A method for the preparation of audio tapes for dichotic listening research

A simple method for producing audio tapes with temporally synchronized messages is described. The duration and spacing of words can be precisely controlled. This method requires a minimum of elaborate equipment, yet synchronization is very accurate with highly intelligible speech.     

Dimensional and metric structures in multidimensional stimuli

The present experiments investigated two characteristics of subjects’ multidimensional representations: their dimensional organization and metric structure, for both analyzable and integral stimuli. In Experiment 1, subjects judged the dissimilarity between all pairs of stimuli differing in brightness and size (analyzable stimuli), while in Experiment 2, subjects made dissimilarity judgments for stimuli varying in width height, and area shape (integral stimuli). For the brightness size stimuli, the findings that (a) brightness judgments were independent of size (and vice versa) and (b) the best fitting scaling solution was one that depicted an orthogonal structure are strong evidence that subjects perceived brightness size as a dimensionally organized structure. In contrast, for the rectangle stimuli, neither width height nor area shape contributed additively to overall dissimilarity. The results of the metric fitting were more equivocal. For all stimulus sets, the Euclidean metric yielded scaling solutions with lower stress values than the city block metric. When bidimensional ratings were regressed on unidimensional ratings, the city block metric yielded a slightly higher correlation coefficient than the Euclidean metric for brightness size stimuli. The two rules of combination were equivalent for the width-height stimuli, but the Euclidean metric provided a better approximation for the area shape stimuli. The results were discussed in terms of how subjects integrate physical dimensions for the case of integral stimuli and the superiority of dimensional vs. metric structure as an indicator of stimulus analyzability.     

Cognitive support for the career choices of college women

The career aspirations of 50 female college seniors of lower- and middle-class backgrounds was assessed by a questionnaire and tape-recorded interview. Using a fourfold classification contrasting career choice with career commitment, the women were classified as innovative career oriented, innovative noncareer oriented, traditional career oriented, and traditional noncareer oriented. The career aspirations of these women, however, were not related to maternal employment patterns as previous studies have indicated. Rather, the perceived attitudes and direction of the parents was found to be a significant correlate of career choice and career commitment. It was concluded that maternal employment as a modeling variable may be unimportant for women of lower- and middle-class backgrounds.This article is based on a dissertation which was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in the Graduate Center, City University of New York. The author expresses appreciation to Dr. Florence Denmark for her continuous support throughout the entire study and also thanks Dr. Bernard Seidenberg for his valuable suggestions on earlier drafts of this article.     

Graphemic analysis underlying literacy

Three experiments are described that studied the role of detailed graphemic analysis upon the ability to read text. College students named letters in various approximations to English, with frequency of individual letters constant. Findings were that later skill at reading varied with the order of approximation to English of the letters that were named, that the spacing of the letter sequences was important to this result, and, finally, that the influence of specific visual practice extended to the typeface on which the naming and reading were carried out. Hence, rather than a letter-by-letter process or its opposite, a wholly semantic analysis, reading is shown to be intimately dependent upon details of visual analysis of patterns or letter sequences.     

Parafoveal information is not sufficient to produce semantic or visual priming

Marcel (1978) has shown that semantic priming can occur in the lexical-decision task even if the prime is masked to the point at which its presence cannot be detected. The purpose of the present experiments was to determine if primes that begin four or five spaces to the right of fixation can also produce semantic facilitation even though they are very difficult to recognize. Experiment 1 showed that facilitation did occur when the parafoveal primes used in the subsequent experiments were presented foveally. In Experiment 2, the primes were moved to the parafovea, but the task demands directed the subject’s attention toward the fovea. When subjects were ignoring the information presented to the parafovea (an allocation pattern that should correspond to that used during normal reading), neutral primes were just as effective as either semantically related or identical primes. In Experiment 3, the task demands were altered so that subjects were actively attending to the parafoveal primes. Although subjects were trying to process the primes, there was still no evidence that benefits could be derived from parafoveal primes. A final experiment showed that subjects given extensive practice with the materials will produce large amounts of identity and semantic priming. The results support the conclusion that readers can benefit little from the preprocessing of information in the parafovea unless that information can be supplemented with contextual expectations.     

Are introverts still more religious?

The JEPQ and a religious attitude scale, ASC 4B, were completed by 1715 school children aged 11–17 yrs. Attitude to religion was found to decline across the age range, girls were found to be more religious than boys, and introverts more religious than extraverts. The relationship between introversion and religiosity is consistent with previous research and the present study adds substance to this relationship with the use of a more recent E scale on an extended age range.     

Information Seekers in the Aftermath of Technological Disaster at Three Mile Island1

Information seekers attending the TMI Public Health and Environmental Information Series six years after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident were found to be more educated, less worried, more cynical of experts, more likely to report disturbances in concentration, and more likely to be male than a normative sample of area residents. Course participants are described as seeking cognitive solutions and as having an underlying agenda of restoring lost faith in experts. Those who had evacuated at the time of the accident manifested the most psychological symptoms among course participants.     

Gender and values: What is the impact on decision making?

In this study we investigated C. Gilligan's [(1982), In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press] suggestion that women and men, due to socialization, develop differently in terms of moral development [L. Kohlberg (1969), “Stage and Consequence: The Cognitive Development Approach to Socialization,” In D. G. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research, Chicago: Rand McNally]. We also considered whether men and women differ in terms of a related construct, values of equity and equality [K. A. Rasinski (1987), “What's Fair Is Fair or Is It? Value Differences Underlying Public Views About Social Justice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 53, pp. 201–211]. It is our expectation that gender influences overall orientation in terms of the two sets of values, and that differences in values lead decision makers to weigh decision issues and to make final decisions differently. Results suggest that there are some gender-related differences in value systems, weights of decision issues, and final decisions.     

Training in child and adolescent group therapy: Two surveys and a model

Although group therapy is widely used in the treatment of children and adolescents, there has been little attention paid to establishing training standards and developing comprehensive programs for training psychiatry fellows in child and adolescent group psychotherapy. The authors conducted two surveys of child and adolescent training programs. After reviewing the literature, they present the data from their surveys, compare similarities and differences, and discuss trends. Finally, they propose a model for training in child and adolescent group therapy.