Effects of threatening and reassuring components of fear appeals on physiological and verbal measures of emotion and attitudes

Physiological processes are integral components of (a) many conceptualizations of emotion, (b) the emotion of fear, and (c) the fear-as-acquired-drive model of attitude change. Nevertheless, few studies of fear and persuasion have simultaneously measured self-reports of fear and autonomic activity. The present factorial experiment manipulated high versus low fear and high versus low reassurance and monitored self-reports and cardiovascular and electrodermal activity. The results disclosed that heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) were highly correlated (r = .70). Although the multiple correlation among HR, SC, and a self-report measure of fear was a modest .44 (p < .05), additional evidence suggested that self-reports were the most sensitive measure of the construct of fear. The fear-film manipulation, which is typical of many fear-arousing communications, had identical effects upon the autonomic and self-report measures of fear. These data support the construct validity of the self-report measure of fear and increase our confidence that “fear” has been aroused in previous studies of fear and persuasion. Neither the fear-film manipulation nor the autonomic components of fear were associated with attitude change. The reassurance variable facilitated attitude change. Overall, the findings emphasized the importance of cognitive mediational processes rather than an emotional state of fear.     

Asymmetry in reception and retention of colors.

In Experiment 1 a same-different comparison task involving simultaneous discrimination of colors differing by 2.5 steps in hue and presented 2° in the left or right visual field was given to 24 male and 24 female familial righthanders. A significant left visual field superiority was obtained. In a color naming task, the higher the number of color pairs for which both members were given the same name, the larger the left visual field superiority. In Experiment 2 the tasks were replicated with a 10-sec memory interval inserted between the stimuli in each color pair. No significant effects were obtained.     

Memory for meaning in skilled and unskilled readers

Skilled and unskilled readers from grades 3, 5, and 7 (9, 11, and 13 years of age, respectively) performed one of three memory tasks on a randomized list of primary word associates. One group rated each word as “good” or “bad” (incidental semantic task), another group produced a rhyming word for each list word (incidental rhyming task), and a third group attempted to memorize the list (intentional learning task). The recall results indicated equivalent recall for skilled and unskilled readers at all grades on the rhyming and intentional tasks; whereas, skilled readers were superior to unskilled readers on the semantic task. A clustering analysis produced a similar effect as skilled readers, who performed the semantic task, tended to cluster semantically-associated words together during recall more readily than unskilled readers. The results were construed as evidence for reading-skill differences in the semantic encoding of individual words.     

Verbs,time, and modality

In the first part of this paper it is argued that Vendler's classification of verbs into aspectual categories, called activities, accomplishments, achievements, and states, is better seen as classifying the meanings of sentences, and a recursive scheme for describing the aspectual character of sentences is presented. In the second part, this scheme is applied to the discussion of the epistemic and deontic meanings of the modal verbs must, will, and may. In particular, the relation between the “future” and “nonfuture” senses of epistemic will is examined.     

Focal changes in cerebral blood flow produced by a test of right-left discrimination

A sensorimotor control activation task was used to isolate the focal cerebral blood flow changes resulting from the visual and cognitive processing of a right-left discrimination task. Eleven normal right-handed males participated. The sensorimotor control task produced significant bilateral increases in flow in most cortical channels. Significant bilateral parieto-occipital activation was found for the right-left discrimination task over and above the flow changes produced by the sensorimotor control task. The left occipital flow increase resulting from the right-left discrimination task was found to be negatively related to task performance. An inverse relationship was also found between WAIS Performance IQ and the blood flow change in the left parietal channel. These results suggest areas for further testing concerning potential individual differences in cognitive processing during the performance of a right-left discrimination task.