Field Articulation Research Articles

Field articulation and linguistic structures.

The relation of field articulation to sensitivity to linguistic structures was explored. Subjects (23 males and 23 females) were given the rod-and-frame test and then made true-false judgments of sentences varying in grammatical and semantic complexity. While increased complexity did increase the difficulty of true-false judgments of sentences, the latencies of these judgments were unrelated to the scores on the rod-and-frame test. These results were discussed in terms of the generality of previous studies reporting a relationship between field articulation and linguistic abilities.

The Problem of Change in Literary History

begin with an identification of the objects conceived to inhabit what might be called the It is these objects and the relationships among them that undergo the process of change alluded to in the designation of the topic. The determination of the different kinds of changes that these objects and relationships sustain and the laws or principles governing any given sequence of changes will be the desired result of any systematic analysis of the field. What are the objects inhabiting the field? At first glance this appears to be a question easily answered. We are inclined to say that the field consists of all objects that are manifestly literary rather than merely verbal. But the distinction between the specifically literary and the generally verbal artifact is not apodictically given. In fact, the millenial disagreement over the criteria for this distinction has generated the four principal traditions of criticism identified by historians of theory: the mimetic, pragmatic or didactic, expressive, and objective.1 In fact, it is the problematical nature of the specifically artifact that necessitates criticism. If we possessed generally agreed-upon criteria for determining what the specifically artifact consisted of, we should have no difficulty in defining the objects inhabiting the field. And we should probably have very little difficulty identifying the changes occurring in that field. But because we possess no generally agreed-upon criteria for determining what is and what is not a specifically work, we are uncertain as to what objects actually inhabit the field and, a fortiori, what changes these objects undergo and the laws or principles that govern the sequence of the field's articulation in time.

Relationships between cognitive and temperament traits and the concept of "style"

Examines certain cognitive-affective relationships by suggesting that they represent overlapping stylistic consistencies. First, literature is reviewed linking flexibility of closure with the objective test temperamental trait of Independence (U.I.19) as the major source trait underlying Witkin's conventional style of field articulation. Similarly, speed of closure is linked with Inhibition (U.I.17) as a more broad representation of the cognitive control, extensiveness of scanning. Finally, various fluency factor are linked with the source trait of Exuberance (U.I.21) underlying much creative activity. It is suggested that these three global styles are also represented by Royce's three "epistemic styles"; namely, rationalism, empiricism, and metaphorism respectively. It is reiterated that multivariate-theoretical analysis is necessary to further substantiate these suggestions of strong substantive and theoretical convergencies across methodologically divergent laboratories.

A Cross-National Study of Cognitive Style Among Managers and Technicians

This study explains differences among managers and technicians in twenty-two non-western countries in terms of the field articulation cognitive style. A review of the behavioral referents of the field articulate cognitive style suggested that this variable is appropriately related to occupational interests and tasks and adaptability to industrial technique. Previous studies also suggested the hypothesis that socioeconomic status variables are related to both cognitive style and national or cultural differences. This hypothesis was confirmed using both the EFT and the RFT as measures of field articulation in a group of three hundred twenty-nine managers and technicians representing twenty-two non-western developing countries. Several explanations of these findings are discussed in terms of functional requirements for adult roles in a society and in terms of the relative affluence or level of poverty. Cette recherche étudie les différences entre des directeurs d'entreprise et des techniciens de 22 pays non occidentaux en termes de style cognitif et de son articulation sur le champ perceptif. L'examen des correspondants comportementaux du style cognitif a fait apparaître que cette variable est bien liée aux intérěts professionnels et au degré d'adaptation aux techniques industrielles. Des études antérieures ont également suggéré l'hypothèse que les variables du type statut socio-économique sont en relation tant avec le style cognitif qu'avec des différences nationales ou culturelles. Cette hypothèse a été confirmée par l'utilisation de l'EFT et du RFT comme mesures de l'articulation du style cognitif dans un groupe de 329 directeurs et techniciens représentant 22 pays non occidentaux en voie de développement. Diverses interprétations de ces résultats sont discutées en termes des qualités nécessaires au rôle adulte dans une société et en termes de niveau de richesse ou de pauvreté.

Sustained Attention and the Effects of Distraction in Underachieving Second Grade Children

The relationship between attention deficits and learning problems was studied in thirty-three second grade children. Impairment in sustained attention, the effects of auditory distractors upon sustained attention, the deployment of attention in a visual field (field articulation), and the management of information over time (Leveling-Sharpening) were investigated in underachieving children. Underachievers were significantly lower than controls in Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Verbal and Full Scale I.Q.'s but not in Performance I.Q. Underachievers were significantly poorer in their performance on a more difficult measure of sustained attention. Only the letters spoken distractor produced a significant effect on the performance of underachievers on an easier measure of sustained attention. The major effect of distraction in both groups was to decrease attention to critical stimuli rather than to significantly increase responses to distracting stimuli. Underachievers also had more difficulty in withholding attention from irrelevant stimuli on a measure of field articulation, but stimuli more central to the task had an apparently greater effect on their performance than peripheral stimuli. Underachievers did not differ from controls with respect to Leveling-Sharpening. Significant correlations were found between underachievers’ performance on measures of sustained attention and measures of field articulation. The findings suggest that impairment in sustained attention is associated with difficulty in learning in second grade children and that such impairment can be identified at an earlier age, and in children with less marked academic underachievement, than is commonly believed.

Field articulation, sex, spatial visualization, dependency, practice, laterality of the brain and birth order.

Among 25 female and 25 male college students, field-articulation measures correlated with spatial visualization (. −69 to .79) ( P ≤ .05) but not consistently with each other or measures of dependency. Practice significantly affected Rod-and-frame performance for both sexes ( p ≤ .01), but no sex differences were found on measures of field articulation or dependency. Males' mean for spatial visualization was higher ( p ≤ .05); males were more confident than females on RFT performance even though no more accurate ( p ≤ .05). Among Ss oldest of sibs, females were less field-articulated, males more. Males had higher RFT errors when the frame top was tilted to S's left; females had higher RFT errors when the frame was tilted to the right ( p ≤ .05), which is consistent with the hypothesis that for females more frequently than males control of spatial function is located in the left hemisphere of the brain.

Eye movements and sex differences in field articulation.

Eye movements of 10 male and 10 female Ss were examined during the rod-and-frame and size-estimation tests. Males were significantly more field-independent than females on the rod-and-frame. No sex differences were observed on size-estimation, embedded-figures test, or in the number of vertical and horizontal eye movements recorded during the two tasks. Eye movements did not correlate with performance on either test. The latter finding questions the utilization of size-estimation to infer visual scanning.

TESTS AND MEASUREMENTS

Field articulation and performance under stress: Differential predictions in surgical and psychiatric nursing training.

Eye Movements during Rod-and-Frame Performance

Corneally-reflected horizontal eye movements of 8 field-dependent and 8 field-independent Ss were examined during 6 trials on the rod-and-frame task, each trial being divided into viewing and decision (rod adjustment) periods. Neither average point of looking nor variability of looking (as a measure of perceptual scanning) was related to task error. The results were seen as supporting a distinction between field articulation and perceptual scanning as discrete attention styles.

Cognitive effects of marijuana, described in terms of a model of attention.

The cognitive effects of marijuana are best described and organized in terms of a model of attention. Sack's model includes three factors of attention: resistance to distraction, set-shifting, and field articulation. The acute cognitive effects can be seen as decrements in resisting distraction and in shifting set, i.e., voluntarily shifting the focus of one's attention. Chronic use of the drug seems to cause similar decrements, although the evidence for them is not as strong. Further research is needed, using longitudinal studies so that measurements of attention before and after drug use will be available.

Field articulation differences in language abilities.

Field articulation differences in language abilities.

Field articulation and performance under stress: differential predictions in surgical and psychiatric nursing training.

Field articulation and performance under stress: differential predictions in surgical and psychiatric nursing training.

Use of three measures of field organization with young children.

Research with children utilizing the global-analytic field articulation construct ( 4 ) has resulted in modification of test instruments for use with school-age Ss (1, 2 ) and development of other measures presumed to tap the field dependence-independence dimension ( 3 ) . Appropriateness of the modified tests for primary grade children and relationships between measures is uncertain, however. This study was conducted to determine the feasibiliry of three measures of field organization for use with young children, specifically, to consider relationships berween measures and performance according to sex groups. Forty-four children enrolled in regular classes in an Anglo, middle-SES, public school were individually administered the portable Rod-and-frame Test ( I ) , Karp and Konstadt's ( 2 ) Children's Embedded-figures Test (CEFT), and Pattern Drawing (PDT) and Pattern Walking (PWT) tests ( 3 ) . MCA and SD for the 22 boys were 87.54 and 3.68 mo.; for girls, 88.0 and 3.29 mo. On the Rod-and-frame Test (RFT) Ss responded to three blocks of four trials each, scores reflecting degrees from vertical. CEFT scores represent total number of correct responses, range 0 to 24. Walked and drawn patterns were scored 1 to 4-point scale per pattern, range of total scores 9 to 36. RFT total scores were analyzed with a 2 (sex) X 3 (blocks) analysis of variance; only the main effect of sex was significant (F = 9.04, df = 1/4, p = .05). Boys' errors were 57% to frame, 37% opposite frame. Comparable errors for girls were 72% and 24%. Boys dearly aligned the rod to uue vertical more accurately than did girls. No differences by sex were found on the CEFT. Pattern-drawing scores were also nonsignificant by sex, but pattern-walking favored boys ( t = 4.67, d f = 42, p < .01). Relationships between measures were determined with Pearson I . Values of r based on total N scores were -32, -.42, and .36 for relationships between RET-CEFT, RFT-PWT, and CEFT-PWT, respectively ( p < .01). For boys, comparable values of T were -.18, -.33, .40, only the last reaching significance ( p = .03). Values of 7 for girls were -.36 ( 9 = .O5), -.32, and .42 ( p = .02). Pattern-drawing scores were not related significantly to other measures. Findings suggest: ( a ) that the modified rod-and-frame and pattern reproduction tests are feasible and appropriate for use with primary grade school children but that the CEFT is too difficult and time consuming for children to be useful in primary school settings; ( b ) that sex differences in field organization are identifiable at this age on the modified rod-and-frame and pattern-walking tests but not on ,the CEFT or panern-drawing test; (c) when sex differences occur, boys are more field-independent than girls; ( d ) that the measures tap a common dimension but considerable variance is unexplained. REFERENCES 1. GERARD, H. Factors contributing to adjusment and achievement. Progress Report of a Joint Project of Riverside Unified School District and Univer. of California, Riverside, May, 1969. 2. KARP, S. A., & KONSTADT, N. L. Manid for Children's Embedded Figurer Test. Brooklyn: Cognitive Tests, 1963. 3. KEOGH, B. K. Partern copying under three conditions of an expanded spatial field. Developmen&l Psychology, 1971, 4. 25-31. 4. WITKIN, H. A., DYK, R. B., FATERSON, H. F., GOODBNOUGH, D. G., & KARP, S. A. Psychological differentiation. New York: Wiley, 1962.

Field independence and articulation of sources of job satisfaction.

Field independence and articulation of sources of job satisfaction.

Field articulation of enuretic boys and their mothers.

The description of the personality of the enuretic boy and his mother as characteristically immature had a particular relevance to field articulation as formulated by Witkin, the literature suggesting that both would be predisposed toward a perceptual field-dependence. 60 enuretic and non-enuretic boys, ranging in age from 6 to 12 yr. and coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, were selected from a pediatric and psychiatric clinic. The Children's Embedded-figures Test and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale For Children were administered to the boys and the Embedded-figures Test to the mothers. The results indicated: (a) enuretic boys, but not their mothers, tend to be field-dependent, (b) field articulation is not related to level of adjustment in the enuretic boy, and (c) field articulation is not related to IQ to the same degree in lower socioeconomic level children as for those of middle socioeconomic level.

Physiognomic perception as a cognitive control principle.

Physiognomic perception, a tendency to suffuse percepts with an emotional or expressive quality, has been suggested as an additional cognitive control principle. In a study of an entire graduating class of 77 engineering students, Physiognomic Cue Test (PCT) performance loaded on a factor independent of factors representing field articulation, scanning, abstract reasoning, and academic achievement. PCT scores have been found to be related to career choice and to correlate significantly with measures of art aptitude and style, course grades, and personality test scores including the CPI. The relationships of physiognomic perception to intelligence, creativity and work style are considered. These data support the hypothesis that psysiognomic perception represents a significant cognitive control principle. Additional multivariate studies of more heterogeneous groups are indicated.

Auditory perceptual patterns of process and reactive schizophrenics.

Abstract The auditory perceptual patterns of 25 process schizophrenics, 23 reactive schizophrenics, and a matched control group were evaluated through the use of The Sound Test, an auditory projective technique. The results indicated that the auditory perceptual style differentiated significantly and systematically between the process and reactive schizophrenics, and between the schizophrenics and the clinically normal groups. The results of The Sound Test were further discussed in terms of scanning, field articulation, and ideational gating mechanisms.

Embedded figures, learning, and recall: a note on Long's paper.

Long ( 1962) has found relationships between performance in an embedded figures test (EFT) and original learning (OL) and retention on a RI task. The common factor in these performances is asserted to be Field-Articulation (FA) which is defined as the capacity to articulate, or differentiate, complex stimulus fields (Long, 1962). Except for the positive relationship between OL and EFT, Long's findings confirm the results of an earlier investigation by Gollin and Baron (1954). The relationship between EFT scores and retention scores in the two investigations is similar despite differences in training and testing methods, in materials, and in sex of Ss. The difference in the relationship between EFT and OL is likely to be a function of the nature of the OL list: Long's list consisted of highly similar words, while Gollin and Baron used a list of low associacion nonsense syllables. From the very outset of training the word lisc may be assumed to tap FA since the meaningfulness of the words is likely to impart some field character to the list. The low-association nonsense syllables on the other hand constitute an aggregate of disconnected stimuli with little intra-list relatedness. As the nonsense list is learned, it is likely that the list increasingly assumes field properties and thus serves as a good test of FA when it is again presented in the retention tasks. The failure to observe an association between FA and OL seems to strengthen the value of FA as an inferred abiliry. If FA were related to everything, its utility as a selective predictor would diminish.

Visual field articulation in the absence of spatial stimulus gradients.

Visual field articulation in the absence of spatial stimulus gradients.