Effects of clausal structure and word frequency in sentence processing

A phoneme-monitoring task was employed to test the effects of clausal structure and lexical ambiguity on sentence processing. Results supported the hypothesis that the clause serves as a psychologically real unit of sentence processing, with the semantic interpretation of each clause being assigned at the clause boundary. The frequency of the ambiguous or control word preceding the critical item in the phoneme-monitoring task was also found to affect the results obtained, with higher frequency words leading to longer mean reaction times.This research is based on a thesis submitted by the first author as partial fulfillment of the M.A. degree at The University of Iowa. Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, San Antonio, Texas, 1978.     

Temporal compatibility in dual motor tasks II: Simultaneous articulation and hand movements

Simultaneous articulation did not interfere with hand responses if the responses shared the same time period. Otherwise there was marked interference even after performance had stabilized with practice. These results generalized previous findings for simultaneous left-and right-hand responses (Klapp, 1979) to show that even highly distinctive responses can be generated in parallel only if they have compatible timing.     

DINING OUT WITH CHILDREN: EFFECTIVENESS OF A PARENT ADVICE PACKAGE ON PRE-MEAL INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

The effectiveness of an advice package designed to restructure the restaurant environment and encourage parent praise was examined. Experiment 1 assessed the usefulness of the package when used with experimenter assistance. Videotapes were used to record the target child's behavior. Pre-meal inappropriate behavior decreased an average of 51% across target children. Mealtime inappropriate behavior and parent praise and disapproval were also measured. Experiment 2 was designed to determine whether families could implement the package without experimenter assistance and whether effects obtained would generalize to a different restaurant. Data were taken in vivo. Nine families were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Group assignment determined the order in which families went to two restaurants, the number of dinners each family participated in, and the point at which parents received the advice package. The order in which the families went to the two restaurants as well as the number of baseline meals was counterbalanced. Results of Experiment 2 showed that, when using the advice package, parents in all sequences were able to decrease pre-meal inappropriate behavior of their children, and that these effects generalized to a second restaurant.     

“Impossible figures” and interpretations of polyhedral figures

The concept “impossible figure” is analyzed by formalizing the interpretations of a polyhedral figure by an observer, and defining several types of inconsistency in such interpretations. Tests for these inconsistencies are developed using simple graph theory, and a sufficient condition is established for the feasibility of an interpretation. Finally, techniques are derived for the automatic construction of usual or unusual multibar figures.     

A voice-operated method for administering the MMPI

Paper/pencil psychological tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) are difficult to complete independently by patients with limited hand function. This paper describes a voice recognition system developed to allow patients with no hand function to take the MMPI independently. Profiles generated by this system are not statistically different from those generated by standard MMPI booklet format. Limitations and possible extensions of the system as it currently exists are discussed.     

Marijuana-induced primary process content in the TAT

Seventy-two normal adult male subjects wrote TAT stories under baseline and either placebo- or marijuana-ingestion conditions. Marijuana subjects received 20 mg. doses of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol. The stories were keypunched and content analyzed with the Regressive Imagery Dictionary, which yields a score for primary process content. Results indicate that marijuana, relative to placebo, caused subjects to write stories with a higher proportion of primary process content than they had included in baseline stories.     

Sex typing and the perception of body outlines

Does sex typing influence one's direct perception of gender from physical body cues? To answer this question, a study was conducted in which 47 female and 39 male subjects, after filling out the Bem Sex Role Inventory, viewed 24 body outlines varying in waist and shoulder width. Subjects were asked to indicate whether each body was female or male, or whether they were uncertain about its gender. Subjects also selected what they judged to be the most attractive and most typical female and male bodies from among the 24 body outlines. Finally, the actual shoulder, waist, and hip widths of 66 subjects were measured as a normative comparison to subjects' judgments of “typical” and “attractive” body proportions. Analyses indicated that sex-typed subjects used the “uncertain” rating less than did non-sex-typed subjects, and that males used that rating less than females did. Thus, sex-typed subjects and males showed a stronger tendency to classify stimuli by gender. Sex-typed subjects also tended to nominate more physically divergent male and female bodies as attractive than did non-sex-typed subjects; however, there were no effects of assessed masculinity or femininity on nominations of typical male and female bodies. In addition, the data provide evidence that subjects judged there to be greater physical differences between the sexes than actually exist. The results are discussed in terms of recent research on gender schemas and prototypes in person perception.     

The roles of self-esteem and self-consciousness in the Wortman-Brehm model of reactance and learned helplessness

The present experiments were designed to study the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of Wortman and Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task), whereas large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the above effects. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to either a small amount of failure or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, subjects high in self-consciousness, who have shown greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than subjects low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. Further analyses revealed that this Self-Consciousness X Small Failure interaction was attributable to the performance data of the low, but not the high self-esteem subjects. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate and extend these results. Subjects were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the anagrams task. A significant Self-Esteem X Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Relative to the no-failure condition, in which the two self-esteem groups did not differ, low self-esteem participants (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high self-esteem individuals (high SEs) in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. The effect of private self-consciousness was considerably weaker in this study, possibly because the sample included few low SEs (who are especially influenced by self-focused attention) who were also relatively low in self-consciousness. Questionnaire data from Experiment 2 were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness.