Shirley Fisher

Homesickness, health and efficiency in first year students.

Abstract The investigation is concerned with the reported incidence and frequency of homesickness following an environmental transition to university in a group of 101 first year university students. Definitions provided by students indicated that homesickness is a collective term for a number of cognitive and emotional/motivational experiences primarily associated with missing home and wanting to visit it. 60% reported homesickness. Geographical distance of the move and relative lack of satisfaction with features of the psychosocial and physical environment in the new place were found to be associated with homesickness reporting. Personality and circumstantial factors such as decisional control over the move and cognitive failure levels were also associated with homesickness reporting. A two-stage risk model is proposed in which an environmental relocation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for homesickness; features of the new place combine with personality factors to precipitate the experience.

Homesickness and health in boarding school children

Abstract Three studies are reported concerning homesickness in children attending a new boarding school. Homesickness was found to be a complex cognitive/motivational/ emotional state. The first study concerned retrospective reports of 115 pupils at the end of the first year. Seventy-one per cent of the group reported having experienced homesickness during the school year. This same group also reported a higher incidence of non-traumatic ailments during the year and more days off school. Previous boarding school experience was found to have an ameliorating effect on reports of homesickness. Two further studies are described which involve a diary style of methodology. The first confirmed incidence levels of 76% and an ameliorating effect of previous boarding school experience was found. The second study devoted exclusively to homesickness reporting showed incidence levels of 71 %. Homesickness reporting generally decreased during the two-week period of the diary studies; males showed a different daily reporting patterns from females; ‘very homesick’ respondents had different daily and weekly reporting pattern from other respondents. The findings are elaborated in terms of the risk model developed by Fisher et al. (1985, J. Environ. Psychol. , 5, 181–195): a geographical move is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a homesickness experience; circumstantial and life situations act as ‘gate devices’ influencing which variables have a moderating effect.

The transition from home to boarding school: a diary-style analysis of the problems and worries of boarding school pupils

Abstract The investigation concerns the impact of the new school environment on a group of 50 male and female children aged 11–16 years, who leave home to reside temporarily at boarding school, in terms of the characteristics of problems and worries reported and the incidence of spontaneous reports of homesickness. More problems relating to the school than to the home environment were reported but proportionally more worry units were reported associated with home problems for both males and females. There was no sex differences in this respect. The reported level of spontaneously reported homesickness was 16% and there were no sex differences. Factors such as age, geographical distance of move and decision to go away to school were not influential in determining the level of reported problems or incidence of spontaneous reports of homesickness. A relationship was found with level of problems reported and recent life history but the result proved difficult to interpret.

A ‘Distraction Effect’ of Noise Bursts

The experiment was designed to investigate the effects of 2 s, 80 dB noise bursts on a five-choice serial response task, using ‘close’ analysis of data. A localised effect of noise burst onset was reported. This effect was confined to the distribution of ‘first responses’, following noise burst onset but not ‘offset’, and occurred on only a proportion of trials. Detailed analysis of the occurrence of the brief delays suggested that there was no systematic occurrence, that the information processing stage of the on-going serial response might be important, and, finally, that ‘distraction’ and not ‘paralysis’ provided a better description of the mechanism of the effect.

The Microstructure of Dual-Task Interaction. 1. The Patterning of Main-Task Responses within Secondary-Task Intervals

The patterning or microstructure of a situation where subjects were presented with two sets of information from two independent ‘high decision’ information processing tasks, was investigated. Thirty-two subjects worked at the five-choice serial-response task (designated by instructions to be the main task), whilst being presented with a transformation task which required that seven had to be added to a presented auditory digit (designated by instructions to be the secondary task). Results suggested that subjects were not able to process two streams of information in parallel, and that the way in which the attention process was ordered was partly a function of task instructions and partly a function of the random occurrence of each digit in relation to the on-going serial task. Results also gave support to the view that the locus of disruption was the production of the response to the secondary task. Explanations of this effect are considered.

The Microstructure of Dual-Task Interaction. 4. Sleep Deprivation and the Control of Attention

The experiment was designed to investigate attention-switching behaviour in sleep-deprived subjects and involved the same dual-task paradigm reported in earlier studies. The task specified by instructions to be the main task, was the five-choice serial-response task; the secondary task was an auditory-verbal digit task which occurred at random time intervals. Analysis of the intervals in which the two tasks concurred gave a different result. Sleep-deprived subjects seemed less able to control the fine structure of the interval and tended to persist in producing serial responses at the expense of the secondary-task response. The evidence supported the view that both sleep-deprived and control subjects were not able to process information in parallel and, thus, the difference in interval patterning was due to the difference in attention-switching processes. The possibility that sleep deprivation might result in loss of attentional control is considered briefly. A surprising result was that, in terms of overall response rates, the sleep-deprived group, although slower, preserved the dual-task priority structure better than the control group, who slowed on both tasks in the combined condition. The control result was different in this respect from control data from previous research, but it is important that within the sleep-deprived group there was evidence that ability to preserve the priority structure was unaffected.

The Microstructure of Dual Task Interaction. 2. The Effect of Task Instructions on Attentional Allocation and a Model of Attention-Switching:

As an extension of an experimental design reported previously the microstructure of dual task interaction was investigated in a condition in which task instructions favoured the task which had previously been designated the secondary task. In the situation explored in this paper subjects worked on the five-choice serial reaction task (designated secondary task) whilst at the same time they received single auditory digits at random time intervals, performed a transform operation (adding seven), and called the answer out into a voice key. The nature of the interaction was investigated using fine analysis of data, and it is argued that the results give further support to the view that subjects were processing information sequentially. A change in the patterning of serial responses in the interval defined by the digit stimulus (Ds) and the digit response (Dr) under the changed-instructions condition suggested that individuals are able to play an active role in the ordering of the attention process in sequential processing situations. ‘Process theory’, in which the information processing state of the main task is considered to have a direct influence on the response to the secondary task signal, is argued to be of little use in explaining the data. Two types of explanations based on criterion theory are considered—one which involves criterion setting with respect to a direct time base and one which relies on information processing stage, as an indirect time base. It is argued that the microstructure of dual task interaction should be investigated more closely and that the ordering of the time-sharing process is a skill.

The ‘Distraction Effect’ and Information Processing Complexity:

It was found earlier that a transient ‘distraction effect’ was apparent when 80 dB noise bursts occurred at random during an on-going serial-response task. Experiments are now reported in which the information processing ‘load’ of the on-going serial task was varied (a) by the introduction of increased stimulus predictability, or (b) by the introduction of stimulus–response incompatibility. On the notion that the information processing system acts as a single channel, with increased stimulus predictability there should be a reduced distraction effect, because there would be more capacity available for responding to noise bursts whilst maintaining serial task performance; the reverse should be true for the case of increased stimulus–response incompatibility. Results suggested that the ‘distraction effect’ was reduced in both cases. An additional explanation suggesting that the information processing load of the task itself determined whether or not the noise bursts were providing effective rivalry with the task signals is considered.

The Microstructure of Dual Task Interaction. 3. Incompatibility and Attention Switching

This report is the third in a series of reports concerned with close analysis of a dual task situation in which a five-choice serial task is combined with an auditory—verbal response task. A situation is described in which ‘incompatibility’ is incorporated into the five-choice task in order to increase the information processing load and thus explore the effect on the mechanism believed to control the microstructure of the time-sharing process. Results supported the notion that subjects were continuing to operate a sequential processing strategy in combining the two tasks. The structure of the interval generated by the occurrence of the auditory-verbal task was different in comparison with the compatible five-choice condition reported earlier, suggesting that the introduction of incompatibility causes a change in the characteristics of the time-sharing process. The structure of the interval remained organised and consistent, suggesting that the mechanism which controlled the time-sharing process was not disrupted by increased main task load and therefore was likely to involve a process which did not compete for attention space with task variables. Results also revealed an effect of the digit task response on the following two serial responses. It was suggested that these were probably best described as two independent effects: one arising from the sequential processing strategy adopted, and the other arising perhaps as a function of perception of overall task difficulty.

The Perception of Control in Loud Noise

Perception of control is known to affect performance under stress. Two experiments are reported the object of which was to find out how loud noise during a contingency assessment task influences perceived control. Subjects were required to choose one of two responses, note one of two results, and then provide an overall percentage estimation of the degree of contingency present after 40 trials. Subjects made these judgements for one of three levels of objective contingency (25%, 50%, 75%), either in quiet (55 dBA) or in loud noise (95 dBA) conditions. The first experiment involved a series of randomly chosen, preprogrammed outcomes for noncontingent trials. An unexpected effect of noise was that subjects improved their successes in predicting events, and could only have done so by finding sequential structure in the preprogrammed alternations. They also overestimated control relative to contingency data actually received, at the 25% objective contingency level, but the result could have been dependent on different base levels of data actually received. A second experiment, with a random generation of outcomes for noncontingent trials, resulted in no differences in success levels, but confirmed that noise is associated with the overestimation of contingency at the 25% objective contingency level and demonstrated the same effect for the 50% level. The results are discussed in the context of the ‘illusion of control’.