Historical comparisons: Testing psychological hypotheses with cross-era data (1)

Cross-era research, an approach which involves developing and testing social science hypotheses in terms of historical time-series data, is first discussed as regards its relationship to other comparative research approaches. Some examples of cross-era research in psychology are described. Special problems that arise in cross-era research, and proposed methods of coping with them, are discussed as regards each of the three successive phases of research: creative hypothesis formation problems; difficulties that arise in the hypothesis-testing phase; and problems that emerge during the phase of communicating and utilizing the findings.     

Where has hope gone? Toward an understanding of hope in pastoral care

This paper questions the lack of a conceptual model or psychology of hope for pastoral theology and proceeds to develop such a psychology by surveying the theology of hope, by reviewing the dynamics of hoping of some contemporary philosophers and psychologists, and by proposing a hypothesis that hope is difficult to conceptualize because the mode of hoping is nonabstract, relational, nonlinear, and imaginative, all right-lobe brain functions more characteristic of Eastern than Western consciousness. Six implications of this hypothesis for pastoral care are suggested.Research for this paper and work on hope as it relates to pastoral care and counseling was made possible by a year's sabbatical leave from St. Paul School of Theology.     

Correlation and prediction in ordinal test theory

Based on the test theory model for ordinal measurements proposed by Schulman and Haden, the present paper considers correlations between tests, attenuation, regressions involving true and observed scores, and prediction of test reliability.The population correlation between tests is shown to be related to the expected sample correlation for samples of sizen ₁ andn ₂. Errors of estimation, measurement and prediction are found to be similar to their counterparts in interval test theory, while attenuation is identical to its counterpart. The bias in estimating population reliability from sample data is compared for Kendall's tau and Spearman's rho.The author wishes to thank the referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and in particular, for the suggested alternative methods of establishing some of the presented results.     

Transformation of a three-mode multidimensional scaling solution to indscal form

Relations between Tucker's three-mode multidimensional scaling and Carroll and Chang's INDSCAL are discussed. The possibility is raised that it may be profitable to attempt to transform a three-mode solution to the general form of an INDSCAL solution. Operationally, this involves transforming the three-mode core matrix so that each section is, as nearly as possible, a diagonal matrix. A technique is developed for accomplishing such a transformation, and is applied to two sets of data from the literature. Results indicate that the process is both feasible and valuable, providing useful information on the relative appropriateness of the two models.     

A look,by simulation,at the validity of some asymptotic distribution results for rotated loadings

In the last few years, a number of asymptotic results for the distribution of unrotated and rotated factor loadings have been given. This paper investigates the validity of some of these results based on simulation techniques. In particular, it looks at principal component extraction and quartimax rotation on a problem with 13 variables. The indication is that the asymptotic results are quite good.     

Stimulus redundancy and immediate recall

This study examined immediate recall in two stimulus prefix and two stimulus suffix conditions and in a condition that combined a prefix and suffix. Suffixes and the combination of a prefix with a suffix interfered more with recall overall than did prefixes. Performance in each of the conditions that included a prefix was significantly better overall than in appropriate control conditions, in which interference was augmented by a redundant element in recall. It was suggested that prefixes and suffixes lie operationally on a continuum and that their effects result from the subject's inability to dissociate the redundant element from the memory series. However, the location of redundancy imposes different processing requirements that differentially influence recall.     

Recognition memory for words and pictures at short and long retention intervals

In two experiments, subjects studied a long series of words and pictures for recognition. Retention intervals varied from several minutes to a few months. The complicated testing procedures in Experiment I required the use of a traditional correction for guessing to obtain estimates of subjects' memory performance. A comparable, but simpler, design in Experiment II permitted the calculation of sensitivity and bias measures. In both studies, pictorial memory was superior to verbal memory at all retention intervals tested, and this advantage was essentially constant over time. In addition, the experiments identified an increasing tendency to call verbal test items "old" over time. Bias scores in Experiment H revealed that subjects adopted a more lenient criterion in responding to words than to pictures, and increased leniency was noted for both item types over time. Explanations of the results are offered in terms of differences in initial encoding and of a loss of discrimination between experimental and extraexperimental materials.     

Manipulation of response-contingent unconditioned-stimulus intensity in human eyelid conditioning: A two-phase model analysis

Four groups of human subjects were given 360 classical eyeblink conditioning trials. All groups received the same UCS (unconditioned stimulus) intensity on[Formula: see text] (nonconditioned response) trials but differed in the intensity presented on CR trials. Response probability increased as a positive function of UCS intensity on CR trials. Phase 1 of the two-phase model was longer when no UCS was presented on CR trials, but did not differ in duration among the remaining three groups. Most subjects could be described with a single operator in Phase 2, the operator limit increasing as a positive function of CR-contingent UCS intensity. For subjects requiring different operator limits on CR and[Formula: see text] trials, the latter was lower with high CR-trial intensities but higher with low CR-trialintensities. The results were interpreted to be more consistent with drive theory than with "law-of-effect" or two-factor theories.     

Further examinations of the category-recall function

Subjects were assigned to use either three or six categories and were given either 5 or 10 trials in a word-sorting task. Subsequent to sorting, they recalled as many words as they could. A measure of sorting consistency showed that the six-category sort was a more difficult task than was the three-category sort. Number of categories did not have a significant effect on recall performance regardless of whether 5 or 10 sorting trials were used. A correlational analysis raised questions about the relationship of the sorting tasks to recall performance and clustering.