Time perception and attention: The effects of prospective versus retrospective paradigms and task demands on perceived duration

This research was designed to compare time judgments obtained under prospective conditions (in which subjects are instructed to attend to time) and retrospective conditions (in which subjects are unaware that they will be required to judge time). In Experiment 1, subjects prospectively or retrospectively judged the duration of intervals spent performing a perceptual-motor task at different levels of difficulty. The results showed that subjects tested under both research paradigms tended to give increasingly shorter and/or more inaccurate time judgments with increases in nontemporal task demands. Experiment 2 was designed to test the effects of attentional deployment on perceived time by comparing prospective and retrospective judgments under control, selective attention, and divided attention conditions. Both types of time judgments became increasingly inaccurate as attention was more broadly deployed. The results of these experiments are consistent with an attentional allocation model, and they suggest that nontemporal task demands disrupt or interfere with timing in both prospective and retrospective situations.     

Development of linear measurement in five- and six-year-old children

This study sought to identify the higher level knowledge (e.g., conservation of number) necessary for a child to understand linear measurement and to chart the growth of linear measurement in terms of the development of its components. To assess the presence of these components, a battery of 34 number, length, and distance tasks was developed and administered to 100 children between the ages of 63 and 78 months from kindergarten and Grade 1. Results indicate that there is a substantial delay between acquisition of the necessary components and emergence of a mature grasp of linear measurement. The collection of components for the number and length domains form scaled sets; within each domain, however, the pattern of development is marked by discontinuities. These discontinuities are interpreted as being associated with the need to reorganize number and length concepts. Most elements of the observed sequences of development are predicted by Piagetian theory, although others, such as asynchronies between conservation and transitive inferences of nonequivalence, are more consistent with Gagne's (1968) model of development.     

Our Personal and Professional Lives: Learning Positive Connotation and Circular Questioning

The work of the Center for the Study of the Family in Milan has had wide influence. We describe its influence on us--the positive connotation of many car journeys, our self-training, and changes in how we view, and function in, our personal and professional lives.     

Profiles of adolescents' clothing practices: purchase, daily selection, and care

The purpose of this study was to examine the clothing practices in the daily selection, care, and purchase of clothing by adolescents in order to determine the extent these practices are performed independently or influenced by others, and to identify the factors involved in the activities. Clothing Practice Profiles were developed for both sexes in the three age groups corresponding to divisions in the Oregon 4-H program. The age group comparison revealed increasing frequency of independent activity in all three clothing practice areas (selection, care, and purchase) as age increased. Parental influence appeared to decrease with increasing age. Siblings' influence was minimal. Peer influence on selection and purchase practices increased. Media influence on daily clothing selection practices and clothing purchase practices in terms of wearing or buying identical or similar clothing was minimal. Media influence in advertisements increased with age, but purchases of advertised clothing items remained about the same. Age group comparisons were also made for selection factors and other care and purchase practices, including responsibilities for care of the member's and family's clothing, planning clothing purchases, sources of funds and methods of paying for clothing, use of clothing label information, and purchase factors.     

Evidence for extending the circumplex model of personality trait language to self-reported moods

We show that self-ratings by 141 undergraduates on 17 items form a circumplex that closely agrees with Conte and Plutchik's (1981) circumplex of personality traits. The order of items on a circumplex, generated by self-ratings following a here-and-now instruction set, scarcely differs from that of a circumplex representing the same ratings averaged over a 2-week period. The configuration becomes more elliptical as one moves from the state-like measures (here-and-now ratings) to pure trait measures (averages), but measurement bias is shown to be the most probable cause of the distortion. Allowing for the limitations of small samples of items and raters, the findings show that the circumplex model represents a valid theoretical construct and does not arise from measurement error or from an illusory implicit personality theory.     

Psychological functioning after severe closed head injury

The residual effects of severe closed head injury on psychological functioning, as determined by data from the Rorschach test, were examined. Thirty-five young adult patients with severe closed head injury were compared to a nonpatient, non-head injured matched group sample of 36 subjects. The utility of the Rorschach test in distinguishing the characteristic psychological functioning of inpatients who have suffered from severe closed head injury was outlined. The apperceptive disturbance, affective/cognitive problems, and interpersonal difficulties were discussed.     

Identification with another person: Manipulated by means of subliminal stimulation

Studied problems of identification, using a meta-contrast design. The first stimulus (A) was always the word ME. In experiment 1 , the second stimulus (B) depicted an aggressor and a victim facing each other. The subliminal A was flashed either on the victim or the aggressor or completely withheld. In experiment 2 , B showed two persons standing against different backgrounds: an open horizon or a closed room. It was assumed that the subject would be "forced" to identify with that figure in B on which A was flashed. Subjects in experiment 1 were 18 psychiatric patients and in experiment 2 , 32 professional artists. The results showed that the subliminal manipulation had been effective: e.g., when led by A to identify with the aggressor, projective-sensitive and borderline subjects were confused and even reported perceptual difficulties; when led to identify with the open side, highly creative artists, as opposed to less creative ones, reported more positive impressions of the B theme.