Improving the driving practices of pizza deliverers: Response generalization and moderating effects of driving history

A practical intervention program, targeting the safety belt use of pizza deliverers at two stores, increased significantly the use of both safety belts (143% above baseline) and turn signals (25% above baseline). Control subjects (i.e., pizza deliverers at a third no-intervention store and patrons driving to the pizza stores) showed no changes in belt or turn signal use over the course of 7-month study. The intervention program was staggered across two pizza stores and consisted of a group meeting wherein employees discussed the value of safety belts, received feedback regarding their low safety belt use, offered suggestions for increasing their belt use, and made a personal commitment to buckle up by signing buckle-up promise cards. Subsequently, employee-designed buckle-up reminder signs were placed in the pizza stores. By linking license plate numbers to individual driving records, we examined certain aspects of driving history as moderators of pre- and postintervention belt use. Although baseline belt use was significantly lower for drivers with one or more driving demerits or accidents in the previous 5 years, after the intervention these risk groups increased their belt use significantly and at the same rate as drivers with no demerits or accidents. Whereas baseline belt use was similar for younger (under 25) and older (25 or older) drivers, younger drivers were markedly more influenced by the intervention than were older drivers. Individual variation in belt use during baseline, intervention, and follow-up phases indicated that some drivers require more effective and costly intervention programs to motivate their safe driving practices.     

Sex differences among partner preferences: Are the sexes really very similar?

The question as to what type of individual we prefer in a “romantic” partner has stimulated a long history of research, with much of the present debate centering around the issue of the sex differences in partner preferences. In the studies described in this paper, two groups of participants completed a variety of different questionnaire schedules indicating their preferences for a partner. In study 1, 216 single students demonstrated a prevailing desire for a kind, considerate, and honest partner who displayed a keen sense of humor. Consistent with the hypothesis, there were no clear sex differences evident in these results. In study 2, 76 dating agency members completed a similar schedule examining partner preferences. Here again, preferences were similar across the sexes, although men preferred the submissive and introverted partner and stressed the importance of physical appearance in a mate. The general discussion considers the implications of these findings in the light of previous research on partner preferences.     

Processing level and recognition: A search method for inducing alternative encodings of unrelated words

Twenty-four subjects viewed cards containing four words. In synonym orienting, half of the cards contained a synonym pair and half did not; in homophone orienting, half of the displays contained a homophone pair. The remaining two words in each display were used to index retention. During presentation of displays, subjects responded “yes” or “no” to indicate the presence or absence of a matching pair. Following presentation, a recognition test was administered. Half the items were tested early and half were tested late; within each test order, half the items appeared with context cues during testing and half appeared without. Results showed superior recognition (1) following semantic orienting, (2) for items tested early, (3) for items tested with context, and (4) for nonmatch displays requiring exhaustive item comparison. An Orienting by Test Cuing interaction showed that the presence of test cues improved recognition for homophone orienting items only. The interaction may have resulted from the lack of cuetarget associations and the reinstatement of the phonemic orienting set during the test.     

Case-like categories in children: The actor and some related categories

Case categories were investigated using a method in which pictures are presented accompanied by a sentence describing the scene: Preschool children learn to put tokens on the objects in the pictures according to the role each object plays in the scene as described. Generalization trials explore what the children include within the various roles. Children rapidly learn to associate tokens with case-like categories during the training phase, and readily transfer to new stimuli in generalization trials. The experiments demonstrate that children have a broad Actor category. The Actor “does” the action, and Actors are not necessarily animate. However, animacy is a class property of stimuli to which the children were very sensitive. There was evidence that User and Instrument are subcategories of Actor that are differentiated only when a sentence contains both. The data also suggest a Locative category, and Patient as a category of the grammatical object. Finally, the children appeared to treat subjects of predicate adjectives as a separate category, here called the Subject of Attribution, distinct from Actor, and functionally independent of objects of transitive verbs.     

Cognitive processing of uncertainty: Its effect on pupillary dilation and preference ratings

The prediction of greater pupillary dilation as unpredictability (induced by random-turn shapes) increased was supported (p <.001) in studies involving 40 young adults and 10 children. The postulated linearity of this increase found support, except in cases where apparent stimulus-selection strategies attenuated the dilation at higher levels of variability. Those Ss who did preference ratings concomitantly with the intake of visual unpredictability evidenced significantly greater dilation (p <.001) at the time of reporting the rating. Both children and adults dilated significantly less to the shapes after prolonged experience with similar stimuli. indicating development of either ability to handle variability or to selectively filter input, but age was not a factor. The lack of any significant relationship between pupillary dilation and preference indicated the need for more definitive work in determining when these two indices profitably complement each other. Finally, adults dilated more to provocative auditory stimuli than to the visual shapes.