Two visual stores and two processing operations in tachistoscopic partial report

A two-stage interpretation of the processes underlying tachistoscopic partial report performance is suggested. It is assumed that partial report is mediated by two kinds of visual store (a sensory store and a short-term store) and by two processing operations (selection and naming). In Experiment I, the accuracy and latency of two types of partial report (report by location and report by colour) were compared for cue stimulus-test stimulus intervals ranging from --500 ms to + 500 ms. It was concluded that selection by colour takes longer than selection by location; an explanation in terms of differential decay of attributes in the sensory store was rejected. In Experiment II, cue stimulus delays of 0, 150 and 300 ms were employed, and a backward masking stimulus followed the cue stimulus with a delay of 200, 300, 400 or 600 ms. The amount of masking depended on the cue stimulus-masking stimulus interval, rather than on the test stimulus-masking stimulus interval. It was concluded that selection operates on the sensory store and that backward masking can affect the naming of a stimulus representation which is residing in the visual short-term store.     

Estimation of reliability and true score variance from a split of a test into three arbitrary parts

This paper gives a method of estimating the reliability of a test which has been divided into three parts. The parts do not have to satisfy any statistical criteria like parallelism or-equivalence. If the parts are homogeneous in content (congeneric),i.e., if their true scores are linearly related and if sample size is large then the method described in this paper will give the precise value of the reliability parameter. If the homogeneity condition is violated then underestimation will typically result. However, the estimate will always be at least as accurate as coefficient and Guttman's lower bound ₃ when the same data are used. An application to real data is presented by way of illustration. Seven different splits of the same test are analyzed. The new method yields remarkably stable reliability estimates across splits as predicted by the theory. One deviating value can be accounted for by a certain unsuspected peculiarity of the test composition. Both coefficient and ₃ would not have led to the same discovery.Expanded version of a paper given at the Psychometric Society Meeting in Stanford, California, March 1974.     

Group Counseling with College Underachievers

Some of the controversy concerning the efficacy of psychotherapy or counseling has been resolved by recent evidence that studies reporting no effects had indiscriminately lumped together the high and low therapeutic conditions that are associated with successful and unsuccessful outcomes. The present study extends these findings to a group of essentially neurotic underachieving college freshmen. The 24 experimental students who received group counseling showed greater improvement in grade-point average than 24 matched, non-counseled control subjects. Further, those counseled subjects who received the highest therapeutic conditions tended to show the greatest improvement.     

Individual response patterns in binary choice tasks with nondiscriminable stimuli

The present experiment sought to determine whether individual Ss tend to employ repeatedly the same response patterns in binary choice tasks containing nondiscriminable stimuli and, if so, whether the response sequences when used to construct stimulus sequences improve the performance of other choice tasks. Information and frequency analyses of the response sequences of 48 Ss showed moderate consistency of patterning within a light and within a tone task. Performance of a card task following the light and tone tasks was closely related to the task (light or tone) from which the stimulus sequence was obtained. The frequency analysis showed that repetition patterns were preferred by most Ss but at the expense of alternation responses. The presentation of reinforcement in the card task did not improve performance over that observed in the light and tone tasks.     

Operant behavior and the galvanic skin potential under DRL schedule

Motor and galvanic skin potential (GSP) activity were investigated during the conditioning, extinction, and reconditioning of motor responses under a differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL) schedule of reinforcement. Interresponse time (IRT) distributions for motor responses during conditioning and reconditioning gradually stabilized at a peak just beyond the minimal IRT required for reinforcement. Few unreinforced motor responses and "bursts" of motor responses were observed during conditioning and reconditioning. Relative to conditioning and reconditioning, extinction effected larger IRTs and smaller GSP amplitudes. GSP amplitudes were greater for unreinforced than for reinforced motor responses during conditioning and reconditioning. However, GSP amplitudes associated with the unreinforced extinction responses were smaller than either the reinforced or unreinforced responses during conditioning and reconditioning.     

The use of self-efficacy scaling in training student clinicians: Implications for working with stutterers

A scaling technique developed by Bandura for determining an individual's personal performance expectations (self efficacy) was applied to student clinicians working with stutterers. The self-efficacy scores of clinicians conducting treatment increased significantly while the scores of clinicians without treatment experience showed no significant change. As the student clinicians gained clinical experience there appeared to be a corresponding reduction in fear and avoidance of the treatment situation. Clinician fear concerning stuttering treatment appeared to have little relation to performance in treatment as rated by supervisors. The results indicate that self-efficacy scaling may be used to indicate clinician avoidance of working with stuttering clients.     

Familial sinistrality, sex, and laterality differences in naming and Lexical Decision Latencies of right-handers

Sixty-four subjects, divided into four groups of 16 according to sex and familial sinistrality (FS), were given a lateralized Object-Naming Latency Task (ONLT) and a Lexical Decision Latency Task (LDLT). Both tasks showed RVF superiorities. On the ONLT a sex × FS × visual field interaction was obtained, with FS− females and FS+ males showing comparably smaller RVF superiorities than FS+ females and FS− males. On the LDLT an FS by Stimulus Type (word-nonword) interaction was found, FS− subjects being more RVF superior for nonword trials and FS+ subjects more RVF superior for word trials. If one compared only FS− males and females, as some studies have done, greater RVF superiorities obtained for males than females on both the ONLT and word trials of the LDLT. However, FS+ subjects showed the opposite pattern. The data support neither the simple model of FS nor sex influence on language laterality. Data aslso suggest that a history of maternal versus paternal left-handedness may affect lateralization differently in the sexes.     

Factor-derived categories of chronic aphasia

A large sample of patients with aphasia (N = 118), unselected for etiology, were administered the Porch Index of Communicative Ability more than 6 months after the onset of aphasia. Factor analysis of PICA subtest scores identified five factors which accounted for 83.9% of the total variance. The factors were labeled speaking, writing, comprehension, gesturing, and copying. Cluster analyses of the factor scores yielded five patient categories which differed in the pattern of impairment on the language factors as well as in overall severity of aphasia. A subgroup of the parent sample consisting of 52 patients with localized left-hemisphere CVA had cluster analyses repeated after having first been studied as part of the larger sample. The factor-derived categories for the subgroup were similar to those of the entire group. Discriminant functions of the PICA raw scores of the 52-patient subsample correctly classified all of the patients. When discriminant functions were based upon the factor scores of the 118-patient parent sample, 80.7% of the 52 patients were correctly classified into the five categories.