The purpose of the present experiments is to confirm the hypothesis that the stimulus (S) in paired-associate learning is learned mainly discriminative as the cue for the response (R), and R is acquired as the actual goal to be responded. As meaningfulness (defined in terms of association values) and familiarity (defined in terms of the number of previous presentations either experimentally or experientially) are expected to have a greater effect upon the difficulty of item-acquisition than upon the difficulty of item-discrimination, it is predicted that the number of trials to a learning criterion should be a function of meaningfulness or familiarity of R, while the amount of backward recalls (R→S) and of forward-backward recall gradients (FB-RclG) (defined as the difference between forward recalls (S→R) and backward recalls), should depend on the degree of meaningfulness or familiarity of S. More precisely, it is predicted that the lower the degree of meaningfulness or familiarity of R members are, the more the trials to criterion are required, and on the other hand, the lower the degree of meaningfulness or familiarity of S members are, the fewer the backward recall become, and the more the FB-RclGs become.
In Experiment I, each list which consisted of nine pairs of N-N, N-M, M-N, or M-M (N: nonsense syllables, M: meaningful words) was learned by the anticipation method to a criterion of three successive errorless trials. Immediately after either 6 out of 9 correct responses, or one errorless, or 3 succcessive errorless trials on each list, forward and backward recall tests were performed. In Experiment II, the procedures were the same as those of Expreiment I, except that familiarized N (F) which was presented in the pre-learning lists was used in place of M. Experiment III, in which subjects were junior high school students (13-15 years old) and slightly different procedures were used, was performed in order to obtain further evidence for the effects of familiarity found in Experiment II. Our procedures of familiarization using paired-associate method (Exp. II) or unaided reproduction method (Exp. III), might be somewhat similar to Hovland & Kurtz's which seems to emphasize item-acquisition as well as item-predifferentiation.
The results were summarized as follows: (1) The difficulty of learning expressed either in terms of trials (Exp. I), or of errors (Exp. II) until learning criteria, or of the number of items correctly recalled after 2 presentations (Exp. III) was generally determined by meaningfulness or familiarity of R. The change in S also yielded significant differences in some measures, but yet their differences were very small as compared with those of R change under the same conditions, except in Experiment II (see Figs. 1, 2, 4, and 6, and Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4). (2) The forward recalls which were measured using three learning criteria were N-N<M-N≅N-M<M-M in Experiment I, but these differences were not obtained in Experiment II. (3) The backward recalls were a function of meaningfulness and familiarity of S, and the lists in which S consisted of either N or U (unfamiliarized N) were consistently inferior to the lists consisting of either M or F withregard to backward recalls. (4) The FB-RclGs were also a function of meaningfulness and familiarity of S (see Figs. 3, 5, and 6, and Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4).
These results were interpreted as confirming the hypothesis presented above. All the results on backward recalls suggest that S items are incidentally acquired in paired-associate learning using the anticipation method. Some discrepancies shown between the results of Experiments I and II, in terms of the number of trials, and of forward recalls under corresponding conditions of M and F, might suggest the different functions between meaningfulness and familiarity in learning. It was discussed that these discrepancies might depend upon an effect of mediating

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The purpose of this study was to investigate psychological characteristics of the series of approximation to Japanese. Two kinds of the series of approximation were experimentally made by the method which was quite similar to that of Shannon-Miller's guessing technique. The orders of both syllable and word-approximations were 0th, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and text series. The text series means a series of meaningful syllables or words quoted from magazines and novels.
Experiment 1. Syllable-approximation and intelligibility.
(A) Procedure: 12 undergraduate students were asked to listen to the auditory stimuli which were given under the masking white noise at the rate of one syllable per second. Five different orders of approximation which consisted of 20 syllables were used as the stimuli. The level of noise was controlled. The S-N ratios were -8, -4, 0, +4, +8, in db.
(B) Results: The intelligibility of syllables under the condition of the masking tends to increase with the ascending order of approximation (p<0.01; See Fig. 1).
Experiment 2. Syllable-approximation and span of attention.
(A): 8 students responsed to the visual stimuli which were presented tachistoscopically. The stimuli were 8 typewritten Japanese letters which were placed in a line vertically or horizontally.
(B): The span of attention tends to extend with the ascending order of approximation (p<0.01; see Table 2).
Experiment 3. word-approximation and immediate recall.
(A): 20 students were asked to recall the word material which had been presented in audition. The material consisted of groups of 6, 10, 20 and 50 words.
(B): The rate of recall of words increases in accordance with the order of approximation (p<0.01) and this tendency is almost equal to Miller-Selfridge's data (see Fig. 2).
Experiment 4. Syllable-approximation and immediate recall.
(A): The same condition as that of Exp. 3 except the material being syllables.
(B): The rate of recall of syllables increases in accordance with the order of approximation (p<0.01; see Fig. 3).
Experiment 5. Syllable-approximation visually presented and immediate recall.
(A): 17 students were asked to recall the letters which had been presented by a film-strip projector at the speed of 2 letters per second.
(B): So far as this experimental condition is concerned there is no significant difference between the auditory and the visual channel through which the messages were conveyed (p>0.99; see Fig. 4).
Experiment 6. Syllable-approximation and eye-voice span.
(A): 10 students were asked to read the material consisting of 24 letters. While the subject was reading aloud, the light was suddenly extinguished; he was required to continue saying as many which he had seen as possible.
(B): The eye-voice span expands in accordance with the order of approximation (p<0.01; see Fig. 5).

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The fact that, for a given perceptual-motor performance, a directional transformation of the visual stimuli which feed back and control it, may cause some difficulty to it as in the case of mirror-drawing, suggests a method to measure the directional relationship between visual and tactil-kinesthetic spaces by the degree of difficulty of the performances under such transformations. The method postulates that, among the performances, the one the least transformation should show the least difficulty. Since the results of Exp. I were fairly well interpreted by it, it was called “the law of the least transformation.”
The apparatus consistes of a switch matrix and a lamp matrix similar to that used by Boiko and resembles those used in the study of control-display relationship. A response on the switch matrix automatically caused the lighting of a lamp in prearranged order, i.e., S_s turned off agiven lamp by responding to the switch corresponding to it, which resulted in the lighting of another lamp, which the S_s turned off by the appropriate response which in turn caused the lighting of another stimulus and so on.
The S_s' task consisted of two successive parts: (1) pracitce sessions during which Ss were shown the switch- and lamp-matrix correspondence (a switching response turned on the corresponding lamp). (2) the pursuitory movement of the hand according to the known switch-lamp correspondence-(in this time, a switching response changed the circuit from the corresponding lamp to another lamp).
The combination of the three operations-rotations of the lamp-matrix which varied the direction corresponding to the hand-direction in the visual field (2), arm-positions relative to the body (2), face-directions (2), -gave 8 conditions in Exp. I.
The pursuit time of a unit course, randomly chosen from ₁₆P₈ and counterbalanced by Greco-Latin square, was adopted as the measure. The variances within conditions were heterogeneous even after the whole data had been transformed into logarithm. The non-parametric median test indicated that the differences between conditions and between individuals (16 university students) were both significant (at 1% level); and as to the differences between the operations, only that between rotations of the lamp-matrix was significant. by T test: arm-positions and face-directions made no significant difference; the directional relationship manifesting itself in the interaction between these operations, should be the main source of the difference between the conditions.
It was noted that, by adopting the concept of translation or rotation in the plane such as Fig. 4, the description of the results, became much simpler than by the direct use of the experimental operations.
Exp. II, followed Exp. I to show that the hand-direction (i.e., the switch-matrix-direction), which was kept parallel to that, of the body throughout Exp. I, could work as a factor under the law of the least transformation.
The nature of the mediating process measured by this experiment, and its function in the pursuitory movement as “an action acceptor” of Anokhin's theory, were briefly discussed.

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In the problem of brightness constancy, Gelb, A., Kardos, L., Koffka, K. and others emphasized the importance of factors such as the configuration and the articulation in the visual field, especially the relation of the brightness of a particular region to that of its adjacent region. On the other hand, Wallach, H. who repeated Gelb's experiment advanced what he called the proportional law, showing that dependence of perceived colors on the ratio of stimulus intensities accounts for the constancy of achromatic colors under varying illumination.
In the present study, the role of the light intensities of the background was investigated with especial reference to Wallach's proportional law. The achromaticcolors were used for this purpose.
Stimuli-Each stimulus consisted of a disk and a ring that surrounded it and formed its background (Fig. 2 and 4). The intensity of each of these two regions could be varied independently. The experiments were conducted in a dark room, two pairs of disk and ring were observed successively by using the binocular method, and the apparent brightnesses of both disks were compared with each other.
In Experiment I and II, it was observed that Wallach's proportional law depends upon the interaction between the light intensity of the disk and that of the ring, in other words, upon the contrast effect of the ring upon the apparent brightness of the disk. We may say, that the law becomes valid under the condition in which the contrast effect prevails, that is, when the intensity of the ring is lighter than that of the disk, but it does not when the contrast effect is difficult to appear (the ring being darker than the disk) (Fig. 3 and 5).
In Experiment III and IV, it was found that the degree of brightness constancy of the disk depends upon the conditions in which the disk adjoins a lighter ring or a darker ring than itself (Fig. 6, 7, 8 and 9). The degree of brightness constancy is greater under the condition, when the disk has a lighter ring than itself, i.e., when the contrast effect of the ring is stronger. On the other hand, when the disk has a darker ring than itself, i.e., when the contrast effect of the ring is weaker, the degree of brightness constancy is smaller. Such results will lead to the conclusion that the existence of a lighter background is the most important factor in brightness constancy. These findings agree fairly well with the results of the investigation by Leibowitz, H. (14).
Moreover, in so far as our experimental conditions are concerned, is may be said that the importance of the factor of the contrast effect of the background should increase in relation to the degree of figuredness of the particular region and the modes of appearance of their colors. On the other hand, it seems that one of the factors upon which the degree of figuredness depends, is the phenomenal gradient of the brightness between the particular region and its background brought out by contrast.

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The so-called time-error (TE) was considered here as the functional dependency of the time-order error (TOE) upon the time interval of the two stimuli. In particular, the present study was undertaken to analize these relations in tone discrimination with the comparative rating scale method.
In other words, the intent was related to the examination of (1) the phenomenon of TOE in pitch and loudness discrimination, andat the same time, of (2) the temporal aspect which manifests itself in the application of Helson's adaptation-level theory.
Two series of experiments were designed for pitch and loudness judgment respectively with almost identical procedure and these data were compared each other.
In the pitch judgment experiment, 16 S_s judged five tones (V), varying from 976 to 1024cps., with a standard (S) of 1000cps., 60db. sensation-level, in nine categories. The time intervals between stimuli were 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 6.0, and 8.0 seconds. In addition, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 seconds intervals were used for 8 S_s with two time-orders (S₁V₂ and V₁S₂).
AL values calculated by Helson's formula were, for all intervals, below the standard stimulus in two time-orders, but showed no characteristic change with varying time-intervals.
On the other hand, in the loudness judgment, experiment, where 16 S_s judged five tones, varying from 57 to 63db. with a standard 60db. 1000cps., the error in S₁V₂ order gradually increased its negative value as interval became longer. This trend was significant at 5% level in Mann's trend analysis. The error in V₁S₂ order was not significant, but was similar to Köhler's result. These difference between two experimental results may be explained in part by the psychological function in the attributes of tone and physiological acoustical mechanisms.
It was suggested by both experiments that the width of judgment scales were narrower in V₁S₂ than S₁V₂. Perhaps, in S₁V₂ those scales would be organized according to the central tendency.
The experimental values agreed with theoretical values when perceiving increment, but not when perceiving decrement of the stimulus being judged. This fact had relation to negativity of TOE.
It was discussed that the so-called TE would correspond to the upward or downward shift of the scale values owing to changes of intervals of the stimuli.
From the point of view of the AL theory, this would be nothing other than the fact that the value of AL might change corresponding to the change of stimulus interval.
Certain time parameters should be introduced into the adaptation-level formulation to make further explanation of these facts.
At any rate, we can conclude that a systematic TE was shown in loudness but not in pitch by the application of AL-theory. This fact is analogous with results obtained with the usual method of TE experiment, e.g, Postman's.

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