The interaction of chromostereopsis and stereopsis in stereoscopic CRT displays

To give operators of high-speed, highly-manoeuvrable vehicles the ability to keep pace with their increasingly dynamic environment, stereoscopic 3-D displays may soon replace conventional 2-D displays. Important to the development of stereoscopic 3-D displays is the interaction of perceived depth created by hues (chromostereopsis) and perceived depth created by presenting different images of a single object to the left and right eye of the observer (stereopsis). The purpose of this research is to evaluate the interaction of chromostereopsis and stereopsis on a stereoscopic CRT by determining the level of accuracy with which subjects can properly interpret the relative depth differences of adjacent symbols containing six levels of hue and seven levels of stereoscopic disparity. This research demonstrated that hue, disparity, and the interaction of hue and disparity significantly influenced one's perception of depth on a stereoscopic monitor. The results suggest that caution should be exercised by the stereoscopic 3-D display format designer when choosing hues to represent images located in close proximity on a stereoscopic display. Due to the chromostereoscopic effect on the perception of depth, hues on extreme ends of the colour spectrum should not be used in situations where less than 3.39 arc minutes of disparity difference is being portrayed on a stereoscopic display, unless the hues are consistently being used to alter the depth presented by stereoscopic disparity, or the chromostereoscopic depth resulting from certain hues is consistently nullified by altering disparity levels accordingly.     

Introduction to the 100th anniversary issue of the Psychological Review..

Discusses the evolution of the Psychological Review from its inception in 1894 as a general journal to its current status as a forum for theoretical discussion. A historical overview of Psychological Review is presented, and its 2 main subfields, cognition and perception, are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Low-ball procedure for producing compliance: Commitment then cost.

Examined the low-ball technique, a tactic often used by automobile sales dealers to produce compliance from customers, in a set of 3 experiments. In all 3 studies, a requester who induced Ss to make an initial decision to perform a target behavior and who then made performance of the behavior more costly obtained greater final compliance than a requester who informed Ss of the full costs of the target behavior from the outset. The low-ball phenomenon—that an active preliminary decision to take an action tends to persevere even after the costs of performing the action have been increased—was found to be reliable (Exp I), different from the foot-in-the-door effect (Exp II), and effective only when the preliminary decision was made with a high degree of choice (Exp III). In competition with 3 other conceptual explanations, a formulation based on the concept of commitment was seen to best account for the results. An ecologically derived strategy for the identification and investigation of research questions is discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Loneliness predicts increased blood pressure: 5-year cross-lagged analyses in middle-aged and older adults.

Loneliness is a prevalent social problem with serious physiological and health implications. However, much of the research to date is based on cross-sectional data, including our own earlier finding that loneliness was associated with elevated blood pressure (Hawkley, Masi, Berry & Cacioppo, 2006). In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the effect of loneliness accumulates to produce greater increases in systolic blood pressure (SBP) over a 4-year period than are observed in less lonely individuals. A population-based sample of 229 50- to 68-year-old White, Black, and Hispanic men and women in the Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study was tested annually for each of 5 consecutive years. Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that loneliness at study onset predicted increases in SBP 2, 3, and 4 years later (B = 0.152, SE = 0.091, p     

Mind at ease puts a smile on the face: Psychophysiological evidence that processing facilitation elicits positive affect.

The affect system, in its position to monitor organismic–environmental transactions, may be sensitive to the internal dynamics of information processing. Hence, the authors predicted that facilitation of stimulus processing should elicit a brief, mild, positive affective response. In 2 studies, participants watched a series of neutral pictures while the processing ease was unobtrusively manipulated. Affective reactions were assessed with facial electromyography (EMG). In both studies, easy-to-process pictures elicited higher activity over the region of zygomaticus major, indicating positive affect. The EMG data were paralleled by self-reports of positive responses to the facilitated stimuli. The findings suggest a close link between processing dynamics and affect and may help understand several preference phenomena, including the mere-exposure effect. The findings also highlight a potential source of affective biases in social judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Appraisal support predicts age-related differences in cardiovascular function in women.

The influence of appraisal support on age-related differences in cardiovascular function was examined. Resting assessments of heart rate, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and preejection period were obtained from 45 young and 20 elderly women. Consistent with prior research, results revealed that the elderly women had higher blood pressure and lower RSA than the young women. More important, appraisal support predicted age-related differences in SBP and DBP: Age predicted elevated blood pressure for women low in appraisal support, whereas age was unrelated to blood pressure for women high in appraisal support. These preliminary data suggest that appraisal support may be an important predictor of long-term physiological function and health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social psychological contributions to the decade of the brain: Doctrine of multilevel analysis.

The 1990s were declared by Congress to be the "decade of the brain." This declaration is important to all psychologists, not only neuroscientists, because with this declaration come expectations of the cognitive and behavioral sciences generally and because the brain does not exist in isolation but rather is a fundamental component of developing and aging individuals who themselves are mere actors in the larger theater of life. This article examines the importance of a multilevel, integrative approach to the study of mental and behavioral phenomena in the decade of the brain, reviews how this approach highlights the synergistic relationship between theoretical and clinically relevant research, and illustrates how this approach can foster the transition from microtheories to general psychological theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of message repetition and position on cognitive response, recall, and persuasion.

Although the mere exposure effect has been researched widely, surprisingly little is known about the attitudinal and cognitive effects of message repetition. It was hypothesized that the sequence of topic-relevant thoughts generated in response to a (repeated) persuasive message would parallel attitude change. To test this prediction, 2 experiments were conducted. In Exp I, 133 undergraduates heard a communication either 0 (control), 1, 3, or 5 times in succession, rated their agreement with the advocated position, and listed the message arguments they could recall. In Exp II, 193 undergraduates heard a communication either 1, 3, or 5 times, rated their agreement, listed their thoughts, and listed the message arguments they could recall. In both experiments, agreement first increased, then decreased as exposure frequency increased (regardless of the position advocated), but agreement was unrelated to the recall of the message arguments. In Exp II, analyses of the listed thoughts revealed that counterargumentation decreased, then increased, whereas topic-irrelevant thinking increased as exposure frequency increased; as expected, only topic-relevant thoughts were related to agreement. Results are interpreted in terms of an attitude-modification model in which repetition and content of a persuasive advocacy affect the type and number of thoughts generated; these thoughts, in turn, affect the attitudinal reaction to the advocacy. (63 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)