GEOGRAPHICAL DATA AS PSYCHOPHYSICAL STIMULI

L undberg U. & E kman G. Geographical data as psychophysical stimuli. Scand. J. Psychol . 1972, 13 , 81–88.—Thirty-three students reported their subjective estimates of the area, the number of people, and the average population density of 44 different countries. Subjective scales were constructed for each variable and it was found that these scales could be roughly described by simple power functions of the corresponding physical scales. The subjective scales were positively related to each other, and the correlations they showed exceeded the corresponding correlations between the physical variables. Empirical estimates of population density may be described by a simple power function of the expected subjective population density with the exponent of o.63.     

TRANSITION FROM ROD TO CONE VISION I. Simultaneous contrast

S tabell , B. Transition from rod to cone vision. I. Simultaneous contrast. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 61–64.—Above the specific threshold, color quality depended on the test filter, while at lower intensities the same color was observed irrespectively of the test filter used, confirming the assumption that colors within the photochromatic interval are triggered by rod activity. The lawful relation between rise of specific threshold and increase of rod sensitivity was not found under the condition of simultaneous contrast.     

TRANSITION FROM ROD TO CONE VISION: II. Successive contrast

S tabell , B. & S tabell , U. Transition from rod to cone vision. II. Successive contrast. Scad J. Psychol., 1969, 10 137–139—Transition from chromatic rod to chromatic cone activity during dark adaptation is interpreted as a kind of color mixing.     

COLOR THRESHOLD MEASUREMENTS IN SCOTOPIC VISION: Simultaneous color contrast

S tabell , U. & S tabell , B. Color threshold measurements in scotopic vision. III. Simultaneous color contrast. Scand J. Psychol ., 1968, 9, 133–137.—Color may be observed well below the break-point level of the dark adaptation curve, suggesting that the impulse pattern initiated in the rods may trigger a color-related response. Color is induced when the intensity of the inducing field reaches a certain level above the specific threshold, provided the stimulation of the test field is observable.     

A SERIAL AFTERIMAGE EXPERIMENT IN CLINICAL DIAGNOSTICS

Successive change in the size of negative afterimages repeatedly projected upon a screen was measured in a group of 87 psychiatric patients and a control group of 27. Primitive-hysteroid subjects were characterized by fluctuating serials, compulsives by small size changes of short duration, anxiety cases by progressively growing, dark, achromatic images, and psychotics by sudden contractions to size-constant or concrete images. A tentative finding for depressives was also presented and discussed.     

Perceptual Priming by Invisible Motion

When observers see motion that is not really there, they can nonetheless show evidence of motion priming. And when observers do not see motion that is really there, they also show evidence for motion priming. Evidently, the process responsible for establishing motion correspondence is sensitive to contextual information, and this sensitivity is modulated at preconscious levels of visual analysis.     

Deterioration of the phonological processing skills in adults with an acquired severe hearing loss

Phonological processing was examined in a group of individuals with an acquired severe hearing loss and compared to a group of matched normal hearing individuals. The hearing-impaired group was significantly slower and less accurate when performing a visual rhyme-judgement task, and produced fewer rhyming word pairs on a rhyme-generation task than the normal hearing group. In contrast, the hearing-impaired group performed on a par with the normal hearing group on verbal working memory tasks. It is concluded that specific aspects of the phonological system deteriorate in this population as a function of auditory deprivation. In particular, the phonological representations are impaired and this impairment also affects the ability to rapidly perform phonological operations (i.e., analyse and compare). In contrast, phonological processing involved in verbal working memory is preserved in this population.     

Structural equation modeling of paired-comparison and ranking data

L. L. Thurstone's (1927) model provides a powerful framework for modeling individual differences in choice behavior. An overview of Thurstonian models for comparative data is provided, including the classical Case V and Case III models as well as more general choice models with unrestricted and factor-analytic covariance structures. A flow chart summarizes the model selection process. The authors show how to embed these models within a more familiar structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. The different special cases of Thurstone's model can be estimated with a popular SEM statistical package, including factor analysis models for paired comparisons and rankings. Only minor modifications are needed to accommodate both types of data. As a result, complex models for comparative judgments can be both estimated and tested efficiently.     

Applied tension, exposure in vivo, and tension-only in the treatment of blood phobia.

Thirty patients with phobia for blood, wounds and injuries were treated individually with applied tension (AT), exposure in vivo (E), or tension-only (T) for 5 sessions. They were assessed on self-report, behavioral and physiological measures before and after treatment, and at a 1 yr follow-up. All groups improved significantly, and the improvements were maintained at follow-up. Applying stringent criteria, 90% of the AT-, 80% of the T-, and 40% of the E-patients were clinically improved at the end of treatment. The corresponding figures at follow-up were 100, 90 and 50%, respectively. AT differed significantly, and T marginally from E at both assessments. Applied tension, or tension-only should, from a clinical point of view, be considered the treatment of choice for blood phobia.