bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Judgmental Versus Statistical Prediction: Information Asymmetry and Combination Rules
Authors: Yaniv Ilan , Hogarth Robin M.
Published: April 2006

The relative predictive accuracy of humans and statistical models has long been the subject of controversy even though models have demonstrated superior performance in many studies. We propose that relative performance depends on the amount of contextual information available and whether it is distributed symmetrically to humans and models. Given their different strengths, human and statistical predictions can be profitably combined to improve prediction.
Less Skilled Readers Have Less Efficient Suppression Mechanisms
Authors: Gernsbacher Morton Ann
Published: April 2006

One approach to understanding the component processes and mechanisms underlying adult reading skill is to compare the performance of more skilled and less skilled readers on laboratory experiments. The results of some recent experiments employing this approach demonstrate that less skilled adult readers suppress less efficiently the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words (e.g., the playing card vs. garden tool meanings of spaded, the incorrect forms of homophones (e.g., patients vs. patience), the typical-but-absent members of scenes (e.g., a tractor in a farm scene), and words superimposed on pictures. Less skilled readers are not less efficient in activating contextually appropriate information; in fact, they activate contextually appropriate information more strongly than more skilled readers do. Therefore, one conclusion that can be drawn from these experiments is that less skilled adult readers suffer from less efficient suppression mechanisms.
Converging Methods for Investigating Lexical Access
Authors: Posner Michael I. , McCandliss Bruce D.
Published: April 2006

In our discussion of the articles in this Special Section, we ask how well the various methods employed in these investigations can be made to converge on a common issue. We review how current evidence from positron emission tomography, studies of event-related potentials, cognitive methods, lesion studies, and network models relates to the mental processing of an ambiguous word. While many puzzles remain, we are impressed by the promising possibility of bringing these different methods together to deal with an issue central to cognition.
Stated Willingness to Pay for Public Goods: A Psychological Perspective
Authors: Kahneman Daniel , Ritov Ilana , Jacowitz Karen E. , Grant Paul
Published: April 2006

In the contingent valuation method for the valuation of public goods, survey respondents are asked to indicate the amount they are willing to pay (WTP) for the provision of a good. We contrast economic and psychological analyses of WTP and describe a study in which respondents indicated their WTP to prevent or to remedy threats to public health or to the environment, attributed either to human or to natural causes. WTP was significantly higher when the cause of a harm was human, though the effect was not large. The means of WTP for 16 issues were highly correlated with the means of other measures of attitude, including a simple rating of the importance of the threat. The responses are better described as expressions of attitudes than as indications of economic value, contrary to the assumptions of the contingent valuation method.
Maintenance of Foreign Language Vocabulary and the Spacing Effect
Authors: Bahrick Harry P. , Bahrick Lorraine E. , Bahrick Audrey S. , Bahrick Phyllis E.
Published: April 2006

In a 9-year longitudinal investigation, 4 subjects learned and relearned 300 English-foreign language word pairs. Either 13 or 26 relearning sessions were administered at intervals of 14, 28, or 56 days. Retention was tested for 1.2.3. or 5 years after training terminated. The longer intersession intervals slowed down acquisition slightly, but this disadvantage during training was offset by substantially higher retention. Thirteen retraining sessions spaced at 56 days yielded retention comparable to 26 sessions spaced at 14 days. The retention benefit due to additional sessions was independent of the benefit due to spacing, and both variables facilitated retention of words regardless of difficulty level and of the consistency of retrieval during training. The benefits of spaced retrieval practice to long-term maintenance of access to academic knowledge areas are discussed.
Optimal Time of Day and the Magnitude of Age Differences in Memory
Authors: May Cynthia P. , Hasher Lynn , Stoltzfus Ellen R.
Published: April 2006

Across two studies comparing younger and older adults, age differences in optimal performance periods were identified (Study 1), and then shown to be an important determinant of memory differences (Study 2). A norming study showed that while most younger adults were Evening or Neutral types, as determined by a standard questionnaire, the vast majority of older adults were Morning types. A second study compared the recognition performance of younger and older adults tested in the morning or in the late afternoon. Substantial age differences were found in the late afternoon, when younger but not older adults were at their optimal times. However, no age differences in memory performance were found in the morning, when older but not younger adults were at their peak period. Thus, synchrony between optimal performance periods and the time at which testing is conducted may well be a critical variable in determining group differences in intellectual performance, particularly between older and younger adults.
Pigeons Are Sensitive to the Spatial Organization of Complex Visual Stimuli
Authors: Wasserman Edward A. , Kirkpatrick-Steger Kim , Van Hamme Linda J. , Biederman Irving
Published: April 2006

Two experiments investigated the role of spatial organization in the discrimination and generalization of complex visual stimuli by pigeons. In Experiment 1. after pigeons had been trained to discriminate line drawings of four objects, they were tested with novel pictures in which the same component parts of the objects were spatially rearranged. The spatially scrambled pictures led to a dramatic drop in recognition accuracy, but responding remained above chance. In Experiment 2, pigeons reached a high level of discriminative performance when required to choose among four different spatial arrangements of the same object parts. These results confirm Cerella's (1980) conclusion that pigeons discriminate the component parts of complex visual stimuli, but. unless it is assumed that the scrambling deleted or created emergent features, the results disconfirm his conclusion that spatial organization plays no role in pigeons' picture perception.
Voluntary Smiling Changes Regional Brain Activity
Authors: Ekman Paul , Davidson Richard J.
Published: April 2006

We used measures of regional brain electrical activity to show that not all smiles are the same. Only one form of smiling produced the physiological pattern associated with enjoyment. Our finding helps to explain why investigators who treated all smiles as the same found smiles to be ubiquitous, occurring when people are unhappy as well as happy. Also, our finding that voluntarily making two different kinds of smiles generated the same two patterns of regional brain activity as was found when these smiles occur involuntarily suggests that it is possible to generate deliberately some of the physiological change which occurs during spontaneous positive affect.
A Structural Model of Scientific Eminence
Authors: Feist Gregory J.
Published: April 2006

In order to determine the psychological influences contributing to scientific eminence, data from interviews, self-reports, peer ratings, observer ratings, and objective productivity measures were obtained on 99 full professors of physics, chemistry, and biology at major research universities in California. A structural model in which psychological factors were predicted to have a direct influence on both productivity and eminence and an indirect influence on eminence yielded a very good fit to the data. These findings support previous research on scientific creativity and eminence, and extend it by providing the first integrated structural model of scientific eminence.
Neuronal Coding of Serial Order: Syntax of Grooming in the Neostriatum
Authors: Aldridge J. Wayne , Berridge Kent C. , Herman Mark , Zimmer Lee
Published: April 2006

How does the brain create rule-governed sequences of behavior? An answer to this question may come from a surprising source: the neostriatum (caudate nucleus and putamen). Traditionally, the neostriatum has been considered part of the brain's motor system, but its contribution to the preparation or execution of movement is recognized generally to concern high-level motor functions. Recent work implicates the neostriatum in disorders of sequential action and thought, as in the repetition of thoughts or habits in human obsessive-compulsive disorder and movements or speech in Tourette's syndrome. Yet there is no direct evidence to support the idea that the neostriatum controls sequences of behavior. Using ethological and neurophysiological techniques to study neural activity in the rat neostriatum during syntactic grooming sequences, we found that neuronal activity in the anterolateral neostriatum depended on the execution of syntactic sequences of grooming actions. The individual grooming movements themselves did not activate the neostriatum; activation was determined by the syntactic sequence in which grooming movements were performed. These data provide the first direct evidence that the neostriatum coordinates the control of rule-governed behavioral sequences.
When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End
Authors: Kahneman Daniel , Fredrickson Barbara L. , Schreiber Charles A. , Redelmeier Donald A.
Published: April 2006

Subjects were exposed to two aversive experiences: in the short trial, they immersed one hand in water at 14 °C for 60 s; in the long trial, they immersed the other hand at 14 °C for 60 s, then kept the hand in the water 30 s longer as the temperature of the water was gradually raised to 15 °C, still painful but distinctly less so for most subjects. Subjects were later given a choice of which trial to repeat. A significant majority chose to repeat the long trial, apparently preferring more pain over less. The results add to other evidence suggesting that duration plays a small role in retrospective evaluations of aversive experiences; such evaluations are often dominated by the discomfort at the worst and at the final moments of episodes.
The Counternull Value of an Effect Size: A New Statistic
Authors: Rosenthal Robert , Rubin Donald B.
Published: April 2006

We introduce a new, readily computed statistic, the counternull value of an obtained effect size, which is the nonnull magnitude of effect size that is supported by exactly the same amount of evidence as supports the null value of the effect size In other words, if the counternull value were taken as the null hypothesis, the resulting p value would be the same as the obtained p value for the actual null hypothesis Reporting the counternull, in addition to the p value, virtually eliminates two common errors (a) equating failure to reject the null with the estimation of the effect size as equal to zero and (b) taking the rejection of a null hypothesis on the basis of a significant p value to imply a scientifically important finding In many common situations with a one-degree-of-freedom effect size, the value of the counternull is simply twice the magnitude of the obtained effect size, but the counternull is defined in general, even with multi-degree-of-freedom effect sizes, and therefore can be applied when a confidence interval cannot be The use of the counter-null can be especially useful in meta-analyses when evaluating the scientific importance of summary effect sizes
Rediscovering the Past: Gustav Fechner and Signal Detection Theory
Authors: Link Stephen W.
Published: April 2006

The origins of experimental psychology are found in the theory of discrimination created by Gustav Fechner The theory advanced by Fechner was the first theory of mental judgment that applied the ideas of Gaussian error to human discrimination Despite its powerful theoretical and empirical results, the theory vanished Later embellishments, such as the addition of response bias found in signal detection theory, gave such theories new life, but Fechner never received the credit due to the founder of psychological detection theory
The Impact of Audition on the Development of Visual Attention
Authors: Quittner Alexandra L. , Smith Linda B. , Osberger Mary Joe , Mitchell Teresa V. , Katz Donald B.
Published: April 2006

Interactions between audition and vision were investigated in two experiments In the first experiment, school-age hearing children, deaf children with cochlear implants, and deaf children without implants participated in a task in which they were to respond to some visual signals and not others This task did not involve sound at all Deaf children without implants performed much more poorly than hearing children Deaf children with cochlear implants performed considerably better than deaf children without implants The second experiment employed a longitudinal design and showed that the rate of development in visual selective attention was faster for deaf children with cochlear implants than deaf children without implants Moreover, the gains were rapid—occurring within 2 years post-implant surgery The results suggest that a history of experience with sounds matters in the development of visual attention The results are discussed in terms of multimodal developmental processes
Covert Orienting in the Split Brain Reveals Hemispheric Specialization for Object-Based Attention
Authors: Egly Robert , Rafal Robert , Driver Jon , Starrveveld Yves
Published: April 2006

Theories in cognitive science have debated whether visual selective attention is a space-based or object-based process To investigate this issue, we applied a new experimental paradigm that permits the simultaneous measurement of both space-based and object-based attention to a split-brain patient with disconnected cerebral hemispheres The data demonstrate both space-based and object-based components to the allocation of attention, and reveal that the two processes have different neural substrates These findings are related to previous research on split-brain and unilateral parietal patients
Lotteries and the Time Horizon
Authors: Rachlin Howard , Siegel Eric , Cross David
Published: April 2006

People chose between hypothetical alternatives of (a) a million-dollar lottery prize and (b) a much smaller but certain amount of money When probabilities of winning the lottery were above about 1/100,000, subjects avoided risk, for example, a 1/100,000 probability of the million-dollar prize was chosen about as often as $700 for sure But at probabilities below 1/100,000, subjects sought risk, for example, a 1/1,000,000 probability of the million-dollar prize was chosen about as often as $9 for sure This crossover from risk aversion to risk seeking is predicted by Mazur's (1987) hyperbolic delay discount function with probability expressed as average delay due to strings of losses followed by a win, together with a time horizon limiting subjective delay
An Experimental Test of Event Commutativity in Decision Making Under Uncertainty
Authors: Chung Ngar-Kok , Winterfeldt Detlof von , Luce R. Duncan
Published: April 2006

A fundamental rationality assumption of many models of choices under risk and uncertainty is that the sequencing of events should not matter to a decision maker so long as the consequences arise under the same conditions, ignoring the order of events Subjective expected utility (SEU) implies this property without exception, however, SEU is known not to be descriptive The boundary between SEU and potentially more descriptive theories, such as the rank-dependent ones, has been shown to lie at a very simple version of this property called event commutativity Two previous tests of it have yielded mixed results (Brothers, 1990, Ronen, 1973), but with some evidence from Brothers that it may be sustained if choice-based certainty equivalents are used The present study tested event commutativity using a version of the sequential choice procedure Brothers employed in his third experiment Twenty-four gambles representing a scenario of suing versus settling a car-accident dispute were presented to students, and certainty equivalents (settlement amounts) were elicited using a computer-controlled choice procedure Twenty-two of 25 subjects supported the property of event commutativity, the others violated it in ways similar to those discovered in the earlier studies
Personality and Perceptual Expertise: Individual Differences in Perceptual Identification
Authors: Hippel William von , Hawkins Chris , Narayan Sowmya
Published: April 2006

We hypothesized that people become expert at perceiving information that is related to concepts they think about a great deal, because of their extensive perceptual experience with this material To test this idea, we manipulated the capitalization of a series of briefly exposed words If expertise emerges because of perceptual experience, then people should show facilitation identifying words that they think about a great deal, but only when capitalization of these words is consistent with prior perceptual experience with these words Support for this hypothesis was found in two experiments—one in which trait words were presented to depressed and nondepressed subjects, and one in which food words were presented to anorexic and nonanorexic subjects Thus, these experiments demonstrated that personality, as well as personality disorder, has the potential to change the nature of the input people receive from the perceptual system
Willingness to Pay for Public Goods: A Test of the Contribution Model
Authors: Guagnano Gregory A , Dietz Thomas , Stern Paul C
Published: April 2006

This article reports a test of the hypothesis that stated willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental quality follows a contribution model rather than the purchase model that is more congenial to economic thinking In particular, we examine the ability of the Schwartz norm-activation model of altruism to explain six different WTP assessments The Schwartz model explains stated WTP for environmental quality, except when payments are framed as taxes We suggest that models should presume that both altruistic and egoistic considerations may affect stated WTP and that framing may affect their relative contributions
What Is Average and What Is Not Average About Attractive Faces?
Authors: Langlois Judith H. , Roggman Lori A. , Musselman Lisa
Published: April 2006

We reported in this journal (Langlois & Roggman, 1990) findings showing that attractive faces are those that represent the mathematical average of faces in a population These findings were intriguing because they provided a parsimonious definition of facial attractiveness and because they supported explanations of attractiveness from the point of view of both evolutionary and cognitive-prototype theory Since our 1990 report, several alternative explanations of our findings have been offered In this article, we show that none of these alternatives explains our results adequately
Discounting of Delayed Rewards: A Life-Span Comparison
Authors: Green Leonard , Fry Astrid F , Myerson Joel
Published: April 2006

In this study, children, young adults, and older adults chose between immediate and delayed hypothetical monetary rewards The amount of the delayed reward was held constant while its delay was varied All three age groups showed delay discounting, that is, the amount of an immediate reward judged to be of equal value to the delayed reward decreased as a function of delay The rate of discounting was highest for children and lowest for older adults, predicting a life-span developmental trend toward increased self-control Discounting of delayed rewards by all three age groups was well described by a single function with age-sensitive parameters (all R2s > 94) Thus, even though there are quantitative age differences in delay discounting, the existence of an age-invariant form of discount function suggests that the process of choosing between rewards of different amounts and delays is qualitatively similar across the life span
Repetition Deafness: Repeated Words in Computer-Compressed Speech Are Difficult to Encode and Recall
Authors: Miller Michelle D , MacKay Donald G
Published: April 2006

This research demonstrates a new cognitive phenomenon known as repetition deafness, a difficulty in immediate recall of repeated words in computer-compressed speech Sixty-four subjects heard sentences and lists at four speeded rates 70, 55, 35, and 28 ms/phoneme Each target word in the materials followed a pretarget word that was either identical (repeated-target condition) or different (unrepeated-target condition), and targets were harder to recall when repeated than unrepeated Repetition deafness was rate-limited, occurring only with rapid rates of presentation (55 ms/phoneme or less), and decreased in magnitude as structure increased from lists to sentences Implications for current theories of repetition deficits are discussed
Local and Global Processes in Visual Completion
Authors: Sekuler Allison B. , Palmer Stephen E. , Flynn Carol
Published: April 2006

In the natural environment, objects are frequently occluded, and people continuously complete partly occluded objects Do local processes or global processes control the completion of partly occluded objects? To answer this question, most previous studies simply asked subjects to draw the completions they “saw” Such drawing tasks are highly subjective, and they provide equivocal results Our studies are the first to use an objective, implicit paradigm (primed matching) to determine the extent to which local or global processes underlie the visual completion of partly occluded objects Our results suggest that global processes dominate perceptual completion, whereas local processes do not play a large role Therefore, local theories of completion, or theories in which local processes dominate, cannot be entirely correct
The Importance of Nongenetic Influences on Romantic Love Styles: A Twin-Family Study
Authors: Waller Niels G. , Shaver Phillip R.
Published: April 2006

Research in several disciplines reveals large individual differences in orientations to romantic love, yet the origins of the differences have been unclear In this first behavior genetic study of romantic love, biometric model fitting reveals that in contrast to other personality and attitude domains, where genetic factors account for approximately 50% of the reliable variance and shared environment has little effect, individual differences in romantic love are due almost exclusively to environment Moreover, the common family environment plays a sizable role in determining love styles, a finding compatible with theories stressing the importance of family inter-actions in personality development
How Well Do Jurors Reason? Competence Dimensions of Individual Variation in a Juror Reasoning Task
Authors: Kuhn Deanna , Weinstock Michael , Flaton Robin
Published: April 2006

Significant individual variation is observed in how people reason as jurors At the satisficing end of a continuum we identify, the juror draws on evidence selectively to construct a single story of what happened, with no acknowledgment of discrepant evidence or alternative possibilities A contrasting theory-evidence coordination mode of processing entails construction of multiple theories (story-verdict constellations) that are evaluated against the evidence and against alternatives Individual differences influence task outcome, the satisficing mode being associated with more extreme verdict choices and very high certainty
Military Aggression and Risk Predicted by Explanatory Style
Authors: Satterfield Jason M. , Seligman Martin E.P.
Published: April 2006

The explanatory style scores of George Bush and Saddam Hussein were derived using the content analysis of verbatim explanations technique for periods preceding military actions or political conflict These leaders' actions were rated on scales of aggression-passivity and risk-caution Regression and correlational analyses show that increased levels of optimism before conflict predicted heightened aggression and risk taking, whereas increased levels of pessimism prior to an event predicted passivity and caution
On the Dangers of Averaging Across Subjects When Using Multidimensional Scaling or the Similarity-Choice Model
Authors: Ashby F. Gregory , Maddox W. Todd , Lee W. William
Published: April 2006

When ratings of judged similarity or frequencies of stimulus identification are averaged across subjects, the psychological structure of the data is fundamentally changed. Regardless of the structure of the individual-subject data, the averaged similarity data will likely be well fit by a standard multidimensional scaling model, and the averaged identification data will likely be well fit by the similarity-choice model. In fact, both models often provide excellent fits to averaged data, even if they fail to fit the data of each individual subject. Thus, a good fit of either model to averaged data cannot be taken as evidence that the model describes the psychological structure that characterizes individual subjects. We hypothesize that these effects are due to the increased symmetry that is a mathematical consequence of the averaging operation.
Structural Alignment in Comparison: No Difference Without Similarity
Authors: Gentner Dedre , Markman Arthur B.
Published: April 2006

Theories of similarity generally agree that the similarity of a pair increases with its commonalities and decreases with its differences. Recent research suggests that this comparison process involves an alignment of structured representations yielding commonalities, differences related to the commonalities, and differences unrelated to the commonalities. One counterintuitive prediction of this view is that it should be easier to find the differences between pairs of similar items than to find the differences between pairs of dissimilar items. This prediction is particularly strong for differences that are related to the commonalities. We tested this prediction in two experiments in which subjects listed a single difference for each of a number of word pairs. The results are consistent with the predictions of structural alignment. In light of these findings, we discuss the potential role of structural alignment in other cognitive processes that involve comparisons.
Memory Processes in Classification Learning: An Investigation of Amnesic Performance in Categorization of Dot Patterns and Artistic Styles
Authors: Kolodny Jonathan A.
Published: April 2006

The role of conscious memory retrieval in category learning was investigated, using amnesic patients and matched control subjects on two classification tasks. Subjects attempted to learn to categorize both dot patterns and the paintings of three Italian Renaissance artists. The amnesic patients were capable of normal classification performance on the dot-pattern stimuli, but were severely impaired at learning to categorize the paintings. On tests of recognition of the classification stimuli, the control subjects were very accurate on the paintings, and only moderately accurate on the dot patterns; the amnesic patients were poorer than the control subjects on both item types, though they were above chance in their recognition of the paintings. These data suggest that amnesic patients are capable of simple, perceptually based category learning, but that richer, more complex stimuli may demand memory retrieval processes that they lack.
“Some Things You Learn Aren't So”: Cohen's Paradox, Asch's Paradigm, and the Interpretation of Interaction
Authors: Rosnow Ralph L. , Rosenthal Robert
Published: April 2006

When interpreting an interaction in the analysis of variance (ANOVA), many active researchers (and, in turn, students) often ignore the residuals defining the interaction Although this problem has been noted previously, it appears that many users of ANOVA remain uncertain about the proper understanding of interaction effects To clear up this problem, we review the way in which the ANOVA model enables us to take apart a table of group means or the individual measurements contributing to the means to reveal the underlying components We also show how (using only published data) to compute a contrast on the question that may be of primary interest and illustrate strategies for interpreting tables of residuals We conclude with an exercise to check on students' understanding of ANOVA and to encourage increased precision in the specification of research results
Implicit Memory in Amnesic Patients: Impairment of Voice-Specific Priming
Authors: Schacter Daniel L. , Church Barbara , Bolton Elisa
Published: April 2006

Amnesic patients generally exhibit spared priming effects on implicit memory tasks despite poor explicit memory In a previous study, we demonstrated normal auditory priming in amnesic patients on an identification-in-noise test in which the magnitude of priming is independent of whether the speaker's voice is the same or different at study and test In the present experiment, we examined auditory priming on a filter identification test in which the magnitude of priming in control subjects is higher when the speaker's voice is the same at study and test than when it is different Amnesic patients, by contrast, failed to exhibit more priming in a same-voice condition than in a different-voice condition Voice-specific priming may depend on a memory system that is impaired in amnesia
How Far Should We Generalize?: The Case of a Workload Model
Authors: Wicker Allan W. , August Rachel A.
Published: April 2006

A conceptual model based on staffing theory was applied to previously collected survey data from a representative sample of American workers The model links organizational size, workload, work experience variables (felt responsibility and involvement, assessments of work associates), and work outcomes (job satisfaction, work self-esteem, stress symptoms) Path analyses indicated that the model fit data from all waged and salaried workers relatively well When the model was applied to subsamples of new and established employees and of employees from two contrasting occupational groups (professional-technical workers and operative workers), somewhat different patterns emerged The study illustrates the benefits of applying psychological theories across subdisciplines, as well as the limitations of generalizing research findings across different categories of workers We suggest that localized theories and fine-grained analyses of workplace events could help to make research more applicable to work settings
Choices from Identical Options
Authors: Christenfeld Nicholas
Published: April 2006

Many of the decisions that people must make involve selections from arrays of identical options The six studies presented explored people's preferences in two contexts choosing one item from rows of identical items and choosing a route from a series of identical routes The first three studies examined preferences for items in particular positions Whether people were choosing a product from a grocery shelf, deciding which bathroom stall to use, or marking a box on a questionnaire, they avoided the ends and tended to make their selection from the middle For example, when there were four rows of a product in the supermarket, only 29% of the purchases were from the first and last rows, and 71% were from the middle two The last three studies examined whether a similar preference exists in picking a route when all of the available routes are the same length and require the same number of turns In solving mazes, planning routes on maps, and walking around campus, people showed the pattern opposite to that found for choosing items in rows They avoided the middle routes and tended to take either the first or the last one Overall, the last available route was the favorite The notion that these behaviors may minimize mental effort is explored
An Experientially Derived Base-Rate Error in Humans
Authors: Goodie Adam S. , Fantino Edmund
Published: April 2006

Two experiments tested college students in a delayed matching-to-sample procedure designed to explore how multiple competitive sources of control interact in determining choice behavior The primary sources of potential control were the frequency with which each of two colors was correct (base rates) and the accuracy of a sample in predicting the correct choice (accuracy rate) In one experiment, subjects ignored the base rates, and therefore made nonoptimal choices These results mimicked the well-known base-rate error found in verbal responses to questions In a second experiment, manipulations to increase subjects' motivation did not alleviate the error significantly Together, these results suggest that the base-rate error may represent a broad behavioral pattern not restricted to verbal arenas The results are compared with previous attempts to reconcile behavioral and cognitive lines of experimentation
Monitoring Conscious Recollection via the Electrical Activity of the Brain
Authors: Paller Ken A , Kutas Marta , McIsaac Heather K
Published: April 2006

Although another person's experience of recollection cannot be observed directly, we have found that the underlying operations can be monitored using noninvasive electrophysiological techniques Results from two experiments showed that brain potentials elicited 500 to 900 ms after the onset of visually presented words vary systematically in amplitude with manipulations that influence the extent to which subjects engage in recollective processing These brain potentials can thus be construed as correlates of the subjective experience of recollection
A Developmental Deficit in Localizing Objects from Vision
Authors: McCloskey Michael , Rapp Brenda , Yantis Steven , Rubin Gary , Bacon William F , Dagnelie Gislin , Gordon Barry , Aliminosa Donna , Boatman Dana F , Badecker William , Johnson Douglas N , Tusa Ronald J , Palmer Erica
Published: April 2006

We describe a college student, A H, with a developmental deficit in determining the location of objects from vision The deficit is selective in that (a) localization from auditory or tactile information is intact, (b) A H reports the identity of mislocalized objects accurately, (c) visual localization errors preserve certain parameters of the target location, and (d) visual localization is severely impaired under certain stimulus conditions, but nearly intact under other conditions These results bear on the representation and processing of location information in the visual system, and also have implications for understanding developmental dyslexia
Guided Visual Search Is a Left-Hemisphere Process in Split-Brain Patients
Authors: Kingstone Alan , Enns James T , Mangun George R , Gazzaniga Michael S
Published: April 2006

Previous research has shown that split-brain (callosotomy) patients search through visual displays twice as fast as normal observers when items are divided evenly between visual hemi-fields, as though each disconnected hemisphere possessed its own attentional scanning system (Luck, Hillyard, Mangun, & Gazzaniga, 1989, 1994) Results from 3 split-brain patients in the present study indicate that the ability to limit search to a relevant subset of the visual display is lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere This ability to perform guided search was not shown in the right hemisphere, even when the search time in that hemisphere was superior to search time in the left Furthermore, guided search was observed for both hemifields in normal control observers These findings suggest that, as with higher cognitive processes such as language, strategic visuospatial attentional processes are preferentially lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere The findings also imply that the callosum mediates guided search in the right hemisphere of normal subjects
Reading Skill and Suppression Revisited
Authors: Gernsbacher Morton Ann , Robertson Rachel R.W.
Published: April 2006

In a previous issue of Psychological Science, we (Gernsbacher, 1993) reported that less skilled readers are less able than more skilled readers to quickly suppress irrelevant information (e g, the contextually inappropriate meaning of a homonym, such as the playing-card meaning of spade, in the sentence He dug with the spade, or the inappropriate form of a homophone, such as patience, in the sentence He had lots of patients) In the current research, we investigated a ramification of that finding If less skilled readers are less able to suppress a contextually inappropriate meaning of a homonym, perhaps less skilled readers might be better than more skilled readers at comprehending puns However, intuition and previous research suggest the contrary, as do the results of the research presented here On a task that required accepting, rather than rejecting, a meaning of a homonym that was not implied by the sentence context, more skilled readers responded more rapidly than less skilled readers In contrast, on a task that required accepting a meaning of a homonym that was implied by the sentence context, more and less skilled readers performed equally well We conclude that more skilled readers are more able to rapidly accept inappropriate meanings of homonyms because they are more skilled at suppression (which in this case involves suppressing the appropriate meanings)
Resolution of Lexical Ambiguity by Emotional State
Authors: Halberstadt Jamin B. , Niedenthal Paula M. , Kushner Julia
Published: April 2006

The role of emotion in the resolution of lexical ambiguity was investigated Happy and sad subjects listened to a list of words that included homophones that had happy and neutral meanings (e g, presents-presence) and homophones that had sad and neutral meanings (e g, mourning-morning) Words were presented every 3 s, and subjects wrote down the words as they heard them (Meaning could be identified by spelling in all cases) An interaction between emotional state and homophone category was observed Sad subjects were more likely to write down sad meanings than were happy subjects Results are discussed with reference to the literatures on both emotion and lexical access
Effect of Group Performance on Subsequent Individual Performance: Does Influence Generalize Beyond the Issues Discussed by the Group?
Authors: Stasson Mark F. , Hawkes William G.
Published: April 2006

Does group discussion and deliberation on one issue or task influence the members' decisions or opinions on other issues? In contrast to past research looking solely at changes in responses to the same item discussed by the group, this study examined whether group interaction results in members changing the way they make judgments on related items in the future The results show that group discussion and consensus on one set of judgments led to a significant convergence of judgmental strategies that extended to a related (but different) set of judgments the members made later as individuals
Scaling the Episodic Familiarities of Pictures and Words
Authors: Hintzman Douglas L. , Curran Tim , Caulton David A.
Published: April 2006

Most current memory theories assume that judgments of past occurrence are based on a unidimensional familiarity signal In a test of this hypothesis, subjects studied mixed lists of pictures and words that occurred up to three times each They then were given two tests a forced-choice frequency discrimination test including all pairs of conditions (e g, picture seen twice vs word never seen) and a numerical frequency judgment test on individual items Forced-choice proportions for all pairings (picture-picture, word-word, and picture-word) were well fit by a one-dimensional scaling solution, suggesting a common basis of recognition and frequency judgments for both pictures and words Both forced-choice and numerical judgment data indicated that familiarities of pictures started lower than those of words but increased more rapidly with repetition Results are discussed in connection with the distinction between familiarity and recall, and the possible role of rescaling in the mirror effect
Cost, Utility, and Judgments of Institutional Review Boards
Authors: Colombo John
Published: April 2006

Recently, Psychological Science published a series of articles on the interplay of ethics and scientific quality in psychological research (Parkinson, 1994, Pomerantz, 1994, Rosenthal, 1994, Sears, 1994) In the first of these, Rosenthal (1994) argued that the ethical and scientific quality of such research are in fact inextricably linked His case was logically tethered to a cost/utility ratio analysis of research Because all research carries with it some expenditure of resources (“cost”), the conduct of research possessing little scientific merit (and thus, presumably, little “utility”) cannot be justified
Institutional Review Boards in Applied Settings: Their Role in Judgments of Quality and Consumer Protection
Authors: Mordock John B.
Published: April 2006

Rosenthal (1994) has expressed the view that university institutional review boards (IRBs) should reject proposed studies of low quality and employ a cost/utility ratio when making such judgments Similarly, many IRBs in applied settings, particularly those agencies accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, follow a protocol for review in which IRB members are asked to determine if “the research will likely result in an increase in generalizable knowledge which is of vital importance for the understanding of the subject's disorder, condition, or state of health” (Prentice & Antonson, 1987, p 11) Unlike the university IRB, however, the IRB in an applied setting reviews a small number of proposals with an extremely narrow range of research and has a membership of individuals with experience in the field being researched Moreover, the importance of the research for the clients of the agency is more easily judged
Are Children's False Memories More Persistent than their True Memories?
Authors: Brainerd C.J. , Reyna V.F. , Brandse E.
Published: April 2006

Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that children's false-memory responses will be well preserved over time, and that under specific conditions, they will be less likely to be forgotten than true-memory responses The reason is that initial true-memory responses are supported by unstable verbatim traces, whereas initial false-memory responses are supported by stable gist Data consistent with these predictions were obtained in three experiments with 5- and 8-year-olds
Major Axes as a Moderately Abstract Model for Object Recognition
Authors: Ling Xiange , Sanocki Thomas
Published: April 2006

These experiments provide evidence that the major axes of an object's components can activate a moderately abstract model that is used during recognition Major-axis primes were presented immediately before target airplanes, the total stimulus durations were about 220 ms Major axes facilitated identification accuracy relative to primes controlling for attention and for a general reference frame In addition, axis primes facilitated identification with incongruently oriented targets and across small shifts in the target's spatial position The configuration of the axes was crucial because facilitation did not occur with primes containing similar elements in a different relationship
Semantic Networks in the Divided Cerebral Hemispheres
Authors: Cronin-Golomb Alice
Published: April 2006

Hemispheric differences in the recognition and manipulation of meaning may be based on distinctions in size, composition, or organization of the right and left semantic networks The present study describes these features of pictorially based semantic networks in 3 subjects with complete forebrain commissurotomy Stimuli were presented for prolonged viewing to the left and right visual hemifields For each trial, the subjects chose from a 20-choice array all pictures that were associated with a target, then indicated the member of each pair of chosen associates that was more closely related to the target The hemispheres' networks were found to be of similar size and composition, but were organized differently The right hemisphere more often produced linear rankings of semantic associates to a target than did the left, and rankings by the two hemispheres were not strongly correlated Hemispheric differences in semantic organization mirror differences in perceptual organization, with the right hemisphere specialized for conventional meaning and the left hemisphere specialized for detecting and processing deviations from standard meaning
Vocal Expression of Emotion: Acoustic Properties of Speech Are Associated With Emotional Intensity and Context
Authors: Bachorowski Jo-Anne , Owren Michael J.
Published: April 2006

Acoustic properties of speech likely provide external cues about internal emotional processes, a phenomenon called vocal expression of emotion Testing this supposition, we examined fundamental frequency (F0) and two perturbation measures, jitter and shimmer, in short speech samples recorded from subjects performing a lexical decision task Statistically significant differences were found between baseline and on-task values and as interaction effects involving differences in trait levels of emotional intensity and the proportion of success versus failure feedback received These results indicate that acoustic properties of speech can be used to index emotional processes and that characteristic differences in emotional intensity may mediate vocal expression of emotion
Evidence for Superior Orthographic Skills in Dyslexics
Authors: Siegel Linda S , Share David , Geva Esther
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this study was to assess the development of both phonological and orthographic skills in normally achieving and dyslexic readers The subjects were 257 dyslexic and 342 normally achieving readers, matched at eight reading levels They were administered the Woodcock (1987) Word Attack Subtest, a measure of phonological skills requiring the reading of pseudowords, and an orthographic awareness task designed to measure awareness of the properties of English words and the probable sequences and positions of letters within words The dyslexics had significantly higher scores than the normally achieving readers on the orthographic awareness task However, the normally achieving readers had significantly higher scores on the Word Attack Subtest Therefore, the difficulties with phonological processing and the increased orthographic awareness of the dyslexics may indicate a reading strategy that relies more on the visual than the phonological features of words
Cerebral Asymmetry and Cognitive Development in Children: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
Authors: Leonard Christiana M. , Lombardino Linda J. , Mercado Laurie R. , Browd Samuel R. , Breier Joshua I. , Agee O. Frank
Published: April 2006

Phonemic awareness, the ability to abstract and manipulate auditory symbols, is a distinguishing human characteristic Neurobiological specializations in the left hemisphere and cultural exposure to language interact to shape development of this ability Modern imaging techniques now permit investigation of the interaction of these forces In this initial cross-sectional study, we found evidence for a shift from neurobiological to cultural regulation In young children, aged 5 to 9, anatomical asymmetry of the auditory association cortex predicted phonemic awareness In older children, the relationship disappeared, as all children became skilled readers The findings suggest that children with different patterns of cognitive strengths and weaknesses may have different spatiotemporal patterns of cortical development