Familiarity and person construal: Individuating knowledge moderates the automaticity of category activation

In this experiment, we examined how perceivers' familiarity with targets moderates person construal. Based on evidence from object categorization that level of construal varies with expertise in a manner that maximizes cue validity, we reasoned that although social (i.e., group‐level) categorization is functional for construing unfamiliar others (about whom little or no individuating information is available), it is less functional for familiar others (about whom a great deal of individuating information is available). Results from an automatic priming paradigm provided evidence for our reasoning: Participants categorized unfamiliar faces according to the most salient categorical dimension available in the visual information (in this case, sex), but did not do so for familiar faces. Implications for models of person perception are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relations between uniform connectedness, luminance, and shape similarity as perceptual organizational cues in infancy

Although several studies have examined infants' sensitivity to perceptual organizational cues, few have examined the functional relations among these cues. We examined how uniform connectedness (UC) functions in relation to shape and luminance similarity. UC has been characterized as the entry-level mechanism of perceptual organization and would therefore be predicted to be more salient than the other two cues. We found that UC was more salient than shape similarity organization was, to the point that 6- to 7-month-old infants failed to even organize on the basis of shape in the presence of UC. Luminance similarity, however, was more salient than UC, even though UC was detected by infants in the presence of luminance cues. We conclude that UC is not necessarily the most salient mechanism of perceptual organization in infancy. Moreover, the luminance-UC-shape salience hierarchy exhibited by 6- to 7-month-olds in the present study is consistent with the order of development of sensitivity to these organizational cues.     

Naturalistic Conceptions of Morality: A Question-Answering Approach

ABSTRACT Psychological research on morality has been based on researchers' definitions of morality or on philosophical theories. The present study examined naturally occurring conceptions of morality by using a knowledge-structure methodology borrowed from cognitive psychology. Subjects generated statements in response to a question designed to expose generic knowledge about their concept of morality. Answer frequency and conceptual clustering results suggested that a variety of diverse concepts undergirded subjects' moral thinking and revealed a person-based rather than a philosophy-based pattern for commonly held conceptions of morality. A three-dimensional scaling solution of the responses suggested that conceptions of morality were characterized by individual-social, general-specific, and absolute-relative distinctions. These findings raise questions about assumptions underlying previous theories of morality. Moreover, the present methodology offers a basis for developing a more representative account of moral thought that depends less on the beliefs of researchers.     

Communicative psychoanalysis: Contributions to clinical practice and the development of a science of psychoanalysis

Robert Langs' communicative approach to psychoanalysis has lead to new clinical insights and to a promising line of quantitative research. Fundamental concepts of the communicative approach are explained and illustrated with a clinical example. Characteristics of the approach, which distinguish it from other modern, interactive analytic theories are discussed; as well as a critical clinical insight derived from the communicative approach. The approach's unique contributions to the development of a science of psychoanalysis are explained. The advantages and problems of the communicative method are also discussed throughout the paper.     

SOCIAL VALIDATION OF COMPONENT BEHAVIORS OF FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS,ACCEPTING CRITICISM,AND NEGOTIATING

This study evaluated whether behaviors often taught as part of social skills training are judged favorably by others. Community judges evaluated the performances of people in various situations requiring one of three social skills: following instructions, accepting criticism, and negotiating to resolve conflicts. These skills were displayed in videotaped scenes by actors with and without mental retardation who acted out roles that had different types of authority relationships, and when different components or clusters of behavior (nonverbal, specific verbal, or general verbal behaviors) were performed well or poorly. The highest ratings by judges were of videotaped scenes that depicted correct use of all behaviors, regardless of which skill was being examined, whether or not the actor had mental retardation, or what the relationship was between the two actors. The lowest ratings were of videotaped scenes that depicted poor performance of all behaviors, and intermediate ratings were obtained when only some of the behaviors were performed poorly. These results, as well as the verbal responses of judges to questions, indicated that the different behaviors commonly used in teaching the skills of following instructions, accepting criticism, and negotiating are relevant to judgment of social performance, and are likely to be reinforced and maintained by social contingencies.     

Kinematic information feedback for learning a rapid arm movement

The experiments reported examine the notion that knowledge of results (KR) about the outcome of a response does not provide the necessary information for optimizing performance in many skilled activities. The effect of traditional KR was contrasted with various kinematic feedback parameters in the acquisition of a single degree of freedom response requiring the minimization of movement time. Experiment 1 showed that the presentation of discrete kinematic information feedback (peak accelaration, time to peak accelaration, and velocity at the target location) did not facilitate performance over movement-time KR. Experiment 2 revealed that presentation of a computer generated velocity-time representation of the movement as terminal information feedback improved performance over movement-time KR. This facilitation occured even without knowledge of the kinematics for optimal performance. The findings suggest that the task criterion specifies the appropriate information feedback for skill learning in that the information feedback must match the constraints imposed upon response output.     

Identification of gender in domestic-cat faces with and without training: perceptual learning of a natural categorization task

Three experiments were conducted to determine whether human observers could identify the gender of 40 domestic cats (20 female, 20 male) depicted in individual color photographs. In experiment 1a, observers performed at chance for photographs depicting whole cats, cat heads (bodies occluded), and cat bodies (heads occluded). Experiment 1b showed that chance performance was also obtained when the photographs were full-face close-ups of the cats. Experiment 2a revealed that even with gender-identification training on 30 (15 female, 15 male) of the 40 face close-ups, observers were unable to generalize their training to reliably identify the gender of the 10 remaining test faces (5 female, 5 male). However, experiment 2b showed that gender-identification training with the 14 most accurately identified faces from experiment 1b (7 female, 7 male) was successful in raising gender identification of the 10 test faces above chance. Experiments 3a and 3b extended this facilitative effect of gender-identification training to a population of animal-care workers. The findings indicate that, with appropriate training, human observers can identify the gender of cat faces at an above-chance level. A perceptual category learning account emphasizing the on-line formation of differentiated male versus female prototypes during training is offered as an explanation of the findings.     

Computers for cognitive research: A HyperCard adventure game

For researchers interested in exploring the cognitive and metacognitive processes involved in problem-solving, one obstacle has been the difficulty of creating engaging and ecologically valid situations in which to observe these skills in practice. Computer games can provide a rich environment for research on such skills. I present a HyperCard example of an adventure game that serves as an environment for research on analogy in problem-solving. The design of the game and interface is detailed, and initial results of and suggestions for extensions to this work are presented.     

Behavioral effects of microwave reinforcement schedules and variations in microwave intensity on albino rats

The objective of this exploratory investigation was to determine the interactive effects of fixed-ratio scheduling of microwave reinforcement in tandem with changes in microwave intensity. Nine albino rats were conditioned to regulate their thermal environment with microwave radiation while living in a Skinner (operant conditioning) Box in which the ambient temperature was about 27.13 degrees F at the beginning of the session. Each rat obtained a 6-sec. exposure of microwave radiation on a fixed-ratio schedule of MW reinforcement, the values of which varied from FR-1 to FR-30. Intensities of MW radiation were 62.5 W, 125 W, 250 W, and 437.5 W. Sessions lasted for 8 to 9 hr. over an approximate 13-mo. period. The effects of the intensity of microwave reinforcement varied as a function of the ratio value of the schedule used. Continuous reinforcement (FR-1) produced the lowest over-all rates, whereas FR-15, and FR-25 produced the highest over-all rates. Relatively higher thermal-behavior rates occurred under 62.5 W than under any of the other MW intensities for FR-1, FR-15, and FR-25, whereas FR-10 and FR-30 ratios produced intermediate rates of thermal responding which were constant for all values of MW intensity. These data are explained in terms of interactive effects between the "local" satiation or deprivation properties of the MW intensity and the ratio requirements of the schedule of MW reinforcement.