Interactive braille output for blind computer users

Blind readers were tested using two methods of reading text displayed by an Apple microcomputer. The first method employed an Optacon system, a device that displays tactile representations of single characters, and the second used an interactive single electronic braille cell that displayed grade 1 braille characters. The results demonstrated no difference in accuracy or reading speed between these two methods. Thus, the serial presentation of braille characters at a single position appears to be a viable method of information transfer between computers and braille readers.     

The word-superiority effect under conditions that approximate reading

Observers detected a briefly flashed target letter embedded in word, pronounceable nonword, and unpronounceable nonword contexts. The word context facilitated perception under both holistic and analytical processing strategies; the facilitative effect was enhanced when processing was analytical.     

Differences in academic performance at school depending on handedness: matter for neuropathology?

Two studies found that left-handed children had significantly poorer academic records than did right-handed children, though the effect was small. Study 1 provided evidence that, for some academic disciplines, the important difference appeared to be between those children whose family history of handedness was concordant with their own handedness and those children whose family history of handedness was discordant with their own handedness. The inclusion of gender in asymmetry research was bolstered by Study 2. When predicting idiosyncrasies in left-handers' cognitive performance, it should be borne in mind that left-handers form a minority group as well as a neurologically distinct one.     

Temporal pattern of agonist-antagonist EMG activity during rapid limb movements in man

Analysis of elbow-extension movements, executed at maximal velocity, show positive correlations of timing of agonist-antagonist EMG activity with both movement velocity and displacement. Results indirectly support the notion that the antagonist musculature provides a braking force to arrest rapid limb movements.     

Effects of delayed conditioned reinforcement in chain schedules.

The contingency between responding and stimulus change on a chain variable-interval 33-s, variable-interval 33-s, variable-interval 33-s schedule was weakened by interposing 3-s delays between either the first and second or the second and third links. No stimulus change signaled the delay interval and responses could occur during it, so the obtained delays were often shorter than the scheduled delay. When the delay occurred after the initial link, initial-link response rates decreased by an average of 77% with no systematic change in response rates in the second or third links. Response rates in the second link decreased an average of 59% when the delay followed that link, again with little effect on response rates in the first or third links. Because the effect of delaying stimulus change was comparable to the effect of delaying primary reinforcement in a simple variable-interval schedule, and the effect of the unsignaled delay was specific to the link in which the delay occurred, the results provide strong evidence for the concept of conditioned reinforcement.     

Measuring gender differences: The expressive dimension and critique of androgyny scales

This paper calls for a new approach to the measurement of gender similarities and differences in personality. Critiques of current measures that are based on the measurement of stereotypical masculinity and femininity are reviewed, and an alternative measure is presented. It avoids many of the problems in the other scales by measuring expressiveness and instrumentality in such a way that they are not confounded with variables such as independence or autonomy. Results with this measure in five different samples are presented. These confirm our theoretical definitions of expressiveness and instrumentality, and suggest that only the expressive or relational dimension consistently differentiates samples of women and men.We thank Mary Rothbart for her insightful and constructive comments on an earlier draft; Leisha Sanders, Marcia DeCaro, Vickie Van Nortwick, and Lyn Cogswell for their clerical assistance; the Center for the Study of Women in Society for financial support; and Liza Kuecker and Patricia Gwartney-Gibbs for providing data used in the analysis. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1984 annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association.     

Repeated exposure and the attractiveness of synthetic speech: An inverted-U relationship

Previous experimental investigation of the effects of repeating an unfamiliar stimulus suggests that mere exposure breeds attraction (e.g., Zajonc, 1968). On the other hand, correlational work with naturally occurring stimuli such as names, music, or landscapes suggests that there is also an overexposure effect: the preference function does rise with familiarity at first but then reaches a turning point and diminishes. The study (N=72) demonstrates this inverted-U relationship in an experimental setting. The stimuli were synthetic nonsense speech, permitting exact control of exposure durations and interstimulus intervals. The critical factors for demonstrating the effect are probably (1) the inclusion of a large number of repetitions, and (2) blocked repetition of each stimulus in a homogeneous sequence not interspersed with other more or less frequent stimuli.     

Completion norms for 40 three-letter word stems

This is a report of the completion responses for 40 three-letter word stems (e.g., ABO) produced by 100 undergraduate students at the University of California at San Diego. The report includes a list of the different words that were written as stem completions, their frequency of occurrence as completions, and their frequency of occurrence in English according to published norms. This list of materials is useful for the construction of completion tests for future investigations of direct priming phenomena, and it may provide an important covariate in the analysis of performance on completion tests. Preliminary analyses of the results reveal three primary factors that determine overall performance on a stem-completion test: word frequency, word length, and meanings per word. Analyses of the completions produced for each individual word stem, however, reveal that usually only one of these factors makes a significant contribution to performance.