Efficient visual search by category: specifying the features that mark the difference between artifacts and animals in preattentive vision.

In this report, we explored the features that support visual search for broadly inclusive natural categories. We used a paradigm in which subjects searched for a randomly selected target from one category (e.g., one of 32 line drawings of artifacts or animals in displays ranging from three to nine items) among a mixed set of distractors from the other. We found that search was surprisingly fast. Target-present slopes for animal targets among artifacts ranged from 10.8 to 16.0 msec/item, and slopes for artifact targets ranged from 5.5 to 6.2 msec/item. Experiments 2-5 tested factors that affect both the speed of the search and the search asymmetry favoring detection of artifacts among animals. They converge on the conclusion that target-distractor differences in global contour shape (e.g., rectilinearity/curvilinearity) and visual typicality of parts and form facilitate search by category. We argue that existing theories are helpful in understanding these findings but that they need to be supplemented to account for the specific features that specify categories and to account for subjects' ability to quickly locate targets representing heterogeneous and formally complex categories.

Labeling sexual harassment in the military: an extension and replication.

Research conducted by V. Magley, C. Hulin, L. F. Fitzgerald, and M. DeNardo (1999) has suggested that women who experience sexual harassment report worse outcomes independent of the labeling process. This study replicates and extends that work. Discriminant analyses were conducted on a sample of approximately 28,000 men and women from the military. The authors included variables similar to those used by V. Magley et al., as well as a variety of antecedent variables. Two significant functions were obtained from the discriminant analysis. The 1st function ordered groups according to the frequency of harassment and accounted for substantially more variance than did the 2nd function, which ordered groups according to whether they labeled their experiences as sexual harassment. The overall results from these analyses demonstrate that labeling incidents as sexual harassment is of marginal meaningfulness in terms of job outcomes and antecedents of harassment.