The similarity-attraction relationship: Is there an ideal one?

It is proposed that we are attracted to similar individuals because: (1) such individuals are similar to our ideals and (2) such individuals are similar to ourselves. Previous studies have employed a similarity manipulation which has confounded these two components. When the components are separated, similarity to the ideal was expected to exert a major influence and similarity to the self a minor influence on attraction. A series of experiments orthogonally manipulated similarity to self and similarity to ideal with a new technique involving content-free dimensions. The results indicated a consistent main effect for ideal similarity on liking and no consistent main effect for similarity to the self. Finally, the results also indicated that given any two of the three variables—similarity to self, similarity to ideal, and own self to own ideal discrepancy—subjects seemed able to infer the other or third variable in a fairly logical fashion.     

Learning the functional significance of mnemonic actions: A microgenetic study of strategy acquisition

How children learn to use memory strategies in a microgenetic investigation of learning and metacognition is examined. Seven- and eight-year-olds were given two memory trials with 24 pictures on each of 5 consecutive days. Days 1 and 2 were baseline, practice trials; Day 3 included strategy training; and Days 4 and 5 were unprompted tests of strategy maintenance. All children were taught how to label, rehearse, and group the pictures as well as to self-test their own memories and use blocked recall. Half of the children were shown the actions and told to do them; the other half received elaborated feedback on the usefulness and appropriateness of the techniques for remembering. The elaborated instructional group exhibited significantly greater recall, clustering, strategic study behavior, and metamemory regarding the mnemonic techniques than the other group. Path analysis provided evidence of a causal role of training and metacognitive awareness that mediated the use of sorting and higher recall. The study illustrates how learning the significance and utility of mnemonic techniques can influence children's acquisition of the tactics as self-controlled strategies. In addition, the microgenetic method affords patterns of data across time and experience that permit richer interpretations of strategy learning and memory development.     

Toward an understanding of the fundamental attribution error: Essay diagnosticity in the attitude attribution paradigm

The observer error in attitude attribution was examined, focusing upon the perceiver's conception of the relationship between a writer's attitude and the quality of performance on an essay task. Subjects appear to have invested essays, written under assignment, with diagnostic value on the presumption of a correlation between the quality or strength of the essay and the writer's attitude. When subjects were given essays varying in direction, strength, and constraint, their attributions indicated a reversal of correspondent inference for weak essays produced under high constraint, replicating an earlier, conceptually important result (E. E. Jones, S. Worchel, G. R. Goethals, & J. Grumet, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1971, 7, 59–80). It was suggested that the attribution error need not reflect general misunderstandings about, or the low salience of, situational factors, but rather is based on the perceiver's inclination to adopt a diagnostic judgmental set in the attitude attribution paradigm.     

Perception of temporally competing speech stimuli in preschool children

The aim of this study was to investigate the perception of competing speech stimuli in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old normally developing children. A dichotic listening paradigm was used in which the temporal alignment between the two stimuli was varied to represent three levels of competition. Minimal, moderate, and maximal levels of temporal competition were represented by a Separation, Lag, and Simultaneous test condition, respectively. The subjects were behaviorally set to listen for and to report the two stimuli on each trial. The incidence of double correct responses in the test conditions was the measure of interest. The results show a sharp and linear drop in double correct scores from the Separation, to the Lag, and to the Simultaneous condition. There were no age-related differences in the Separation and the Simultaneous conditions. In the Lag condition, the performance of the 3-year-olds was significantly lower than the 4- and 5-year-olds. The findings were interpreted to be indicative of limited auditory processing ability in preschoolers for moderately and maximally competing speech stimuli.     

Joint independent random utility models where one of the choice structures satisfies the strict utility model

It is known that one cannot construct an independent joint random utility model for which both the preference and aversion probabilities satisfy the strict utility model. Given this result, it is natural to ask what kind of relations are possible in such contexts. Here, for instance, we demonstrate that if a structure of preference and aversion probabilities are generated by a common independent random utility model, and if the preference probabilities satisfy the strict utility model, then the preference and aversion probabilities are related by what is known as the strong acceptance condition. We also prove an appropriate converse of this result. Finally, an example is given of a process (other than the random utility model) that is compatible with the assumption that a structure of preference and aversion probabilities satisfies a common strict utility model.     

On the functional form of partial masking functions in psychoacoustics

Partial masking of pure tones is often investigated in terms of matching functions which record the intensity φ(x, n) of an unmasked tone which matches, in perceived loudness, a tone of intensity x embedded in a flat, broadband noise of intensity n. Empirically, the following property of “shift invariance” is observed to hold for these matching functions: φ(λx, λ^θn) = λφ(x, n), for any λ > 0, and some θ < 1. In the context of the model $\text{φ(x, n) = F}{}_0\text{[}\text{g}{}_0\text{(x)}\text{(h}{}_0\text{(x) + k}{}_0\text{(n))}\text{]}$ which expresses the idea that the effect of a noise mask is to control the gain of a pure tone signal in a multiplicative fashion, shift invariance proves to be an extremely powerful theoretical constraint. Specifically, we show that only two parametric families of functions (F₀, g₀, h₀, k₀) are possible candidates for interpolating empirical data. These two parametric families are given by the following expressions: $\text{φ}{}_1\text{(x, n) = A(}\text{x}{}^{\mathrm{\alpha }}\text{(x}{}^{\mathrm{\alpha \prime }}\text{+ Kn}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>\alpha \prime </mtext><mtext>\theta </mtext>}}\text{)}\text{)}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>(\alpha \; ?\; \alpha \prime )</mtext>}}$, $\text{φ}{}_2\text{(x, n) = A[x}{}^{\mathrm{\alpha }}\text{(x}{}^{\mathrm{\alpha \prime }}\text{? Kn}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>\alpha \prime </mtext><mtext>\theta </mtext>}}\text{)]}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>(\alpha \; +\; \alpha \prime )</mtext>}}$. Both of these expressions are in good agreement with a large array of partial masking data.     

Activation of bipolar prototypes in attribute inferences

The present study examined how prototypes, as organizational principles of knowledge about persons, affect attribute inference judgments. A distinction is drawn between bipolar and unipolar categories. Two questions are addressed: First, whether only one or both prototypes of bipolar categories like extraversion-introversion are activated in making inference judgments, and second, whether information about the applicability of a stimulus item to a target is processed differently than information about the inapplicability of the stimulus item. The results support the hypothesis that only one prototype is activated and that this is the affirmative one, irrespective of whether the stimulus information is applicable or inapplicable to the target person. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

A robust attribution error in the personality domain

The error of inferring dispositional causes for constrained behavior was investigated in the domain of personality. Subjects were randomly assigned to write essays presenting themselves as strongly introverted or extraverted. Within groups, subjects exchanged essays and estimated the actual (self-rated) introversion/extraversion of the writer. The procedure minimized the likelihood of certain factors conducive to correspondent inference, e.g., the low salience of constraint or nonrepresentative sample of dispositions among essay writers. The experiment included an instructional set variable which involved accentuating the situational constraint or reinforcing the subjects' inclination to individuate the writer. In all conditions, a significant pattern of correspondent inference occurred, with attributions aligned to the directionality of the essays. The results, consistent with findings from attitude attribution research, suggest that the direction of the essay provides an initial hypothesis of correspondent inference. Subjects may then use their impression of the essay's extremity as a basis upon which to adjust their attribution in accord with the constraint of the position assignment.     

Lexical recognition of embedded unattended words: Some implications for reading processes

Two questions were addressed by these experiments. Firstly, do unattended words influence attended words only when they appear in isolation and thereby may attract attention, or are they influential even when embedded amongst ineffective material? Secondly, can the influence of an unattended display be increased by increasing the number of potentially effective words. By having observers give category names to attended words at the same time as masked unattended words appeared in a column to the right of fixation, experiment 1 found that a single word was effective even when embedded, and that an increasing effect was not observed with a display with a 50 msec duration. There was some evidence of a linear increase in the size of the effect with a 200 msec display, but evidence from experiment 2 suggests that subjects may have been aware of the unattended words when they were exposed for this duration. The results were discussed in relation to a model of eye-fixation control during reading which postulates that unattended words gain lexical recognition when they are semantically related to the attended activity. This lexical recognition may then serve to mark interesting locations in the text and attract future eye-fixations.