bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Size-Weight Interaction in Judgements of Compound Stimuli
Authors: Anthony W. S. , Holding D. H. , Lion Judith S. , Sluckin W. 
Published: March 2008

Recent work in the fields of multidimensional information transmission and perceptual accentuation due to value has led to theories concerning unidimensional judgements of compound stimuli. The present study attempts to explore these theories, adding the dimension of size to judged weight, following negative results with judgements of size when brightness is varied. Three sets of stimulus objects were prepared. Variation of weight was the same in each set. However, the size of the objects was the same in one set, while in another set size increased with weight, and in a third set size and weight were negatively correlated. Three groups of 16 subjects were asked to make replicated absolute judgements of the weights in each set. It appeared that judgements of weight are more affected by density when density varies than when changes of size produce constant density. As predicted, contrast between successive stimuli is greatest when size and weight are negatively correlated, and least with positive correlation. The extent of the judged scales, and the means of these scales, follow the same pattern. Differences in discriminability between the three series, whilst in the expected direction, are not significant. The hypothesis that these effects would be more apparent in the psychologically linked dimensions of size and weight, than in the relatively neutral case of size and brightness, was largely confirmed. These findings both amplify and modify the previous suggestions concerning compound stimuli.
Immediate Memory in Dialling Performance with and without Simple Rehearsal
Authors: Heron Alastair 
Published: March 2008

This experiment was designed to explore the effects of simple rehearsal on immediate memory in telephone dialling performance in a sample of 36 men aged 45 to 60 for whom data on intelligence, vocabulary, emotional stability and occupation were available. The eight-digit messages were the same as those previously used by Conrad in a study of telephone operators which compared performance on dialling and keysender equipment. Using a Latin square design, subjects were required to dial 10 eight-digit messages in each of six conditions (three with auditory and three with visual presentation). Dialling was carried out (1) immediately the message had been presented; (2) after it had been once vocally rehearsed by the subject; (3) after it had been written down while being vocally rehearsed. A complete record was obtained of all performances, at rehearsal and at dialling. It was found that with auditory serial presentation, immediate vocal rehearsal and immediate dialling are equally good and both superior to dialling which followed vocal rehearsal. With visual simultaneous presentation, immediate vocal rehearsal is clearly superior to dialling with or without rehearsal, which do not differ. Performance after written-down rehearsal was the worst in both modes of presentation. A non-linear relationship between intelligence and performance was found, and acute individual differences in performance were observed among the subjects of the highest intelligence.
Choice Reaction Times and the Theory of Intermittency in Human Performance
Authors: Davis R. 
Published: March 2008

One visual signal, drawn from two equi-probable alternatives, was followed at a variable interval by a similar signal, also drawn from two equi-probable alternatives. The relationship between reaction time to the second signal and the interval between signals was studied under the following conditions: (1) Subjects were trained from the beginning to regard the first signal as irrelevant. (2) Subjects were asked to report on the nature of the first signal after they had responded to the second. The interval between signals was one of the five values, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 millisec. In the regular interval situation the same interval was used over a block of 20 trials. In the random interval situation the values of the interval were randomly arranged, with equal frequency within each block of 20 trials. The results showed: (1) In the random interval situation there was a definite disturbing effect of the first signal on the reaction time to the second, despite the fact that subjects were trained to disregard the first signal. However, the delays in reaction time were significant only at the shortest interval, 50 millisec. (2) In the regular interval situation this disturbing effect was not evident. (3) The additional requirement of having to report on the nature of the first signal produced no consistent increase in reaction time to the second signal. Some implications of these results for the conception of the human operator as a channel of limited capacity are discussed.
The Effect of Intermittent Illumination on the Visual Acuity Threshold
Authors: Gibbins K. , Howarth C. I. 
Published: March 2008

Senders (1949) reported that with intermittent illumination short flashes needed less energy than larger ones to make a visual acuity target visible. This apparent breakdown of the reciprocal relationship between time and intensity, which has been found almost universally by earlier workers under a very wide range of experimental conditions, raised a number of interesting theoretical issues such as the relationship between visual acuity and intensity discrimination thresholds, and the plausible importance of eye movements in each. Unfortunately we have been unable to repeat Senders' result in spite of the most determined efforts to reproduce her experimental conditions. We are unable to suggest why our results differ from hers, but feel that our experiments at least show that her data are very difficult to reproduce and hence no general theoretical argument can be based on them. In view of this we felt at liberty to predict results on the basis of a model, we had tentatively constructed, which we regarded as integrating Bloch's and Talbot's laws. This enabled us to make predictions about the effect of frequency of repetitive stimulation on thresholds. Experiments were carried out to ascertain how far these predictions were substantiated. Agreement was remarkably good.
Reversal Learning in Octopus Vulgaris Lamarck with and without Irrelevant Cues
Authors: Mackintosh N. J. , Mackintosh J. 
Published: March 2008

Three groups of eight octopuses each were trained on a brightness discrimination and its reversal. Within each group half the animals were overtrained on the original problem and half were not. For Group I the discrimination was a simple one, for the other two groups irrelevant cues were introduced (for Group II position and for Group III orientation). It was found that the overtrained animals learnt the reversal significantly faster than the non-overtrained only where irrelevant cues were present (i.e. only in Groups II and III). The results are discussed in relation to various theories of discrimination reversal.
Drive Level Effects on Tasks of Narrow and Broad Attention
Authors: Agnew Neil , Agnew Mary 
Published: March 2008

Easterbrook (1959) has predicted that (a) performance on tasks involving the use of a wide range of cues will be impaired under high-drive conditions and that (b) performance on tasks requiring the use of only a narrow range of cues will be facilitated under such conditions. Using the Porteus Maze Test, relatively clear evidence was obtained to support the first prediction. Using the Stroop Colour Word Interference Test some evidence was obtained in support of the second prediction.
A Reply to John W. Senders and Virginia L. Senders (Quart. J. exp. Psychol., 14, 176–7)
Authors: Gibbins K. , Howarth C. I. 
Published: March 2008

Senders has put forward a very relevant criticism of our experiments in so far as they are attempts to reproduce her findings. It is fair to say, however, that our primary interest was to discover whether the “Senders' effect” is a common one likely to turn up and confuse the results of any unwary research worker. This it would seem is now obviously not the case. The apparently convincing argument, however, about the effect of fixation does not appear to hold. In February 1960 a simple experiment was carried out to test just this point. The equipment used was that described in Experiment 3 with repetition rate of 5.26 cps., except that:— The fixation system was a sheet of glass reflecting an illuminated “cross” with the centre removed in which lay the rectangular grill, the subject being told to fixate the point where the centre of the cross should be. The open cross was used rather than crossed hairs or a point source as it was thought that these might interfere with the stimulus light at the point of fixation. A chin rest was used and the subject was fitted into a “skin diving mask” from which the face plate had been removed and replaced with a piece of wood with a hole opposite the left eye and the whole of the contraption was attached very firmly to a retort stand, which in turn was clamped to the bench. A cylindrical tube fitted into the hole in the mask and this again was attached to the bench via supports. Into the tube was let in the “fixation” glass reflector.
Decrement of Visual and Haptic Müller-lyer Illusion on Repeated Trials: A Study of Crossmodal Transfer
Authors: Rudel Rita G. , Teuber Hans-Lukas 
Published: March 2008

Twenty adults, 10 male and 10 female, ranging in age from 22 to 54 years, were asked to set the centre arrowhead of a Müller-Lyer pattern for 80 consecutive trials. Ten of the subjects did so visually, while 10 blindfolded subjects made the settings haptically, i.e. by active palpation. Following the 80th trial, those subjects who had been making settings visually were blindfolded and were asked to make six haptic settings. Conversely, those who had made 80 haptic settings proceeded to make six settings visually. The initial size of the illusion was essentially identical for the visual and haptic groups. Both groups showed significant decrement, since 19 of the 20 subjects had a smaller illusion on trials 71–80 than on trials 1–10. There was significant transfer of the decrement to the six settings made in the other modality. However, transfer effects were greater for the subjects who went from touch to vision than for those who went from vision to touch. Verbalization did not appear to be the vehicle of these crossmodal transfer effects.
Immediate Memory and Simultaneous Visual Stimulation
Authors: Sampson H. 
Published: March 2008

Ten right-handed, right eye-dominant aircrew trainees recalled digits and colours projected simultaneously one to each eye, under five binocular viewing conditions that precluded overlap in visual fields. Results of this experiment favour the view that Broadbent's theory of immediate memory is a special case which, though not typical, is applicable to vision. Relevance of present findings for the problem of cerebral dominance is also discussed.
Is The Weber Fraction a Function of Physical or Perceived Input?
Authors: Ross Helen E. , Gregory R. L. 
Published: March 2008

It is well known that a given physical input (e.g. intensity of light or sound, length or weight of an object) does not always give rise to the same sensation. For example, arrow heads affect the perceived length of lines (Muller-Lyer illusion) and size affects the apparent weight of an object (size-weight illusion). It is generally assumed that the differential threshold is a simple function of the physical intensity of the stimulus. We may however ask whether the differential threshold is affected by illusions. To try to answer this question we estimate differential thresholds under a pair of conditions in which the relevant input is the same but appears different. Using the size-weight illusion, we have found that the differential threshold for weight is greater for a set of small weights than for a set of larger and apparently lighter weights.
The Persistence of Some Effects of Handling in Infancy on the Behaviour of the Adult Rat
Authors: Du Preez P. D. 
Published: March 2008

An attempt was made to discover how persistent the effects of handling before weaning are on activity, grooming, emotional elimination and learning in adult rats; whether there is an interaction of the effects of handling and the effects of cage size on the behaviour of rats; and whether the daily removal of the mother during nursing has any effects on the pups. Since all differences between handled and undisturbed animals found at 50 or 100 days were found at 220 days, it was concluded that the effects of handling in infancy are persistent. The hypothesis that cage size and removal of the mother during nursing significantly affect adult behaviour was not supported by the results.
An Apparatus for Presenting Continuously Varying Binocularly Disparate Views of an Apparently Single Object
Authors: Groman William 
Published: March 2008

The perceptual effects of viewing continuously varying binocularly disparate views of a stimulus object under conditions in which convergence and accommodation are kept relatively constant and normal with respect to the target object have not been investigated. Information regarding the effects of such stimulation should have relevance for problems of form and pattern perception, object constancy, and the perception of depth. The apparatus to be described makes it possible to produce the stimulus conditions necessary for the study of this class of effects.
Subjective Hardness of Compliant Materials
Authors: Harper Roland , Stevens S. S. 
Published: March 2008

The apparent hardness and softness of nine samples of compliant materials were scaled by direct magnitude estimation and by cross-modal matches to the apparent force exerted on a hand dynamometer and a finger dynamometer, and to the loudness of a band of white noise. The physical hardness (force/indentation) of the compliant specimens covered a range of more than 100 to 1, extending from a fairly soft sponge to a fairly hard block of rubber. The apparent hardness of the specimens was found to follow the psychophysical power law. Subjective hardness grows as the physical hardness raised to a power. The indicated exponent was about 0.8 for magnitude estimation, about 0.7 derived by calculation from handgrip matches, and about 0.6 derived by calculation from loudness matches. Numerical estimates and cross-modal matches for softness gave functions that were approximately the reciprocal of the functions given for hardness. Hardness is a continuum on which there exists an upper threshold.
Effects of Variation in the Warning Signal on Reaction Times of Severe Subnormals
Authors: Hermelin Beate 
Published: March 2008

Reaction times of normal and subnormal subjects were compared, when a warning stimulus varied in modality as well as in its temporal relation to the RT signal. When the warning stimulus was in a different modality from the RT signal, reaction times were shorter than when both were in the same modality. Mongols, in contrast to the other subjects, responded relatively faster to light than to sound. The effect of varying the time interval between warning and signal was linearly related to response speed. The results are discussed in respect to the comparative alerting effects of temporal relations between stimuli and their different modalities.
The Combination of Information from Different Sources
Authors: Davis R. 
Published: March 2008

In this experiment subjects were presented with visual information from two different sources and were required to combine it in order to make the correct response. The time interval between the two signals was varied in two different ways (a) regularly and (b) randomly. Reaction times were measured from the moment of occurrence of the second signal. By this means the time course of the decision procedure involved in combining the information from the two sources was analysed. Results indicate that subjects may deal with the situation in two ways (i) by means of a “perceptual” classification in which the individual elements are not analysed separately, or (ii) by means of an “intellectual” classification in which each signal is analysed sequentially. These two methods correspond to the experimental conditions of (a) regular intervals and (b) random intervals. It is argued that when subjects use the latter strategy the results are consistent with the conception of the human operator as an intermittent analysing system.
The Effects of Context upon Speed of Reading, Eye Movements and Eye-voice Span
Authors: Morton John 
Published: March 2008

Subjects read aloud 200-word passages of statistical approximations up to the 8th order. Their eye-movements were recorded together with a trace of the speech output. Speed of reading, using the syllable as the unit of measurement, increased up to the 5th order for slow readers. Fast readers, on the other hand, further increased their speed to the 6th order. This result had been predicted from a hypothesis that fast readers use contextual cues more efficiently. Measures of the material in the eye-voice span showed an increase up to the 8th order. Fast readers had a larger material span than slow readers beyond the 5th order, a result paralleling the differences in speed increase. It is suggested that the eye-voice span measured in time is dependent upon the chosen reading speed and the material span. From the eye-movement records there was no variation of the mean duration of fixation between passages, or between fast and slow readers. The average value was about 240 millisec. The number of both forward and regressive eye movements decreased with increase in contextual constraint up to the 5th or 6th order, i.e. with increase in speed of reading. Fast readers were superior to slow readers in both these respects. The effect of decreasing contextual constraint was to produce more regressive movements together with a slightly smaller mean saccade.
Accuracy of Recognition for Speech Presented to the Right and Left Ears
Authors: Broadbent D. E. , Gregory Margaret 
Published: March 2008

Earlier reports by other authors had shown that recall of dichotically presented speech was better for words arriving at the right ear, while recognition of passages of music was better for music presented to the left ear. It seemed desirable to test recognition for speech, in order to show that the difference between materials rather than the difference in testing techniques was responsible for this disparity between ears. Accordingly 18 men were presented with dichotic lists of digits, and then tested for recognition of the digits. There was no indication of an advantage for the left ear, but rather of the advantage for the right already established for recall of speech materials.
Induction of a Principle
Authors: Duncan Carl P. 
Published: March 2008

Two experiments are reported in which student subjects attempted to discover a principle obtaining among pairs of numbers and letters. In the first experiment, subjects were more successful when they were free to select whatever number-letter pairs they wished than if they were restricted in whole or in part to pairs specified by the experimenter. In the second experiment, subjects who did discover the principle were compared to those who did not. Successful subjects were shown to be slightly more systematic in their approach to the task, to work at a faster pace, to write down more positive instances, and to have a much stronger tendency to vary only one variable of the task at a time. Wason (1960) reported a study in which subjects tried to discover a principle applying to instances each of which consisted of three numbers. He discovered that subjects mostly showed enumerative rather than eliminative induction, i.e. they made little use of instances that would have enabled them to eliminate wrong hypotheses. Wetherick (1962) found that by modifying Wason's procedure in certain ways, enumerative behaviour was reduced and the subject's chance of discovering the principle was increased. Elimination of hypotheses remained infrequent. In the Wason study, the subject was free to write down, for each instance, any three numbers he wished, i.e. his choice of instances was not restricted in any way. This may account in part for the behaviour Wason observed. In the first experiment to be reported here, the subject is restricted, in various degrees, in his choice of instances, to determine whether the principle is discovered more (or less) readily under such restriction.
The Influence of Stimulus Scale-interval upon the Assessment of Pain Threshold
Authors: Haslam Diana R. 
Published: March 2008

An experiment concerning the influence of the scale of stimulus values upon the perception of heat-pain is reported in which it is found that the value of the threshold stimulus is dependent upon the size of the steps between successive stimuli. The results are analysed in the light of a paper by Brown and Cane (1959) in which they point out that the value of a sensory threshold yielded by the Limiting Method is mathematically dependent upon the size of the steps between successive values of the variable stimulus. The threshold values reported here are found to be dependent on the step-size between stimuli to a greater extent than that which would be predicted by Brown and Cane. In view of these results, an attempt is made to explain the wide variety of pain threshold values reported in the literature.
Expectancy and Intermittency
Authors: Davis R. 
Published: March 2008

When a human subject responds to the second of two closely succeeding stimuli, his reaction time to the second stimulus tends to increase sharply as the interstimulus interval decreases. Controversy has centred on the issue of whether this increase is mainly due to the effects of the first stimulus in producing some kind of block in the central analysing systems or whether it is mainly due to the temporal uncertainty of the second signal, as determined by the distribution of interstimulus intervals used. By substituting for the first stimulus a spontaneous response on the part of the subject and holding the distribution of interstimulus intervals constant, it is shown that the delays in responding to the succeeding signal are eliminated, even at intervals as short as 50 millisec. This is interpreted as evidence in support of the intermittency hypothesis and as a clear indication that the increase in reaction times normally observed is not a result of the distribution of interstimulus intervals.
Comparative Analysis of Proprioception in Left and Right Arms
Authors: Wyke Maria 
Published: March 2008

Using the “kinaesthetic memory for the target” technique, differences in the accuracy of pointing to a target with the right and left arms are analysed. The effect of rotation of the head to left and right upon this process is also studied. With the head normally orientated, it was found that pointing with the right arm is significantly better than with the left. Accuracy of pointing is greater with the target directly in front of the body than when it lies to either left or right side. When the head is rotated, the direction of the pointing error is inversely related to the direction of rotation. The study suggests that the precision of control over arm (in the absence of vision) is related to the varying ability of individual subjects to correlate limb movements with the prevailing orientation of the body, especially of the head and neck. This is additional to the influences of genetically-determined handedness and of the sensory input from the moving limb.