The autokinetic word technique.

The autokinetic effect is utilized to explore the minimum limits of structure necessary to elicit interpretable responses of a projective nature, in an experimental situation. Ss were asked to report words written by a small, stationary light source presented in a darkened room. All Ss reported words being written by the point of light. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual reactivity to threat and neutral words under varying experimental conditions.

30 male and 30 female introductory psychology student volunteers were randomly assigned by sex to one of 3 experimental groups and were tested for perceptual reactivity to threat and neutral words matched for word frequency. The experimental groups differed only in terms of induced strength of expectation for threat words from 0% to 100%. Findings support the prediction that the discrepancy between threat and neutral word thresholds decreases as strength of set for threat stimuli increases. However threat words were found to have higher report thresholds than neutral words in all conditions. 18 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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 performance in the autokinetic situation.

An experiment was conducted testing certain implications of a balance or cognitive consistency model of behavior. It was hypothesized that a person (P) would respond to another person's (O's) judgments of light movement in the autokinetic situation as a function of the attraction relationship between them and the initial similarity in their judgments. By using an assistant playing the role of another S, it was possible to manipulate experimentally P's liking or disliking of O, and the initial discrepancy between P's and O's judgments of light movement. As compared with a condition of cognitive balance, under the conditions of cognitive imbalance—where either P likes O and initially is dissimilar to O or P dislikes O and initially is similar to O—we find a greater tendency for P to change his own judgments of the light movement, and to feel anxious or nervous while making these judgments. In addition, we find the direction of P's judgmental change is such as to increase his similarity to O when he likes O and to decrease this similarity when he dislikes O. These findings are taken as supporting a cognitive consistency model of interpersonal behavior and as having broad implications for the area of social influence and conformity. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between word frequency and perceptibility with a forced-choice technique.

"A number of studies have suggested that word thresholds obtained from the ascending method of limits are particularly susceptible to linguistic biases and hence may indicate little about perception. In the present investigation a forced-choice technique was employed in which S was presented with several words and required to identify the spatial location of a given word. With this technique, which reduces or eliminates response bias, the same positive relationship between frequency of prior usage and performance as had been found with the ascending method of limits was obtained. The implications of a perceptual interpretation of these findings were discussed." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GG91T. (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)     

Anxiety and the variability of word associates.

15 Ss who scored high on the Taylor MA scale and 15 Ss who scored low on the MA scale were given a word associate task. The highly anxious Ss tended to have sets of word associates lower in intersubject variability than the nonanxious Ss for stimulus words that elicited sets of word associates that are low in variability. Highly anxious Ss tended to give sets of word associates higher in intersubject variability than nonanxious Ss for stimulus words that elicited sets of word associates that are high in intersubject variability. A 2nd experiment reports data indicating a relationship between inter- and intrasubject variability of word associates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on anxiety, instructions, and word association performance.

In earlier work, a word association test (WAT) was presented under 2 conditions as a "sensitive personality test" and under neutral conditions. The resultant WAT scores were correlated with 2 tests of anxiety. The present work investigates the results of presenting the WAT as a sensitive measure of intelligence rather than personality. Again, the resultant scores were correlated with measures of anxiety. Sarason's Test Anxiety Scale (1958) appeared to be more sensitive to S's anxiety in the experimental situation than Taylor's MAS or Bendig's (1956) Lack of Protection Scale. The results are related to the nature and theory of anxiety. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HK53S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Not all negative words slow down lexical decision and naming speed: Importance of word arousal.

Previously the authors (see record 2006-04603-006) analyzed sets of words used in emotion Stroop experiments and found little evidence of automatic vigilance, for example, slower lexical decision time (LDT) or naming speed for negative words after controlling for lexical features. If there is a slowdown evoked by word negativity, most studies to date overestimate the effect because word negativity is often confounded with lexical features that promote slower word recognition. Estes and Adelman (this issue; see record 2008-09984-001) analyze a new set of words, controlling for important lexical features, and find a small but significant effect for word negativity. Moreover, they conclude the effect is categorical. The authors analyze the same data set but include the arousal value of each word. The authors find nonlinear and interaction effects in predicting LDT and naming speed. Not all negative words produce the generic slowdown. Paradoxically, negative words that are moderate to low on arousal produce more LDT slowing than negative words higher on arousal. This finding presents a theoretical and empirical challenge to researchers wishing to understand the boundaries of the automatic vigilance effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The activation of embedded words in spoken word identification is robust but constrained: Evidence from the picture-word interference paradigm.

Three picture-word interference (PWI) experiments assessed the extent to which embedded subset words are activated during the identification of spoken superset words (e.g., bone in trombone). Participants named aloud pictures (e.g., brain) while spoken distractors were presented. In the critical condition, superset distractors contained a semantically related embedded word (e.g., charm, which contains arm). In Experiment 1, supersets and subsets differed by one phoneme (charm/arm) and interference effects were obtained when subsets were embedded at the beginning or end of the superset. In Experiment 2, the subsets and supersets differed by three or more phonemes. Interference was obtained for final embedded words aligned with a syllable boundary of the superset (acrobat/bat) but not otherwise (pioneer/ear). In Experiment 3, the size of these PWI effects was compared to the effects obtained with the subset words presented in isolation. The implication of these findings for theories of speech perception and production are discussed. We also consider the possible advantages of the PWI task over cross-modal priming and “visual-world” procedures when studying these issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Commonality and stability of word association responses in good and poor premorbid schizophrenics.

The validity of the commonality of response construct and stability of associations over time were investigated in 18 good premorbid schizophrenics (GPS), 18 poor premorbids (PPS), and 18 tuberculosis control Ss (TB). The Kent-Rosanoff Word Association Test was administered on 2 occasions separated by 48 hrs. Results showed TB = GPS > PPS on both commonality of association and stability of responses. This finding suggests the inadequacy of the notion of a universal deficiency in schizophrenic associational processes. Differences were also found between the cultural response style (C) and the idiosyncratic response style (I) on stability, with TBI = GPSI > PPSI and TBC = GPSC > PPSC. Regardless of presence or absence of psychopathology, C was greater than I on the stability measure. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physiological need, verbal frequency, and word association.

"Fifty college men and women were deprived of food and water for 0, 10, and 24 hours, and were presented with a word association list of 24 words which has been matched for commonness and need-relevance. Each S was tested only once. The results show that (a) more food, water, and neutral word association responses were made to food, water, and neutral stimulus words, respectively; (b) there was an increase in the number of food and water responses up to the tenth hour, but a decrease thereafter; and (c) with protracted periods of deprivation the number of responses pertaining to acts instrumental to need satisfaction increased while the number of responses involving the names of need satisfiers decreased." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological neighbors influence word naming through the least supported phoneme.

Recent research has shown that phonological neighborhood density facilitates naming latencies. In an attempt to extend this work, the authors evaluated the effect of phonological neighborhood distribution by comparing responding to words that consisted of 3 phonemes but differed in the number of phoneme positions that could be changed to form a neighbor (i.e., 2 vs. 3 positions). The results revealed that words in which all 3 positions could be changed to form a neighbor were named more rapidly than were words in which only 2 positions could be changed. The results show that this effect occurs due to a difference between the 2 groups of words in terms of their least supported phoneme (i.e., the phoneme position within a word with which the fewest neighbors overlap). The authors show that differences in terms of the number of neighbors for the least supported phoneme can also explain past research that indicates an effect of phonological neighborhood density on naming. The authors explain the results of this research using the dual-route cascaded model of reading aloud. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Formation of new associations to words selected on the basis of reaction-time-GSR combinations.

Word association reaction time and GSR are used to separate five letter words of known familiarity into four groups; words associated with either avoidance habits or disruptive emotional states, unfamiliar words, moderately familiar words connected with nondisruptive emotional states, and familiar and non emotional words. The hypothesis that the ease of forming new associations to these words should inversely reflect the amount of emotionality attached to the words is supported; however, no differences between the four categories of words appeared, probably due to contamination between the categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and repression.

In an experiment designed to test the Freudian concept of repression proper, Ss learned 20 paired associates to a criterion of one perfect repetition, the stimulus material consisting of five words from the Jung word list which elicited one or more complex indicators (the repressed words), five titles of the subtests of an intelligence test associated with failure (the traumatic words), five taboo words which also had been added to the Jung word list to determine whether they would elicit complex indicators, and five neutral words from the Jung list. Response words were all from Glaze's list. Results indicate no differences in learning scores for the different materials; however, recall and relearning scores for the affective material were significantly poorer than for the neutral material. (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)     

"Commonality and stability of word association responses in good and poor premorbid schizophrenics": Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Paul R. Dokecki, Lewis G. Polidoro, and Rue L. Cromwell (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1965, 70, 312-316). On page 315, there are statistical inaccuracies in the section entitled Stability Scores (SS). In the simple randomized design analysis of variance the F and t values should have been larger. Specifically, F = 4.10 (df = 2/51, p PPS (t = 2.47, df = 51, p PPS (t = 2.47, df = 51, p I on stability (F = 9.51, df = 1/48, p 1965-16191-001.) The validity of the commonality of response construct and stability of associations over time were investigated in 18 good premorbid schizophrenics (GPS), 18 poor premorbids (PPS), and 18 tuberculosis control Ss (TB). The Kent-Rosanoff Word Association Test was administered on 2 occasions separated by 48 hrs. Results showed TB = GPS > PPS on both commonality of association and stability of responses. This finding suggests the inadequacy of the notion of a universal deficiency in schizophrenic associational processes. Differences were also found between the cultural response style (C) and the idiosyncratic response style (I) on stability, with TBI = GPSI > PPSI and TBC = GPSC > PPSC. Regardless of presence or absence of psychopathology, C was greater than I on the stability measure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical characteristics of words used in emotional Stroop experiments.

Validity of the emotional Stroop task hinges on equivalence between the emotion and the control words in terms of lexical features related to word recognition. The authors evaluated the lexical features of 1,033 words used in 32 published emotional Stroop studies. Emotion words were significantly lower in frequency of use, longer in length, and had smaller orthographic neighborhoods than words used as controls. These lexical features contribute to slower word recognition and hence are likely to contribute to delayed latencies in color naming. The often-replicated slowdown in color naming of emotion words may be due, in part, to lexical differences between the emotion and control words used in the majority of such studies to date. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements and word skipping during reading: Effects of word length and predictability.

Eye movements were monitored as subjects read sentences containing high- or low-predictable target words. The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: Half of the target words were predictable, and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: The target words were short (4–6 letters), medium (7–9 letters), or long (10–12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, because the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Leading up the lexical garden path: Segmentation and ambiguity in spoken word recognition.

Two gating studies, a forced-choice identification study and 2 series of cross-modal repetition priming experiments, traced the time course of recognition of words with onset embeddings (captain) and short words in contexts that match (cap tucked) or mismatch (cap looking) with longer words. Results suggest that acoustic differences in embedded syllables assist the perceptual system in discriminating short words from the start of longer words. The ambiguity created by embedded words is therefore not as severe as predicted by models of spoken word recognition based on phonemic representations. These additional acoustic cues combine with post-offset information in identifying onset-embedded words in connected speech. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)