This study has a twofold purpose. The first is to demonstrate the use of the Forced-Choice Technique in developing a rating scale for the selection of teachers adjudged to be ready to assume responsibility of an administrative nature and a role of leadership. The second is to develop a tentative rating scale for this purpose in the Dallas Independent School District, Dallas, Texas,

Thesis advisor: James A. Russell / Prior research showing that children recognize emotional expressions has used a choice-from-array style task; for example, children are asked to find the fear face in an array of several expressions. However, these choice-from-array tasks allow for the use of a process of elimination strategy in which children could select an expression they are unfamiliar with when presented a label that does not apply to other expressions in the array. Across six studies (N = 144), 80% of 2- to 4-year-olds selected a novel expression when presented a target label and performed similarly when the label was novel (such as <italic>pax</italic>) or familiar (such as <italic>fear</italic>). In addition, 46% of children went on to freely label the expression with the target label in a subsequent task. These data are the first to show that children extend the process of elimination strategy to facial expressions and also call into question the findings of prior choice-from-array studies. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

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This work explores a novel vision model based coding approach to encode medical images at a perceptually lossless quality, within the framework of the JPEG 2000 coding engine. Perceptually lossless encoding offers the best of both worlds, delivering images free of visual distortions and at the same time providing significantly greater compression ratio gains over its information lossless counterparts. This is achieved through a visual pruning function, embedded with an advanced model of the human visual system to accurately identify and to efficiently remove visually irrelevant/insignificant information. In addition, it maintains bit-stream compliance with the JPEG 2000 coding framework and subsequently is compliant with the Digital Communications in Medicine standard (DICOM). Equally, the pruning function is applicable to other Discrete Wavelet Transform based image coders, e.g., The Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees. Further significant coding gains are ex ploited through an artificial edge segmentation algorithm and a novel arithmetic pruning algorithm. The coding effectiveness and qualitative consistency of the algorithm is evaluated through a double-blind subjective assessment with 31 medical experts, performed using a novel 2-staged forced choice assessment that was devised for medical experts, offering the benefits of greater robustness and accuracy in measuring subjective responses. The assessment showed that no differences of statistical significance were perceivable between the original images and the images encoded by the proposed coder.

The present dissertation aims to evaluate the phenomenon of visual masking as a tool for studying visual awareness focusing on two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) discrimination tasks. Two existing theories of masking - Bachmann's (1984) perceptual retouch theory and Marcel's (1983) recovery theory - are discussed along with the global neuronal workspace theory of awareness (Baars. 1989; Dehaene, Kerszberg, & Changeux, 1998). Performance accuracy on Semantic discrimination is compared to that on Orthographic discrimination as an indication of a potential difference between semantic and orthographic processing of masked word stimuli presented for 40 ms and 50 ms. This is further compared to an e-detection task previously used as an indicator of awareness in some masked priming experiments. Together, these tasks are further evaluated in terms of their relationship with participants' subjective reports collected in the form of confidence ratings. The implications and predictions drawn from the theories of masking and visual awareness as well as the notion of partial awareness (Kouider & Dupoux, 2001) are assessed taking into account the data obtained in the current experiments.The relevance of these data for masked priming is determined by performing a comparison between 2AFC discrimination and detection tasks, and the lexical decision task. An ERP study is also presented, in which Semantic and Orthographic discrimination as well as e-detection are paired with confidence ratings and electrophysiological recordings in search of an ERP component that can be correlated with both subjective (confidence) and objective (performance) measures of awareness. A binding account of visual awareness with special attention paid to visual masking is proposed and compared to the three existing theories.

Auditory processing disorder (APD) is a label that describes a variable set of symptoms that share a common feature of difficulty listening to sounds in the absence of an actual audiological deficit (Moore, 2006). Clinical assessment of APD typically involves a test battery consisting of tests designed to examine the integrity of various auditory processes of the central auditory nervous system. Individuals with APD have difficulty recognising speech when parts of the signal are missing. One category of tests used to assess the extent to which this deficit is associated with reduced performance on the task is the low-pass filtered speech test. The University of Canterbury Adaptive Speech Test-Filtered Words (UCAST-FW) is a computer-based adaptive low-pass filtered speech test developed for the assessment of auditory processing skills in adults and children. Earlier studies with the UCAST-FW (McGaffin, 2007; Sincock, 2008; Heidtke, 2010; Abu-Hijleh, 2011) have produced encouraging results. However, there appear to be a number of confounding factors. The UCAST-FW is testing New Zealand listeners using an Australian recording of American test material. The purpose of the current study was to develop a new four-alternative forced choice test to replace the Northwestern University Children’s Perception of Speech (NU-CHIPS) stimuli the UCAST-FW currently utilises. The new test consists of 98 sets of four test items, (one target item and three foil alternatives) designed to be used in a four-alternative forced choice picture-pointing procedure. Phonemic analysis of the new word list and the NU-CHIPS word lists revealed a similar distribution of phonemes for target words of both word lists. The development of the new word list is described and the clinical applicability is explored.

People’s ability to call an experienced item “old” and a novel item “new” is recognition memory. Recognition memory is usually studied by first asking participants to learn a list of words and then make judgments of old (studied) or new (not studied) for test words. It has long been debated whether the underlying process of recognition memory is continuous or discrete. Two types of models are compared specifically that assume either discrete or continuous information states: the 2-high threshold (2HT) model and the unequal variance signal detection (UVSD) model, respectively. Researchers have used the receiver operation characteristic (ROC) function and response time (RT) data to test between the two models. However, both methods have provided evidence for 2HT and UVSD, and the debate has not come to consensus. In this study, we used an alternative approach to look into this issue. After studying the words, participants first made “old/new” judgment for each single test item. Then, if there were falsely identified items, each of them was randomly paired with a correctly identified word of the same response. Participants were asked to choose the studied word from the word pair. Simulation and experimental results were able to discriminate the 2HT and UVSD model. Experimental results showed that the UVSD model fitted the data better than the 2HT model. The forced-choice test paradigm provided an effective way to test between the 2HT and UVSD models.

The normal forced-choice Structured-Objective Rorschach Test (SORT) and a modified free-choice SORT were administered to sixty high school students to determine the effects of response set (e.g. social desirability). The results were inconclusive. The following trends, however, were observed: (1) The free-choice modification was more resistant to response set distortion than the normal forced-choice SORT. (2) The free-choice administration showed greater flexibility in enhancement and resistance to social desirability. (3) There was little sex difference in factor scores with respect to choice administration. Females, however, gave more responses than males on the free-choice SORT.

<p>Safe nursing care of patients with cardiovascular disease requires specialized knowledge and skill. However, education for such specialty practice has little empirical basis. Research has suggested that novices perceive primarily surface aspects of a domain while experts perceive primarily its deep principles. Insight into such perceptual differences may help inform future pedagogical strategies. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not such differences are found in the domain of cardiovascular nursing.</p> <p>A forced choice triad task was developed to test the study hypothesis. Each triad trial consisted of a target item and two referent items. Referent items were designed to be similar to target items based on surface features (S) such as patient age or sex, deep features (D) such as the goal of therapy, or both surface and deep features (S/SD). Participants were asked to choose the referent item that they believed was more similar to the target item and to provide a rationale for their choice. The instrument was completed by n=17 nurses in two practice cohorts: a novice/less experienced cohort with less than three years of experience in cardiovascular nursing and an experienced/competent cohort of Nurse Practitioners with at least ten years of experience in the specialty.</p> <p>Statistically non-significant differences in scores between study cohorts occurred in the hypothesized direction. However, due to the small final sample size, no definitive conclusions could be made based on this study's findings.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

To control various response biases and rater errors in noncognitive assessment, multidimensional forced choice (MFC) measures have been proposed as an alternative to single-statement Likert-type scales. Historically, MFC measures have been criticized because conventional scoring methods can lead to ipsativity problems that render scores unsuitable for inter-individual comparisons. However, with the recent advent of classical test theory and item response theory scoring methods that yield normative information, MFC measures are surging in popularity and becoming important components of personnel and educational assessment systems. This dissertation presents developments concerning a GGUM-based MFC model henceforth referred to as the GGUM-RANK. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms were developed to estimate GGUM-RANK statement and person parameters directly from MFC rank responses, and the efficacy of the new estimation algorithm was examined through computer simulations and an empirical construct validity investigation. Recently derived GGUM-RANK item information functions and information indices were also used to evaluate overall item and test quality for the empirical study and to give insights into differences in scoring accuracy between two-alternative (pairwise preference) and three-alternative (triplet) MFC measures for future work. This presentation concludes with a discussion of the research findings and potential applications in workforce and educational setting.