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W R Garner

Publications and source records attributed to W R Garner.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1986

Internal frame of reference as a determinant of the oblique effect.

Theorists in perception have included peripheral or central factors in their explanations of the oblique effect. Studies investigating the central factors have shown that stimuli oriented vertically or horizontally have better encoding properties than do stimuli oriented obliquely and that oblique stimuli are more confusable. In the present study, the oblique effect was studied using single dots as stimuli. These dots were surrounded by either a square or a circle frame that provided information about their position in the visual field. The results of classification, focusing, and discrimination tasks showed that the processing of these dots followed the same pattern of results as it did with line stimuli: Dots located on the main axes (vertical and horizontal) were easier to classify than dots located on the oblique axes. The same pattern of results was found in both the square- and circle-frame experiments. The results suggest that an internal frame of reference, aligned with vertical and horizontal, facilitates processing of stimuli located on those axes.

Humans↗
PubMed1978

Letter identification as a function of type of perceptual limitation and type of attribute.

It is argued that the distribution of errors in letter identification depends on two factors: (a) whether the set of letters is defined by features that exist or do not exist or by dimensions that exist at some positive value, and (b) whether errors are produced by process limitation in which the letter patterns are distorted or by state limitation in which there is inadequate energy. A specific hypothesis tested was that error distributions reflect the attribute structure under both types of limitation if dimensions define the letter set, but only under a process limitation if features define the letter set. Under a state limitation, feature set errors are primarily produced by a loss of features, so that a letter with more features is called a letter with fewer features more often than conversely. An experiment completely validated the hypothesis under test. In addition, the relative discriminabilities of two dimensions defining a dimension set of letters was reversed from state to process limitation. Thus the attribute structure derived from error distributions is not invariant across types of perceptual limitation, nor are distances between letter pairs always symmetric.

Discrimination, Psychological↗
PubMed1976

Problems associated with rabies preexposure prophylaxis.

With the rabies vaccine presently available for preexposure prophylaxis, 20% of all individuals do not have seroconversion following routine immunizations, and 5% are allergic to this vaccine. Two experimental rabies vaccines of cell culture origin offering greater purity and potency were evaluated by means of a double-blind experiment. Thirty-one volunteers who did not have seroconversion or who were allergic to duck embryo rabies vaccine received rabies vaccine produced in either human diploid cell culture (WI-38), or hamster kidney-cell culture. All volunteers had seroconversion within 14 days of receiving a single injection of other experimental vaccine. Clinical side effects were only minor.

Adult↗