This study was concerned with laypeople's beliefs about the importance of 24 different contributors toward overcoming four psychological/behavioral problems: agoraphobia, anorexia nervosa, compulsive gambling, and schizophrenia. Factor analysis revealed five almost identical clusters for each problem, which were labeled inner control, understanding, avoidance, physical basis, and fate. Items clustering on the first two factors were thought of as generally important and those on the last three relatively unimportant, though the perceived relevance of each factor differed significantly between problems. The results are discussed in terms of subjects' beliefs concerning the value of self-reliance as opposed to professional help or the help of others. The similarities and differences between lay and professional attributions are considered, as is the relationship between attributions for cause and for cure.

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A recent study by Corteen & Wood (1972) suggested that material of which the subject was unaware, on the unattended channel in dichotic listening, may be processed for meaning yet fail to interfere with the primary task of shadowing prose on the attended channel. The experiment reported here examines the converse hypothesis that this non-interference between attended and unattended information would fail to occur if the primary task could be facilitated by information on the unattended channel. Mackay (1973) has provided some evidence to support this hypothesis using verbal material on both channels, thus involving, presumably, only one hemisphere. By using stimulus materials on the two channels that are believed to be processed by the right and left hemispheres respectively, a second hypothesis, that facilitation by the unattended input would depend upon laterality differences, was also tested. Considerable support was found for both hypotheses.

A prediction based on the model of attention advanced by Dixon (1971) wm tested: namely, that responses to homophones presented to one ear, at supraliminal intensities, would be influenced by subliminal cue words presented to the other ear. Considerable support was found for the hypothesis in terms of response latencies, but not in terms of verbal content. It is suggested that these data make it possible to reconcile apparent discrepancies between the results of other recent studies of dichotic listening. The view of those attention theorists (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963; Norman, 1968; Dixon, 197 1 ) who maintain that selection among inputs follows a preliminary semantic analysis of all signals, both attended and unattended, has received support from recent studies of dichotic listening (Lewis, 1970; Corteen & Wood, 1972; Mackay, 1973; Henley & Dixon, 1974), and dichoptic viewing (Somekh & Wilding, 1973).Data from these studies have suggested not only that material, of which subjects remain unaware, on an unattended channel, is analysed for meaning, but moreover that it may be integrated with primary material on the attended channel when it is relevant to the ongoing task. Mackay, for example, has shown that a word on the unattended channel in dichotic listening will serve to reduce the ambiguity of an attended sentence.According to the model of attention put forward by Dixon (1971), a supraliminal stimulus, having passed through analysers to dictionary units, ultimately activates conceptually associated units while at the same time setting in motion a central control mechanism which, acting upon information from various inputs (relating to past and ongoing events, motivational states, etc.), selectively inhibits such conceptual associates as are not relevant to the task in hand. A subliminal stimulus, on the other hand, activates the conceptual associates, but is of insufficient strength to set the central control mechanism in operation. Under these conditions, sensory data are analysed and classified, but nothing is blocked.The present experiment tested a prediction from this theory that responses to homophones presented to one ear, a t supraliminal intensities, should be affected by subliminal cue words on the other ear. It was postulated that a supraliminal homophone would activate associates belonging to two spheres of meaning. Assuming responses to either meaning of the homophone to be equiprobable, there would be no a priori reason why any one set of conceptual associates should be inhibited more than the other. Under these circumstances, the ambiguity should be resolved by a subliminal cue word activating its associates. The latter would, presumably, overlap one set of those associates activated by the supraliminal stimulus, and as a result of the 'extra strength' thus gained, it would be to this meaning of the homophone that the subject should respond. By the same token, if the subliminal stimulus did reduce the ambiguity facing the central control a t the level of the 37-2 upon personal preferences. J. Pers...