Post-experiment Interviews Research Articles

Attentional style in ratings of perceived exertion during physical exercise.

This study assessed the effects of associative and dissociative psychological strategies of attention on heart rate and self-report ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) during cycling performance. Seven trained cyclists performed a control ride, a dissociation ride, and an association ride on a bicycle ergometer at a work rate corresponding to 75% of their maximal heart rate. For the dissociation ride, subjects watched a videotape unrelated to cycling and responded to a key word each time it occurred on tape. For the association ride, subjects focused attention on heart-rate feedback available throughout the ride. During the control ride, attentional focus was not intentionally manipulated. Analysis indicated that the deliberate application of an attentional strategy did not significantly affect heart rate or RPE scores; however, the dissociation condition yielded somewhat higher RPE scores. From a postexperimental interview, four subjects responded that the association ride was the easier to complete, while three subjects responded the control ride was the easier one, matching a possible trend in the data.

ATTENTIONAL STYLE IN RATINGS OF PERCEIVED EXERTION DURING PHYSICAL EXERCISE

This study assessed the effects of associative and dissociative psychological strategies of attention on heart rate and self-report ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) during cycling performance. Seven trained cyclists performed a control ride, a dissociation ride, and an association ride on a bicycle ergometer at a work rate corresponding to 75% of their maximal heart rate. For the dissociation ride, subjects watched a videotape unrelated to cycling and responded to a key word each time it occurred on tape. For the association ride, subjects focused attention on heart-rate feedback available throughout the ride. During the control ride, attentional focus was not intentionally manipulated. Analysis indicated that the deliberate application of an attentional strategy did not significantly affect heart rate or RPE scores; however, the dissociation condition yielded somewhat higher RPE scores. From a postexperimental interview, four subjects responded that the association ride was the easier to complete, while three subjects responded the control ride was the easier one, matching a possible trend in the data.

Blocking Observed in Human Instrumental Conditioning

In animal research, blocking of instrumental responding is a well-known phenomenon, whereas no study has been reported that investigated blocking in human instrumental conditioning. Following the standard method used in nonhuman subjects, 48 students randomly assigned to one of three groups were exposed to a variable interval schedule (VI 10 s) in which reinforcement was delivered with a brief delay (500 ms). In the blocking condition, subjects experienced a tone stimulus during the delay (correlated group). In the two control conditions, subjects received either no tone (no-tone group) or the same number of tones as subjects of the correlated group, but the tones were independent of their behavior and reward (random group). As expected, instrumental responding was significantly lower in the correlated group than in either the no-tone or the random group. In a subsequent extinction phase, no difference in resistance was observed. A postexperimental interview revealed that subjects of the correlated group were more likely to detect the temporal nature of the reinforcement schedule than subjects of the other groups, but there was no relation to response rate. The data provide only little support for a notion of signal-induced enhanced learning, but do not challenge an interpretation in terms of associative competition between the response and the signal.

TEMPORAL DIFFERENTIATION OF RESPONSE DURATION IN CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT AGES: DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES IN RELATIONS BETWEEN VERBAL AND NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR

Children aged 4.5, 7, or 11 years received an experimental session in which a contingency was placed on button-press duration. Each discrete trial was followed by a brief verbal probe asking a question about the contingency requirement. Other groups of children received an identical task followed by a postexperimental interview. Level of adaptation to the duration contingency tended to increase with age in subjects receiving posttrial verbal probes, but not for those who were interviewed. Eleven-year-olds in the verbal probe condition showed a strong correlation between accurate temporal differentiation and number of verbalizations relating to response duration or timing. The younger subjects, with one exception, showed no association between timing-related verbalizations (which were almost totally absent) and response duration differentiation. This developmental difference occurred even though the younger subjects verbalized after almost every trial. The results suggest that although 11-year-old children apparently produce rule-governed behavior under verbal control as adults do, the behavior of younger children may be controlled directly by reinforcement contingencies even when their verbal repertoires are highly developed.

Evaluation of Asw Tactical Symbology

Twelve experienced tactical crew members served as subjects in a study which compared three synonymous sets of tactical contact symbols under conditions of color/monochrome and high/low density. Time and accuracy data of responses to stimulus displays were collected and analyzed, and subjective findings were obtained through post-experiment questionnaires and interviews. The National Tactical Data System symbology produced significantly better results than the two other symbologies, and was favored most by subjects. This presentation describes the study and offers an explanation of the results based on Anne Triesman's findings of preattentive visual processing.

Evaluating Information in Ill-Structured Decision Environments

The issue of evaluating information in an ill-structured decision environment is examined by comparing four alternative methods. Two are derived from the cognitive maps of the decision-makers: one is based on the intrinsic variety of the factor being evaluated, and the other on the number of links in the cognitive map that are affected by the factor's removal. The other two involve Likert scale and rank-ordering questions to measure the value of the factor directly. The four methods were tested using 10 district claim managers of an insurance company. The task involved evaluating the performance of their subordinates. The results were inconclusive, as no one measure clearly dominated the others. However, analyses of post-experiment interviews suggest that the decision-makers' evaluation of the information content of the relevant factors was inversely related to the ease with which they could infer the state (value) of a factor.

Sensitivity to nonverbal cues as a function of social competence

The hypothesis that sensitivity to nonverbal messages is an important component of social compentence was tested employing 24 female subjects. It was predicted that subjects low in social competence would experience a high level of anxiety in a social interaction and that this would interfere with their ability to attend to the nonverbal behaviors of others. Subjects were given the task of interviewing a confederate. They were instructed to change the interview topic if the questioning appeared to produce discomfort in their partner. The confederate displayed a series of nonverbal cues indicating mounting tension while responding to certain questions. Two measures of sensitivity to the cues were obtained: (1) how quickly the subject changed the interview topic in response to the cues and (2) how many nonverbal cues the subject reported observing. The findings indicated that low-competence subjects reported having observed as many of the nonverbal messages as the high-competence subjects but failed to respond to them. An explanation for this is offered based on information gathered during a postexperimental interview. No difference was found between groups for level of anxiety experienced during the interaction. This is discussed in terms of the experimental design employed, which may have served to reduce anxiety in the subjects.

The Development of Equity and Logico-Mathematical Thinking

The Development of Equity and Logico-Mathematical Thinking

Sharing Behavior in First- and Fifth-Graders: Effects of Recipient Generosity and ActualVersusHypothetical Sharing

Summary Half of 64 first-graders (32M and 32F) and half of 64 fifth-graders (32M and 32F) were asked to pretend to share from 50 pennies with a person described as selfish or unselfish (hypothetical sharing). The other half of the Ss in each age group actually earned 50 pennies in a letter-sorting task and then shared their earnings with a hypothetical recipient (actual sharing). One week later, the Ss under the hypothetical condition also actually earned 50 pennies and in like manner were asked to share from their earnings. All main effects among hypothetical and the two forms of actual sharing were nonsignificant. Larger donations were made to the unselfish recipient by both age groups, and the fifth-graders made larger donations than the first-graders (p < .01). In a postexperimental interview the fifth-graders were asked to state the amount significant others (father, mother, best friend, teacher, and classmates) would have expected them to share. The expectations of best friend were closest to the amount the Ss shared.

The Effects of crowding on the behavior and perception of 10-year-old boys

The present study integrated observational and self-report methods to investigate the effects of low and high spatial density on 10-year-old boys in an experimental setting. The differential effects of density on acquaintances versus strangers and on close versus far personal-space boys were analyzed. From a factor analysis of variables that were either rated during a free-play session or were scored responses from a postexperimental interview, five factors emerged: (1)Discomfort and Dislike of Room; (2)Active Play, (3)Avoidance, (4)Positive Group Interactions, and (5)Anger and Aggression.

Cardiac deceleration as an indicator of correct performance.

A within-subjects experiment involving 10 subjects was performed to examine the relationship between the accuracy of judgment of position and cardiac deceleration. The results supported the hypothesis that accurate (correct) performance is accompanied by greater cardiac deceleration than inaccurate performance for those subjects (9 out of 10) who exhibited cardiac deceleration to stimulus onset. The data indicated, however, that the relationship varied with time. Part of this variability appears related to the initial exploratory behavior in which subjects engaged and later reported during the post-experiment interview.

The role of awareness in the operant conditioning of eye blinks

The present study is concerned with the problem of awareness in the operant conditioning of a nonverbal behavior, eye blinks. Using a within-subjects design, 14 subjects’ blink rates were counted and compared for four periods of 4 min each. The experimenter and the subject carried on an informal conversation during both base and reinforcement periods, but during reinforcement periods only, a light flashed on immediately after each of the subject’s blinks. The test for awareness consisted of brief questioning after reinforcement periods and a more extensive postexperimental interview. Only data for the eight unaware subjects were used in statistical analysis. A two-factor analysis of variance showed no evidence of conditioning without awareness; in fact, the blink rate for reinforcement periods was significantly less than the rate for base periods (p <.05). The anomaly was explained in terms of the effects of cognitive activity on eye-blink rate.

概念条件づけにおける認知的制御機能に及ぼす学習段階の意識性の効果

Elementary school children were used to examine the effect of awareness of learning steps on performance gains by using concept conditioning task. On the basis of a post-experimental interview, Ss were classified into groups depending upon whether they had acquired a superordinate concept (Superordinate Group), they had acquired a subordinate concept (Subordinate Group), they were aware of the contingency only (Association Group), or they were unaware of the contingency (No Awareness Group). Major results were: (a) Successful conditioning occurred only in Superordinate and Subordinate Groups. (b) The order of performance increase from the last block of pre-awareness trials to the post-awareness block was firstly superordinate, secondly Subordinate, and finally Association Groups. (c) Responses which were given no or one reinforcement on the pre-awareness blocks frequently occurred on subsequent trials in only Superordinate and Subordinate Groups. These results were discussed in terms of cognitive control.

The "social deprivation-satiation effect": An outcome of frequency or perceived contingency?

Evaluated the contributions of frequency and contingency of reinforcement to the deprivation-satiation phenomenon. 72 3rd and 4th graders heard the word good either twice (deprivation) or 16 (satiation) times either contingently upon some action on their part, contingently upon some action of the E's, or noncontingently (at random). This was followed by a discrimination test under continuous reinforcement with the word good. All Ss showed high performance except the group exposed to the high frequency of noncontingent reinforcement. A postexperimental interview revealed that all groups except the high-frequency noncontingent group had interpreted the E's approval words as having been contingent on their behavior during treatment. Results support E. Y. Babad's (1972) thesis that the perceived contingency of reinforcement is a more powerful determinant of its subsequent reinforcement effectiveness than is its frequency per se. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

'Vexierversuch' Revisited: A Reexamination of Goldiamond and Hawkins' Experiment

Goldiamond and Hawkins' experiment was repeated with the dual-modality design of Postman and Rosenzweig. A postexperimental interview assessed the subjects' perceptions of and reactions to the task. Goldiamond and Hawkins' results were replicated and extended to auditory training and test conditions, but the results of the postexperimental interview call into question the relevance of this type of study to the debate about the source of the standard word-frequency effect. The effect of word frequency on recognition thresholds has been repeatedly demonstrated. The initial report of the word-frequency effect (Howes and Solomon, 1951) used naturally occurring English words. Solomon and Postman soon (1952) developed an experimental technique involving pretraining with artificial (nonsense) words, in an attempt to better control the frequency of the subject's experience with the experimental material, and since then most studies on the word-frequency effect have used the Solomon and Postman paradigm or a variation of it. The classic study of Goldiamond and Hawkins (1958) indicated the possible contributions of the response system ('response bias') to the wordfrequency effect in the Solomon and Postman design. In a training session, these investigators exposed their subjects to nonsense words at varying frequencies. The subjects then underwent a recognition session in which they were to respond to words flashed subliminally on a screen. In a procedure mimicking the ascending method of limits, subjects guessed until they emitted the word the experimenter considered 'correct.' In point of fact, all trials were blank. No stimulus words were ever presented. 'Accuracy' was defined as a subject's response matching the entry on the experimenter's score sheet. The familiar logarithmic function relating frequency of prior exposure to recognition threshold emerged from the data - a finding that cannot be attributed to perception, since nothing relevant could have been perceived - and hence we must assume that the training session set up a response bias that led to the observed relationship.

The Influence of Organizational Factors of Victim Store on Willingness to Report a Shoplifting Incident: A Field Experiment

This research reports on investigation of a number of factors thought to affect the willingness of store customers to report a shoplifting incident. The basis for the data consists of a natural field experiment in which shoplifting incidents were staged or rigged in the presence of store customers who were in a position to observe and react to the shoplifting. Incidents were conducted in three different stores that had been selected on an a priori basis to represent varying degrees of size and bureaucratization. In addition to the observational data yielded by the field experiment,1 interview data were collected in two phases: (1) via a post-experimental interview accompanying the field experiment and (2) via a follow-up home interview of experimental subjects. Together, these sets of data provided information about the attitudes and perceptions of subjects toward store personnel and the victim store itself.

Effects on pain of experimentally induced and spontaneous distraction.

A 2-min. pain stimulus was administered twice to 56 female Ss. The stimulus was first administered prior to the experimental treatments and again with either 1 or 3 distracting treatments (Listening to a Story, Adding Aloud, or Counting Aloud) or a Control treatment. The dependent variables were Ss' self-ratings of the degree of pain experienced and the percentage of time they were thinking about the pain. 16 Ss were also interviewed post-experimentally to determine their perceptions of the experiment. During the first, but not the second, minute of pain stimulation under the experimental treatments, Listening to a Story and Adding Aloud tended to reduce the degree of pain and the percentage of time Ss were thinking about it. The post-experimental interview indicated that, during the pre-treatment pain stimulation and also under the Control treatment, Ss used their own “spontaneous” distractions to reduce pain.

Individual differences in verbal conditioning, extinction, and awareness.

Summary The present study examined the relationship of three individual difference variables—need for approval, a belief in internal versus external control of reinforcement, and verbal intelligence— to acquisition, extinction, and awareness in a verbal conditioning task Based on a postexperiment interview and recognition task, subjects were grouped according to their awareness of the response-reinforcement contingencies and the degree to which they admitted influence by the experimenter Approval motivated subjects were more likely to acquire the reinforced response regardless of awareness levels than were low need for approval subjects. Subjects assessed as internal were more likely to deny influence by the experimenter and in some instances were more resistant to extinction than subjects called external Subjects higher in verbal intelligence evidenced more awareness than subjects with lower intelligence scores Results suggest that the inclusion of individual difference variable is of crucial importance to a clear understanding of the experimenter-subject interaction in the verbal conditioning situation Implications for the other dyadic interactions, particularly psychotherapy, were discussed

The effect of awareness on three-stage mediated association

In order to evaluate the effect of Ss' “awareness” on three-stage mediated paired-associate learning, two experiments were conducted in which a chaining paradigm, A-B, B-C, A-C, was compared with a baseline condition of A-B, D-C, A-C. The Ss' awareness was induced by instructions as to the composition of the three lists prior to learning the A-C list. Thus, two variables were manipulated, both of them having two levels: mediation vs. control paradigm and instructions vs. no instruction. Seventy-two Ss were assigned to the four treatment conditions for Exp. 1 and 120 Ss to the four for Exp. 2, the former being essentially replicated in Exp. 2. Performance data indicate that Ss' awareness facilitated mediated associations. Furthermore, postexperimental interview data show that the uninstructed Ss who became spontaneously aware of mediators learned the A-C test list faster than others in the uninstructed group and performed at least as well as the instructed Ss. The findings were essentially consistent across the two experiments, which are interpreted as indicating that the mediational paradigm and Ss' awareness of mediators are additive in facilitating the acquisition of the A-C list and that the magnitude of the facilitative effect is closely linked with the Ss' degree of awareness of the relationships between the A-B, B-C, and A-C lists.

The effects of verbal reinforcement combination on the performance of a four-alternative discrimination task

Groups of medical patients from a Veterans Administration Hospital uninformed about the reinforcement procedures were given a 4-alternative verbal discrimination task under a Right- blank or Wrong- blank reinforcement condition. Although responses to a post-experimental interview suggested that a majority of the Right- blank S s misinterpreted the information value of blank , treating it as though it sometimes or always meant “Right”, their performance was significantly superior ( p blank group, in opposition to the results of prior studies employing problem-solving or 2-alternative discrimination tasks. In a replication of the experiment with college students, a number of Right- blank S s exhibited a similar but weaker tendency to treat blank as “Right,” However, no significant differences in performance related to reinforcement condition were found. Hypotheses concerning differences in S s' approach to discrimination tasks with two and more than two alternatives as related to S s' intellectual ability were discussed.