Riley W. Gardner

Field - articulation in recall

SummaryPerformance on Witkin’s Embedded Figures and Rod and Frame Tests were related to recall and recognition of two lists of words in an interference situation. The results support Gollin and Baron’s (1954) findings that speed of locating embedded figures is related to recall and recognition under these conditions. The results are discussed in terms of individual differences in the capacity to attend selectively to relevant vs. irrelevant material.

Cognitive control of differentiation in the perception of persons and objects.

Performances in tests of 4 dimensions of cognitive control that have implications for the differentiation of experience were used as bases for prediction of response to additional cognitive tests, including a Semantic Differential procedure designed to sample one aspect of differentiation in the perception of persons and objects. Factor analysis was used as a means of assessing relationships among the variables and their relationship to the sex of S. Use of husband-wife pairs as Ss provided partial control of socioeconomic status and yielded some new information concerning cognitive similarity-difference in marriage partners. The major results add to the demonstrated generality of cognitive control dimensions relevant to experiential differentiation and indicate the complexity of such differentiation with respect to persons and objects.

Organismic Equilibration Tion and the Energy-Structure Duality in Psychoanalytic Theory: An Attempt at Theoretical Refinement

ions whose interrelationships are conceived in terms of force and counterforce at the level of pairs or groups of component forces or structures. More adequate and parsimonious concepts of such fields of forces require that the theoretician view each part process from the vantage point of the totality, rather than attempt to construct a totality by postulating more and more elaborate combinations of low-order abstractions. Recent attempts in psychoanalytic writings to account for subtle qualitative differences in ideational, affective, and motoric behaviors by postulating more and more complex relationships among low-order abstractions, some of them of dubious validity, are felt to represent the perpetuation and elaboration, rather than the amelioration, of the inevitable deficiencies of initial abstractions. Recent acceptance and elabbration of abstractions stating that psychic energy is drawn from a pool or pools, is displaced, is transformed into more refined forms, and is united (i.e., bound) to structures exemplify unparsimonious approaches to explanation, as do related attempts involving concepts of transformation of structures. T h e concept of equilibration, expressed in mental functioning as facilitation-inhibition, is suggested as an effective organismic concept pitched at a higher level of abstraction-that of control. Exemplification in the present paper of the parsimony, explanatory power, and hypothesis-generating properties of this organismic concept is assumed to have metapsychological merit independent of recent confirmatory findings of neurophysiologists. Recent discoveries concerning neural functioning nevertheless allow the inference that the kind of organismic concept employed here also fits the facts of physical structure and function better than the preliminary abstractions critically examined. It is assumed that ideal explanatory principles for mental functioning are compatible with the facts of both areas. The present essay includes a critique of certain preliminary abstractions of psychoanalytic theory in a larger attempt to conceptualize ideational, affective, motoric, and related phenomena in terms of equilibration and to spell out implications for temporal and intensity relations among activations at various levels of “columns” of mental activity. This attempt has led to some new hypotheses concerning certain aspects of mental functioning.

Some old and new group tests for the study of cognitive controls and intellectual abilities.

Validity and reliability findings are presented for new group forms of Thurstones Color-Word Test and Voths Autokinetic Test. Split-half, alternate, or shortened forms were constructed of several other old and new cognitive control tests and some key intellectual ability tests to explore the reliability of chese procedures and the possibility of using shortened forms. The results suggest that important savings in testing time may be achieved in exploratory studies by using the procedures described here.

Scores for the Cognitive Control of Extensiveness of Scanning

Several recent studies (e.g., Schooler & Silverman, 1969) purporting to deal with the cognitive control called extensiveness of scanning have employed a constant error score for a size-estimation test essentially the same as that employed in earlier cognitive control studies (see, e.g., Gardner & Long, 1962b; Gardner & Moriarry, 1968). Since more direct and demonstrably superior measures of extensiveness of scanning can be obtained from this size-estimation test without the use of complex special apparatus (Gardner & Long, 1962a; Gardner & Moriarty, 1968), a special note seems warranted. As Gardner and Long have shown with adult Ss and Gardner and Moriarry have shown with children, either the mean judgment-time score or the mean number-of-looks (centrations on the standard stimulus) score provides a more adequate measure of extensiveness of scanning than the constant error score. The correlation of the constant error score with these extensiveness of scanning scores is modest (at best) and is therefore relatively unreliable (see Gardner & Long, 1962a, 1962b; Gardner & Moriarty, 1968; McKinnon & Singer, 1969). Constant error scores for such tests may also involve a number of extraneous factors, including interacting illusion effects (see Gardner & Moriarity, 1968). A requisite to optimal exploration of cognitive control variables per se is that the scores demonstrated to measure them best be employed in further studies. Since the 1962 studies by Gardner and Long referred to above, no such claim can be made for constant error scores in the size-estimation test referred to as measures of extensiveness of scanning. The persistent employment of such less-than-optimal constant error scores in studies of schizophrenic Ss may also contribute to the present confusion of results concerning the attentional and perceprual behaviors of severely disturbed persons.

The Mayman Form-Level Scoring Method: Scorer Reliability and Correlates of Form Level

Abstract A method of scoring the form level of Rorschach responses developed by Mayman (1962) was employed in a study of 100 twins and 95 of their parents. A method of training is described that led to generally adequate inter-scorer reliabilities. The relationship of mean form level to age, sex, and intellectual abilities is discussed, as are results relevant to the “heritability” of mean form level. It is concluded that mean form level is of complex determination and should be interpreted cautiously in developmental studies. It is argued that Maymans highly differentiated approach to form level has unique value for qualitative analyses of Rorschach protocols.

RELIABILITY OF GROUP-TEST SCORES FOR COGNITIVE CONTROLS AND INTELLECTUAL ABILITIES OVER A ONE-YEAR PERIOD1

Test-retest rs over a period of 1 yr. are presented for scores from group tests of cognitive controls and intellectual abilities for which validity and split-half or short-form reliability estimates were reported earlier by Gardner and Lohrenz (1969). In spite of limitations on the possible reliabilities of certain scores, the reliability estimates obtained for these time-saving group procedures suggest that they can be used effectively for most purposes.

CONTRAST REACTIVITY: SITUATIONAL AND TEMPORAL STABILITY OF COGNlTIVE CONTROL1

Findings are presented to show the situational and temporal (over 1 yr.) stability of performance in the Lines Contrast Test, a measure of a new principle of cognitive control called “Contrast Reactivity.”

COGNITIVE CONTROL IN RECALL OF SIMILAR VISUAL DESIGNS VS NONSIMILAR THEMATIC MATERIALS

3 experiments were performed to clarify the relationship of two principles of cognitive control to the recall of different types of stimulus material. Exp. I shows that there is little or no relationship between leveling-sharpening and recall of thematic material and no relationship to recall of sequentially presented, highly similar designs. Exps. II and III show that, as predicted, field-articulation or field-dependence is related to the recall of similar visual designs but not to the recall of thematic material.

Control of drawing style in the measurement of autokinesis.

The need for control of drawing size in autokinetic procedures in which S draws the apparent movement and a method of control appropriate to the problem are exemplified with data from a study of twins and their parents. It is noted that the control judgments employed are in themselves of potential interest to students of cognitive style.