Sampling of similar and dissimilar comparison persons and objects as a function of the generality of attribution goal.

Conducted an information-search procedure in which Ss were asked to seek information regarding persons and objects in order to validate a given person or object cause. Four hypotheses were tested: When asked to validate a person cause, Ss are more likely to select distinctiveness information than target-object consensus information. When asked to validate an object cause, Ss are more likely to select target-object consensus information than distinctiveness information. As the generality of person inference increases, progressively dissimilar object comparisons are sought. As the generality of object inference increases, progressively dissimilar person comparisons are sought. In Exp I, 26 undergraduates read attitude statements and answered judgment goals or questions about the statement's generality or object inference. 52 undergraduates in Exp II completed a similar task. The first 3 hypotheses were supported in both Exp I and Exp II, whereas the 4th hypothesis received only mixed support in Exp I and was not supported in Exp II. Unlike Exp I, Exp II did not include cues suggesting the relevant type of information to be sought. (25 ref) (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.     

The assessment of limb apraxia: an investigation of task effects and their cause

To test the effects of variations in the structure of tasks used to assess limb apraxia, eight tasks--differing in their modes of elicitation (tactile, verbal, visual, imitation) and/or types of movement elicited (transitive, intransitive, meaningless)--were administered to 25 carefully selected subjects with idiomotor limb apraxia. When standardized scores (based on the performance of 10 nonneurologically impaired control subjects) were used to measure the differences between tasks, no clinically significant task effects were found. Additional investigation was made of two causal hypotheses regarding the processes underlying limb apractic performance. The results of factor analyses and a search for double dissociations among individual subjects were consistent with the (severity) hypothesis that differences in task performances (raw scores) reflect degrees of task difficulty; and they failed to support the (disconnection) hypothesis that posits separate and independent neural/mental processes underlying task performances.     

Counselor hypothesis-testing strategies.

Conducted 2 experiments relevant to the questioning strategies counselors use in testing their hypotheses about clients. In Exp I, 60 undergraduates were asked to select 12 questions from a list of 38 that would be most helpful in getting to know someone. Ss were asked to test a hypothesis that the other person was an extravert or introvert. The questions were categorized by the experimenters as extraverted, introverted, unbiased, or irrelevant. Most Ss selected a strategy that favored unbiased questions over biased ones. In Exp II, 40 Ss played the roles of clients, and 40 advanced doctoral students in counseling or clinical psychology played the roles of counselors. Counselors were advised that they would soon meet with their client to test a hypothesis that the client possessed or lacked self-control. Counselors were instructed to compose 10 questions to ask the client. The actual interviews were then recorded. The frequency with which counselors developed questions that were confirmatory, disconfirmatory, irrelevant, or unbiased in regard to the hypothesis was not influenced by the specific hypothesis. Results of both experiments do not confirm the hypothesis that counselors preferentially seek information to confirm hypotheses about clients. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Great apes select tools on the basis of their rigidity.

Wild chimpanzees select tools according to their rigidity. However, little is known about whether choices are solely based on familiarity with the materials or knowledge about tool properties. Furthermore, it is unclear whether tool manipulation is required prior to selection or whether observation alone can suffice. We investigated whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) (n = 9), bonobos (Pan paniscus) (n = 4), orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) (n = 6), and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) (n = 2) selected new tools on the basis of their rigidity. Subjects faced an out-of-reach reward and a choice of three tools differing in color, diameter, material, and rigidity. We used 10 different 3-tool sets (1 rigid, 2 flexible). Subjects were unfamiliar with the tools and needed to select and use the rigid tool to retrieve the reward. Experiment 1 showed that subjects chose the rigid tool from the first trial with a 90% success rate. Experiments 2a and 2b addressed the role of manipulation and observation in tool selection. Subjects performed equally well in conditions in which they could manipulate the tools themselves or saw the experimenter manipulate the tools but decreased their performance if they could only visually inspect the tools. Experiment 3 showed that subjects could select flexible tools (as opposed to rigid ones) to meet new task demands. We conclude that great apes spontaneously selected unfamiliar rigid or flexible tools even after gathering minimal observational information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Curiosity and control: On the determinants of the search for social knowledge.

Hypothesized that people will be particularly inclined to seek information about others when they have recently been deprived of control. 61 female undergraduates experienced either noncontrollable outcomes on a problem-solving task or had no such experience. Ss were then introduced to a 2nd unrelated study in which they expected to interview another individual. Some Ss were led to believe that acquiring information about the interviewee would have high utility; others were given no such expectation. The effects of these manipulations were assessed. Results confirm the hypothesis. There was also an independent tendency for Ss to seek highly diagnostic information when they believed that the information had high utility. The relationship between the motive to maintain control and the processes by which people formulate and sustain images of themselves and others is discussed. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Probability matching: Encouraging optimal responding in humans.

Two hundred undergraduate students (mean age 20.4 yrs) participated in a repeated-trials binary choice procedure in which choice of one outcome was correct on 75% of trials. Subjects received 192 trials and were divided into 5 conditions: 1) control; 2) subjects were given the actual probabilities; 3) subjects were told if they did well they could leave early; 4) competition condition; 5) midway through the task subjects were asked to recommend a strategy for another subject. Half of the subjects in each group were told that the best they could do was to be correct on 75% of the trials. This manipulation permitted assessment of the hypothesis that subjects in probability-matching tasks are seeking a strategy that will be correct on 100% of the trials. The results partially confirmed this hypothesis. In addition, two of the variables improved performance significantly (giving probabilities and asking subjects to recommend a strategy). However, while subjects in all groups improved significantly over trials, optimal choice did not occur in this task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Referent cognitions and task decision autonomy: Beyond equity theory.

A laboratory experiment was conducted to test referent cognitions theory, which integrates distributive and procedural justice. Undergraduates worked on two tasks knowing that performance scores from only one of these would count toward their chances for earning a reward. In the subject-decision conditions, the students selected (prior to knowledge about their performance) which task would count. The experimenter selected the crucial task in the experimenter-decision conditions. Feedback from the task that did not count indicated to subjects in high-referent conditions that they would have won the reward if these scores had counted, whereas subjects in low-referent conditions learned they would have lost no matter which set of scores counted. All subjects "lost" on the task that counted. Only subjects in the high-referent, experimenter-decision condition subsequently expressed feelings of unfair treatment. The results are discussed in terms of limitations to equity theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of preload of working memory on components of evoked potentials during encoding of sequentially presented letter sequences

In recent experiments with a pseudo-random sequence of 7 consonants to recall after trial (stimulus onset asynchrony 1000 ms) a reverse relationship between P300 amplitude of the event-related potential (ERP) and letter presentation position was shown (Grune et al., 1996). It was assumed that this relationship reflects competition between encoding and retention processes in this time regime. In order to find evidence for the resource competition hypothesis in working memory a 4 x 4 grid containing 4 digits preceded a sequence of 6 consonants. In the first block subjects were instructed to ignore the grid, in two remaining blocks they were asked to remember the digits or their position in the grid and to recognize them after the letter recall. In the ignore condition the expected effect of P300 decrease with letter position was found, especially at posterior electrode sites. When subjects had to process the preceding digit grid there was no position effect of P300 caused by small P300 amplitudes in the ERPs that were elicited by the first letters of the sequence. This effect was not specific to the modality of the interfering with the letter task information from the digit grid. We conclude that the grid information occupies working memory resources that are not available for the event-related processing of consonants to recall.     

Trade-offs between gaze and working memory use.

Eye movements during natural tasks suggest that observers do not use working memory to capacity but instead use eye movements to acquire relevant information immediately before needed. Results here however, show that this strategy is sensitive to memory load and to observers' expectations about what information will be relevant. Depending upon the predictability of what object features would be needed in a brick sorting task, subjects spontaneously modulated the order in which they sampled and stored visual information using working memory more when the task was predictable and reverting to a just-in-time strategy when the task was unpredictable and the memory load was higher. This self organization was evidenced by subjects' sequence of eye movements and also their sorting decisions following missed feature changes. These results reveal that attentional selection, fixations, and use of working memory reflect a dynamic optimization with respect to a set of constraints, such as task predictablity and memory load. They also reveal that change blindness depends critically on the local task context, by virtue of its influence on the information selected for storage in working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Type A behavior pattern and the self-evaluation of abilities: Empirical tests of the self-appraisal model.

The self-appraisal model proposes that Type A behavior reflects active attempts to generate diagnostic information about abilities, particularly in situations that evoke high uncertainty. In Study 1, subjects were provided feedback indicating high or low uncertainty about underlying abilities in two domains. When subjects were more uncertain of their ability in one domain than in the other, Jenkins-Activity-Survey-defined Type As (but not Type Bs) subsequently constructed tests that were biased to assess the more uncertain domain. Study 2 examined postfailure performance. The model holds that Type As perform poorly because they suspend information gathering when faced with evidence that requisite abilities are absent. Results indicated that deficits emerged only if Type As believed that a second task assessed the same abilities as the initial task on which they failed. A final study examined social comparison among Type As and Bs. Results indicated that Type As engaged in social comparison to obtain diagnostic information, primarily when they were uncertain of their ability levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal order and the perceived mutability of events: Implications for blame assignment.

Hypothesized that later occurrences in a series of events tend to evoke counterfactual alternatives more strongly and, hence, tend to be blamed more for ensuing negative outcomes than do earlier occurrences. In Study 1, Ss played the role of students whose task it was to read an article and then to identify the questions they thought a teacher might include on a test of it. Consistent with the hypothesis, Ss were less critical of a teacher whose test questions did not match their own when the teacher generated his or her questions before they did than when he or she generated them after they did. In Study 2, Ss played the role of teachers whose task it was to select questions to be answered by a student. Presumably, because of a greater fear of being blamed, Ss selected easier questions when their selection of questions occurred after the student had finished studying than when it occurred before the student began studying. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Paradigm for Exploring What the Mind Does While Deciding What It Should Do.

One widespread belief about automatic mental processes is that, among other characteristics, they are involuntary. No initial conscious intent is necessary because such processing is stimulus initiated. This claim was studied in the context of a novel task-choice procedure in which subjects were informed as to which of two tasks they should perform on a letter string either well in advance of a target, or when the target appeared. The hypothesis that initial processing of the target occurs without intent predicts that the effect of contrast reduction will be absent when the task cue appears synchronously with the target. This is because initial processing of the target should be completed during the time taken to decode the task cue. The results are inconsistent with this account. Instead, they support an account in which functional target processing is delayed until the subject knows what the task is. Some directions for future investigations are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reduction of cognitive dissonance by seeking consonant information.

"An experiment was conducted to test two hypotheses about the reduction of cognitive dissonance by seeking information. The hypotheses were: (a) a person in whom dissonance has been produced by exposure to a communication advocating an opinion contrary to the person's is more likely to seek information than a person exposed to a compatible communication, and (b) a person in whom dissonance has been produced by a contrary communication tends to seek information from a source agreeing with his opinion. The opinions of 100 mothers on the importance of hereditary and environmental factors in child rearing were ascertained by personal interview; they were then exposed to a tape recorded, authoritative communication espousing a hereditary or an environmental point of view… . The results supported the first hypothesis." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3GG74A. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information processing strategies in counselor hypothesis testing: The role of selective memory and expectancy.

The issue of confirmatory bias in counselors' clinical hypothesis testing was explored. Previous research has suggested that counselors are unbiased when constructing questioning strategies to test a client hypothesis. This study proceeded on the assumption that questioning is only the beginning of the hypothesis-testing process. In 2 experiments, the way counselors remembered information about a client was examined, and information from a client narrative was selected. In Exp 1, experienced counselors remembered more confirmatory than disconfirmatory information, even when the report they reviewed contained more disconfirmatory information. In Exp 2, counselors in training selected more confirmatory than disconfirmatory information, even when the report they reviewed contained more disconfirmatory information. Conclusions of the study were the following: Counselors need to be aware of these biases, and counselor education should explicitly train counselors to avoid them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between horizontality and rod-and-frame and vestibular navigational performance.

Sex differences on Piaget's water-level (horizontality) test are well established but poorly understood. In this article, correlates of female horizontality performance are systematically explored. Across the five experiments reported, it was found that female subjects who failed the water-level test (poor-horizontality female subjects) were selectively impaired on tasks that required processing information from the otolith organs. In Experiment 1, poor-horizontality female subjects were found to be impaired relative to good-horizontality subjects on the rod-and-frame test. In Experiment 2, a relation was found between female horizontality performance and the ability to process vestibular information in a passive transport task. Experiment 3 ruled out poor spatial updating as a mediating factor in this relation. The results of Experiments 4 and 5 indicated that poor-horizontality female subjects perform randomly on vestibular navigation because they cannot judge linear displacement under conditions of passive transport. The linear transport task is similar to the rod-and-frame task in that both require the central processing of otolith signals. It is proposed that one way to solve the water-level test is to imagine, on the basis of prior perceptual experiences, what the water level looks like inside tilted containers. Because of complex visual-otolith interactions, poor-horizontality female subjects may experience these events differently than good-horizontality subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of subject- versus experimenter-selected reinforcers on the behavior of individuals with profound developmental disabilities

Results from a number of studies have shown that individuals with profound developmental disabilities often show differential approach behavior to stimuli presented in a variety of formats, and that such behavior is a reasonably good predictor of reinforcement effects when these "preferred" stimuli are used subsequently in a contingent arrangement. Recent data suggest that reinforcement effects may be enhanced further by allowing individuals to select, just prior to training sessions, which (of several) preferred stimuli would be used as reinforcers, but whether this method is superior to one based on selection by a teacher or therapist has not been adequately addressed. We compared the effects of these two methods of reinforcer selection on rates of responding on a free-operant task, using stimuli previously identified as potential reinforcers. Results obtained with 4 subjects indicated little or no difference in reinforcement effects when stimuli were selected by subjects rather than experimenters. Implications of these results with respect to choice and its relation to reinforcement are discussed.     

Protective shield: a thematic analysis of the experience of having an adult sibling with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

In a previous study of reinforcement without awareness by Lieberman, Sunnucks, & Kirk (this issue), subjects were told that the experiment was on ESP; two words were presented on every trial, and their task was to choose the word the experimenter was thinking of. In fact, reinforcement was contingent on the loudness of the subjects' voices when responding. They found stronger evidence for reinforcement without awareness than in many previous studies, and they attributed their success in part to the reinforcement of a response to which subjects were unlikely to attend. To explore this factor further, we again used an ESP cover story but reinforced subjects for choosing the word in each pair that contained a double letter. We found evidence of reinforcement without awareness in three experiments and also identified two factors that influence these effects: Learning did not occur if subjects (a) were encouraged to test irrelevant hypotheses, or (b) sat in an uncomfortable chair. We speculate that learning without awareness may be more likely when subjects are relaxed and that hypothesis testing and uncomfortable chairs impair such learning because they prevent relaxation.     

Learning and the coordination of sequential information.

In 4 experiments, participants performed a list-processing task that required alternation between 2 sets of information. Previous research (R. A. Carlson, J. L. Wenger, & M. A. Sullivan, 1993) attributed the major demands of this task to the need to coordinate 2 sets of information. In the present study, learning was manipulated at the level of individual sets; participants acquired consistent sets of information in various contexts. This consistency facilitated performance, and the primary benefit was that they learned to select items faster. The selection benefit was limited to acquisition contexts that required alternation and was most pronounced when the consistent set was learned as a memory set. The results are compatible with Carlson et al.'s model describing the organization of control processes and suggest that coordinating information from different sources imposes a fundamental constraint on the working memory system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)