Social categorization as a function of latitude of acceptance and series range.

The categories used when Ss select their number and labels were studied in a 2 X 2 X 2 design as a function of latitudes of acceptance prevailing in 2 populations (American Indian and non-Indian), the range of the stimulus series, and the social value of the objects. Category widths and scale centers used by Ss from the 2 populations for neutral series (numerals) did not differ significantly, but those for valued series (monetary values) did. When the valued series range exceeded the latitude of acceptance (independently estimated), the assimilation of higher values which occurred was limited by initial population differences in latitude of acceptance. More discrepant values were accumulated into a broad objectionable category (contrast). (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word associations of socially isolated adolescents.

246 10th and 11th graders completed a social interaction questionnaire about the frequency, variety, and intimacy of their interpersonal interactions. Based on their scores, 32 socially isolated and 32 non-isolated adolescents (16 males and 16 females/group) were selected as Ss. Ss performed 2 word association tasks; each required giving a series of associations to stimulus words. Isolates emitted a significantly greater proportion of idiosyncratic associates than did nonisolates, and isolates emitted an idiosyncratic associate significantly earlier in a series of associations than did nonisolates. These differences, which were particularly clear for girls, suggest that social isolation is correlated with acquisition of deviant behaviors. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulus preexposure and discrimination learning by domestic chicks: Effect of varying interstimulus time.

Conducted a series of experiments with a total of 199 Ross strain chicks in which groups of Ss were preexposed to moving objects on Days 1-5 after hatching. Only 1 object was visible at a time, and the time between the appearance of one stimulus and the immediately succeeding appearance of the other was called the "interonset time." Ss which had been preexposed to both discriminanda in rapid alternation (interonset time of 1/4 min) learned a subsequent discrimination task more slowly than Ss familiar with neither stimulus; Ss preexposed to both discriminanda at separate times (interonset time of 30 min) learned the discrimination faster than Ss familiar with neither stimulus. The evidence suggests that the proportions of slow-learning and fast-learning Ss in a group were changed by varying interonset time. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consciousness of attention and expectancy as reflected in event-related potentials and reaction times.

The effects of conscious expectancies and attention on event-related potentials (ERPs) and choice reaction times (RTs) and their modulation by stimulus sequence were studied. Ss retrospectively reported their expectancy of, and attention to, the terminal tones of short series. ERPs and RTs showed the usual sequential effects that were modulated by practice. As ratings were affected by only a few of the stimulus sequence, conscious access to sequence-based expectancy or attention appears to be fragmentary. Increased P300 amplitude with attention indicates conscious access to processing capacity. RTs and P300 latencies suggest stimulus processing time to decrease with sequence-based and consciously accessible expectancy. Differential effects of stimulus sequences and conscious expectancies on P300 amplitude indicate influences of two varieties of expectancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquisition of conditional associations and operant delayed spatial response alternation: Effects of lesions in the medial prefrontal cortex.

8 male rats received bilateral lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex, another 8 rats were control operated. Three weeks after surgery, they were exposed to an autoshaping procedure in which the insertion of a lever into the experimental chamber (conditioned stimulus) always preceded the delivery of a response-independent food pellet (unconditioned stimulus). Ss with lesions acquired this conditional association faster than control. Ss as evidenced by the fact that they were more likely than control Ss to contact the conditioned stimulus at higher rates. Locomotor activity, observed in a standard open-field preceding autoshaping sessions, decreased for both groups of Ss with repeated exposure to the open-field, whereas differences between groups were not observed. Ss were also exposed to an operant delayed spatial response alternation procedure in which they were required to alternate responding between two levers that were inserted into the experimental chamber after delay intervals of either 5, 10, or 20 s had elapsed. Alternation response accuracy of Ss with lesions and control Ss decreased as a function of the duration of the delay interval, but control-operated Ss responded more accurately at each interval duration. Response accuracy increased with prolonged training for both groups of Ss, but faster for control than for Ss with lesions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of spatial cues on children's cardinal number judgments.

Administered a series of stimuli designed to assess the dependence of cardinal number judgments on relative length and relative density cues to 200 4- and 6-yr-olds. Among younger Ss, developmental changes were restricted to same-length/different-density stimuli and to different-length/different-density stimuli in which length differences exceeded density differences. Among older Ss, developmental changes were noted for different-length/different-density stimuli in which length and density differences were equal. Scalogram analyses revealed 4 distinct levels of stimulus difficulty for both age groups. There was some evidence that, in addition to the effects of relative length and relative density cues, children's cardinal number judgments are influenced by extreme crowding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental study of unconscious influences: Ultrasound as a stimulus.

Used ultrasound as a stimulus to study its effects on behavior without S awareness. In Exp I evoked responses were elicited in 7 of 24 undergraduates by ultrasonic tones when Ss were reporting the presence of no stimulus. In Exp II with 20 male Ss, galvanic skin response conditioning to a compound stimulus made up of ultrasound and a red light resulted in shorter latencies to the compound stimulus than to the red light alone, during extinction. The differences did not appear among control Ss, supporting the occurrence of conditioning without awareness. In Exp III with 16 Ss, reaction-time performance was disrupted by providing ultrasound as an anticipatory cue for 1 of 2 lights over 150 trials and then reversing the ultrasound-light pairing. The ultrasound did not facilitate reaction time to the paired light during the 1st 150 trials, however. Results support learning without awareness, and the method is discussed as it might be extended to the study of unconscious influences and to clinical applications. (75 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of error in five sorting procedures for ordinal ranking.

The effect or sorting procedures on ranking error was investigated. Different groups of Ss ranked a series of 50 stimulus cards using 5 different sorting methods. Significant differences in ranking errors among the 5 methods were observed, with a "free" procedure showing less error than "structured" procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract thinking and social behavior in schizophrenia.

20 normal and 24 schizophrenic Ss were presented a series of cards, each bearing a stimulus word and 2 response words variously related in meaning to the stimulus. The Ss were asked to select the response word which they felt to be "closer in meaning" to the stimulus word. The results confirmed, at the .01 level, the hypotheses that (a) normals will exceed schizophrenics in the ability to select, as most similar in meaning to a given word, that word which is related to it in an essential abstract way; and (b) within a schizophrenic group, the above ability will be positively correlated with adequacy of everyday social interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When recognition memory fails: The use of an elimination strategy by young children.

Two experiments explored the response strategies of young children in the case of the evident failure of recognition memory. 20 4-yr-olds and 20 7-yr-olds were shown a series of pictorial paired associates. At test, Ss had to choose from a set of 4 items the response that had been paired with a particular stimulus during study. The response set consisted of 3 response items paired with a stimulus during study, and 1 new item. In addition to testing the pairs seen during study, 4 new stimulus–response pairs were tested in the same manner. Response choices for these new stimuli, as well as for the stimuli seen during study, allowed an assessment of the strategies used by Ss in the situation where recognition memory has apparently failed. Results show that Ss of both ages employed a reasoning-by-exclusion elimination strategy in responding to the stimuli. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling effects in children on a successive word association test.

27 8th graders received a word association test involving successive tests on the same list with no instruction as to whether the responses to each given stimulus should be the same or different on successive tests. Wide individual differences were obtained in the level of consistency of responses. In a 2nd study, pairs of Ss were formed which consisted of 1 high and 1 low consistency S, as determined by a pretest. 127 7th and 8th graders were Ss. Each S was tested with a different list in the pair-wise situation, with 1 member observing the performance of the other before being tested himself. Significant matching occurred within pairs in Group H-L where a high consistency model preceded a low consistency O. Nonsignificant changes in the expected direction occurred for high consistency Os who followed low consistency models in Group L-H. The possibility that the pretest may have anchored the performance of the Os against the influence of the models was discussed. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can mental images be ambiguous?

Argues that, although much recent research has emphasized the equivalence between imagery and perception, there are critical differences between these activities. Perception, initiated by an external stimulus, is to a large extent concerned with the interpretation of that stimulus; in contrast, images are created as symbols of something and hence need no interpretive process. Without a construal process, images do not allow reconstrual. In support of this argument, a series of 4 experiments with 65 university students was conducted to test whether Ss could reverse an ambiguous figure (e.g., duck/rabbit) in mental imagery. The S population contained many with vivid imagery, as assessed by a visual elaboration scale and the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire. In all 4 experiments, Ss were unable to reverse a mental image, but all Ss were able, immediately after this failure, to draw a picture from their mental image and then reconstrue the figure in their own drawing. This failure to reverse images occurs despite hints to the S, some coaching, and a moderate amount of training in figural reversal. Findings emphasize the difference between images and percepts. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The unconscious perception of the meaning of verbal stimuli.

"The hypothesis was investigated that the meaning of a verbal stimulus may be responded to without prior recognition of the stimulus. Four treatment groups were employed of 16 Ss each. The experimental procedure used… consisted essentially of obtaining the S's guesses to a series of verbal stimuli, dichotomized in affective connotation, which were presented at or slightly below the S's previously determined absolute threshold… . there was no evidence that the Ss could make better than chance matches… . It was concluded that no evidence was obtained that Ss respond to the meaning of verbal stimuli prior to recognition of the stimuli." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2HL32F. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in hemispheric specialization for tactile spatial ability.

64 1st-, 3rd, and 5th-grade children and adults (16 in each group) performed a tactile shape-discrimination task. On each of 40 trials, after exploring a randomly generated nonsense form using only finger motion, Ss judged a tactually presented comparison form as either the same as or different from the 1st stimulus. In Condition 1, a single stimulus form and the comparison form were successively presented to the same hand. In Condition 2, stimulus forms were simultaneously presented to both hands; however, a comparison form was presented to only one hand. Results indicate that the left hand (right hemisphere) was more accurate than the right hand (left hemisphere) for 5th-grade Ss and adults, but no significant differences between hands were found for 1st- and 3rd-grade Ss. Overall, Condition 2 was more difficult than Condition 1, but similar laterality effects were found in both groups. Sex differences were found only in the adult group in which males made somewhat fewer errors than females. These results suggest that the right hemisphere becomes progressively more specialized for tactile spatial ability with increasing age. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The strategy of negation and the learning of antonymic relations.

Hypothesized that the antonym response, common in children's word associations after the age of 6 yrs, may be explained as a derivative phenomenon that appears subsequent to the emergence of a strategy of negation. It is argued that negation leads to the operation of opposition, which precedes the relating of the antonym units. 80 4-6 yr olds were tested with 15 antonym pairs from J. Deese's (1965) list of adjectives that elicit one another as primaries. 40 Ss were presented the "unmarked" member of the antonym pair as the stimulus word and 40 the "marked" member. There was evidence for the emergence of a negation strategy prior to the statistically significant increase in antonym responding. No difference was found in the production of antonyms under the conditions of stimulus presentation. Data support the hypothesis that the marked member of the antonym pair is not learned by the young child as a derivative of the unmarked member, but is abstracted independently from learned contexts prior to its relating with the other member in the pair. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychotherapists' attitudes toward suicide.

Assessed psychotherapists' attitudes toward a number of potential suicides and their attitudes toward the concept of rational suicide in general. 186 Ss received a case scenario in which a current client of a member or the general public was considering suicide because of a terminal illness, physical pain, psychological pain, or bankruptcy. Ss also completed the Suicide Semantic Differential Scale. Ss were differentially accepting of suicidal ideation, based on precipitating circumstances, and Ss would take different amounts of action to prevent a suicide depending on why the person had decided to commit suicide. Ss who had been in practice for 30+ yrs were more accepting of suicide and would take less action to prevent a suicide than less experienced Ss. 81% of the Ss believed in the idea of rational suicide. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Olfactory discrimination, reversal learning, and stimulus control in rats.

Conducted 3 experiments with a total of 21 Wistar rats. In Exp I Ss were trained to discriminate lights, tones, or odors and then given a series of discrimination reversals. Only Ss trained with odors showed positive transfer on the first reversal and acquisition of a reversal set. Other experiments demonstrated that (a) Ss preferentially attended to odors when presented in compound with lights or tones; (b) odors exerted more discriminative control than tones in tests using compound stimuli of competing sign; and (c) after pretraining on the positive stimulus, acquisition of an odor but not a light discrimination occurred with virtually no errors. These results demonstrate the importance of stimulus modality in the establishment of stimulus control and the need for more careful analysis of stimulus factors in cross-species comparisons of learning ability. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overt and covert attention and vibrotactile reaction times: Gaze direction, spatial compatibility and hemispatial asymmetry.

Performed 2 vibrotactile reaction time (RT) experiments, using 32 strongly dextral undergraduates to determine if (1) Ss attention toward/away from the operating hand effected RT and (2) there was an interaction with hand-hemispace and spatial compatibility. In Exp I, 16 Ss were administered a 250 Hz vibratory stimulus to the forefinger of a hand and were required to depress a switch as soon as the stimulus was felt. Hemispace of the stimulated hand was varied and head turns were recorded. In Exp II, 16 Ss were presented with stimuli to the left and the right hand and Ss looked at 1 hand for a block of trials. Results suggest that vibrotactile asymmetries may stem from differences in ability to hold covert attention in a number of spatial locations. It is suggested that overt and covert attention play different mediating roles in performance asymmetries, both at the hemispatial level and in classical anatomical connectivity paradigms of visual field and ear of entry. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulus specificity of physiological response to stress and the Type A coronary-prone behavior pattern.

Conducted 2 experiments with male undergraduates to determine the influence of stimulus specificity on differences in physiological response to stress of coronary-prone (Type A) and noncoronary-prone (Type B [Jenkins Activity Survey]) individuals. In Exp I, a RT task was presented to 51 Ss with and without stress relevant to the Type A behavior pattern. The physiological responses of Type A Ss were greater in the relevant stress compared to the neutral task condition, but responses of Type B Ss were similar in the 2 conditions. In Exp II, 25 Type A and Type B Ss performed a stressful task that was not theoretically relevant to the Type A behavior pattern. Physiological response elevations were found for both groups, but as predicted, there were no differences between Type A and Type B Ss. Results support the discriminant validity of the Type A construct and provide additional evidence for the role of physiological response differences as mediators of the behavior-pattern–disease relationship. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressed emotion, social skill, and response to negative affect in schizophrenia.

Examined social skills and social perception of 48 schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder patients (aged 18–55 yrs) in response to negative affect as a function of family expressed emotion (EE). Ss participated in a role-play test, a social perception test, and a problem-solving discussion with a family member and were assessed on several measures of symptomatology. EE of family members was evaluated with the Camberwell Family Interview. On the role-play test, Ss with less critical relatives became more assertive in response to increased negative affect from a confederate portraying either a family member or friend, but Ss with highly critical relatives did not. Ss with highly critical relatives were also less assertive when confronted with negative affect from a confederate portraying a family member rather than a friend. The behaviors of both relatives and Ss during a family problem-solving interaction were related to the EE dimensions of criticism, emotional overinvolvement, and warmth. Patient gender was also related to family problem solving but was independent of EE. S's ratings of affect on a videotaped social perception task were not related to family EE, and there were few differences in psychopathology between Ss with high and low EE relatives.… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)