Tests of the equality of variances are sometimes used on their own to compare variability across groups of experimental or non-experimental conditions but they are most often used alongside other methods to support assumptions made about variances. A new nonparametric test of equality of variances is described and compared to current "gold…

In three experiments we examined the effect of schema activation on professional translators who had to read and translate or to read aloud visually presented texts. In Experiment 1, text understanding was improved by presenting a summary before reading aloud the texts. However, prior presentation of the summary reduced comprehension when…

N = 1 designs imply repeated registrations of the behaviour of the same experimental unit and the measurements obtained are often few due to time limitations, while they are also likely to be sequentially dependent. The analytical techniques needed to enhance statistical and clinical decision making have to deal with these problems. Different…

The temporal order of two events, each presented in a different visual hemifield, is judged correctly by typical observers even when their onsets differ only slightly. The present study examined the influence of an endogenous process on TOJ, and shows that the perception of temporal order is also affected when available attentional resources are…

People usually show a stable preference for one of their eyes when monocular viewing is required ("sighting dominance") or under dichoptic stimulation conditions ("sensory eye-dominance"). Current procedures to assess this "eye dominance" are prone to error. Here we present a new method that provides a continuous measure of eye dominance and…

Two experiments are reported that test whether the modulation of exogenous cuing effects by the presence of a distractor at the location opposite the target (altering the time course of cueing effects, Lupianez et al., 1999, 2001) is due to the fast reorienting of attention or to a set for preventing the integration of the cue and the target…

Several studies have demonstrated that centrally presented, non-predictive, directional symbols (arrows, directional words, eye gaze) can influence response times to detect the onset of a target item presented in a peripheral location. Although symbolic cueing effects have been reliably demonstrated, the underlying mechanisms that produce these…

Testing sensory characteristics on herpetological species has been difficult due to a range of properties related to physiology, responsiveness, performance ability, and the type of reinforcer used. Using the Jacky lizard as a model, we outline a successfully established procedure in which to test the visual sensitivity to motion characteristics.…

Features from stimuli presented at a high rate in a single spatial position (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, RSVP) can migrate forming a wrong combination or illusory conjunction. Several serial and parallel models have been proposed to explain the generation of this type of errors. The behavioral results fit better the two-stage parallel model…

This study examined the effect of two sources of memory error: exposure to post-event information and extracting typical contents from schemata. Participants were shown a video of a bank robbery and presented with high-and low-typicality misinformation extracted from two normative studies. The misleading suggestions consisted of either changes in…

This paper develops results and procedures for obtaining linear composites of factor scores that maximize: (a) test information, and (b) validity with respect to external variables in the multiple factor analysis (FA) model. I treat FA as a multidimensional item response theory model, and use Ackerman's multidimensional information approach based…

The Partial Credit Model (PCM) is sometimes interpreted as a model for stepwise solution of polytomously scored items, where the item parameters are interpreted as difficulties of the steps. It is argued that this interpretation is not justified. A model for stepwise solution is discussed. It is shown that the PCM is suited to model sums of binary…

Five experiments were performed to identify the basic Spanish colour categories (BCCs) and to locate them in the CIE L*u*v* space. The existence of 11 BCCs was confirmed using an elicited list task and a free monolexemic naming task. From the results provided by a synonymicity estimation task, it was concluded that, in Spanish, 2 synonymous terms…

Separate groups of rats underwent an unbiased conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure involving alternate pairings of distinct environments with intravenous (IV) injections of cocaine (0.75 mg/kg) or saline immediately or 15 min after injection. A subsequent extinction phase consisted of exposure to both conditioning environments preceded by…

Recent research has shown that the ability to inhibit irrelevant information is related to Working Memory (WM) capacity. In three experiments, we explored this relationship by using a list-method directed-forgetting task (DF) in participants varying in WM capacity. Contrary to predictions, in Experiment 1, DF effects were only found for…