Eye fixations are influenced by the distribution of information within words

Reader's eye movements were monitored while they inspected isolated words in preparation for a synonym judgement task. The 10-letter words appeared on a screen near the point of fixation, with the first fixation being imposed near the beginning, or the centre, or the ending of the word. The words themselves had uneven distributions of information, in that the beginnings or the endings contained common sequences of letters in English. Three types of words were used: those with very redundant endings (e.g., yearningly), with moderately redundant endings (e.g., varnishing), and with moderately redundant beginnings (e.g., contravene). Redundancy was defined in terms of the total number of words in English which possess that particular sequence of five letters as the beginning or the ending. The experiments asked whether the convenient viewing location within a word varied according to the distribution of information, and whether the extent of redundancy in a word ending is reflected in the distribution of visual attention given to the word. The results were analysed separately for those cases where the reader made just two fixations upon the word before moving to the synonym task, and for those cases where the reader made exactly three fixations. These were the dominant fixation patterns. Evidence for the notion of a convenient viewing position consisted of long first fixations (when there were just two fixations), when this fixation was near the centre of the word. The distribution of information within the words did not influence the duration of the first fixation, although the duration of the gaze within each half-word did increase when more informative letter sequences were being inspected. The extent of redundancy was also seen to influence the inspection patterns, when a comparison was made between the two types of words with redundant endings. Words with very redundant endings received fewer fixations when the first fixation was at the beginning, and for words gaining exactly two fixations, the second fixation was shorter if the word had a very redundant ending.     

Effects of dysphoria on maternal exchange dispositions

Defining dysphoria as subclinical depression, we explored the extent to which maternal dysphoria influences the quality of relationships within the family and evaluated whether the effect of dysphoria on family relationships is selective or general and whether dysphoric effects on maternal behavior are similar or different when ratings of maternal behaviors are made by mothers versus observers. We expected that dysphoria would have general rather than selective effects on family relations rated by mothers and observers. In a sample of 40 American families at risk of child abuse or neglect, we found that maternal dysphoria did have significantly negative effects on mother-to-child and mother-to-parenting-partner relations, suggesting that maternal dysphoria has general rather than selective effects.     

Relationships among categories of vocational preference

Five inventories, each comprising statements selected from the following categories: occupational titles, curriculum subjects, job attributes, vocational life goals, and general life goals were answered by 78 first year university students. The correlations among the statements were analysed by the principal components method. The definition of the resultant dimensions by the categories was then examined. It was found that the dimensions of preference could be arranged in two independent groups: the first defined by occupational titles, curriculum subjects, and vocational life goals; and the second by job attributes and general life goals. The implications of this finding for the nature of vocational preference and certain counseling activities are discussed.     

Concerning the role of perceptual factors in the serial position effect

The experiment described here addresses itself to the serial position effect of recall, and in particular to the cause of primacy. Two of the three theories discussed here (selective rehearsal and proactive interference) postulate competition between items during the storage interval as a cause of primacy, acquisition being assumed to be equal for all items. The third theory (differential perceptual processing) places the locus of the effect prior to the storage stage, and does not hold interactions between items to be essential to the effect after encoding. The experiment used this distinction between the two classes of theories, storage of the whole presentation (and hence interactions during storage) not being required. Only one word from each list was recalled, and this item was indicated to S on presentation, thereby eliminating the necessity to attempt to encode all items. The storage-interaction theories predict no primacy for the recall of individual items in this experiment, but the initial member of the list was recalled more often than the third member. This example of primacy lends support to the argument that the trace strengths of items are not always equal immediately after presentation.     

Perceptual distinctiveness and proactive interference in the primacy effect

When subjects monitor a list of verbal items for one item which is to be selected and remembered, they are more likely to recall the critical item if it is the first member of the list than if it is presented towards the centre of the list. The present experiment examined the possibility that this primacy results from an accumulation of proactive interference from incidentally processed early members of the list which would cause a decrement in the recall of later members. By changing the semantic category of the list members before presentation of the critical item any accumulated interference would have been released, but this procedure produced no weakening of the primacy effect and so the interference theory of primacy was not supported. An alternative explanation of the effect was discussed in which it is assumed that the first member of a series is perceptually distinct from central members.