Aversion thresholds for electrical shock were obtained from 5 males, 6 females who were taking oral contraceptives, and 12 females who were not. All subjects were volunteers from introductorylevel psychology courses. Measures were repeated 3 times per week for 5 weeks. Males and females taking oral contraceptives showed no cyclic fluctuations in threshold. The other female group had significant (p < .025) fluctuations in threshold, from a maximum at ovulation to a minimum 1 week after the onset of the menses.

Slides were made from Munsell color chips in three sizes, four hues, and two chromas; all had the same intensity. A direct-comparisons, forced-choice procedure was used with 100 male and female volunteers from psychology courses. When pairs of slides had the same size and chroma, the order of decreasing apparent size was red-purple, yellow-red, purple-blue, and green. At chroma/8, all comparisons were significant except yellow-red over purple-blue. At chroma/4, the same order was found, but the effect was not pronounced. When pairs were made up of identical hues but different chromas, the square with chroma/4 (less saturation) appeared significantly larger.

Two I-min selections of English prose were recorded, differing on the dimension of interest to the listener. They were re-recorded with the words in random order, so as to differ from the first tapes on the dimension of relatedness. Each tape was heard by 20 volunteer undergraduates who estimated the duration of the selection. Interesting tapes were judged significantly shorter (p < .05) than uninteresting ones, and unrelated tapes were judged slightly (p < .10) shorter than related ones.This contradicts a storage size theory of duration, since the related tapes should have been easier to code.Employing a "storage size" metaphor, Robert Ornstein (I975) has developed a theory to explain perceived time duration. Briefly, the theory states that the experience of duration is directly related to the amount of material stored in memory. An increase in storage size increases duration experience, while a reduction in storage size decreases it. The degree of relationship among the items in storage is an important factor in determining the amount of storage size required. Items which are related to each other require less storage space than unrelated items and should produce a shorter duration experience. Ornstein hypothesizes, therefore, that interesting events seem to occupy a short space of time as a result of the establishment of relationships among items which comprise them. However, it seemed to the present authors that "interest" and "relatedness" are separate variables. The present study attempted to manipulate these variables and assess their effect on the experience of duration. METHOD SubjectsStudents in undergraduate psychology classes volunteered to participate in the study. Subjects were tested in four groups of 20 each. ApparatusFour tape recordings of continuous discourse were made which varied on two dimensions: interest and relatedness. The recordings were of passages from two books; one passage was assumed to be interesting to the typical college student, the other uninteresting. The interesting selection was drawn from a novel by Henry Miller (1965) and contained graphic sexual material. The uninteresting passage, excerpted from a current neurology textbook, described the anatomy and physiology of cranial nerves.Related tapes were recordings of the passages as they appeared in print. Unrelated tapes were made by numbering the words and then selecting their order from a random number table so that the syntax was disrupted. It was assumed that the high percentage of four-letter words would maintain interest even with the disrupted syntax.The resulting four types of tapes w~e as follows: interesting related (lR), interesting unrelated (lR), uninteresting related (iR), and uninteresting unrelated (IR). Each tape was I min long. A I-min control tape was made of the alarm of an electric clock. ProcedureBefore testing, subjects were informed that they were to listen to two tape recordings and to complete a questionnaire afterward. Each group listened to the control tape frrst, followed by one of the four exp...

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A. G, Experiments on sensory-tonic field theory of perception: VII. Effect of asymmetrical extent and starting position of figures on the visual apparent median plane.