Achievement themes and directionality of autokinetic movement.

"In three samples of college students, it was found that subjects with a low score on achievement orientation (from a brief TAT) indicated more often initial autokinetic movement to the right than subjects with high need for achievement. A tentative explanation was offered concerning the manner in which differences in achievement motivation might be translated into differences in the autokinetic measure." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HJ64F. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive consistency and attitude change.

The effect of temporal presentation of ideas, consistency of presented attitude, and wishful thinking on the logicalness of thinking was investigated. The results were discussed in relation to previous empirical and theoretical research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of the schedule of reinforcement on operant conditioning of a verbal response in the autokinetic situation.

The autokinetic effect was employed to compare the effect of 2 different schedules of reinforcement on verbal behavior. One group of Ss was given 20 reinforcements of "Right" under a regular reinforcement schedule for emitting verbally the estimate designated as the response. A second group was given similar reinforcement under a variable interval schedule. The regular reinforcement group reached the criterion of extinction in 10 to 35 verbal emissions while no S in the variable interval group extinguished within 10 to 80 verbal emissions. 15 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social conformity in perception of the autokinetic effect.

The autokinetic phenomenon was used to test the effect of social influence upon perceptual processes. Conformity (continuation of the behavior beyond the situation where it may appear to be required, as distinguished from compliance, which terminates once the immediate need is no longer experienced by the S for the behavior) was demonstrated. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GE89E. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conforming behavior of psychiatric and medical patients.

"A group of ten non-psychotic psychiatric patients in the open ward of a general hospital was compared with seven medical patients without disabling psychiatric symptoms, with respect to the variability of their judgments of the autokinetic phenomenon… . The results indicated that neurotic Ss were consistently more variable than nonneurotic Ss in their judgments and were less affected by the group influence." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The perception of situational consistency in behaviour: Assessing the actor-observer bias.

Differences in judgments of self and judgments of others in the perceived consistency of behaviour across situations are assessed. Using S-R Inventories, judges made ratings on a number of modes of response to a variety of situations regarding two behaviours, anxiety and hostility. After Jones and Nisbett (1971), it was predicted that self-judgments would show less consistency over situations than judgments of others. Two comparisons were made both involving two different analyses. In Study I the same person was rated by three judges (self, friend, and acquaintance); in Study II one judge rated two different target persons (self and friend). In the major analysis, consistency of behaviour was defined in terms of intrasubject correlations across situations. In a second, supplementary analysis, consistency was described in terms of differences (rather than relationships) between situations. A variance components analysis was applied to each set of data. For the most part, the results were as predicted. A further distinction was noted between judgments of a target by friend and by acquaintance, with acquaintances perceiving greater consistency of behaviour across situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of disturbing and neutral words through the autokinetic word technique.

Disturbing and neutral words were selected individually for Ss by means of a word association test. It was then suggested to these Ss that an apparently moving but actually motionless point of light in a completely darkened room (autokinetic effect) would write a sentence containing a given word. The given word was either a disturbing or neutral word. The Ss reported perceiving fewer of the disturbing words. Those disturbing words that were perceived had a greater latency than perceived neutral words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive interaction in person perception.

A review of the evidence concerning Osgood's congruity principle (CP) and a test of this principle with 78 Greek and 91 Illinois Ss suggest that the principle does not predict the perception of complex stimulus persons as well as a derivation from Fishbein's theory. Semantic differential (SD) judgments using concepts such as, Portuguese, Negro, Coal Miner, Same Religion As You, as well as SD judgments of the components entering these concepts, constituted the basic data. CP predictions and the obtained SD judgments of the complex stimuli correlated highly and significantly, but the judgments of the occupation of the complex stimuli correlated even more highly with the obtained SD judgments of the complex stimuli. A measure derived from Fishbein's theory correlated more highly with the judgments of the complex stimuli than the occupation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive aspects of psychomotor performance: The effects of performance goals on level of performance.

Reports an experiment stemming from Mace's work on the effects of performance standards on level of performance. It was found that Ss given specific (but difficult) standards performed at a higher level on a complex psychomotor task than Ss told to "do their best," thus replicating Mace's finding with a computation task. In contrast to Mace's study where performance goals worked by prolonging effort during the latter part of the work periods, the standards intensified effort at all stages of the work periods in the present case. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes and interpersonal predictions.

An investigation of the cognitive process by which one observer makes predictions about another person in a social situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distance as a determinant of influence in a two-person serial interaction situation.

"Pairs of Ss were placed in a social influence situation requiring judgments of the number of paratroopers seen in briefly exposed photographs… . distance (the size of the discrepancy between S's judgment and his partner's) was systematically varied by intercepting S's written estimate and replacing it with a bogus estimate at a predetermined distance. The amount of influence… is significantly related to distance." (24 ref.) From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1GE30F. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To do or not to do: Desirability and consistency mediate judgments of regret.

In 4 studies, the authors demonstrated that when errors associated with action were inconsistent with decision makers' orientation, they were undesirable and produced more regret than did errors associated with inaction. Conversely, when errors associated with action were consistent with decision makers' orientation, they were desirable and produced less regret than did errors associated with inaction. Desirability and consistency mediated this relationship, independent of mutability. These results were obtained when judgments and decisions to act or not act were made in close temporal proximity to one another as well as when participants reflected on their past decisions. The authors provide an analysis of when counterfactuals would and would not be expected to mediate judgments of normality and regret. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Olympic medals as fruits of comparison? Assimilation and contrast in sequential performance judgments.

The authors investigated the evaluative consequences of sequential performance judgments. Recent social comparison research has suggested that performance judgments may be influenced by judgments about a preceding performance. Specifically, performance judgments may be assimilated to judgments of the preceding performance if judges focus on similarities between the two. If judges focus on differences, however, contrast may ensue. The authors examined sequential performance judgments, using data gathered from the 2004 Olympic Games as well as data gathered in the laboratory with students or experienced gymnastics judges as participants. Sequential performance judgments were influenced by previously judged performances, and the direction of this influence depended on the degree of perceived similarity between the successive performances. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive performance inconsistency: Intraindividual change and variability.

Although many studies have examined inconsistency of cognitive performance, few have examined how inconsistency changes over time. 91 older adults (age 52 to 79) were tested weekly for 36 consecutive weeks on a series of multitrial memory speed (i.e., letter recognition) tasks. A number of multivariate techniques were used to examine how individuals' level of inconsistency changed across weeks and how this change was related to interindividual differences in age and intelligence. Results indicated that (a) inconsistency of performance is a construct separate from the underlying performance ability (i.e., memory speed); (b) inconsistency reduces exponentially with practice; (c) individuals with higher scores on tests of fluid general intelligence (Gf) reached lower asymptotic levels of inconsistency compared to lower scorers; and (d) after controlling for the systematic effects of practice, variability in inconsistency from week-to-week was more pronounced for individuals with lower Gf scores compared to individuals with higher scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Series effects in motor performance studies.

It was hypothesized that a series effect would operate in a study designed to determine the optimal work surface height for the performance of a simple motor task. Under Condition A, Ss performed the task at each of 6 work surface hieghts, comprising the lower ? of the range of heights used in an earlier study. Under Condition B, Ss performed at 6 heights comprising the upper ? of the range. Systematic differences were observed in the performance of the 2 groups at the 4 heights they had in common. The differences in motor performance were attributed to a series effect stemming from differences in judgments Ss made concerning what the optimal height should be. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

One determinant of the capacity to free-associate in psychotherapy.

The hypothesis tested was that "clients whose behavior when asked to free associate is highly variable, flexible, or productive exhibit significantly greater variability when judging the extent of autokinetic movement on successive trials than Ss whose behavior at the outset of psychotherapy is highly inflexible, stereotyped, or rigid." 7 neurotic college student analysands in the extremely flexible group were matched with 10 Ss of the extremely rigid group for relevant personal variables. Sherif's autokinetic apparatus was used, and each S's judgmental variability was determined. The highly significant difference between autokinetic variability scores of the 2 groups lends strong support to the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Skew and internal consistency.

The effects of skew on the standardized item alpha were examined with Monte Carlo techniques. Alphas computed from normal variables were compared with alphas from lognormal variables, ranks, and skewed versus normal Likert-type variables. The extent and direction of skew were varied, as was the size of the population interitem correlation (rho), the number of items, and the number of categories for Likert-type variables. Because the average interitem correlation affects alpha and skew affects the average interitem correlation, the effect of skew on the average interitem correlation also was examined. Results indicated that skew decreased the average interitem correlation and produced small decreases in alpha that were largest when skew was large, rho was small, items were skewed in opposite directions, and there were fewer items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive status impacts age-related changes in attention to novel and target events in normal adults.

In this study, the authors investigated the relationship between the cognitive status of normal adults and age-related changes in attention to novel and target events. Old, middle-age, and young subjects, divided into cognitively high and cognitively average performing groups, viewed repetitive standard stimuli, infrequent target stimuli, and unique novel visual stimuli. Subjects controlled viewing duration by a button press that led to the onset of the next stimulus. They also responded to targets by pressing a foot pedal. The amount of time spent looking at different kinds of stimuli served as a measure of visual attention and exploratory activity. Cognitively high performers spent more time viewing novel stimuli than cognitively average performers. The magnitude of the difference between cognitively high and cognitively average performing groups was largest among old subjects. Cognitively average performers had slower and less accurate responses to targets than cognitively high performers. The results provide strong evidence that the link between engagement by novelty and higher cognitive performance increases with age. Moreover, the results support the notion of there being different patterns of normal cognitive aging and the need to identify the factors that influence them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group performance in a cognitive task.

On a cross-word puzzle task performed by 60 pairs of male Ss, correlations between group performance and performance of the individuals (independently determined) were calculated. 82% of the true group performance variance on the task could be predicted from the individual performance scores. "It is suggested that the nature of the task is important in studies of group performance, and that the existence of 'group' phenomena should be empirically demonstrated rather than assumed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)