Feature sampling in detection: Implications for the measurement of perceptual independence.

The article presents the feature sampling signal detection (FS-SDT) model, an extension of the multivariate signal detection (SDT) model. The FS-SDT model assumes that, because of attentional shifts, different subsets of features are sampled for different presentations of the same multidimensional stimulus. Contrary to the SDT model, the FS-SDT model enables the estimation of pure perceptual effects that are uncontaminated by strategic attention shifts. The consideration of feature sampling in detection and identification opens a new perspective on the problem of measuring, respectively, the separability and integrality of stimulus dimensions. Disregarding feature sampling as a component process in detection and identification usually results in biased estimations of perceptual independence concepts relevant for judgments of whether stimulus dimensions are processed independently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sequence effects in categorization of simple perceptual stimuli.

Categorization research typically assumes that the cognitive system has access to a (more or less noisy) representation of the absolute magnitudes of the properties of stimuli and that this information is used in reaching a categorization decision. However, research on identification of simple perceptual stimuli suggests that people have very poor representations of absolute magnitude information and that judgments about absolute magnitude are strongly influenced by preceding material. The experiments presented here investigate such sequence effects in categorization tasks. Strong sequence effects were found. Classification of a borderline stimulus was more accurate when preceded by a distant member of the opposite category than by a distant member of the same category. It is argued that this category contrast effect cannot be accounted for by extant exemplar or decision-bound models of categorization. The effect suggests the use of relative magnitude information in categorization. A memory and contrast model illustrates how relative magnitude information may be used in categorization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Estimating interaction effects among overlapping pairs.

"This paper offers a method, given a collection of scores obtained by observing pairs of persons, of constructing scores in which the contributions of individuals are held constant so that the variability among the resulting 'interaction scores' may be attributed to the conditions specifying the obtained pair-scores and not to characteristics associated with the persons individually." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mediating roles of anticipated risks, anticipated benefits, and attitudes on the decision to seek professional help: An attachment perspective.

This study examined the mediating effects of anticipated risks, benefits, and attitudes toward seeking counseling on the link between adult attachment and help-seeking intentions for psychological and interpersonal concerns in a sample of 821 undergraduates. The structural equation modeling results indicated that the link between higher attachment avoidance and less intent to seek help was mediated by lower anticipated benefits, higher anticipated risks, and less positive attitudes toward seeking help. Conversely, the link between higher attachment anxiety and greater intent to seek help was mediated by higher anticipated benefits and risks and more positive attitudes toward seeking help. Thus, attachment contributed to perceptions of the benefits and risks of counseling, which, in turn, influenced help-seeking attitudes and, eventually, help-seeking intentions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptualizing political orientation in Canadian political candidates: A tale of two (correlated) dimensions.

Political orientation is often operationalized as a unidimensional left–right continuum. However, some research suggests that this conceptualization might be overly simplistic. The present study examined the structure of political orientation in a sample of 190 politicians who were candidates in the 2006 Canadian federal election. Participants completed measures of attitudes toward specific political issues (social conservatism issues, economic competition issues), ideological beliefs (right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation), and abstract values (conservation, self-enhancement) as indicators of political orientation. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the structure of political orientation was explained best by 2 moderately correlated dimensions: social left–right and economic left–right. Differences in the political orientation indicators between political parties are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The conditioning and generalization of changes in social perceptual dispositions.

This study examines hypotheses regarding the extent to which social perception may be effected by differential reinforcement and trait generalization. Ss are asked to judge photographs of faces as reflecting either one or the other of the following dimensions: safe-dangerous, good-bad, reliable-unreliable, and relaxed-tense. Selective response by E (saying "right" after the judgment "safe" was made," "wrong" after "dangerous") produced conditioning of the desired response and generalization to the other dimensions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preexposure effects in the spatial domain: Dissociation between latent inhibition and perceptual learning.

In 4 experiments, rats were given intermixed or blocked preexposure to an array of landmarks that subsequently defined the location of a hidden goal in a Morris pool task. Previous research has shown that intermixed preexposure to pairs of adjacent landmarks retards learning whereas preexposure to individual landmarks facilitates subsequent learning (J. Prados, V. D. Chamizo, & N. J. Mackintosh, 1999). Accordingly, in Experiment 1, intermixed and blocked preexposure to pairs of adjacent landmarks was found to retard learning. In Experiment 2, however, a scheduling effect was found: Rats given intermixed preexposure to the individual landmarks learned faster than rats given blocked or no preexposure. Experiment 3 showed that intermixed (but not blocked) preexposure to pairs of landmarks resulted in a facilitatory effect when preexposure and test were carried out in different contexts. Experiment 4 replicated within a single experiment the main results observed in Experiments 1 and 3. This pattern of results suggests that intermixed preexposure engages learning processes other than latent inhibition that facilitate subsequent learning of the navigation task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A "pure" measure of perceptual defense uncontaminated by response suppression.

"Using a tachistoscopic recognition technique, an experiment was designed that provided measures both of 'perceptual defense' and of response suppression. The 'perceptual defense' measure could be corrected by the response suppression measure to yield a 'pure' perceptual defense measure. With this method, it was found that Ss scoring high on the Hy scale of the MMPI demonstrate a significant perceptual defense effect over and above a response suppression effect, when confronted by words preselected so as to be emotional for each S individually. It is therefore concluded that perceptual defense effects cannot be accounted for entirely on the basis of response suppression." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pretest-treatment interaction effects in attitudinal studies.

It is difficult to determine from the pretest-treatment-posttest design whether a significant treatment effect is due to the experimental variable or to an interaction between pretest and treatment. Using a 5-group design, 156 introductory psychology students were exposed to a provivisection tape, and attitude changes on a questionaire were examined. Statistical analysis revealed the expected significant treatments effect, but the pretest by treatment interaction was nonsignificant. It was concluded that "the administration of a pretest does not necessarily sensitize an individual so that his reaction to a given treatment is differentially affected." 27 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Political orientations of academically affiliated psychologists.

A sample was drawn by selecting every 34th name of the psychologists in the 1961 APA Directory (or closest entry thereto) identified as being principally employed as an academic psychologist in a college or university. Tables are provided summarizing party preference, presidential vote in prior elections, party affiliation of parents, reasons for party choice, political attitude score, political participation, father's principal occupation and denominational preference, respondents regional residence, annual income, age, religious preference, and related matters. About 7 out of 10 reported they were registered as Democrats or preferred the Democratic party. Psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists come from populations with relatively similar demographic characteristics. An increasing proportion of academic psychologists have supported the Democratic presidential candidate during the past 36 yr. Comparisons are made among psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists. Psychologists report higher incomes than the other 2 groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Avoidance learning of perceptual defense and vigilance.

Thirty-two undergraduates were randomly assigned to defense and vigilance training groups. "This study supports the view that perceptual defense and vigilance are learned reactions to anxiety arousing stimuli." A behavior theory analysis of the learning process is proposed. "According to this analysis, perceptual defense is learned when the perceptual response to a threatening stimulus is punished and competing perceptual responses are instrumental to anxiety reduction. Competing perceptual responses when reinforced are strengthened at the expense of the critical perceptual response. Perceptual vigilance is learned when the perceptual response to a threatening stimulus is reinforced by anxiety reduction and competing perceptual responses are punished." Learning for both groups "proceeded in the absence of awareness." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time orientation and social class: A correction.

The writers recomputed a chi square for data regarding the interaction of time perspective and social class (see 27: 3494) and found by their computation the figure originally arrived at was in error. This cast doubt on the conclusions based upon these findings. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3GC41G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New perspectives on the effects of action on perceptual and cognitive development.

This special section was motivated by a resurgence in the view that it is impossible to investigate perceptual and cognitive development without considering how it is affected by, and intertwined with, infants' and children's action in the world. This view has long been foundational to the field, yet contemporary investigations of the effects of acting on cognition and perception have been limited. The research showcased in this section indicates that this trend is changing as researchers consider anew the ways in which cognition derives structure from action. The work presented here illustrates the breadth of these potential effects across ages and domains of development, and it highlights the breadth of methods that can be recruited to investigate them. This new research focus provides insight for the mechanisms by which action affects perception and cognition and at the same time reveals that much remains to be learned. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of punishment (electric shock) on perceptual learning.

3 experiments were conducted to explore the consequences of the association of punishment with percepts and to trace its residual effects. Electric shock was associated with tactual profiles of faces. Voltage, temporal contiguity, and ability to escape shock were varied. The results showed that there was more reporting of the non-shocked profile as intensity of shock increased, that escape conditions lead to more reporting of the shocked profiles, the shocked profile is recalled more vividly, and as the delay between exposure and recall increases there is more reporting of the nonshocked profile. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a positive psychology of coping with anticipated events.

Many people appear to be quite resilient to significant stress suggesting that they may possess an orientation to events and life that is resistant to such threats. We propose that one significant aspect of this orientation is the tendency to view adversities as something that can happen to anyone and is reflected in the tendency of people entering uncertain contexts to prepare by imagining a range of possible outcomes, both desired and undesired. This preparatory work facilitates the immediate implementation of effective problem solving and support seeking strategies should the desired outcome seem in doubt. We refer to this orientation as the realistic orientation and review evidence suggesting that such an orientation is associated with realistic—but not unrealistic—optimism and smooth adaptation to adversity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Flanker effects with faces may depend on perceptual as well as emotional differences.

Do threatening or negative faces capture attention? The authors argue that evidence from visual search, spatial cuing, and flanker tasks is equivocal and that perceptual differences may account for effects attributed to emotional categories. Empirically, the authors examine the flanker task. Although they replicate previous results in which a positive face flanked by negative faces suffers more interference than a negative face flanked by positive faces, further results indicate that face perception is not necessary for the flanker-effect asymmetry and that the asymmetry also occurs with nonemotional stimuli. The authors conclude that the flanker-effect asymmetry with affective faces cannot be unambiguously attributed to emotional differences and may well be due to purely perceptual differences between the stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generation and perceptual implicit memory: Different generation tasks produce different effects on perceptual priming.

The generation manipulation has been critical in delineating differences between implicit and explicit memory. In contrast to past research, the present experiments indicate that generating from a rhyme cue produces as much perceptual priming as does reading. This is demonstrated for 3 visual priming tasks: perceptual identification, word-fragment completion (WFC), and word-stem completion (WSC). This result occurred regardless of the mode of study response (written or spoken) or whether the generation condition was compared with reading words in or out of context. Rhyme generation did not produce priming on the letter height task (Masson & MacLeod, 2002), implying that the effect was not mediated by covert visualization. Nor was the effect due to the mere presence of the rhyme cue. Semantic generation (from definitions) produced a different pattern, exhibiting a reverse generation effect on WFC and WSC but full (read-level) priming on perceptual identification. The present results were not consistent with accounts based on the standard transfer-appropriate processing view, covert visualization, explicit contamination, or conceptual contributions to nominally perceptual tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of providing knowledge of results upon the perceptual defense effect.

"The present paper reported a study designed to observe the perceptual defense effect over trials. It was hypothesized that the introduction of knowledge of results would result in an equalization of the probability of using anxiety words as responses and in the accuracy for neutral and anxiety words. The study did not confirm this hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Managing discrimination in selection: The influence of directives from an authority and social dominance orientation.

The authors examined one manner in which to decrease the negative impact of social dominance orientation (SDO), an individual difference variable that indicates support for the "domination of 'inferior' groups by 'superior' groups" (J. Sidanius & F. Pratto, 1999, p. 48), on the selection of candidates from low-status groups within society. Consistent with the tenets of social dominance theory, in 2 studies we found that those high in SDO reported that they were less likely to select a potential team member who is a member of a low-status group (i.e., a White female in Study 1 and a Black male in Study 2) than those low in SDO. However, explicit directives from an authority moderated this effect such that those high in SDO were more likely to select both candidates when authority figures clearly communicated that job performance indicators should be used when choosing team members. Thus, our studies suggest that the negative effects of SDO may be attenuated if those high in SDO are instructed by superiors to use legitimate performance criteria to evaluate job candidates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)