper was supported in part by Contract Nonr-228(32) between the Office of Navel Research and the University of Southern California.     

A central limit theorem for families of stochastic processes indexed by a small average step size parameter,and some applications to learning models

Let > 0 be a measure of the average step size of a stochastic process {p _n ⁽⁾ } _n=1 ⁽⁾. Conditions are given under whichp _n ⁽⁾ is approximately normally distributed whenn is large and is small. This result is applied to a number of learning models where is a learning rate parameter andp _n ⁽⁾ is the probability that the subject makes a certain response on thenth experimental trial. Both linear and stimulus sampling models are considered.