Central auditory processing: I. Ear dominance—A perceptual or an attentional asymmetry?

The phenomenon of ear dominance for pitch described by Efron and Yund has been attributed by them to an asymmetry of sensory origin in the binaural integration of dichotic tone pairs. An explanation of this phenomenon in terms of an attentional bias is rejected on the basis of two experiments where the possibility of such bias was excluded. These and other experiments indicate that a simple explanation of this ear dominance in terms of a hemispheric specialization in the processing of tonal stimuli also must be rejected.     

Contiguity and contingency in instrumental conditioning

There have been several attempts to construct molar theories of conditioning on the empirical basis that response-reinforcement contingency is important in determining conditioning. Such theories claim to explain behavior in terms of molar level processes which transcend the molecular level and, therefore, are not reducible to molecular processes or their interaction. These molar theories are critically examined and found to be seriously flawed because they fail to account for the effects of delaying reinforcement (degree of contiguity). Observed molar level relations, such as the matching law, do not require a molar theory, but may be more usefully considered as a product of molecular processes.     

Bilingualism and brain functional asymmetry

The task of the neural organization of the native language, acquired by a direct method and of another language, studied at school, performed correspondingly by the left and the right hemispheres, was studied in the bilingual patient after unilateral electroconvulsive therapy used in psychiatry. It was established that in such a bilingual type the right hemisphere is concerned with the formation of deep semantic structures of the native language while the left hemisphere is responsible for the formation of second language deep structures and of surface structures of both languages. The effect of language learning method on cerebral organization of bilingualism is postulated.     

Occupational mobility as measured by Holland's theory of career selection

This study examined the occupational mobility of men ages 45–59 as measured by Holland's theory of career selection and its relationship to men in the work force. Stability was discussed in two distinct ways: (1) stability within a job, and (2) stability in the kind of work a man does over a career. In his research Holland concluded that Realistic and Investigative personality types would change personality type less often and have more stable job choices in comparison to other personality types. The results of this study supported these findings to some extent, but also concluded that stability in a personality type was strongly influenced by the number of jobs available in a particular personality type and the structure of the labor market demand. In addition the results showed that psychological concepts seem to be more important in changing jobs than in selecting initial jobs.     

Asymmetries in the acquisition of polar adjectives: Linguistic or conceptual?

This study was designed to determine whether the asymmetry in children's acquisition of polar adjective pairs is based on linguistic factors related to differences in adult usage and frequency or on an underlying conceptual difference. 24 children, aged 3;7–4;11, took part in a concept-learning task in which nonsense syllables replaced English words for the positive and negative ends of four dimensions: size, height, length, and thickness. The data indicate that the syllables for the negative end of each dimension have a longer learning period and a greater prelearning error rate. These results support the hypothesis that the asymmetry observed in the acquisition of polar adjectives is based on an underlying conceptual asymmetry.     

On the study of statistical intuitions

The study of intuitions and errors in judgment under uncertainty is complicated by several factors: discrepancies between acceptance and application of normative rules; effects of content on the application of rules; Socratic hints that create intuitions while testing them; demand characteristics of within-subject experiments; subjects' interpretations of experimental messages according to standard conversational rules. The positive analysis of a judgmental error in terms of heuristics may be supplemented by a negative analysis, which seeks to explain why the correct rule is not intuitively compelling. A negative analysis of non-regressive prediction is outlined.     

Illusory conjunctions in the perception of objects

In perceiving objects we may synthesize conjunctions of separable features by directing attention serially to each item in turn (A. Treisman and G. Gelade, Cognitive Psychology, 1980, 12, 97–136). This feature-integration theory predicts that when attention is diverted or overloaded, features may be wrongly recombined, giving rise to “illusory conjunctions.” The present paper confirms that illusory conjunctions are frequently experienced among unattended stimuli varying in color and shape, and that they occur also with size and solidity (outlined versus filled-in shapes). They are shown both in verbal recall and in simultaneous and successive matching tasks, making it unlikely that they depend on verbal labeling or on memory failure. They occur as often between stimuli differing on many features as between more similar stimuli, and spatial separation has little effect on their frequency. Each feature seems to be coded as an independent entity and to migrate, when attention is diverted, with few constraints from the other features of its source or destination.     

Deep dyslexia, imageability, and ease of predication

A development of existing theories of deep dyslexia is outlined. It proposes that the effects of imageability upon the ease of reading of words by deep dyslexics occur as a result of variation in the ease with which individual words summon semantic predicates, on the basis of which reading responses can be made. Ease-of-predication scores are obtained for a corpus of nouns and found to be, as hypothesized, closely related to imageability scores. It is shown that the other major characteristics of deep dyslexia can also be accounted for by this proposed mechanism. These include the well-established effects of syntactic category (in particular, of the distinction between content and function words) upon reading. Further evidence is provided that this effect may be attributed to variation in ease of predication.     

Self-monitoring behavior in a case of severe auditory agnosia with aphasia

This case report describes an unusual combination of speech and language deficits secondary to bilateral infarctions in a 62-year-old woman. The patient was administered an extensive series of speech, language, and audiologic tests and was found to exhibit a fluent aphasia in which reading and writing were extremely well preserved in comparison to auditory comprehension and oral expression, and a severe auditory agnosia. In spite of her auditory processing deficits, the patient exhibited unexpected self-monitoring ability and the capacity to form acoustic images on visual tasks. The manner in which she corrected and attempted to correct her phonemic errors, while ignoring semantic errors, suggests that different mechanisms may underlie the monitoring of these errors.     

Power and social context in superior-subordinate interaction

Power differences are thought to interfere with superiors' interaction with subordinates. However, it is also argued that superiors with considerable power are most supportive of their subordinates. To explore these opposing positions, 90 undergraduates became managers with either high or low power who believed their goals were cooperatively, individualistically, or competitively related to their subordinate. Results support the hypothesis that social context affects how superiors use their power to interact with subordinates. High- and low-power superiors in cooperation had positive expectations, interacted constructively, restated the task, responded to requests for assistance, and developed a positive relationship compared to high- and low-power superiors in individualistic and competitive situations. In addition, only the high-power superiors in cooperation used their expertise to give direct aid to the subordinate. Results indicate that in cooperation superiors are likely to use their power constructively; however, in competitive and individualistic contexts, superiors are apt to fail to use their resources to facilitate subordinate performance. Results were also interpreted as suggesting that it is not so much the extent of superiors' power but the social context that affects their use of power and interaction with subordinates.