The Relation of Assimilation Tendencies in Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Time-Error to Cognitive Attitudes of Leveling and Sharpening1

Abstract

J\. PERSON lifting successively two equal weights will generally judge the second to be heavier than the first This error in judgment has been called the time-error (TE) It is an almost mevitable occurrence in successive comparisons, increasing with longer time intervals between the compared intensities One may put the TE data to at least two possible uses The first approach asks What are the laws of perception' What are Its specific processes'" What are the stimulus conditions of perceptual effects? The second, or person-centered, analysis puts forward questions such as What are the functions of perception in a person's adaptive activity' How does perception differ in different people' What are a person's pattems of controlling, selecting, and organizing stimuli which mold his percepts and contribute to his individuality and internal consistency'' The person-centered emphasis assumes that perception varies according to individually preferred styles of organizing, controlling, and selecting stimuli These preferred styles have been called by Klem and his associates (5) "cognitive attitudes " They assume that these attitudes are called forth in any situation to which a person has to respond Consistency in personality is referred to the patterning of cognitive attitudes The construct of cognitive attitude focuses not on the content of a percept, but on the formal qualities of behavior, the research reported here forms part of a dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Department of Psychology of the University of Kansas m partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy This research is one of several investigations at the Menmnger Foundation supported by the National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service 376 PHILIP S HOLZMAN particular way a stimulus is organized and responded to Cognitive attitudes can be inferred from many adaptive acts of the organism, such as learning, perception, and motor behavior Perceptual activity has thus far served as a convenient starting point for isolating cognitive attitudes Two cognitive attitudes previously studied are "leveling" and "sharpening" (5, 6) Sharpening refers to a propensity to maximize stimulus differences, an attunement to small gradients of difference between figure and ground People who level tend to minimize such differences and to prefer the experience of sameness to that of difference Sharpeners are not tied to single possibilities in organizing a field, they prefer complex to simple organization If required, they can sustain an organization intact over a considerable period of time Levelers characteristically organize a field either in a simple or in a diffuse manner They rely heavily upon anchors and strongly confirmed frames of reference to maintain an organization Levelers do not easily sustain a single organization over time, familiar organizations fade in attraction unless continually affirmed by external sources One of the purposes of this study is to demonstrate the consistency of leveling and sharpe...

Contrast effects on the auditory evoked response and its relation to psychophysical judgments

“…"Sharpeners," in contrast, have a "propensity to maximize stimulus differences, an attunement to small gradients of difference between figure and ground." Holzman (1954) found, as we did, that Ss responded similarly across visual, auditory, and kinesthetic sense modalities.…”

Bridging cognition and personality in education: the role of style in performance and development

“…Levelers tend to blur similar memories and to merge perceived objects or events with similar but not identical events recalled from previous experience; differences between remembered objects tend to be lost or attenuated. In contrast, sharpeners are less prone to confuse similar objects and may even magnify small differences between similar memory traces, thereby exaggerating change and heightening the differences between the present and the past (Holzman, 1954;Holzman and Gardner, 1959;Holzman and Rousey, 1971;Israel, 1969). Reflection versus impulsivity refers to individual consistencies in the speed and accuracy with which alternative hypotheses are formulated and information processed under conditions of uncertainty.…”

Bridging Cognition and Personality in Education: The Role of Style in Performance and Development

“…Levelers tend to blur similar memories and to merge perceived objects or events with similar but not identical events recalled from previous experience; differences between remembered objects tend to be lost or attenuated. In contrast, sharpeners are less prone to confuse similar objects and may even magnify small differences between similar memory traces, thereby exaggerating change and heightening the differences between the present and the past (Holzman, 1954;Holzman & Gardner, 1959Holzman &Rousey, 1971;Israel, 1969).…”

“…Levelers tend to blur similar memories and to merge perceived objects or events with similar but not identical events recalled from previous experience; differences between remembered objects tend to be lost or attenuated. In contrast, sharpeners are less prone to confuse similar objects and may even magnify small differences between similar memory traces, thereby exaggerating change and heightening the differences between the present and the past (Holzman, 1954;Holzman & Gardner, 1959Holzman &Rousey, 1971;Israel, 1969).Reflection versus Impulsivity refers to individual consistencies in the speed and accuracy with which alternative hypotheses are formulated and information processed under conditions of uncertainty. Impulsive individuals tend to respond quickly with the first seemingly reasonable answer, whereas reflective individuals tend to evaluate various possibilities before deciding (Block, Block, & Harrington, 1974;Kagan, Rosman, Day, Albert, & Phillips, 1964;Salkind & Wright.…”