Automaticity and the capture of attention by a peripheral display change

The proposal that peripheral visual changes (cues) tend to summon attention automatically was tested by studying the effect of peripheral cueing on simple detection latency. Delay between cue onset and target onset, the contingent relationship between cue location and target location, and instructions to subjects were manipulated. Results showed that a peripheral display change could capture attention even when the target was far more likely to appear at an uncued location. When subjects were explicitly informed that targets were likely to appear away from the cued location they were able to suppress this effect, but were unable completely to reverse it by rapidly orienting attention towards the uncued side. Hence the process appears to be automatic in the sense that it occurs unless there are explicit instructions to the contrary. With explicit instructions the processing operation can be suppressed, but not completely reversed. This work was supported by the U.K. Admiralty Research Establishment (Research Agreement No. 53482).     

Independence of slope and intercept in Sternberg's memory-scanning paradigm

Negative correlations have been obtained over subjects between slopes and intercepts in memoryscanning tasks. It is argued that such correlations are to be expected on purely statistical grounds. Predictions for such correlations are derived and compared with data from a large scale experiment of this type. A satisfactory match is obtained.     

Determinants of credit card debt: Differentiating between revolving credit debt and petty installment loan in China

This research explores the determinants of the probability of having credit debt, as well as the determinants of the severity of credit card debt. Credit card debt includes revolving credit debt and petty installment loan. The severity of credit card debt was measured by the duration of revolving credit debt and the amount of petty installment loans. Analysis of behavioral data from a Chinese commercial bank showed a significant difference between the determinants of the probability of having credit card debt and the determinants of the severity of credit card debt. Specifically, credit limit, gender, length of ownership of a credit card, and the total credit card expenditure were closely related to the likelihood of having revolving credit debt and to the duration of revolving credit debt. However, age, the square of age, credit ranking, and risk ranking were significantly correlated with the likelihood of having revolving credit debt rather than the duration of revolving credit debt. Credit card balance had a special influence on the duration of revolving credit debt. Compared with revolving credit debt, petty installment loan had few significantly related factors. Both age and the square of age could significantly predict both the likelihood of having petty installment loan and amount of petty installment loan. Credit ranking, risk ranking, and gender predicted the likelihood of having petty installment loan but did not correlate with the amount of petty installment loan. The frequency of petty installment use was closely related to the amount of petty installment loan. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Noise effects on rehearsal rate in short term serial order memory

Three experiments are reported which were designed to test the hypothesis that the rate of rehearsal during noise is slower than that under quiet conditions. The first experiment measured directly the rate of articulation while subjects either read or rehearsed a set of five consonants. It was shown that while the rate of articulation when reading aloud did not differ under the two noise levels [65 dB(C) and 85 dB(C)], rate of articulation during overt rehearsal in loud noise was significantly slower than under quiet conditions. In Experiment II a similar effect was demonstrated where words were required to be read or rehearsed; here it was shown that the greatest impairment due to noise was on the rate of rehearsal of words of long spoken length.

The third experiment showed that loud noise impaired recall performance more markedly for a set of words of long spoken length presented early on in the sequence than for a set of shorter words, even though both sets were equal in the number of syllables and phonemes they contained.

It was concluded that in verbal memory tasks where rote rehearsal of the to-be-remembered material is the predominant strategy for enhancing trace duration, noise may affect memory performance by slowing down the rehearsal rate.     

A note on relations between trait and state measures of arousal

Analysis of Eysenck Personality Inventory measures of personality and measures of mood obtained by the Nowlis Mood Adjective Check List revealed four main factors. Neuroticism was associated with a cluster of mood variables related to anxiety and depression and extraversion to a cluster related to self -confidence, but not to activation. Implications for the use of these measures in cognitive and other research are indicated.