Initial experiments on hedonic responses to the taste of sodium-chloride solutions showed that three Ss distinctly liked and five Ss distinctly disliked increasing concentrations. A paired-preference presentation of the same concentrations of sodium chloride resulted in almost identical conclusions for the same Ss, but not with solutions of monosodium glutamate. A second group of...
Effects of acoustic rise time on heart-rate (HR) response were tested in two experiments. With 50- and 75-dB tones, effects were not clear-cut, but, at 90 dB, fast onsets produced an initial acceleration and slow onsets an initial deceleration. Results were discussed in terms of orienting and startle responses.
A series of studies by Slamecka (1964) provided impetus for developing three criteria to test the validity of anticipatory and perseverative errors. Since these criteria were met by conditions of a previous study (Ellis & Manning, 1967), supplementary data were collected, combined with the earlier data, and reexamined. In addition to finding support for Slamecka’s concept of item...
A list of 10 noun paired associates was learned by three groups of Ss under conditions RTT, RTR, and RT. An additional test trial was given a week later. The results suggest that once a correct response can be produced, further test trials facilitate future recall as much as do further reinforced trials.
A general polynomial transformation is given for the dependent variable in experimental design models and multiple linear or multiple polynomial regression models such that selected sources of variance such as interactions or configuralities are reduced or eliminated. A stopping rule is given for addition of terms in the polynomial based on proportion of systematic (nonerror...
Preschool children learned to respond to a black vertical line and were tested for orientation, form, and color generalization under two test procedures. The results indicated that (1) a procedure which approximated successive generalization testing (N) provided little evidence that any of the tested-for attributes were learned, whereas a procedure which contained dimensional...
Greater PA learning of connotative adjectives is associated with the vividness of the PA stimulus. Poorer PA learning is associated with the vividness of the PA response. The impact of vividness on PA learning is hypothesized to resuit from an associated alerting effect. Vividness, imagery, and meaningfulness are compared.
Three sources of stimulus in put, one visual and two aural, were distinguished in Zajonc’s (1968) study that demonstrated that rated “goodness”-of-meaning of nonsense words is a positive function of exposure frequency. In the present study, both a replication condition and an experimental condition that deleted one of the aural sources of input yielded the same function (p<.025...
The meaningfulness of nonsense syllables has generally been considered in terms of Ss’ ratings and use of associations and pronounceability. The redundancy of nonsense syllables was quantified by means of their component transitional probabilities, using information-theory measurements. These mathematically derived ratings were in agreement with Ss’ ratings of association value...
Ss were shown 2,560 photographic Stimuli for 10 sec each; their recognition memory was then tested, using a two-alternative forced-choice task. Performance exceeded 90%, indicating retention of over 2,000 items, even when up to 3 days elapsed between learning and testing. Variants of the experiment showed that the presentation time could be reduced to 1 sec per picture without...
The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of familiarization of response terms on the forward and backward acquisition rate of a list of PAs, in which the response terms were rated on associative reaction time (RT) and meaningfulness (associative frequency—Mn). Thirty-two undergraduate Ss individually received 20 familiarization trials in which, for 16 of the...
Ten graduate art students (GAS) and 10 graduate educational psychology students (GES), matched for age and sex, rated 62 reproductions of famous paintings in terms of three categories of visual complexity to form a scale of 15 cards extracted from the ratings. Two further groups of 15 matched Ss sorted the 15 cards of the visual-complexity scale into a forced distribution of...
In three separate experiments three variables were examined which could be responsible for nonmonotonic metacontrast functions. Using letters as stimuli, monotonic functions were obtained for all three. Whatever the variables are, spatial uncertainty, retinal location, or spatial cueing do not seem to be involved in producing nonmonotonic functions.
An increase in the amount of verbal reinforcement resulted in gradual, as opposed to sudden, increases in behavior and no evidence of positive incentive contrast effects. These results with human Ss agree with the data obtained from animal Ss and suggest that a shift in incentive size in humans affects learning as opposed to some more temporary mechanism.
Contrary to expectations based on the well-documented positive relation between target area and detectability, half-black and half-white target disks were considerably more difficult to mask (easier to detect) with black rings than was a homogeneous black disk. The results, obtained by a forced-choice indicator response, can probably be attributed to the contour effects generated...
Ss attempted to discover a principle by which numbers and letters were paired. Seven groups of Ss varied on two dimensions, proportion of positive instances sampled and degree of restriction in selecting instances for test. Ss who sampled a higher proportion of positive instances were superior to those sampling a lower proportion. Ss who were unrestricted in their selection of...
Ss shadowed a prose passage delivered to the right ear and were asked to tap to occurrences of a target in a second passage delivered to the left ear. Group 1 was asked to tap to a sound that could also be two different words (e.g., I and eye), Group 2 to one of these words only. Group 2 performed better than Group 1, reversing the result of Wilding & Underwood (1968). The result...
While the within-S, or ipsative, galvanic skin response (GSR) categorization has led to an arousal/retention-internal interaction with superior immediate recall of low-arousal items and reminiscence of high-arousal items, a different pattern of results has been reported using a normative GSR categorization. This mode of analysis, based on mean GSRs across all Ss, has yielded...
The present study examined the influence of two types of association data on the recall of sentences. The results showed that “syntactic restricted” associations facilitated the recall of sentences while typical free associative connections may have some influence. However, the predominant underlying variable may be a syntactic association. The position of syntactic associative...
The duration of tachistoscopic exposure (2.5, 10, and 20 sec) for 10-item lists was manipualted in an attempt to emphasize either short-term (STM) or long-term (LTM) memory. A Duration by Isolation interaction was hypothesized such that overall performance for isolated and unisolated lists would not differ in STM but that the overall performance for isolated lists would be...
Forty-eight preschool children were given 80 trials on a stimulus-selection task in which they could choose one of four auditory stimuli by moving a lever in one of four directions. The four stimuli varied in complexity defined by: (1) number of components in each stimulus; (2) dissimilarity of the components; and (3) the pattern of similar and dissimilar components. Analyses of...
A 3 by 2 design was employed to study the effects of source capability and of punishment magnitude on the compliance of target individuals to contingent threats intermittently sent by a simulated source in a modified Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Source capability did not produce the hypothesized increasing direct effect on behavioral compliance, but punishment magnitude did mediate...
Introductory psychology students took their own pulses during a normal lecture class and during four exams. There was no systematic relationship between absolute pulse rate and exam scores. However, consistently high correlations were found between pulse-rate change scores and test performance: The greater the increase in pulse rate, the lower the exam score.
In Experiment 1 a decrease in incentive magnitude resulted in negative incentive contrast effects, which were a positive function of the amount of verbal reward reduction. In Experiment 2 an increase in amount of reward produced positive incentive contrast effects, which were, as in Experiment 1, a monotonic function of the amount of reward change.
Subjects’ choice of stimulus type in a paired-associates learning task was either unanimously opposed by two confederates or was opposed by one and supported by the other. In learning a second list, significantly more Ss switched stimulus types in the unanimous opposition condition. The relationship between real competence and conformity did not reach significance, both when...