WORD GENERATION: A REPLICATION

R ommetveit , R. & K leiven , J. Word generation: a replication. Scand J. Psychol ., 1968, g, 277–81.–Binocular rivalry was examined in a word perception task with printed Norwegian stimulus material. Two types of resolution—choice of one image only or combination of both images—were again observed. The letter pair r/g tended to be seen as r only, g only, rg, or gr, depending upon which resolution yielded a word. Perceptual strategy was thus apparently determined in part by a superordinate search for word meaning. Fully confident generations of words from monocular non-word strings were not obtained very often.a     

Towards a hermeneutic of technomedical objects

In this article I consider some central aspects of the naturalist philosophy of science and science and technology studies in dealing with the contested status of technoscience in medicine. Focusing on the concepts of realism and representation, I argue that theories of science-as-practice in naturalist philosophy of science should expand their scope so as to reflect more thoroughly on the social and political context of technoscience. I develop a hermeneutic of technomedical objects in order to highlight the internal connectedness between social action, material agency, and the actions of scientific communities. The framework thus developed is used to re-consider the genomic turn in medicine. Pointing to the discrepancies between socially dominant representations of genomic technology and the actual interventions brought about through those technologies, I raise the question of how and where to address problems of theory and policy.

Theory and tests of the conjoint commutativity axiom for additive conjoint measurement

The empirical study of the axioms underlying additive conjoint measurement initially focused mostly on the double cancellation axiom. That axiom was shown to exhibit redundant features that made its statistical evaluation a major challenge. The special case of double cancellation where inequalities are replaced by indifferences–the Thomsen condition–turned out in the full axiomatic context to be equivalent to the double cancellation property but without exhibiting the redundancies of double cancellation. However, it too has some undesirable features when it comes to its empirical evaluation, the chief among them being a certain statistical asymmetry in estimates used to evaluate it, namely two interlocked hypotheses and a single conclusion. Nevertheless, thinking we had no choice, we evaluated the Thomsen condition for both loudness and brightness and, in agreement with other lines of research, we found more support for conjoint additivity than not. However, we commented on the difficulties we had encountered in evaluating it. Thus we sought a more symmetric replacement, which as Gigerenzer and Strube (1983) first noted, is found in the conjoint commutativity axiom proposed by Falmagne (1976, who called it the “commutative rule”). It turns out that, in the presence of the usual structural and other necessary assumptions of additive conjoint measurement, we can show that conjoint commutativity is equivalent to the Thomsen condition, a result that seems to have been overlooked in the literature. We subjected this property to empirical evaluation for both loudness and brightness. In contrast to Gigerenzer and Strube (1983), our data show support for the conjoint commutativity in both domains and thus for conjoint additivity.     

Brightness of different hues is a single psychophysical ratio scale of intensity

Recent studies based on testable behavioral axioms have concluded that psychological scales of subjective intensive attributes involving the ears and eyes form ratio scales. These studies have shown that a certain commutativity of proportion property must hold under either successive increases or successive decreases, with all other independent dimensions fixed. However, until recently limited attention has been paid to whether such subjective intensity scales differ when a dimension independent of intensity, such as frequency or wavelength (e.g., pitch in audition, hue in vision) is varied. Using a simple and favorably tested theoretical model for global psychophysics, Luce, Steingrimsson, and Narens (2010) arrived at a necessary and sufficient cross-frequency, commutativity condition for there to exist a common intensity ratio scale. Here we show that brightness--already established to be a ratio-scalable dimension--and hue satisfy the same conditions.     

Predictions from a model of global psychophysics about differences between perceptual and physical matches

A well-known phenomenon is that ??matched?? successive signals do not result in physical identity. This phenomenon has mostly been studied in terms of how much the second of two signals varies from the first, which is called the time-order error (TOE). Here, theoretical predictions led us to study the more general question of how much the matching signal differs from the standard signal, independent of the position of the matching signal as the first or second in a presentation. This we call non-equal matches (NEM). Using Luce??s (Psychological Review, 109, 520?C532, 2002, Psychological Review, 111, 446?C454, 2004, Psychological Review, 115, 601, 2008, Psychological Review, 119, 373?C387, 2012) global psychophysical theory, we predicted NEM when an intensity z is perceived to be ??1 times a standard signal x.?? The theory predicts two different types of individual behaviors for the NEM, and these predictions were evaluated and confirmed in an experiment. We showed that the traditional definition of TOE precludes the observation, and thus the study, of the NEM phenomenon, and that the NEM effect is substantial enough to alter conclusions based on data that it affects. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the custom of averaging data over individuals clearly leads to quite misleading results. An important parameter in this modeling is a reference point that plays a central role in creating variability in the data, so that the key to obtaining regular data from respondents is to stabilize the reference point.     

Empirical evaluation of a model of global psychophysical judgments: III. A form for the psychophysical function and intensity filtering

In part I, a concept of ratio estimation is defined and it is shown that if such estimates depend only upon the physical ratio of the signal to the reference signal, the psychophysical function must be a power function. Assuming the same exponents for each component, an invariance condition, equivalent to a sum of power functions, is studied empirically for binaural loudness. It is fully or partially sustained for 19 of 22 respondents. Since failures may be attributable to different exponents in the two ears, the ratio of the two exponents is estimated but that fails to explain the failures. Other possible explanations are suggested. In part II, an intensity filtering model is presented, accounting for the phenomenon where monaural loudness matches show a bias depending on the matching ear. We show (a) that the existence of such a bias does not alter the prior experimental results; and (b) assuming the power function, that five respondents attenuate the opposite ear and two enhance it.     

EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCYAND CONTRAST CONTEXTS ON THE COGNITION OF WORDS: A study of stereoscopic rivalry

R ommetveit , R., T och , H. & S vendsen , D. Effects of contingency and contrast contexts on the cognition of words. A study of stereoscopic rivalry. Scad r. Psychol ., 1968, 9, 138–144.—Two typographically very similar words (like 'hell' and 'tell') were presented in a binocular rivalry situation, each appearing after a contrast context (e.g. 'heaven') or a contingency context (e.g. 'devil') had been presented to both eyes. Context effect was then assessed in terms of the frequency with which the context-relevant word was reported as seen. The effect of contrast compared with contingency context was weak when context and test words were presented consecutively, but strong when the context stimulus appeared above the rivalry pair on the same stereogram.     

Evaluating a model of global psychophysical judgments—II: Behavioral properties linking summations and productions

Steingrimsson and Luce [Journal of Mathematical Psychology, in press] outlined the second author's proposed psychophysical theory [Luce (2002), Psychological Review, 109, 520-532; Luce (2004a) Psychological Review, 111, 446-454] and tested behavioral attributes that, separately, gave rise to two psychophysical functions, Ψ_⊕ and Ψ_°p. The function Ψ_⊕ maps pairs of physical intensities onto the positive real numbers and represents subjective summation, and the function Ψ_°p represents a form of ratio production. This article evaluates properties linking summation and production in such a way as to force Ψ_°p=Ψ_⊕=Ψ. These properties, which are a form of distributivity, are subjected to an empirical evaluation in three experiments. The testing strategy is carried out in the auditory domain and concerns the subjective perception of loudness. Considerable support is provided for the existence of a single function Ψ for both summation and ratio production.     

Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale: Psychometric Properties of the Self-Report Version in a Student Sample

The aim of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of an Icelandic translation of the self-report version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS-SR). The Y-BOCS-SR was administered to a sample of 427 Icelandic university students along with another measure of OCD symptoms (OCI-R) and measures of general anxiety and worry (GAD-Q-IV and PSWQ). The internal consistency of the Y-BOCS-SR total severity score and its obsession and compulsion subscales was very good. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the original two- factor structure of the severity dimensions but a three-factor model with obsession, compulsion and resistance/control factors fitted the data equally well. Five factors described best the latent structure of the symptom dimensions. Support was found for the convergent and divergent validity of the Y-BOCS-SR. The results indicate that the Y-BOCS-SR is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the severity of obsessions and compulsions in a student population.