Stimulus Figures Research Articles

Using HyperCard to administer a figural test on the Apple Macintosh

To date, applications of automated assessment techniques in personality testing have largely been limited to objective personality instruments with text stimuli; few assessment applications have involved graphic stimuli. Although projective personality instruments generally include ambiguous graphic or pictorial stimuli, computer applications with these procedures have been limited to automated scoring and interpretation, administration of sentence completion devices employing text stimuli, and the use of mechanical methods rather than computer graphics to display visual stimuli. In the present report, we describe a Macintosh HyperCard application for administering an objective personality test with visual stimuli, the Barron-Welsh Revised Art Scale of the Welsh Figure Preference Test. This test consists of a series of figural stimuli and a binary “like”/“dislike” response format, and it thus represents an administration procedure between standard objective self-report inventories involving text stimuli and a “true”/“false” response or variant, and tests such as the Rorschach or TAT that are both figural and free-response. The HyperCard language provides a variety of promising techniques useful for microcomputer test administration.

Sex differences in the preferences for specific female body shapes

The purpose of this study was to examine the somatic preferences of males and females for detailed anatomical drawings of female stimulus figures to examine their ability to predict the preferences for members of the opposite sex. The figures were systematically varied on three dimensions (bust, waist, and hips), with three sizes of each (small, medium, and large). The 12 figures were rated by 100 male and female subjects on a 7-point bipolar construct scale, ranging from extremely attractive to extremely unattractive. This was done both for the subjects' personal perceptions and for their predicted ratings of the opposite sex. Multivariate and univariate analyses yielded several sex, rating-perceptive (self vs. other), figure shape differences and interactions. Male subjects displayed a preference for large busts and hourglass shapes, which are accurately predicted by the females. Males predicted that females would rate slimmer figure highly, and females predicted that males would rate larger figures highly. The results are considered in light of related research in this area.

Adding Meaning to a Design Copy Task Through Representational Stimuli

Occupational therapists frequently use their knowledge of occupation to add meaning and purpose to therapeutic tasks. This study investigated the effects of an attempt to add meaning to a particular occupational situation--a design copy task. Added meaning was given to the design copy task through the use of stimulus figures that were representational of familiar objects--an arrow, a house, and a face. The control condition consisted of three nonrepresentational figures composed of the same geometric shapes, in the same locations on the paper as the representational figures, but combined differently. The order of presentation was controlled for. The study used 30 elderly subjects (22 women and 8 men) from six nursing homes. The accuracy of the drawings was measured by a blind rater using graph overlays and predetermined rules of scoring. A two-way analysis of variance with one repeated measure (Order X Type of Figure) indicated significant differences at the .01 level between the representational and nonrepresentational figures. This study demonstrates how added meaning can enhance performance on a visuomotor task in a vulnerable population.

Changes in infants' visual scanning across the 2- to 14-week age period

The characteristics of visual scanning over the 2- to 14-week age period were examined through repeated assessments conducted on a sample of 10 infants. Scanning patterns were measured using a bright-pupil corneal reflex system, and the stimuli consisted of various sets of static, moving, or flickering geometric figures. There appear to be a number of age-related changes in the dominant mode of visual scanning. At the youngest ages the infants' scanning often proved unrelated to the locations of the stimulus contours, and in instances where a stimulus figure was in fact attended the infants typically centered their regard on a single prominent feature. In contrast, as the infants grew older they more consistently directed their saccades toward stimulus contours, became increasingly disposed to scan between different stimulus features, and directed their saccades with increased accuracy. When a stimulus was flickering, however, the infants' scanning characteristics reverted to those typically found at younger ages. The mechanisms which might account for the effects of age and of stimulus quality on visual scanning are considered.

The accurate calibration of infants' scanning records

The visual scanning characteristics of 10 infants were assessed repeatedly over the 2- to 14-week age period, using a bright-pupil/corneal reflection technique. The present report focuses on the calibration process—a procedure by which stimulus figures are mapped onto the raw scanning data. It is concluded that the major calibration parameters vary significantly among infants, and therefore separate calibration data must be collected on each infant if errors on the order of several degrees of visual angle are to be avoided. Moreover, it was found that infants' saccades often are not directed accurately toward the attracting stimulus, and hence repeated calibration trials are required for the precise determination of parameter values. After about 6 weeks of age, the parameter values established for a given infant remained largely invariant. During the initial weeks of life, however, parameter values occasionally changed, apparently because very young infants sometimes will center the image of an attracting stimulus about some extrafoveal location. This raises an additional complexity when interpreting the scanning records of very young infants.

Sex differences in the perception of male and female body shapes

This study set out to compare the evaluation on 16 dimensions of male and female subjects to detailed anatomical drawings of male and female stimulus figures. One hundred and thirty subjects rated 12 male and 12 female figures on 16 bipolar scales. The drawings represented figures on a range from extremely obese to extremely anorexic. Multivariate and univariate analyses yielded numerous subject sex and stimulus figure sex differences but no interactions. There was more agreement over the attractiveness of extremely thin or fat figures than moderate figures, particularly those slightly heavier than the average. Male figures were not considered as unattractive as female figures if slightly to moderately overweight (i.e. Figs 7, 8 and 9 on a 12 point scale) but there was general agreement about the unattractiveness of grossly obese figures. The results are discussed in terms of other studies in the field.

漢字，仮名，図形の符号化過程

This experiment tested subjects' memory for verbal (Kanji and Kana) and figural displays by using a reaction time procedure. There were three conditions: stimulus (figure, Kanji, Kana), configuration (1-dimension, 2-dimensions), and type (identity, transformed, different). After a 2-dimensional array of three stimulus components was presented as an original stimulus, subjects were presented with one of six (2 configurations×3 types) comparison arrays. Subject's task was to verify that the comparison array contained the same elements as the original stimulus. The factor of the configuration had a significant effect on RTs for the figural stimulus, but not for the verbal stimulus. The transformed array had significant effects for both figural and verbal stimuli except for the figural stimulus in 1-dimension condition. There was no difference between Kanji and Kana in all of the conditions. The results demonstrated that short-term verbal representations are both sequentially and spatially constrained, and that representations of figures preserve the spatial relationships of components and are not so constrained by sequential ordering. The data are discussed in terms of a dual-coding model.

Sex-role Differences in Appropriate Multiple-role Attire

As an individual interacts in a number of roles with contradictory expectations, role strain may occur. Appearance may assistfunctioning in multiple sex-roles. Students (n=1113) in introductory Psychology classes viewed slides of a hypothetical dual-career couple and made Likert-type ratings of their attire, for six situations. Four treatments, established by varying information presented with the slides, were subjected to nonparametric univariate and multivariate analyses. Hypothesis I, differences in appearance evaluations will not occur as a function of sex of individuals in diverse settings, was rejected. Hypothesis II, differences in appearance evaluations will not occur as a function of sex of evaluator, was (1) essentially accepted when treatments were pooled and evaluations were of stimulus figures of the same sex as evaluator, (2) rejected when treatments were separated, and (3) rejected when evaluations were of stimulus figures of the opposite sex as evaluator with treatments pooled and separated The findings suggest that appearance and situation interact, but how they interact differs according to sex of actor and sex of evaluator.

Réponses verbales et motrices à des mots et à des dessins

Summary : Verbal and motor response times to words and pictures. The fact that it takes longer to name a picture than to read a word is now a standard resuit in experimental psychology. This study compared the pattern of picture versus word processing with verbal responses and motor responses to simple geometric figures and the equivalent words at various stimulus presentation times. The pattern of effects with motor responses was the opposite of that with verbal responses, motor reaction times being longer to the words than to the figures at all presentation times. We conclude that when a motor response is required to a word, the subject must translate a phonetic code into a semanticfspatial code in order to match the word with the corresponding response key. The figure stimuli are automatically given a semantic code and do not therefore require a supplementary processing stage to give a motor response. However, if a verbal response is required, the semantic code attributed to the figure stimuli must be translated into a phonetic code thus entailing a supplementary processing stage compared to the word stimuli which are automatically attributed a phonetic code. Key words : picture-word perception, motor response.

Memory for temporal order and frequency of occurrence in detoxified alcoholics

The ability to retain temporal order (recency) and event frequency information was assessed in long-term alcoholics and in nonalcoholic control subjects. On the temporal recency task, the alcoholics were impaired when they were asked unexpectedly to judge how recently these stimuli had been presented. When subjects were aware that they would eventually be asked to make decisions about temporal order, the alcoholics evidenced significant difficulties only for the figural stimuli. On the task requiring judgements about the frequency of events, alcoholics demonstrated significant deficits only when they had to make unexpected judgements about figural stimuli. The implications of these findings for the neurological basis of alcoholics' cognitive deficits are discussed.

Two extensions of the anchor-range effect.

A stimulus from one category increased the rated similarity of two stimuli from another category. In addition, “different” responses, but not “same” responses, to same-category stimuli became slower when they occurred in blocks of trials with a stimulus from a second category. Another experiment employed figural stimuli in which two small disks and a large or very large (extreme) disk were simultaneously present. The extreme disk led to slower “different” and faster “same” responses to the two small disks. Slow “different” and fast “same” responses may indicate high perceived similarity. Consequently, both the second-category stimulus and the extreme disk, although logically irrelevant, may have increased the perceived similarity of more related stimuli. It is concluded that the second-category stimuli and the extreme disk functioned as conventional anchors. The results also call into question memorial and criterial variance theories and support category-superordinate and distance-density theories of the anchor-range effect.

Visual discrimination learning with variable irrelevant cues in autistic children.

Ten autistic children and 10 normal nursery school children, matched for mean developmental age of 4 years 9 months, were presented with figure stimuli that had variable irrelevant cues in two-choice simultaneous discrimination learning. The first condition was a control condition in which an irrelevant cue was held constant throughout the experiment. The second condition had an irrelevant cue varied between trials. The third condition varied irrelevant cues both within and between trials. The autistic group showed roughly equivalent performances in the three conditions except that the performance tended to be higher in the second than in the third condition. The normal group, on the other hand, showed the best performance in the first control condition and the poorest performance in the third condition. In the present experiment, the performance of the autistic group did not vary as a function of irrelevant variability. It was suggested that this result was due to the poor performance of the first control condition and was discussed in terms of ability of stimulus compounding of autistic children.

Eye movement analysis of information processing under different testing conditions

The study reported herein was designed to use eye movement data, collected during solution of complex figural analogies, to test the premise that enhanced feedback mechanisms and opportunities for dual coding of figural stimulus information result in the allocation of an increased percentage of information-processing resources to rule application activities. Subjects were given items from the Advanced Progressive Matrices under elaborated feedback, subject verbalization, or standard procedures. Results indicate that elaborative testing conditions, involving elaborated feedback or subject verbalization, enhance the rule-governed nature of information processing during inductive reasoning by augmenting feedback and dual coding.

Impact of cross-cultural training on black and white mental health professionals

In a 3-year period, 174 mental health professionals received intensive 8-day cross-cultural/interracial communication workshops involving didactic, transactional, experiential, and cultural immersion techniques. Comprehensive evaluation strategies investigated changes in social distance, attitudes, and values comprehension, as well as improvement in therapeutic performance. Comparison of 68 white and 54 black clinical practitioners indicated significant differences in impact, with the former more oriented toward cognitive and attitudinal change, and the latter toward insight into personal identity and role conflict. Among white trainees, increased values comprehension, increased agreement with preferential treatment for minorities, and decreased social distance to tri-ethnic (black, Hispanic, white) stimulus figures at three socioeconomic status (SES) levels, were associated with improved therapeutic skills with a poor black client. Among black trainees, self-distancing responses to social, attitudinal, and values items which implied both acknowledgment and rejection of “black professional” identity, were associated with highly significant improvement in therapeutic performance with a poor black client. In addition to demonstrated efficacy in building knowledge and skill, cross-cultural training appears to be a consciousness-raising process for minority professionals conflicted about culture-abandonment and irrelevancies in clinical training.

Signal detection in a noisy background figure through a limited visual field.

Abstract Pattern perception and eye movement as a function of limited size of effective visual field were examined using noisy background figures. The construction of a stimulus figure and data processing were done by a microcomputer system. The figure exposed to subjects was a random dot pattern with uniform dot density except in one part which had a different dot density. Subjects observed the figure on a CRT by sampling the desired part of a limited area by means of a joystick and video mixing system. The figure was expressed quantitatively by the ratio of dot densities between the two parts, defined as the contrast of the figure. The higher the contrast the shorter the time to correctly find the different part of the figure. Time was correlated with restricted size of effective visual field. Minimum contrast of the figure just noticeable by subjects was not related to visible window size. Both frequency of saccadic eye movement and averaged single saccadic size were closely related to window size. Resultant total saccadic movements in a task were almost constant no matter what the size of window.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN NAME STEREOTYPES ON THE MARKING OF CHILDREN'S ESSAYS

Summary. It is argued that previous name stereotype research has been one‐sided in focusing solely on stimulus characteristics. This study attempted to improve this situation by taking into account the christian name stereotype of both the subject and stimulus figure. Subjects marked six essays each supposedly written by a different stimulus figure. A 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 ANOVA (male vs. female subjects × attractively named vs. unattractively named subjects × male vs. female stimulus figures × attractively named vs. unattractively named vs. unnamed stimulus figures) showed only two significant effects, for attractiveness of the subject's name (P = 0.031) and for attractiveness of the name of the stimulus figure (P = 0.005). This latter effect showed a significant linear trend (P < 0.005) with unattractively named stimulus figures receiving lower marks than unnamed stimulus figures who in turn received lower marks than attractively named stimulus figures. The results were related to the general literature on social relationships and the need for further integrative research was stressed.

Limitations in equivalence of alternate subtests for Russell's Revision of the Wechsler Memory Scale: causes and solutions.

Reasons for limited equivalence of Form II of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-II) Figural Memory Subtest as an alternate form for the Russell's Revision of the Wechsler Memory Scale (RWMS) Figural Memory Subtest were investigated. Thirty college students rated figural stimuli from RWMS and WMS-II on dimensions related to memory. Raters judged figural stimuli from RWMS to be less memorable, more complex, and more difficult to label verbally. Forms can be made more equivalent by either changes in scoring or the interchanging of stimuli across forms.

Effect of memory set size on visual evoked potential for digit and figure stimuli

Visual evoked potential and reaction time (RT) were recorded during the performance of memory retrieval task of Sternberg’s paradigm. Ten subjects received a series of memory set of 1, 3, 5, and 7 digits, and another 10 subjects received memory sets 1, 3, 5, and 7 figures. EEGs were recorded from Cz to obtain visual evoked potentials to the test stimuli. P300 and RT latencies increased linearly with increasing memory set size, but the slope for P300 was less than that for RT. The differences between the P300 slope and the RT slope were larger for the figure condition, which was more difficult than the digit condition due to the increasing difficulty of sequential pattern matching in memory.

A correlational analysis of symmetry between the arrowhead and featherhead Müller-Lyer illusions.

Correlational methods were used to investigate symmetry of effect for the arrowhead and featherhead versions of the Müller-Lyer figure. Two control figures were compared in the determination of baseline levels for measurement of the illusions: a shaft presented without any inducing context, and a shaft with vertical inducing lines attached. In addition, results based on difference-score measures of the illusions were contrasted with results obtained by partial-correlation techniques. Overall, when one considers the results for either one of the arrowhead or featherhead versions, the evidence favours a common underlying mechanism. However, results across the two versions suggest that the mechanisms for the two versions differ fundamentally. In weighting the different kinds of evidence contributing to this conclusion, methodological issues were raised. By obtaining two judgments for each stimulus figure from a large number of subjects, it was possible to demonstrate not only that conventional difference-score measures of illusions are highly unreliable, but also that they can yield biased results.

Attitudes Toward Women in Menopause

The attitudes of women (1) toward a woman in menopause, (2) comparable male and non-menopausal female stimulus figures, (3) and themselves were compared using a vignette approach. Vignettes depicting a middle-aged female and a middle-aged male were presented to 152 women between the ages of 18 and 55. The women were asked to rate the vignette subjects on a semantic differential. Approximately half of the women received a vignette of a woman who was identified as being menopausal, and half received the identical vignette without the menopausal condition. Participants then completed a semantic differential rating of themselves and the Tennessee Self Concept Scale (TSCS). There was no difference in the semantic differential ratings of the menopausal vs. the nonmenopausal vignette characters, nor in the male vs. the female characters. Although the participants ranked themselves higher than both the female and male characters, there was no difference in the ratings of the vignettes or the self by women with lower vs. higher self-esteem.