Subjective measures: not perfect but what is?
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Ergonomics↗
Biomedical subjects
F P McKenna
Publications and source records attributed to F P McKenna.
Skilled anticipation in real-world tasks: measurement of attentional demands in the domain of tennis.
Anticipatory skills are characteristic of expert performance in a range of dynamic domains. However, models of the processes underlying such skilled anticipation remain limited. This study describes the construction and validation of a video-based test of anticipation in tennis and examined whether video test performance is less attentionally demanding for expert tennis players than for novices. Expert players performed the anticipation test more effectively than novices and were less vulnerable to dual-task decrement. This article discusses these findings in relation to models of skilled anticipation. The video test could be used for both selection and identification of training needs.
Adolescent↗
The role of time pressure on the emotional stroop task.
Although a wide range of methodologies have been employed in examining the emotional Stroop effect, little systematic investigation of these experimental manipulations has taken place. Two experiments were designed to investigate the role of time pressure in the emotional Stroop effect. It is shown that time pressure has an important role to play in determining not only the magnitude of the effect but also in whether it is possible to observe any effect at all.
Color↗
Dual displays.
The study examined whether the simultaneous presentation of different map displays can aid situational awareness in spatial tasks relying on ego-centred and world-centred reference frames. Two commonly used aircraft displays, track-up and north-up maps, were compared with a dual aircraft display consisting of both track-up and north-up maps. Participants took part in two tasks: one relied on an ego-centred reference frame (ERF) and the other on a world-centred reference frame (WRF). The ERF task involved left/right judgements with respect to the aircraft's current heading while in the WRF task participants were asked to identify the compass heading associated with a landmark. A moderate amount of training resulted in a significant improvement with the dual maps in both the WRF task (relative to track-up maps) and the ERF task (relative to north-up maps). The findings are discussed with reference to how attention is allocated to visual displays.
Adolescent↗
Hierarchical knowledge influences stimulus-response compatibility effects.
The influence of spatial stimulus grouping on stimulus-response compatibility effects was investigated in three experiments. Stimuli were grouped as part of a superordinate unit BY (1) perceptually organizing them (Experiment 1), (2) organizing them on the basis of semantic links (Experiment 2), or (3) arbitrary links (Experiment 3). In some instances the arrangement of the stimuli resulted in a conflict between two types of spatial relationship: one between stimulus and response and the other between superordinate unit and response. The experiments indicated that it was the latter relationship that mainly determined performance in the experiments. Reaction time analyses showed that responses were fastest if they spatially corresponded to the relative location of the superordinate unit of which the stimulus was part. The results are discussed with reference to hierarchical accounts of coding stimulus information.
Adult↗
The development, validation, and application of a video-based technique for measuring an everyday risk-taking behavior: drivers' speed choice.
Drivers' choice of speed is an important aspect of everyday risk-taking behavior because it has been shown to be one of the most important predictors of road accident involvement. This research developed, validated, and applied a measure of drivers' speed choice that combined a high degree of experimental control with external and ecological validity. In Study 1, a video-simulation measure of drivers' speed choice was developed and found to relate specifically to speed-related accident involvement, implying a degree of external validity. In Study 2, the measure was used to investigate the effect of auditory feedback on drivers' speed choice. It was found that increasing the level of internal car noise decreased drivers' preferred speeds. Further analyses indicated that this was likely due to perceptual effects on speed estimation. Results are discussed in terms of road safety and the ability of video-based measures to facilitate experimental control over tasks involving complex ecological stimuli.
Acceleration↗
Mental imagery yields stimulus-response compatibility.
The present paper provides evidence for stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility effects in visual mental images. In two experiments subjects either studied a simple map (Experiment 1) or read a verbal description of the same map (Experiment 2), and then responded after generating a mental image of the presented information. Responses were made in a crossed-hand and in an uncrossed-hand manner, and the S-R arrangements were compatible and incompatible. In both experiments response latencies were found to be faster for compatible than for incompatible S-R mappings, and the crossed-hand condition resulted in increased response latencies relative to the uncrossed-hand condition. The findings are discussed with respect to the processing mechanisms involved in imagery and perception.
Adolescent↗
Differential components of the manual and vocal Stroop tasks.
In this study, four components of the Stroop effect were examined for manual word and vocal responses. The components were lexical, semantic relatedness, semantic relevance, and response set membership. The results showed that all four components were present in the vocal response task. However, in the manual word response task, the only component that produced significant interference on its own was response set membership. These results do not support predictions made by recent translation models (see W. R. Glaser & M. O. Glaser [1989] and Sugg & McDonald [1994]). A possible solution was suggested that located two sites for Stroop interference. The lexical, semantic relatedness, and semantic relevance effects were located in the lexical system, whereas the response set membership effect was located at a response selection stage.
Analysis of Variance↗
Illusory self-assessments--can they be reduced?
Research indicates that people have a high estimate of their personal ability and assess their vulnerability to personal risk as less than their peers. Even though these judgments have been found to be resistant to change, previous research suggests that making individuals accountable for their judgments may prevent certain illusory self-assessments developing. Two studies investigated whether accountability modifies estimates of personal ability and vulnerability. Results indicated that making participants more accountable for their judgments significantly reduces positive self-assessments. There was also some suggestion that the extent of the accountability effect is proportional to the magnitude of the accountability manipulation.
Adolescent↗
A speech rate measure of laboratory induced affect: the role of demand characteristics revisited.
The study examined the effects of mood shift on a behavioural measure to investigate an ongoing question in the mood induction literature: Whether changes in performance following laboratory based mood induction procedures reflect genuine changes in affective state, or whether such changes can be generally attributed to the demand characteristics of the experimental situation. Prior to mood induction 40 subjects were assessed on self-spaced and maximal performance articulation tasks. Following mood induction articulation rates were again recorded. It was hypothesized that while there is considerable scope for experimental demands to influence self-paced tasks, by contrast maximal performance tasks should either reduce or eliminate demand characteristics. The results indicated that maximal articulation rate was sensitive to mood induction in that performance was retarded by the depressogenic procedure and accelerated by the elation-inducing procedure. Additionally, within-subject changes in speech rates correlated with conventional self-report measures of affective state. Interestingly, the speeded task appeared more sensitive to the mood manipulation than the self-paced task where demand characteristics had been expected to exert their greatest effect. It is concluded that these results corroborate the view that laboratory based induction procedures do promote true affective change and indicate that the speeded articulation task constitutes an effective indicator of that change.
Adult↗
Habituation patterns to colour naming of eating-related stimuli in anorexics and non-clinical controls.
The current study was an investigation into intra-session changes in the pattern of Stroop colour-naming impairments with body shape-related words and food-related words. The subject pool comprised anorexic women and a control group of non-clinically disordered women. The results indicated that anorexic women show greater colour-naming decrements that non-disordered controls for both types of eating-related words. Stroop interference significantly decreased across the course of the experiment with the body-shape words for the anorexic subjects, thereby indicating habituation to the semantic content of those words. There was no comparable process of habituation observed with the food-related words.
Anorexia Nervosa↗
Developmental onset of eating related color-naming interference.
The current study was an investigation into the possible developmental aspects of the "Eating Stroop" effect, as produced by non-eating disordered subjects. The subject pool comprised male and female subjects, ranging in age from 9 to 14 years. Their task was to color-name a series of Stroop arrays, comprising food-related words, body shape-related words, and two sets of neutral matched control words. It was found that there were significant performance decrements for both food and shape-related words with the 14-year-old girls. The results indicated a possible color-naming decrement with food-related words for the 11-year-old girls, but not shape words. No color-naming decrements were found with the 9-year-old group, or the male subjects. The results are interpreted in terms of cultural pressures on women to diet to attain an "ideal" body shape and the different developmental stages at which such pressures exert themselves.
Adolescent↗
Exploring the limits of optimism: the case of smokers' decision making.
Smokers consider themselves less likely than others to contract smoking-associated diseases. This result has been interpreted as a weak form of irrationality. Alternatively, it can be interpreted as indicating that smokers show an optimism bias. The optimism explanation was examined by having smokers and non-smokers rate the likelihood of future negative events falling into three categories: (1) smoking associated, (2) health related and (3) health unrelated. Subjects rated their likelihood of the event happening to (1) themselves, (2) the average smoker and (3) the average non-smoker. Smokers and non-smokers rated their own likelihood of negative events as less than for the average smoker and the average non-smoker. But, while smokers rated their own risk as higher for both smoking-associated and other health-related problems, they rated their own risk as lower than the average smoker, a standard optimism bias.
Adolescent↗
Factors underlying illusory self-assessment of driving skill in males and females.
While it is known that drivers as a group rate their skills as better than the average, the mechanism underlying this illusion is unclear. It is possible, for example, that it is due either to a "positive-self" or "negative-other" bias. A test of these alternative hypotheses revealed that judgments are consistent with a "positive-self" bias. An attempt was made to determine whether the illusion was present in all areas of driving skill or whether there were specific components where the illusion was absent. For men, the bias was present in all the driving components examined. For women, there were several areas where they rated themselves less positively than the men, and four areas where they showed no evidence of any bias. When the effects of driving experience were statistically controlled for, however, these sex differences were found to be substantially reduced.
Adolescent↗
Cognitive abilities and safety on the road: a re-examination of individual differences in dichotic listening and search for embedded figures.
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Accident Prevention↗
Colour naming of phobia-related words.
A version of the Stroop test was developed which requires colour naming of spider words. Spider phobics were severely retarded on this task, but not on the conflicting colour-word Stroop or a Stroop with more general threat words. Desensitization of phobics significantly reduced interference on the Spider Stroop. A third experiment examined the retest properties of the Stroop and the value of equivalent forms. The explanation of the Spider Stroop effect and its usefulness as an outcome measure are discussed.
Adult↗
Modifying the gestalt factor of proximity: theories compared.
A theoretical controversy between adaptation-level (AL) theory and response-frequency-equalization (RFE) theory was examined. The stimulus presented for judgment was a matrix of dots which varied in appearance as the relative horizontal and vertical separation between the dots was altered. The matrix appeared to be columns of dots (larger horizontal separation), rows of dots (larger vertical separation), or neither row-like nor column-like (when the two separations were equal). A stimulus with an extreme row organization was presented on alternate trials and resulted in more vertical judgments. Both AL theory and RFE theory are shown to be inadequate on two counts. They both predict that the response latencies to the vertical stimuli should be affected, whereas these were unaffected. They both predict that in terms of the categorical decision, 'horizontal' or 'vertical', the responses to both horizontal and vertical stimuli should be affected. It is shown that the context effect is almost entirely on the horizontal stimuli. These results are consistent with a spatial-adaptation model.
Gestalt Theory↗
Evidence and assumptions relevant to risk homoeostasis.
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Accidents, Traffic↗