Judgments of relative motion in tactical displays.

Two experiments examined the speed with which the direction of relative motion could be inferred from static tactical displays. In Exp I, 12 25–40 yr old experienced right-handed male naval officers responded more rapidly to displays depicting target motion to the right than to the left, but 12 inexperienced officers did not. For both groups, 1 of the 3 tactical geometries yielded significantly longer response times than the others (a "tactic" effect). In Exp II, the influence of decision strategy on the tactic effect was evaluated in 18 22–52 yr old naive Ss. Control of strategy through instruction and order of problem presentation did not reduce the tactic effect but did interact with the directional bias related to target motion. The tactic effect is discussed in terms of directional incongruity among displayed and inferred stimulus elements. Implications for training are discussed. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Infants' detection of shearing motion in random-dot displays.

Random-dot kinematograms were used to estimate infants' thresholds for shearing motion in the absence of flicker and position cues. The principal advantage of these stimuli is that changes in dot position are camouflaged by the presence of numerous matching dots, thus necessitating the detection of motion before extraction of local pattern features. 13- and 20-wk-old infants were tested with a forced-choice preferential looking technique. The target stimulus resembled a vertically oriented corrugated pattern that oscillated at 1 Hz, if, and only if, shearing motion was detected. Infants were tested at different velocities, ranging from 0.7°/sec to 5.6°/sec, and the results revealed minimum velocity thresholds of 3.5°/sec and 1.2°/sec for 13- and 20-wk-old infants, respectively. Possible interpretations for these results based on position- or flicker-sensitive mechanisms are considered and are found inconsistent with the overall pattern of results. It is concluded that infants detect shearing motion in random-dot displays with a motion-sensitive mechanism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children can extend motion verbs to point-light displays.

In the first study using point-light displays (lights corresponding to the joints of the human body) to examine children's understanding of verbs, 3-year-olds were tested to see if they could perceive familiar actions that corresponded to motion verbs (e.g., walking). Experiment 1 showed that children could extend familiar motion verbs (e.g., walking and dancing) to videotaped point-light actions shown in the intermodal preferential looking paradigm. Children watched the action that matched the requested verb significantly more than they watched the action that did not match the verb. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were validated by having children spontaneously produce verbs for these actions. The use of point-light displays may illuminate the factors that contribute to verb learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring gender from name phonology.

English male and female names have different phonological properties. This article examines 3 questions about this phenomenon: How informative is phonology about gender? Have English speakers learned this information? Does this knowledge affect name usage? Results from a connectionist model indicate that English phonology predicts name gender quite well. Experiments found that English speakers have learned these cues. For example, names were classified as male or female more quickly and accurately when they had phonologically typical properties. Further studies demonstrated that the evolution of names in this century was affected by how male or female they sounded and that knowledge of phonological cues to gender influences the perception and structure of brand names. Implications for stereotyping, individual differences, and language research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual perception of lifted weight from kinematic and static (photographic) displays

Observers of patch-light videotape displays can reliably discriminate levels of lifted weight; accuracy of judgments sometimes approximates that achieved when the observers themselves lift weighted boxes. Results of 6 studies reveal impressive levels of visual weight discrimination based on static displays (photographs) of certain action phases sampled from videos of entire lifting-carrying events. Slow and controlled actions (e.g., walking, placing box on table) supported optimum weight discrimination for both photographic and video displays, whereas the action of lifting a box yielded high levels of discrimination only for video displays. Static and kinematic specification of dynamics, as well as the work by painters and photographers to depict humans and other animals in action, is discussed.     

Children's social sensitivity: Inferring emotions from conflicting cues.

48 preschoolers, 48 1st graders, and 48 6th graders answered questions and told stories about pictures containing (a) situational or facial cues alone, (b) situational and facial cues with congruent emotional implications, or (c) situational and facial cues with conflicting emotional implications. In a 4th condition, a narrative accompanied conflicting-cues pictures. The youngest Ss preferred to base inferences about emotions on facial expressions. This preference decreased with age. Explanations for this finding based on differential comprehension of cues and on the biasing effect of a narrative were ruled out. At all ages, Ss encoded both cues. They preserved in memory the emotional implications of situational cues but tended to reinterpret facial cues when there were conflicting situational cues. There were also developmental changes in the degree to which and the methods by which Ss reconciled the conflicting cues to emotion. Results are discussed in light of previous hypotheses about the development of social sensitivity, and an alternate view is advanced. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring psychological significance from physiological signals.

Since the publication of William James's (1890) Principles of Psychology, most of James's questions about the relation between physiological events and molar psychological or behavioral processes remain unanswered. The slow progress in using physiological signals (PSs) to address general psychological questions is due in part to problems in quantifying PSs in humans and to the way in which investigators have been thinking about the relation between PSs and psychological operations. A framework is provided to foster analysis of psychological phenomena based on PSs. Psychological operations and physiological responses are defined in terms of configural and temporal properties, and psychophysiological relations are conceptualized in terms of their specificity (e.g., one-to-one vs many-to-one) and their generality (e.g., situation or person specific vs cross-situational and pancultural). This model yields 4 classes of psychophysiological relations: (a) outcomes, (b) concomitants, (c) markers, and (d) invariants. The model specifies how to determine whether a psychophysiological relation is an outcome, concomitant, marker, or invariant, and it describes limitations in inferences of psychological significance based on PSs when dealing with each. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring dynamic recrystallization in ferrite using the kinetics of static recrystallization

A general relationship between the kinetics of dynamic and static recrystallization is developed. It is predicted that conventional dynamic recrystallization will occur whenever the deformation time exceeds the adjusted start time for static recrystallization. This approach is verified using data for austenite and lead. It is then applied to current and previous work on ferrite. The model provides support for the contention that conventional dynamic recrystallization occurs in low carbon ferrite if deformation is carried out at high temperatures and low strain rates. In the present work, which was carried out at 700 °C, evidence for dynamic recrystallization was observed for strain rates less than around 0.01 s⁻¹. At higher strain rates, the model predicts a critical strain for the onset of dynamic recrystallization that exceeds the critical strain for the beginning of the recovery steady-state region. While the model allows dynamic recrystallization to begin in this region, the critical strain for its onset is expected to increase rapidly with increasing strain rate and decreasing temperature once steady state has been reached.     

Direction of motion relationships between controls and displays moving in different planes.

"… to investigate the direction of motion relationships for seven combinations of display pointer moving at right angles to plane of rotation of control knob, a total of 718 Ss were tested by sequential methods on an apparatus producing a single direction of movement of a pointer, moving along a linear scale, for either clockwise or anticlockwise rotation of the control… where the right hand was used, there was a significant tendency to turn the knob clockwise to produce movement away from the knob [but]… there was also a significant tendency for movement towards the knob to be mediated by clockwise turning… [there were, however] significantly more anticlockwise responses for movement towards the control… . Left-handed combinations gave rise to no significant tendencies; but left-handed Ss gave significantly more anticlockwise responses than right-handers, even when the right hand was used. On the whole it is not advisable to employ any of the combinations explored in this investigation, unless movement is to be restricted to adjustments in one direction only relative to the control." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The perception of surface folding in static and animated displays

How do we interpret outline drawings of surfaces? Although pictorial depictions are projectively ambiguous, observers demonstrate definite preferences of interpretation. Additionally, they commit typical errors. A study is reported of one specific arrangement of surfaces as it is represented in outline drawings, namely the arrangement that results when two arbitrary surfaces are joined at a common edge to form an angle in 3-D ('phenomenic folding'). With some of these arrangements, observers report that the angle formed by the two surfaces is zero (complete folding). With others, they report that the angles are greater than zero (incomplete folding). Both interpretations are actually valid. Several investigators have proposed that observer preferences such as these are due t a tendency to prefer a 3-D interpretation that will make the depicted 3-D shape regular. Three experiments were performed to test this regularisation hypothesis. In the first, observers were shown pairs of four-sided polygons joined at one equal side. Their task was to imagine how the smaller polygon could be folded completely towards the larger, and, subsequently, to report on its position after the ('mental folding'). Reported positions were consistent with 3-D interpretations that caused figural regularisations, In the second and third experiments, observers were shown drawings of diamonds and parallelograms folded along a number of differently positioned and oriented segment ('folding edge'). Their task was to estimate verbally the extent of the dihedral angle formed by the two surfaces. Results indicated that the perception of incomplete folding is determined by 3-D interpretation of the orientation of the drawing with respect of the picture plane. In a fourth experiment, observers were asked whether projective equivalences might be disambiguated by animating two kinds of displays that yield the 'incomplete folding' effect but that should be distinguishable on the basis of the trajectories of the vertexes of the folding parts. Results demonstrated that even in these conditions observers are unable to interpret the foldings correctly. These results might be taken to indicate that projective, static information leading to a simpler and more regular interpretation of the display can prevail over explicit motion information that should force the system to achieve a nonregular solution.     

Effects of introspecting about reasons: Inferring attitudes from accessible thoughts.

Previous research has shown that analyzing reasons can change people's attitudes, but the exact mechanisms of this effect have not been entirely clear. It was hypothesized that introspecting about reasons focuses people's attention on thoughts that are accessible in memory and increases the extent to which people view their accessible thoughts as applicable to their current attitudes. In Study 1, college students formed initial impressions of a target person, and then positive or negative thoughts about the target person were made memorable. After a delay, half of the participants analyzed reasons for their attitude and half recalled the target person's behaviors. As predicted, people who analyzed reasons reported attitudes toward the target person that were based more on what they could recall about her. Study 2 showed that this effect occurs regardless of whether people initially form an online impression. Implications for the effects of analyzing reasons and for attitude formation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information assimilation from updated alphanumeric displays.

The accuracy with which Ss could locate updated elements of information was studied as a function of use of coded vs. uncoded updates, number of elements of information presented, and number of elements of information updated. Selected findings demonstrate the value of coding as an information enhancement technique and the considerable effects of elements presented and updated. With uncoded displays a reduction in the percentage of responses as the number of updates increased may reflect a lessening of Ss' confidence in their ability to make correct responses even though their actual performance did not appear to suffer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring children's categorizations from sequential touching behaviors: An analytical model.

Achild is assumed to belong to 1 of 2 classes: categorizer or noncategorizer. To determine which, 4 toy animals and 4 toy vehicles were randomly arrayed for touching for 2 min. The task was to infer whether the child was a categorizer or a noncategorizer for vehicles and similarity for animals. A model is proposed that assumes a child's sequence of touches follows one probability distribution if the child is a categorizer and another distribution if the child is a noncategorizer. The proportion of children in each category and the probability of a child being a categorizer for, say, vehicles are among the quantities that can be estimated. Data from 18-month-old children are illustrative. The model appears efficient and robust. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring category characteristics from sample characteristics: Inductive reasoning and social projection.

Inductive reasoning involves generalization from sample observations to categories. This research examined the conditions under which generalizations go beyond the boundaries of the sampled categories. In Experiment 1, participants sampled colored chips from urns. When categorization was not salient, participants revised their estimates of the probability of a particular color even in urns they had not sampled. As categorization became more salient, generalization became limited to the sampled urn. In Experiment 2 the salience of categorization in social induction was varied. When social categorization was not salient, participants projected their own responses to test items to members of a laboratory group even when they themselves did to belong to this group. When salience increased, projection decreased among nonmembers but not among members. In Experiment 3 these results were replicated in a field setting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring category attributes from exemplar attributes: Geometric shapes and social categories.

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that judgments about the attributes of categories are disproportionately based on the characteristics of exemplars that fit the category. In the first 2 experiments, subjects were presented with good and bad exemplars of categories with defining attributes (rectangles, triangles, pentagons, and ellipses) in which different colors were arbitrarily paired with the good and poor exemplars. In both experiments, subjects erroneously judged the colors paired with the good exemplars as more frequent than colors paired with the poor exemplars. A third experiment, using social categories, examined whether attributes associated with a single category member were more likely to generalize to the category as a whole for prototypical than for nonprototypical category members. Subjects were presented with information about individual fraternity members who varied in prototypicality, and the tendency to infer a target behavior (liberal vs. conservative voting behavior) from the individual fraternity member to the fraternity as a whole increased with the prototypicality of the category member. Implications for the contact hypothesis, category–exemplar relations, and belief stability are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental health policy: Observations from Europe.

Reviews policies and practices based on a study of 5 European countries (Switzerland, England, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands) with respect to deinstitutionalization and community support and rehabilitation services, health and social security benefits, financing mechanisms, and care for the homeless and young adult chronic populations. Common trends in European mental health and social welfare policies are summarized. Relative to the US, the coordinated system of care in these countries is supported by a strong social welfare system allowing for community-based care administered by the mental health service system. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The voice conveys specific emotions: Evidence from vocal burst displays.

Studies of emotion signaling inform claims about the taxonomic structure, evolutionary origins, and physiological correlates of emotions. Emotion vocalization research has tended to focus on a limited set of emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, happiness, and for the voice, also tenderness. Here, we examine how well brief vocal bursts can communicate 22 different emotions: 9 negative (Study 1) and 13 positive (Study 2), and whether prototypical vocal bursts convey emotions more reliably than heterogeneous vocal bursts (Study 3). Results show that vocal bursts communicate emotions like anger, fear, and sadness, as well as seldom-studied states like awe, compassion, interest, and embarrassment. Ancillary analyses reveal family-wise patterns of vocal burst expression. Errors in classification were more common within emotion families (e.g., ’self-conscious,’ ’pro-social’) than between emotion families. The three studies reported highlight the voice as a rich modality for emotion display that can inform fundamental constructs about emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring interpersonal traits from behavior: Act prototypicality versus conceptual similarity of trait concepts.

Investigates 2 models of the cognitive process underlying trait ratings; the trait-to-trait process states that trait inferences are guided by the conceptual similarity among traits. Ss were presented with 6 fictitious persons. Each was described by acts referring to 1 of 6 traits. Ss rated the targets on interpersonal trait terms. If trait ratings are gathered immediately after the presentation of behavioral information about a single target (Study 1), these ratings correspond closely to the prototypicality ratings of the acts on the trait concepts (behavior-to-trait process). However, if Ss have to keep the behavioral information about several targets in memory (Study 2), the trait ratings are guided by the conceptual relations among the concepts under study (trait-to-trait process). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recognition of self-generated actions from kinematic displays of drawing.

Five experiments addressed the question of whether individuals can distinguish between self-generated and other-generated actions when seeing their visual effects. Each experiment consisted of a recording session in which participants drew familiar and unfamiliar characters without receiving visual feedback and a recognition session in which they provided self-or-other judgments (SOJs) to indicate whether a kinematic display reproduced the visual effects of their own actions. The main results were that self-generated and other-generated drawing can be distinguished, that the familiarity of character shapes does not influence the accuracy of SOJs, and that velocity information is crucial for the identification of self-generated drawing. The ability to determine authorship from kinematic displays of drawing provides evidence for the contribution of action-planning structures to perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facial composite production: A comparison of mechanical and computer-driven systems.

Computer-driven systems for constructing composite faces of suspects (E-fit; Mac-a-Mug) have largely replaced mechanical systems (Photofit; the Identikit) in police use, yet little is known of their comparative effectiveness in rendering an accurate likeness. Participants (N?=?24) constructed 2 of 4 familiar or unfamiliar faces, for one of which they used Photofit and for the other, E-fit. A likeness of each face was made first under target-absent conditions and then with photographs of the target present. The accuracy of the resulting composites was assessed by familiarity ratings, names elicited, and matching accuracy. The computer-driven system showed consistent superiority only when a familiar face was constructed in the presence of photographs; when participants worked from memory, E-fit was no better than Photofit. The implications of these findings for theories of face retrieval and the operational use of composites are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)