Confidence intervals for gamma-family measures of ordinal association.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 13(1) of Psychological Methods (see record 2008-02525-006). The note corrects simulation results presented in the article concerning the performance of confidence intervals (CIs) for Spearman's rs. An error in the author's C++ code affected all simulation results for Spearman's rs (but none of the results for gamma-family indices).] This research focused on confidence intervals (CIs) for 10 measures of monotonic association between ordinal variables. Standard errors (SEs) were also reviewed because more than 1 formula was available per index. For 5 indices, an element of the formula used to compute an SE is given that is apparently new. CIs computed with different SEs were compared in simulations with small samples (N = 25, 50, 75, or 100) for variables with 4 or 5 categories. With N > 25, many CIs performed well. Performance was best for consistent CIs due to N. Cliff and colleagues (N. Cliff, 1996; N. Cliff & V. Charlin, 1991; J. D. Long & N. Cliff, 1997). CIs for Spearman's rank correlation were also examined: Parameter coverage was erratic and sometimes egregiously underestimated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Confidence intervals for gamma-family measures of ordinal association": Correction.

Reports an error in "Confidence intervals for gamma-family measures of ordinal association" by Carol M. Woods (Psychological Methods, 2007[Jun], Vol 12[2], 185-204). The note corrects simulation results presented in the article concerning the performance of confidence intervals (CIs) for Spearman's rs. An error in the author's C++ code affected all simulation results for Spearman's rs (but none of the results for gamma-family indices). (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2007-07830-005.) This research focused on confidence intervals (CIs) for 10 measures of monotonic association between ordinal variables. Standard errors (SEs) were also reviewed because more than 1 formula was available per index. For 5 indices, an element of the formula used to compute an SE is given that is apparently new. CIs computed with different SEs were compared in simulations with small samples (N = 25, 50, 75, or 100) for variables with 4 or 5 categories. With N > 25, many CIs performed well. Performance was best for consistent CIs due to N. Cliff and colleagues (N. Cliff, 1996; N. Cliff & V. Charlin, 1991; J. D. Long & N. Cliff, 1997). CIs for Spearman's rank correlation were also examined: Parameter coverage was erratic and sometimes egregiously underestimated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knowledge of the ordinal position of list items in pigeons.

Ordinal knowledge is a fundamental aspect of advanced cognition. It is self-evident that humans represent ordinal knowledge, and over the past 20 years it has become clear that nonhuman primates share this ability. In contrast, evidence that nonprimate species represent ordinal knowledge is missing from the comparative literature. To address this issue, in the present experiment we trained pigeons on three 4-item lists and then tested them with derived lists in which, relative to the training lists, the ordinal position of the items was either maintained or changed. Similar to the findings with human and nonhuman primates, our pigeons performed markedly better on the maintained lists compared to the changed lists, and displayed errors consistent with the view that they used their knowledge of ordinal position to guide responding on the derived lists. These findings demonstrate that the ability to acquire ordinal knowledge is not unique to the primate lineage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preliminary experiments on keyboard design for semiautomatic mail sorting.

Mail sorting by keyboards will require operatives either to remember digitation for each address (memory encoding) or key certain selected characters from the address (extraction encoding). Keyboards may be chord (multiple depressions per stroke) or sequential (single keys in succession), 3 preliminary experiments indicated (a) in sequential keying a key stroke takes approximately 0.3 sec., hence keyboards with many keys and requiring few key strokes per encoding are preferable; (b) for memory encoding a chord keyboard with many keys (24) is superior to a smaller chord keyboard and a sequential keyboard, (c) for extraction encoding a typewriter and a 24-key chord keyboard are equal in performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual sorting and personality adjustment in children.

24 relatively well adjusted and 24 relatively poorly adjusted children, selected from 150 normal 6th-grade children, were compared on the Gelb-Goldstein-Weigl-Scheerer Object Sorting Test. Poorly adjusted children made significantly more inadequate sortings than well adjusted children, confirming the prediction of this study. High and average intelligence children were more adequate in their object sortings than low intelligence children. Relatively poorly adjusted children, because of lack of appropriate categories, may not be as able to reduce environmental complexity and assign meaning to events as relatively well adjusted children. High and average intelligence, at this age level, contributes to the ability to abstract and use shared properties as a grouping principle. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The measurement of vocational interests by a stereotype ranking method.

An interest test based on the assumption that interests reflect steretoypes is described. Employing job titles to be checked, it is intended for use as the basis for an interview but can be used with norms. "It can be administered to groups or individuals, is relatively quick and has been shown to have promising reliability and validity, though more evidence on these aspects is required." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An empirical comparison of the results of five validity generalization procedures.

With data originally obtained by the 3rd author and colleagues (see record 1980-31533-001), comparative results are presented for the noninteractive, interactive, independent multiplicative and Taylor Series Approximations 1 and 2 validity generalization procedures when there is nonzero sampling error. Findings indicate that the 5 validity generalization procedures yielded similar estimates of the fully corrected mean and variance of true validity coefficients. It is concluded that the 5 validity generalization procedures will lead to the same general conclusions regarding the effectiveness of a predictor measure. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effectiveness of error management training: A meta-analysis.

Error management training (EMT) is a training method that involves active exploration as well as explicit encouragement for learners to make errors during training and to learn from them. Past evaluation studies, which compared skill-based training outcomes of EMT with those of proceduralized erroravoidant training or of exploratory training without error encouragement, have yielded considerable variation in effect sizes. The present meta-analysis compiles the results of the existing studies and seeks to explain this variation. Although the mean effect of EMT across all 24 identified studies (N = 2,183) was positive and significant (Cohen's d = 0.44), there were several moderators. Moderator analyses showed effect sizes to be larger (a) for posttraining transfer (d = 0.56) than for within-training performance and (b) for performance tasks that were structurally distinct (adaptive transfer; d = 0.80) than for tasks that were similar to training (analogical transfer). In addition, both active exploration and error encouragement were identified as effective elements in EMT. Results suggest that EMT may be better suited than error-avoidant training methods for promotion of transfer to novel tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of three procedures for classifying addicts.

2 prevalent techniques plus a 3rd technique which compared individual to group profiles were employed to analyze the profiles of 2,179 narcotic addicts, using the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. It is concluded that inferences from classification studies can be related to the techniques used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic statistics and the inconsistency of multiple comparison procedures.

This paper has two main themes. First, the various statistical measures used in this journal are summarized and their interrelationships described by way of a flow chart. These are the pooled standard deviation, the pooled variance or mean square error (MSE), the standard error of each treatment mean (SEM) and of the difference between two treatment means (SED), and the least difference between two means which is significant at (e.g.) the 5% level of significance (LSD[5%]). The last three measures can be displayed as vertical bars in graphs, and the relationship between the lengths of these bars is graphically illustrated. It is suggested that the LSD is the most useful of these three measures. Second, when the experimenter has no prior hypotheses to be tested using analysis of variance "contrasts," a multiple comparison procedure (MCP) that examines all pair-wise differences between treatment means, may be appropriate. In this paper a fictitious experimental data set is used to compare several well-known MCPs by focussing on a particular operating known characteristic, the consistency of the results between an overall analysis of all treatments and an analysis of a subset of the experimental treatments... (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empirical evidence for a theory of hypnotic behavior: Effects on suggestibility of five variables typically included in hypnotic induction procedures.

3 experiments were conducted to ascertain the relative effects on suggestibility of the following 5 components that are typically included in present-day hypnotic induction procedures: 1—defining the situation to S as "hypnosis"; 2—instructing S to close his eyes; 3—administering suggestions of relaxation, drowsiness, and sleep; 4—administering motivational instructions; and 5—suggesting that it is easy to respond to further suggestions. Component 1, by itself, tended to facilitate response to test suggestions of arm levitation, thirst hallucination, body immobility, selective amnesia, etc. Component 1 in combination with Component 3 produced a higher level of suggestibility than Component 1 alone. Components 4 and 5 in combination were as effective as Components 1 and 3 in combination in facilitating response to test suggestions. Component 2 did not exert a noticeable effect on response. (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of two procedures for testing multiple contrasts.

Scheffe's test for contrasts is frequently used when a relatively small set of contrasts is of interest. When these contrasts have been planned prior to the data analysis, the Bonferroni t statistic provides a reasonable alternative. Comparisons are made of critical values for the 2 tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing intergroup concordance in ranking experiments with two groups of judges.

Across many areas of psychology, concordance is commonly used to measure the (intragroup) agreement in ranking a number of items by a group of judges. Sometimes, however, the judges come from multiple groups, and in those situations, the interest is to measure the concordance between groups, under the assumption that there is some within-group concordance. In this investigation, existing methods are compared under a variety of scenarios. Permutation theory is used to calculate the error rates and the power of the methods. Missing data situations are also studied. The results indicate that the performance of the methods depend on (a) the number of items to be ranked, (b) the level of within-group agreement, and (c) the level of between-group agreement. Overall, using the actual ranks of the items gives better results than using the pairwise comparison of rankings. Missing data lead to loss in statistical power, and in some cases, the loss is substantial. The degree of power loss depends on the missing mechanism and the method of imputing the missing data, among other factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes at JPI: A new editor and new submission procedures.

Announces the arrival of the new editor for JPI, Dr. Golan Shahar, effective at the start of 2012. Also discusses new submission procedures for the journal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of reproduction errors made by brain-damaged and control patients on a memory-for-designs test.

"The performances of brain damaged and control groups on the Benton Visual Retention Test were compared in terms of total number of correct reproductions, total number of errors, and relative frequency of occurrence of ten different types of errors. The mean total number of correct reproductions of the control Ss was found to be significantly higher and their mean number of errors significantly lower than the corresponding means of the brain damaged Ss. No significant difference, however, between the 2 groups in the overall patterns of the 10 different types of errors could be demonstrated." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences between schizophrenic and brain-damaged groups in conceptual aspects of object sorting.

The hypothesis tested was that of the two conceptual variables, amount of social agreement and order of conceptual classification, the latter would show the greatest difference between schizophrenic and brain-damaged Ss. Ss consisted of 37 chronic paranoid schizophrenic patients and 34 brain-damaged patients. The sorting task used was the Rapaport modification of the Goldstein-Gelb-Weigl Object Sorting Test. The variable of social agreement was scored in terms of the relative publicness-privateness of each conceptual sorting, and the variable of order of classification was scored in terms of number of attributes used in the definition. 5 other measures derived from their interactions were also used. Analysis of covariance yielded results in the predicted direction. The greatest F ratio was for the closed-open variable, in keeping with the major hypothesis. 24 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nomination procedures for APA boards and committees.

In response to several inquiries that have been received from members of APA boards and committees concerning the procedures employed in placing a name on a ballot for election to a particular board or committee, the Board of Directors has requested that a statement of the procedures followed be made available to all board, committee, and Council members. The procedures are outlined. In placing a name on the ballot, the Board of Directors attempts to select an individual who is knowledgeable in a particular area and to ensure age, geographic location, work setting, and psychological specialty variation in the composition of APA boards and committees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of two group brainstorming procedures.

A modified brainstorming procedure that required Ss (male introductory psychology students) to identify psychologically with significant components of the task (called synectics) was compared to standard brainstorming over 3 sessions and 9 different problems. Each treatment condition was also divided into high- and low-interpersonal-effectiveness groups. The synectics groups were superior to the brainstorming groups on all 9 problems, but the differences were statistically significant for only 4. There were no significant main effects due to group composition, nor were there any interactions. It is concluded that synectics is a more effective group-problem-solving strategy than brainstorming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of technical knowledge on position error in ranking.

Demonstrated the biasing effect of position error in ranking in a situation approximating real-life conditions with 120 undergraduates and 120 Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets. It was also shown that position error is less likely to occur when Ss undertaking the evaluation are knowledgeable about the dimension being ranked. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The experiment as the unit for computing rates of error.

In reply to Wilson (see 37: 5919), arguments are presented for controlling error rates per experiment rather than per hypothesis. The major contention is that a per hypothesis strategy permits wide variation in the total amount of error expected for different experimental designs involving the same total number of observations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)