OBJECTIVE To test Goldman's dilemma on a general population sample by asking whether they would take the Faustian bargain of a drug that guaranteed sporting success but would result in their death in 5 years' time. Between 1982 and 1995 a bi-annual survey using this dilemma suggested half of all elite athletes would take the drug. DESIGN A random telephone survey of 250 members of the Austral...

Young children are slow to master conventional intonation patterns in their yes/no questions, which may stem from imperfect understanding of the links between terminal pitch contours and pragmatic intentions. In Experiment 1, five- to ten-year-old children and adults were required to judge utterances as questions or statements on the basis of intonation alone. Children eight years of age or you...

The psychometric function, relating the subject's response to the physical stimulus, is fundamental to psychophysics. This paper examines various psychometric function topics, many inspired by this special symposium issue of Perception & Psychophysics: What are the relative merits of objective yes/no versus forced choice tasks (including threshold variance)? What are the relative merits of adap...

BACKGROUND Languages differ in the marking of the sentence mood of a polar interrogative (yes/no question). For instance, the interrogative mood is marked at the beginning of the surface structure in Polish, whereas the marker appears at the end in Chinese. In order to generate the corresponding sentence frame, the syntactic specification of the interrogative mood is early in Polish and late in...

Religion's relationships with weight perception and weight control behavior were examined using data (3032 adults aged 25-74) from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States. Religion was conceptualized as denomination, religious attendance/practice, religious social support, religious commitment, religious application, and religious identity. Weight perception was conceptu...

A singled out game for two players A and B is analysed. In this game, both players are trying to correctly guess answers to yes/no questions; the first player to answer n questions correctly wins the game. Player B has an advantage of knowing A’s answer before having to announce his own guess. We find the best strategy for both players and give formulas for winning probabilities. We also provid...

Three diierent algorithms for qualitative obstacle detection are presented in this paper. Each one is based on diierent assumptions. The rst two algorithms are aimed at yes/no obstacle detection without indicating which points are obstacles. They have the advantage of fast determination of the existence of obstacles in a scene based on the solvability of a linear system. The rst algorithm uses ...

PURPOSE The study of auxiliary acquisition is central to work on language development and has attracted theoretical work from both nativist and constructivist approaches. This study is part of a 2-part companion set that represents a unique attempt to trace the development of auxiliary syntax by using a longitudinal elicitation methodology. The aim of the research described in this part is to t...

BACKGROUND Optimizing participant response rates is important for obtaining representative samples and the timely completion of studies. It is a common practice to use participant incentives to boost response rates, but few studies have systematically examined their effectiveness, particularly among minority groups. METHODS We experimentally tested three incentive strategies for their effecti...

We used classification images (A. J. Ahumada, Jr., & J. Lovell, 1971) to estimate the perceptual filter in a task designed to assess both local and nonlocal effects upon contrast detection/discrimination. Three observers performed a yes/no detection or discrimination task of a uniform circular decrement (radius = 0.68 deg) near threshold presented for 100 to 400 ms. Stimuli were presented in ri...