Distortions in judged spatial relations

In three experiments, we explore distortions in subjects' judgments of relative geographical relations. People make large systematic errors in judging the geographical relations between two locations that are in different geographical or political units. There is a strong tendency to distort the judged relation to conform with the relation of the superordinate political unit. To account for this result, we present a model in which spatial information is stored hierarchically. Spatial relations between any two locations are stored explicitly only if those locations are within the same superordinate unit. Spatial relations not stored are inferred by combining the relations from between and within superordinate units.     

Differential patterns of preference for modified linear perspective in children and adults

Two experiments were designed to investigate the development of a preference for minimal convergence in pictures. Pictures varying in degree of convergence from conic to parallel were observed three at a time under two conditions: monocularly at the correct station point for the conic projection, and freely with unconstrained view. Subjects were children in nursery school (age: 4 years) and first grade (age: 6 years), and adults in college. Subjects were asked to choose the “best” picture. In the correct station point condition the younger children preferred the most conic picture, while adults chose the most parallel projection significantly more frequently than either remaining choice. First-grade children were in transition between these two modes of responding. In the free view condition, the younger children showed no strong preferences, while older children and adults preferred parallel projections significantly more frequently than more convergent pictures. Results were interpreted in context of the development of the “Zoom effect,” an assumption of appropriate viewing distance 10 times as great as the size of the pictured object.     

The effects of television on children's stereotyping of women's work roles

Sixty-seven elementary school students, ages 5 through 10 years, from three ethnic groups were systematically exposed, over a 1-month period, to specially produced television commercials. One treatment group viewed prevideotaped cartoons interspersed with commercials of women in “traditional” roles, while a second group viewed the same cartoons but with commercials which portrayed women in traditionally male or “reversed” roles. Children were measured on pre-and post-tests on (1) their occupational knowledge, (2) the extent to which they stereotyped occupations, and (3) their own preferences for traditionally male and female jobs. Results indicate that children do learn about occupations from television content, that they also learn to stereotype or nonstereotype various occupations based on the sex of the TV model, and, finally, that girls will change their preferences for various occupations based on the particular roles they view women portrayed in.     

Rapid silent response to repeated target symbols by dyslexic and nondyslexic children

A previous study demonstrated that naming of repeated colors, objects, letters, and numbers (RAN test) was performed more slowly by dyslexic than by nondyslexic learning disabled children, whereas both groups were slower than controls. A test eliminating the vocal response and requiring “cancellation” of selected verbal targets distinguished the two learning disabled groups from each other only when the targets were triads of numbers or letters, the dyslexic group performing more slowly. Compared even with triad target selection, however, dyslexic children were relatively more impaired on rapid naming (RAN), suggesting a specific relationship of reading to speech or the greater mobilization of language functions which speech requires.     

A correlational study of stutterers' adaptation and voice initiation times

The purpose of this study was to determine the strength of the relationship, if any, between stutterers' amount of improvement in controlling phonation (voice initiation time) and their amount of improvement in stuttering during adaptation.Thirteen adult stutterers were required to participate in an adaptation task and a voice initiation time (VIT) task. The major finding was a weak, positive correlation between subjects' adaptation and their VIT difference scores. The correlation obtained, though weak, was interpreted to be informative; namely that while there is quite probably a laryngeal component in stuttering, it does not stand alone. It seems likely that the complexities of stuttering will not be fully understood until experiments include a number of potential or known dimensions of the disorder.     

Interference effects in an auditory Stroop task: congruence and correspondence

Two auditory Stroop experiments are reported in which subjects responded vocally to the gender of the speaker of stimulus words. The interference effects found were broadly similar to those of a manual-response auditory Stroop paradigm although response-set effects appeared to operate in the data. In all experimental conditions responses were slower to stimulus words which named potential responses than to those words which did not. Such effects have not been found in previous manual-response experiments and it is suggested that the relatively high degree of S-R and of ideomotor compatibility in the vocal response task, compared with the manual task, may be responsible for this difference between the paradigms.The second experiment enabled a comparison to be made between the effects of congruence between relevant and irrelevant elements of the Stroop stimulus and the effects of correspondence between the response and the irrelevant aspect of the stimulus. A predominant influence of congruence was found when the subject responded using words semantically related to speaker gender, but an effect of correspondence was obtained when an arbitrary pairing of response word and speaker gender was required.     

Holland's theory and college-degreed working black and white women

The main concern of this study was to investigate differences between black and white women employed in traditional male occupations who took the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS). The VPI and the SDS were administered to 155 black and white college-degreed workers in three occupations (engineering, medicine, and law) corresponding to three of Holland's environmental categories (Realistic Investigative, and Enterprising). In general, the findings for the three VPI and SDS scales for these occupational groups indicate that white women when compared to black women in the same occupation tend to report similar mean raw scores.