Interrogative suggestibility and delinquent boys: An empirical validation study

This study has several aims. First, to validate the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS) among delinquent and adolescent boys placed in an assessment and short-term treatment centre. Second, to test the hypothesis that adolescent boys are particularly susceptible to suggestions when they are ‘pressured’ by negative feedback and instructions. Finally, to investigate the hypothesis that suggestibility is related to memory recall and self-esteem. The GSS was administered to 31 boys (ages 11 to 16 yr) who had been independently rated by two teachers on measures of suggestibility and self-esteem. Suggestibility as measured by the GSS was found to correlate significantly with the teachers' ratings of suggestibility, supporting empirically the criterion-related validity of the GSS. Compared with young ‘normal’ adults the boys were no more likely to give in to suggestive questions than the adults, unless their performance was subjected to criticism and negative feedback. The results suggest that deliquent adolescents may be particularly responsive to interpersonal pressure during interrogation. The findings have important implications for police interrogation procedures.     

Development of differences in response latencies to right and left visual fields

Robust lateralization developed in right-handed adults who were asked to judge letter pairs as "same" or "different" during 4608 trials. By the end of the first two blocks (768 trials) "same" responses were favored when presented in the RVF (transmitted directly to the left hemisphere) and "different" responses were favored when presented in the LVF (transmitted direction to the right hemisphere). This gradually reversed over sessions with "same" responses becoming faster for letters presented in the LVF, and "different" responses becoming faster for stimuli presented in the RVF. The laterality acquired under these conditions was cumulative and reproducible, appeared in all 16 subjects, and was preserved between sessions a week apart. The data suggest that laterality is a flexible and reversible characteristic of the human brain even when stimulus and task remain constant.     

Gobal-local precedence in picture processing

Summary Previous investigations of the global precedence hypothesis (Navon, 1977) have utilized compound letter stimuli. In these stimuli there is no predictive relationship between the global and local levels. Pictorial stimuli, however, contain mutually predictable global and local levels. This study investigated the global precedence hypothesis with pictorial stimuli using a Stroop-like interference task similar to that used by Navon. Subjects were required to respond either to the global (e.g., beach or farm) or local (e.g., boat or tractor) level of a scene. The display size and consistency of the global and local levels were varied. Response latencies supported global precedence for small scenes (4°) but local precedence for large scenes (16°). The results are interpreted by a model in which the priority of processing is determined by a critical spatial frequency sampling bandwidth.Portions of this research were presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, November, 1982. The authors with to express their sincere appreciation to Tom Petros for his assistance in data analysis. Requests for reprints should be addressed to James R. Antes, Department of Psychology, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202.     

The direct effects of compliance on health outcome

Six studies that randomized patients to drugs versus placebo and also made complaint/noncompliant determinations were reviewed to document the main effects of compliance on health outcome. While the studies varied in terms of demonstrating a main effect of drugs, in five of six cases a main statistical effect of compliance was observed. Possible mechanisms for this effect are briefly noted.     

Odor recognition: familiarity, identifiability, and encoding consistency

The investigation examined the association between the perceived identity of odorous stimuli and the ability to recognize the previous occurrence of them. The stimuli comprised 20 relatively familiar odorous objects such as chocolate, leather, popcorn, and soy sauce. Participants rated the familiarity of the odors and sought to identify them. At various intervals up to 7 days after initial inspection, the participants sought to recognize the odors among sets of distractor odors that included such items as soap, cloves, pipe tobacco, and so on. The recognition response entailed a confidence rating as to whether or not an item had appeared in the original set. At the time of testing, the participants also sought to identify the stimuli again. The results upheld previous findings of excellent initial recognition memory for environmentally relevant odors and slow forgetting. The results also uncovered, for the first time, a strong association between recognition memory and identifiability, rated familiarity, and the ability to use an odor label consistently at inspection and subsequent testing. Encodability seems to enhance rather than to permit recognizability. Even items identified incorrectly or inconsistently were recognized at levels above chance.     

Sensitivity in spectral structures

Invariance of matching is shown to be necessary and sufficient for the existence of sensitivity functions that are unique up to multiplication by arbitrary positive real numbers. Examples from auditory and visual psychophysics are discussed.     

A maximum likelihood hierarchical disaggregate model for predicting choices of individuals

The absence of operational disaggregate lexicographic decision models and Tversky's observation that choice behavior is often inconsistent, hierarchical, and context dependent motivate the development of a maximum likelihood hierarchical (MLH) choice model. This new disaggregate choice model requires few assumptions and accommodates the three aspects of choice behavior noted by A. Tversky (1972, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 9, 341–367). The model has its foundation in a prototype model developed by the authors. Unlike the deterministic prototype, however, MLH is a probabilistic model which generates maximum likelihood estimators of the aggregate “cutoff values.” The model is formulated as a concave programming problem whose solutions are therefore globally optimal. Finally, the model is applied to data from three separate studies where it is demonstrated to have superior performance over the prototype model in its predictive performance.     

Response mode and choice consistency: A test of unfolding theory

Coombs, Donnell, and Kirk (1978. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4, 497–512), in a study of risk preferences, collected data using both pick $\text{1}\text{3}$ and reject $\text{1}\text{3}$ response modes. Although the preference orders derived from the two response modes were identical, the pick data contained a greater number of inconsistencies than the reject data. In the present study, predictions were derived from unfolding theory (Coombs, 1964. A theory of data. New York: Wiley) regarding the relative consistency of pick and reject response modes. An experiment performed as a test of these predictions supported the unfolding model suggesting that differences in inconsistency between response modes could be attributed to the fineness of the grid of working midpoints imposed upon the choice process by the response mode.     

On the measurement of storage and retrieval contributions to memory development

We report two free recall experiments and a cued recall experiment in which a new two-stage model was used to obtain numerical measurements of age changes in various aspects of storage and retrieval. The subjects in all three experiments were 7-year-olds (second graders) and 11-year-olds (sixth graders). The major findings in the free recall experiment were that getting a trace into storage posed less of a problem for elementary schoolers than learning how to get it out on test trials, that retrieval development is more rapid during the elementary school years than storage development, and that the superiority of older children's storage and retrieval abilities tends to become more pronounced as learning progresses. A similar pattern of results was obtained under different conditions in the cued recall experiment.     

Semantic and visual memory codes in learning disabled readers

Two experiments investigated whether learning disabled readers' impaired recall is due to multiple coding deficiencies. In Experiment 1, learning disabled and skilled readers viewed nonsense pictures without names or with either relevant or irrelevant names with respect to the distinctive characteristics of the picture. Both types of names improved recall of nondisabled readers, while learning disabled readers exhibited better recall for unnamed pictures. No significant difference in recall was found between name training (relevant, irrelevant) conditions within reading groups. In Experiment 2, both reading groups participated in recall training for complex visual forms labeled with unrelated words, hierarchically related words, or without labels. A subsequent reproduction transfer task showed a facilitation in performance in skilled readers due to labeling, with learning disabled readers exhibiting better reproduction for unnamed pictures. Measures of output organization (clustering) indicated that recall is related to the development of superordinate categories. The results suggest that learning disabled children's reading difficulties are due to an inability to activate a semantic representation that interconnects visual and verbal codes.