Effects of Magnitude on the Displacement of Leisure Items by Edible Items During Preference Assessments

Studies on preference assessments have shown that when both edible and leisure items are compared, edible items tend to displace leisure items in preference hierarchies. However, the mechanisms behind this process are currently unclear. One possibility is that displacement may be a product of the relatively brief periods of access to leisure items typically used in preference assessments. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine whether the duration of access to leisure items affects displacement. In this study, participants chose between preferred leisure items and the edible items that had previously been shown to displace those leisure items in a preference hierarchy. Duration of access to the leisure item was systematically increased across series to identify the magnitude at which leisure items became more preferred than edible items. Results indicate that as the duration of access to leisure items increases, displacement decreases.

Moral Judgment Test (MJT) in Urdu: Translation and Validation

The present study was conducted as part of a larger study that aimed to compare moral judgment competence and moral preferences among Pakistani students of public and private sector educational institutes and religious institutes and also to measure the pattern of development of moral judgment competence of students within these institutes. The validation study completed in two phases, during the 1st phase data were collected from the students of grade 8 to 16 from public sector schools and colleges of Rawalpindi city. Very low mean c-score was observed (M = 13.60, SD = 9.05), the test came out to be valid on preference hierarchy criterion but its validity on the cognitive-affective parallelism and Quasi- simplex structure criteria could not be established due to low c-scores of the sample. In the second phase an additional sample from one private sector and two public sector universities was collected. The analysis of the combined sample (N = 246) showed no significant improvement of c-scores (M = 13.94, SD = 9.53). The test meets well the preference hierarchy criterion but on the other two criteria results remain inconclusive due to low variance in the sample. The low c-scores are explained on the basis of three assumptions; (1) poor quality of education, (2) dogmatic religiosity, and (3) weak and instable political structure of Pakistani society.

Innate Visual Form Preferences in the Pecking Behavior of Young Chicks

Abstract1. Young chicks from the age of 1 to 91/2 days were tested daily for unrewarded two-dimensional form preferences in pecking behavior. 2. Forms having a 049 square inch area were found to be preferred, from high to low, as follows: serrated circle, oval, circle, hexagon, star, pentagon, square, rectangle, and diamond. 3. Chicks that were shown the same forms in a smaller size, .012 square inches in area, preferred them in the same order except that star shifted to last place. The smaller forms elicited a higher level of pecking behavior than did the large ones. 4. There were found increases in pecking behavior as a function of age up to the age of 5 days, after which there was a plateau. Up to (but not including) and after the age of 6-61/2 days the order of preferences for the forms was the same. 5. The disruption of the preference hierarchy at the age of 6-61/2 days is discussed in relation to the food imprinting that HESS (1962, 1964) has demonstrated to occur in chicks.

Stimulus Generalization and Responses To "Supernormal" Stimuli in the Unrewarded Pecking Behavior of Young Chicks

Abstract1. Young chicks were tested daily from the age of one to nine days for unrewarded pecking preferences. 2. Those tested on stars differing in number of points pecked the most at stars having 3 or 9 points and showed a decreasing preference for intermediate stars with the 7-pointed star pecked at the least. Preference for different stars appears to be influenced by size. 3. There was a failure to obtain classical stimulus generalization effects in the groups shown a series of diamonds or a series of ovals. 4. Preference rankings for "supernormal" stimuli consisting of circles edged in different ways suggested that the preference hierarchy for two-dimensional forms may be very different when the forms are in extremely tiny size.

Hierarchical Attributes for Categorization

120 middle-class white boys and girls of average IQ and ranging in age from 7 to 11 yr. served as Ss in a study dealing with the preference hierarchy of stimulus attributes employed in classification. Items varying in their color, form, and representation were used in a series of preference tasks designed to establish an attribute hierarchy among color, form, and representation. It was hypothesized that the response hierarchy would be color least frequent, form next, and representation most frequent when the three are juxtaposed, but when color and form are juxtaposed, form would be the more dominant. Results indicate that the hypothesis was verified in that form was the more significant preference shown among boys and girls at all ages when form and color were the only two choices offered. Preference for representation was evident for all age groups when the three choices were available.