Multidimensional analysis of male and female voices

This paper is a sequel to a study which showed that the dominant dimension for perceptual discrimination among normal voices was the male-female categorization and which also suggested that discrimination within the male-female categories utilized distinct dimenisons. The present study eliminates the male-female axis by treating the gender groups separately and making the within-category dimensions available for more sensitive analysis. The purpose was to determine the number and nature of perceptual parameters needed to explain judgments of voice similarity depending on talker sex and whether the stimulus sample was a sustained vowel or a short phrase. The similarity judgments were submitted to multidimensional analysis via INDSCAL and the resulting dimenisons were interpreted in terms of available acoustic measures and unidimensional voice-quality ratings of pitch, breathiness, hoarseness, nasality, and effort. The decisions of the listerners appeared to be influenced by both the sex of the speaker and the stimulus sample, although fundamental frequency (fo), was important for all judgments. Aside from the fo dimensions, judgments concerning male voices were related to vocal tract parameters, while similarity judgments of female voices were related to perceived glottal/vocal tranct differences. Formant structure was apparently important in judging the similarity of vowels for both sexes while perceptual glottal/temporal attributes may have been used as cues in the judgments of phrases.     

A multidimensional scaling analysis of schizophrenics' and normals' perceptions of verbal similarity.

Compared the judgments of similarity of words by 14 paranoid and 14 nonparanoid schizophrenics (mean ages, 29.43 and 30.64 yrs, respectively) with those by 14 normals (mean age, 32.79 yrs). The judgments were analyzed using an individual-differences multidimensional scaling procedure. A greater judgmental consistency was obtained among the normals than among the paranoid schizophrenics and larger differences among stimulus dimensions, in their contributions to predictable judgmental variance, were obtained for the normals as compared with the schizophrenics, especially the paranoid schizophrenics. Stimulus dimensions resembling the potency, activity, and evaluative dimensions of the semantic differential were less influential in the judgments of the schizophrenics, especially those classified as paranoid, than in the judgments of the normals. Results are discussed in terms of overinclusiveness among schizophrenics in multidimensional similarity judgments, as well as in terms of the potential importance to schizophrenics' deficiencies in semantic interpretations of the reduced influence of relevant dimensions of meaning. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dimensionality of visual complexity, interestingness, and pleasingness.

Applied the Shepard-Kruskal multidimensional scaling technique to judgments of complexity, interestingness, and pleasingness with visual patterns as stimulus material. After a principal-axes rotation, 2 dimensions were found to account for 90% of the variance with respect to complexity and interestingness, and 3 dimensions accounted for almost 90% of the variance with respect to pleasingness. There was a high degree of inter-S consistency, and distance ratings with regard to the 3 properties were significantly intercorrelated. Values assigned to patterns on the 1st complexity dimension, which apparently represents "information content," were significantly correlated with values along the 1st interestingness and pleasingness dimensions. Values on the 2nd interestingness dimension were significantly correlated with values on the 2nd complexity dimension and on the 2nd pleasingness dimension. The results with 60 undergraduates confirm that judged complexity is a major determinant of judged interestingness and judged pleasingness and that Ss tend to agree on the relative locations of stimulus patterns in the spaces that govern interestingness and pleasingness judgments, even though the regions that they find most interesting or pleasing may differ. (French summary) (40 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Representations of perceptions of risks.

Investigated the perception of risks (e.g., diseases, accidents, natural hazards) using a multitask, multimodel approach. 18 risks were rated by 245 undergraduates to examine the proximities among the risks induced by 3 tasks: judgment of similarity, conditional prediction, and dimensional evaluation. The comparative judgments (similarity and prediction) were reasonably close, but the dimensional evaluation did not correlate highly with either similarity or prediction. Similarity judgments and conditional predictions were best represented by tree models which are based on discrete features, whereas the dimensional evaluations were better explained by spatial models such as multidimensional scaling and factor analysis. Implications for the study of mental representations and for the analysis of risk perception are discussed. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dimensions of the Rorschach: A matter of preference.

Obtained similarity judgments among all possible pairs of the 10 Rorschach inkblots from a normative group of 15 psychiatric patients. A multidimensional scaling analysis was then performed for 2 groups of Ss: 20 clinical psychologists, and 49 state hospital psychiatric patients. 4 dimensions emerged for each group, and these were related to independently obtained preferences for the 10 inkblots by various S groups (psychotics, neurotics, normals) and to various stimulus calibrations (e.g., evaluation and meaningfulness) of the blots. Both S groups perceived a dimension that correlated with preference ratings made by both a psychotic and neurotic group; the patients split this dimension into psychotic and neurotic preference. The psychologists' judgments reflected a dimension not present in the patient group involving the difficulty of an inkblot in eliciting a response. It is argued that a multidimensional scaling analysis of the Rorschach provides a possible alternative method for the development of new scoring categories that would be based on Ss' own psychophysical perceptions of the blots. (33 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived shape at a slant as a function of processing time and processing load

Shape and slant judgments of rotated or frontoparallel ellipses were elicited from three groups of 10 subjects. A masking stimulus was introduced to control processing time. Backward masking trials were presented with interstimulus intervals of 0,25 and 50 msec. Reduction of processing time altered shape judgments in the direction of projective shape and slant judgments in the direction of frontoparallelness. This finding is consistent with the shape-slant invariance hypothesis. In order to study the effects of processing load, one group of subjects was given prior knowledge of the kind of judgment to be made on each trial, one group had no prior knowledge, and a third group made both judgments on each trial. The effects of the processing load manipulation were interpreted in terms of the role of attention in perceptual encoding. Consistent with previous findings, allocation of attention did not affect perceptual encoding.     

Reasoning and the weighting of attributes in attitude judgments.

Two experiments examined processes by which analyzing reasons may influence attitude judgments. Participants made multiple liking judgments on sets of stimuli that varied along 6 a priori dimensions. In Study 1, the stimulus set consisted of 64 cartoon faces with 6 binary-valued attributes (e.g., a straight vs a crooked nose). In Study 2, the stimuli were 60 digitized photographs from a college yearbook that varied along 6 dimensions uncovered through multidimensional scaling. In each experiment, half of the participants were instructed to think about the reasons why they liked each face before making their liking rating. Participants' multiple liking ratings were then regressed on the dimension values to determine how they weighted each dimension in their liking judgments. The results support a process whereby reasoning leads to increased variability and inconsistency in the weighting of stimulus information. Wilson's model of the disruptive effects of reasoning on attitude judgments ( e.g., T. D. Wilson, D. S. Dunn, D. Kraft, & D. J. Lisle, 1989 ) is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of change in interpersonal perception in a T group using individual differences multidimensional scaling.

Studied the nature and development of interpersonal perceptions in a college student T group, where group members rated one another for similarity following each of 13 group sessions. The similarity ratings were subjected to a multidimensional scaling analysis; the 3 dimensions of interpersonal judgment which emerged were described by correlating them with the group leader's interpersonal ratings. Results indicate that group members' perceptions were relatively complex and changed markedly over sessions in ways consistent with current theories of group development. The analysis permits a look at some of the interpersonal processes which occur in a T group free from biases which are usually forced upon Ss by having them use specific labeled rating scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender Differences in Judgments of Multiple Emotions From Facial Expressions.

The authors tested gender differences in emotion judgments by utilizing a new judgment task (Studies 1 and 2) and presenting stimuli at the edge of conscious awareness (Study 2). Women were more accurate than men even under conditions of minimal stimulus information. Women's ratings were more variable across scales, and they rated correct target emotions higher than did men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context, feedback, and the calibration and resolution of confidence in perceptual judgments

The effects of variations in the global task difficulty context on judgmental confidence and confidence calibration were investigated in two experiments requiring perceptual comparisons. In Experiment 1, target judgments of moderate difficulty were embedded in a larger set of more difficult (hard context) or less difficult (easy context) judgments. Decisional response time on the target items was longer in the hard context condition, but there was no effect of difficulty context on target judgment confidence, accuracy, over/underconfidence, calibration, or resolution. In Experiment 2, each subject was exposed to three levels of local judgment difficulty. The global contextual difficulty manipulation involved varying the frequency with which the hard and easy judgments appeared, and the presence or absence of trial-by-trial response feedback was manipulated between subjects. As in Experiment 1, contextual difficulty affected decisional response times but not mean confidence ratings or accuracy. However, we found that providing feedback on a globally difficult task makes calibration worse. Also, resolution (the ability to differentiate correct from incorrect judgments) was found to be superior for easy judgments in a difficult context and for difficult judgments in an easy context. We discuss the implication of these findings for research on confidence and confidence calibration.     

Exemplar-based model of social judgment.

As an alternative to algebraic and schematic models of social judgment, a new exemplar-based model holds that representations of specific individuals influence judgments about persons and groups. (1) As the perceiver encounters or thinks about an individual, a representation of that exemplar as interpreted by the perceiver is stored in memory. (2) When a target person is encountered later, known attributes of similar exemplars from memory influence judgments about the target. Similarity is modulated by the perceiver's attention to stimulus dimensions. (3) Social and motivational factors, including perceiver self-schemata, social context, and in-group/out-group dynamics, influence social judgment by affecting perceivers' attention to dimensions. Computer simulations show how the model accounts for social influences on exemplar access and use, and therefore, on the content of social judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Optimal integration of auditory and vibrotactile information for judgments of temporal order.

Recent research that assessed spatial judgments about multisensory stimuli suggests that humans integrate multisensory inputs in a statistically optimal manner by weighting each input by its normalized reciprocal variance. Is integration similarly optimal when humans judge the temporal properties of bimodal stimuli? Twenty-four participants performed temporal order judgments (TOJs) about 2 spatially separated stimuli. Stimuli were auditory, vibrotactile, or both. The temporal profiles of vibrotactile stimuli were manipulated to produce 3 levels of precision for TOJs. In bimodal conditions, the asynchrony between the 2 unimodal stimuli that comprised a bimodal stimulus was manipulated to determine the weight given to touch. Bimodal performance on 2 measures—judgment uncertainty and tactile weight—was predicted with unimodal data. A model relying exclusively on audition was rejected on the basis of both measures. A second model that selected the best input on each trial did not predict the reduced judgment uncertainty observed in bimodal trials. Only the optimal maximum-likelihood-estimation model predicted both judgment uncertainties and weights; the model’s validity is extended to TOJs. Alternatives for modeling the process of event sequencing based on integrated multisensory inputs are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confidence and accuracy in trait inference: judgment by similarity

We examined the confidence and accuracy with which people make personality trait inferences and investigate some consequences of the hypothesis that such judgments are based on similarity or conceptual relatedness. Given information concerning a target person's standing on three global personality dimensions, American and Israeli subjects were asked to estimate the target's self-ratings of 50 trait adjectives and to express their confidence by setting a 90 percent uncertainty range around each estimate. The estimates were positively correlated with the actual ratings obtained from subjects who had evaluated themselves in terms of the 50 traits, but were far too extreme. Furthermore, confidence was negatively correlated with accuracy: People's estimates were most inaccurate and made with greatest certainty when the trait in question was highly similar to the information provided as a basic for judgment. We suggest that intuitive personality judgments overestimate the coherence of the structure underlying trait constructs.     

Comparison requirements and attention in identical-nonidentical stimulus discriminations.

Perceptual matching data show several puzzling effects. Particularly problematic are the disparities between the processing rates for same and different stimuli—the fast–same effect—and between the processing rates for two same–different judgment tasks that are related as mirror images—the task effect. Current models have difficulty accounting simultaneously for both effects. Central to these models is a stimulus comparison process that derives relative judgments of sameness and difference from tests of the congruence of stimulus representations. A contrasting view holds that same–different judgments can be modeled as absolute, rather than relative, judgments. This latter view is shown to be supported by experimental data. Reaction times (RTs) for judgments of identical letter strings increase with string length at the same rate whether judgments are based on all the information in the strings or just the information in a single pair of component letters. The data show that stimulus comparisons of the sort described by previous models are not involved in these judgments. An attentional model accounts for the data and for the fast–same and task effects as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multidimensional scaling reveals two dimensions of thermal pain.

Used the individual differences scaling model of multidimensional scaling to explore the dimensions of thermal pain. 20 male undergraduates made 66 similarity judgments to all pairs of 12 different thermal stimulus intensities ranging from zero to noxious. Results reveal a 2-dimensional group stimulus space. The major dimension ordered the stimuli with respect to their intensity. This quantitative, strength-of-sensation dimension may be interpreted as indicating how weak or strong a stimulus feels, apart from any secondary qualities of warmth or pain. The 2nd dimension was related to the qualitative aspects of the stimuli and contained 2 attributes: (1) a pain attribute ranging from just detectable warmth to painful and (2) a warm–hot attribute running from just detectable warmth to hot. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing of an irrelevant location dimension as a function of the relevant stimulus dimension.

The effect of an irrelevant location dimension on choice reactions to the relevant stimulus dimension was examined. Exp 1 used variations of the spatial Stroop task and the Simon task that differed in whether the relevant dimension (location name or color) was similar to the irrelevant location dimension. Congruity of the stimulus dimensions and stimulus–response (S–R) mapping had additive effects in the Simon task but overadditive effects in the Stroop task. Exps 2–4 showed that each pattern could be obtained for both tasks, suggesting that dimensional similarity is not crucial; overadditivity occurred only when stimulus identification was prolonged. Results can be interpreted in terms of the relative timing of activation for the relevant and irrelevant information, if it is assumed that the activation function for irrelevant location varies across different S–R mappings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A pattern recognition account of decision making

In the domain of pattern recognition, experiments have shown that perceivers integrate multiple sources of information in an optimal manner. In contrast, other research has been interpreted to mean that decision making is nonoptimal. As an example, Tversky and Kahneman (1983) have shown that subjects commit a conjunction fallacy because they judge it more likely that a fictitious person named Linda is a bank teller and a feminist than just a bank teller. This judgment supposedly violates probability theory, because the probability of two events can never be greater than the probability of either event alone. The present research tests the hypothesis that subjects interpret this judgment task as a pattern recognition task. If this hypothesis is correct, subjects' judgments should be described accurately by the fuzzy logical model of perception (FLMP)--a successful model of pattern recognition. In the first experiment, the Linda task was extended to an expanded factorial design with five vocations and five avocations. The probability ratings were described well by the FLMP and described poorly by a simple probability model. The second experiment included (1) two fictitious people, Linda and Joan, as response alternatives and (2) both ratings and categorization judgments. Although the ratings were accurately described by both the FLMP and an averaging of the sources of information, the categorization judgments were described better by the FLMP. These results reveal important similarities in recognizing patterns and in decision making. Given that the FLMP is an optimal method for combining multiple sources of information, the probability judgments appear to be optimal in the same manner as pattern-recognition judgments.     

Some information-processing models of creative writing.

Hypothesized 5 dimensions that represent teachers' judgments of creativity of students' essay compositions: productivity, novelty, figures of speech, flexibility, and elaboration. Three models were compared for integrating dimensional information into conceptual judgments of creativity. Essays written by 38 11th graders were scored on the 5 hypothesized dimensions and presented to 66 teachers, who judged essay creativity. Results indicate that teachers' judgments were reliable and that 4 of the 5 dimensions correlated with rated creativity. Comparison of information-processing models indicates that an additive difference model predicted teachers' judgments better than Euclidean or city-block models. Modest differences in judging creativity were evident as a function of the expected ability of the essay author. A theoretical model is proposed for representing creativity judgment, and a dimensional approach to grading essay examinations in the classroom is sketched. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)