bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Graphic rating scales — How many categories?
Authors: McKelvie Stuart J.
Published: April 2011

Two experiments investigated the reliability and validity of a continuous and various categorized (five, seven, 11) rating scales on two different tasks (involving attitude judgement and psychophysical judgement). Although subjects appeared to prefer the continuous scale, it did not offer any advantages in terms of reliability or validity. It is proposed that a relatively small number of categories (five or six) should generally be used because (a) the five‐category scale was most reliable (at least on the attitude judgement task), (b) confidence judgements made by subjects using the continuous scale indicated that they were operating essentially with five or six categories, and (c) other evidence suggests that whereas there is no psychometric advantage in a large number of scale categories (greater than nine to 12), there may be a loss of discriminative power and validity with fewer than five.
Level I and Level II abilities: Some theoretical reinterpretations
Authors: Jarman Ronald F.
Published: April 2011

Some of the major assumptions and premises of the theory of Level I and Level II abilities are examined using a recent model of cognitive abilities known as simultaneous and successive syntheses. It is found that the empirical evidence for Level I and Level II abilities can be interpreted parsimoniously using the simultaneous‐successive model. The result of these reinterpretations is both increased clarification of some previously vague aspects of the Level I‐Level II theory, and greater understanding of the relationship of the theory to some current themes in cognitive psychology.
Chlorpromazine and serial reaction performance
Authors: Hartley L. , Henry T. , Couper‐Smartt J.
Published: April 2011

The effect of 25 mg or 75 mg of chlorpromazine on the serial reaction performance of 12 male human subjects was studied.

Speed or number of correct responses was reduced by the high dose of chlorpromazine and errors of commission and omission were increased. The adverse effect of the drug upon speed appeared only at the end of the half‐hour test. By contrast the adverse effect upon gaps and errors was apparent throughout the test and there was no interaction with test duration.
Imagery bizarreness in children's recall of sentences
Authors: Merry R. , Graham N. C.
Published: April 2011

Bizarre mental images have been advocated as ‘artificial’ memory aids for students since the time of the ancient Greek teachers of rhetoric, yet the few recent experiments in this area, mostly on adults, have generally found bizarreness to be unimportant. In this experiment, 108 12‐year‐olds recalled words from sentences they had rated as producing bizarre images significantly better than they recalled the same words from sentences rated as producing ordinary images. This was true for both expected and unexpected immediate recall, and for unexpected long‐term recall (P < 0·01 in all cases). A tentative explanation is offered in terms of a cognitive approach to perception itself, suggesting that bizarre images might have properties similar to Berlyne's ‘collative’ stimulus variables, involving subjects at something close to ‘the optimum level of arousal’.
Memory effects in visual spatial information processing
Authors: Fishbein Harold D.
Published: April 2011

Eight, ten and twelve year old children were tested on a novel procedure involving the successive presentation of the standard and comparison stimuli. Two hypotheses were evaluated, one dealing with memory effects, and the other with children's pre‐testing of choice responses in spatial information processing. It was found, in general, for both spatial perception and coordination of perspectives tasks, that there was no short memory decay for spatial information, but that opportunities to pre‐test choice responses improved performance. It was inferred from these data that the performance superiority under simultaneous than successive conditions is attributable to opportunities to pre‐test responses and not to memory effects, as opposed to successive conditions is attributable to opportunities to pre‐test responses and not to memory effects.
Kinaesthetic after‐effect, organismic state and retest reliability
Authors: Kostin Irene Wolk , Baker A. Harvey , Mishara Brian L. , Parker Laurence
Published: April 2011

Earlier research demonstrated that exposure to the first administration of the kinaesthetic after‐effect (KAE) task differentially biases second (and later) session KAE scores. This bias results in low retest reliability. Here we explore the hypothesis that variation in organismic state also affects KAE retest reliability. A significant retest correlation was found for subjects classified as consistent in organismic state (r = 0·349), but not for those subjects classified as inconsistent in organismic state (r = −0·076). If, as these findings indicate, KAE scores reflect state variance, can they also constitute an adequate measure of trait? None of the relevant prior one‐session KAE validity studies controlled for state variance, yet most had significant findings. Although KAE scores are evidently influenced by state variables, this does not contraindicate continued use of KAE as a measure of trait.
The relationship between sensation‐seeking and Eysenck's dimensions of personality
Authors: Eysenck Sybil , Zuckerman Marvin
Published: April 2011

Theory and common correlates suggest a relationship between dimensions of personality measured by the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and the Sensation‐seeking Scale. In order to examine these relationships, the two tests were given to 219 American and 879 English subjects of both sexes. Sensation‐seeking was positively correlated with the traits of extraversion and psychoticism as measured by the EPQ. There was no relationship between sensation‐seeking and the trait dimension of neuroticism.
Noise and attentional selectivity: A reproducible phenomenon?
Authors: Forster Peter M. , Grierson Arthur T.
Published: April 2011

It has been suggested that loud noise increases attentional selectivity. Hockey (1970b) found that noise improved performance on the high priority aspects of a complex task and found a corresponding impairment on the low priority aspects of the task. An alternative explanation was offered by Poulton (1976) who suggested that noise impairs performance by masking auditory feedback from subjects' responses. Four experiments were carried out in order to investigate the phenomenon. No evidence of impaired performance was found in any of the four experiments, with or without auditory feedback. Thus, neither attentional selectivity nor masking of auditory feedback was found to be a significant factor in these experiments.

It was concluded that this task is not suitable for investigating the effects of noise on attentional selectivity.
The structure of mathematical ability
Authors: Furneaux W. D. , Rees Ruth
Published: April 2011

A ‘mathematics’ test of 69 items was administered to 255 craft and technician students in the 17–19 age range. The item/item correlations were analysed using both a principal components and a maximum‐likelihood method. After varimax rotation, the same structure emerged from both analyses. The first two factors were each defined by sets of items heterogeneous in terms of content and mathematical processes. Nearly all other factors could be understood as simple content or process factors. All the Thurstone PMA scales, which had also been administered, loaded strongly on Factor II', and on no other. The results confirm and extend those from a previous study (Furneaux & Rees, 1976), and strongly support the view that there is a ‘mathematical ability’ factor independent of ‘g’. They also suggest an explanation for the equivocal results from studies of the structure of mathematical ability which derive from inter‐test rather than inter‐item correlations.
Gains, losses and lateral differences in hearing of schizophrenic patients
Authors: Gruzelier John H. , Hammond Nick V.
Published: April 2011

Schizophrenic patients, whether newly admitted to hospital or institutionalized, exhibited ear differences in absolute threshold. Right ear thresholds were superior to left ear thresholds especially at frequencies above 2 kHz, but deteriorated in course of day or as a result of repeated testing. These effects were attributed to dynamics of left hemisphere processes which in schizophrenia appear susceptible to inhibition and fatigue, effects that may be endocrine related. Relative to control subjects institutionalized schizophrenic patients showed superior hearing below 1 kHz and inferior hearing above 2 kHz.
How specific are perceptual skills? A cross‐cultural study of pattern reproduction*
Authors: Serpell Robert
Published: April 2011

Pattern reproduction tasks were presented in four different media to samples of urban Zambian and urban British schoolchildren. When the patterns were reproduced as wire models, the Zambian children excelled the British. When the patterns were reproduced by drawing, the British children excelled the Zambian. No reliable cross‐cultural differences were found when the patterns were reproduced as plasticine models or as configurations of hand positions. Both cultural groups were equally adversely affected when required to perform the modelling tasks or the hand positions task blind‐folded. The results are interpreted as suggesting that cross‐cultural differences in performance of pattern reproduction tasks reflect different sets of highly specific perceptual skills rather than differences on broader cognitive variables such as practical intelligence, field‐dependency or sensotypes.
Modality and retention effects in intra‐ and cross‐modal judgements of kinaesthetic and visual information
Authors: Marteniuk Ronald G. , Rodney Melanie
Published: April 2011

Factors influencing intra‐ and cross‐modal judgements of visual and kinaesthetic distance information were studied. Specifically, predictions arising from the Connolly & Jones (1970) model in terms of these kind of judgements and the implications for separate visual and kinaesthetic memory stores were contrasted with a modality adeptness viewpoint (Pick, 1970) and an amount of information explanation (Friedes, 1974). In Expt 1, conditions of both intra‐ and cross‐modal judgements of visual and kinaesthetic distance information were studied where the amount of visual information was minimal. Results, reported in absolute error, indicated cross‐modal judgements to be worse than intra‐modal judgements but, contrary to the Connolly & Jones model, no cross‐modal asymmetry was found and both visual and kinaesthetic conditions exhibited a loss of information over a 20 s retention interval. These results suggested that amount of information about the stimulus was crucial for both immediate performance and retention over an unfilled interval. In Expt 2, similar conditions as in Expt 1 were used except that visual conditions more like those used by Connolly & Jones (1970) were employed. Again, intra‐modal judgements were superior to cross‐modal judgements and a cross‐modal asymmetry consistent to the kind predicted by Connolly & Jones was found. However, since uniform loss of information for both the visual and kinesthetic conditions was found the Connolly & Jones model was rejected as being unable to explain the results and instead a modality adeptness viewpoint for the response modality was suggested.
The identical‐twin transfusion syndrome and intelligence: A second look
Authors: Marsh R. W.
Published: April 2011

It has been proposed that the effects of a phenomenon referred to as the identical‐twin transfusion syndrome reduces estimates of the degree of intelligence attributable to heredity (Munsinger, 1977). Munsinger presents evidence to illustrate the size of the effect and the results when a correction for this effect has been made. A close examination of the original data used by Munsinger, however, provides no clear support for differences of the order he calculated. It is principally the arbitrariness and lack of regard for factual details when his data was classified that leads to this conclusion.
Personality, reinforcement and verbal operant conditioning
Authors: Nagpal Mohanjeet , Gupta B. S.
Published: April 2011

Gray's hypothesis of greater conditionability of individuals having high scores on both neuroticism and extraversion (N+E+) under rewarding conditions, and high scores on neuroticism and low scores on extraversion (N+E‐) under punishing conditions, was put to the test. Taffel's sentence completion task was used for determining the level of verbal operant conditioning. The analysis of variance and post hoc comparisons by the LSD test lent support to Gray's hypothesis.
Children's hypotheses about the animacy of actor and object nouns
Authors: Dewart M. Hazel
Published: April 2011

This experiment investigated whether 3 and 4 year old children show systematic preferences for animate or inanimate nouns to function as actors and objects of simple active and passive voice sentences. The children had to choose a suitable referent for a nonsense word used in a sentence. They made their selection from an array of toys, the names of which were either animate or inanimate nouns. The children were divided into two groups according to their performance on a pretest of their comprehension of passive voice sentences. Children who did not understand the passive on the pretest showed a strong preference for an animate first noun and inanimate second noun regardless of sentence voice. Children who understood the passive showed this preference only on active voice sentences. These results suggest a relationship between the child's syntactic knowledge and semantic expectations.
The suitability of placement tasks as analogues for syllogistic reasoning
Authors: Eley Malcolm G.
Published: April 2011

Forty‐four volunteer subjects were individually presented with displays of two colours, one above the other, and aural sentences describing two colours, one already in the display and the other new, in either a sentence‐first or a display‐first condition. The sentences varied with respect to the relational term used: higher than, lower than, not as high as, not as low as. In both conditions subjects were required to verbally respond top, or bottom according to where the colour in the sentence that was not in the display would need to be placed in the display, or can't do if the new colour could not be unambiguously placed. Response time and error rate comparisons, for each condition and each sentence type, between tasks requiring the sentence subject to be placed and tasks requiring the sentence object to be placed were interpreted as showing that such placement tasks were unacceptable as a source of evidence for an imagery analogue model of syllogistic reasoning.
The Archimedes spiral after‐effect as a test of arousability
Authors: Blowers Geoffrey H.
Published: April 2011

The idea of the Archimedes spiral after‐effect (SAE) providing an estimate of the change of arousal that can be induced in an individual by stimulation (i.e. arousability) has been derived from personality studies of normal subjects and psychiatric patients. However, the concept of arousability has been formulated from group studies and the results from normal subjects are equivocal. An experiment was therefore conducted to test the hypothesis that the SAE measures arousability in normal subjects. After‐effect duration at three levels of activation brought about by riding a bicycle ergometer was measured in 12 subjects. The index of arousal used was beat‐by‐beat heart rate. The results show that (a) the ergometer significantly altered heart‐rate levels; (b) after‐effect duration did not alter significantly at different heart‐rate levels; (c) after‐effect duration did not correlate significantly with heart‐rate level; (d) after‐effect duration did correlate significantly and negatively with change in heart‐rate level. These findings are taken as support for the hypothesis that after‐effect duration is related to the magnitude of change of activation. The relationship of heart rate, as an autonomic index of arousal, to cortical arousal indices is discussed and it is concluded that the SAE is a test of individual differences in arousability.
The effects of categorization and prototypicality on aesthetic choice in a furniture selection task
Authors: Whitfield T. W. A. , Slatter P. E.
Published: April 2011

Recent research into perceptual categorization has demonstrated that successful classification depends upon the matching of a stimulus input with a prototype representing the appropriate category. The suggestion that aesthetic responses to stimuli are mediated by the categorization process was investigated in two furniture selection tasks. In the first experiment subjects were requested to select items of furniture from a display similar to those in a set, while preference selections were obtained in the second experiment. The sets comprised items in one of three styles — Modern, Georgian or Art Nouveau — with the display made up of examples of all three. The first experiment examined the reliability of classification for the styles selected, with results indicating the existence of two distinguishable categories, represented by the Modern and Georgian sets. Further, the Georgian and Art Nouveau sets appeared to belong to a broader category, in which the Georgian items were more prototypic, that is, were better examples of this category. The results of Expt. 2 showed a marked parallelism with the data from the similarity task and supported the hypothesis that aesthetic choice reflects categorization and prototypicality.
Performance in number conservation tasks as a function of the number of items
Authors: Cowan Richard
Published: April 2011

It has traditionally been considered that successful performance in a test of number conservation entails the appreciation of a principle that holds for all numbers. In the first of two experiments 5 year old children were found to give more conserving responses to small number versions in a test of identity conservation than to a large number version. In the second experiment the superiority of performance with small number versions was reduced but not eliminated when the opportunity to requantify the array after the transformation was removed. The results are consistent with two recent accounts of number development which postulate the prior attainment of number conservation with small numbers.
Meaning specificity in sentence processing
Authors: Tzeng Ovid J. L. , Alva Isabel C. , Lee Alfred T.
Published: April 2011

Two experiments were conducted to test the principle of encoding specificity in sentence recognition when the target sentence was embedded in a meaningful discourse. The results indicate that change in meaning context resulted in significantly less recognition of the target sentences while change in sentence form and the target‐test interval had no significant effects. The findings were discussed within the framework of a semantic interpretation of the encoding specificity principle.
The role of animate and inanimate nouns in determining sentence voice
Authors: Dewart M. Hazel
Published: April 2011

Children aged 6 and 8 years were required to recall a series of sentences, some with an animate actor and an inanimate acted‐upon element and some with these relations reversed. Sentences were presented in either active or passive voice. While hearing a sentence the children saw a picture of the situation it described and recall was cued with a picture of either the actor or the acted‐upon element of the situation. Pictures of the acted‐upon element led to active sentences being recalled as passives more often than did pictures of the actor. There was a strong tendency for passive sentences with animate actor and inanimate acted‐upon to be recalled as actives, whereas active sentences with inanimate actor and animate acted‐upon tended to be changed to passives in recall. Thus, it appears that in transitive sentences with one animate and one inanimate noun, children prefer to put the animate noun first and this preference affects their choice of sentence voice. The maintenance of this preferred ordering of animate and inanimate nouns may constitute one of the functions of the passive voice in a language.
Mischel and the concept of personality
Authors: Eysenck Michael W. , Eysenck Hans J.
Published: April 2011

The various criticisms that Mischel has made of the state‐trait approach to personality are considered and found to be lacking in substance. His major argument is that the actual inconsistency of behaviour is incompatible with the expectation of behavioural consistency that follows from the state‐trait approach. However, Mischel has misread the evidence, and pays insufficient attention to the distinction between consistency at the intervening‐variable level and consistency at the behavioural level. In addition, Mischel and others have evaluated state‐trait theories from a rather narrow perspective and thus have failed to appreciate the substantial contribution made by such theories. It is concluded that personality forms an indispensable part of experimental and applied psychology, and that Mischel's criticisms have unfortunately tended to accentuate the schism between personality and experimental psychologists.
Effects of subvocal suppression, articulating aloud and noise on sequence recall
Authors: Wilding John , Mohindra Naresh
Published: April 2011

Subjects were required to reproduce in order a sequence of five letters; the set of letters was known so only memory for sequence was tested. Experiment 1 showed that suppressing subvocal rehearsal by saying ‘the’ continuously during list presentation and until recall depressed performance to the same level on acoustically confusable and non‐confusable lists. Listening to 85 dBC white noise during list presentation improved performance on acoustically confusable lists in non‐suppression conditions and had no effect in suppression conditions. The result refutes the hypothesis that noise suppresses inner speech. Expts 2, 3 and 4 showed that articulating the items aloud during list presentation and until recall improved performance when lists were presented at 1/2 s per item and depressed it when they were presented at 2 s per item. Improvement occurred under 85 dBC white noise in Expts 2 and 4, but the improvement was only significant in non‐articulation conditions. It is suggested that noise increases subvocal articulation and that both noise and articulation increase maintenance rehearsal at the expense of elaboration rehearsal.
Effects of processing depth, distinctiveness, and word frequency on retention
Authors: Eysenck Michael W. , Eysenck M. Christine
Published: April 2011

The hypothesis that retention differences between semantic and phonemic encodings are in part attributable to greater distinctiveness of semantic encodings was investigated in two experiments. The memory‐enhancing effects of instructions designed to increase trace distinctiveness were much greater with phonemic than with semantic processing. The usual inverse relationship between word frequency and recognition was reduced by instructions designed to increase trace distinctiveness, suggesting that the customary advantage of rare over common words may be partially due to greater encoded distinctiveness of rare words.
Memory for scripts with organized vs. randomized presentations
Authors: Bower Gordon H. , Clark‐Meyers Gail
Published: April 2011

Memory for a word list is shown to depend upon wholist properties that emerge when it is organized in a manner congruent with semantic knowledge. Subjects recalled 84 words exemplifying eight routine activities (scripts) such as attending a lecture. In Expt I recall was far superior and more organized when the words were presented organized into scripted activities within the day than when presented in random order. In Expt 2, recognition memory for the organized list exceeded that for the randomized list. False positive recognitions were highest to script‐related lures for the organized list but were highest to word‐associate lures for the randomized list. Thus, the organization of words to be learned determines emergent memory structures which affect recall and recognition performances.
Time of day and retrieval from long‐term memory
Authors: Millar Keith , Styles Brian C. , Wastell David G.
Published: April 2011

Whilst research has been concentrated upon the influence of time of day upon short‐term memory, little account has been taken of its influence solely upon long‐term retrieval. Here, the concern is with access to memorized information whose initial learning has occurred long prior to, and is independent of, the immediate experimental setting. Three separate groups (n = 18) performed a semantic classification task at 09.00, 14.00 or 18.00 h. The difficulty of retrieval was varied by requiring classification or words having ‘high’, ‘medium’ or ‘low dominance’ in given semantic contexts. The efficiency of retrieval (defined as a decreasing difference in latency between high‐ and low‐dominance classification speed) was found to be greater for the group who performed at 18.00 h. As physiological arousal is supposed to increase through the day, this result may reflect a beneficial effect of the higher‐aroused evening state upon retrieval efficiency. The result is directly opposite to the impairment of short‐term memory performance which occurs as the day progresses. Some implications are drawn for other research.
Modality differences in relation to grouping in immediate recall
Authors: Broadbent D. E. , Cooper P. J. , Frankish C. R. , Broadbent M. H. P.
Published: April 2011

An earlier study of auditory grouped presentation of digit strings had shown recall to be impaired by recalling the last group first. From this, it has been concluded that the item codes formed at Stage 1 of processing, and before conversion to a group code at Stage 2, were not yet in an output buffer. The present paper employs visual presentation for two similar studies, with results opposite to the earlier one; in a third experiment, ungrouped auditory stimulation gave results which were a compromise between those for vision and those for grouped auditory stimulation. These results suggest a use of echoic storage, over long intervals; in the visual case this is not so and an output buffer is employed.
The aesthetics of simple figures
Authors: McManus I. C.
Published: April 2011

After reviewing the literature on experimental rectangle aesthetics (‘the golden section’) it was concluded that all of the effects demonstrated in the literature were dubious, either due to methodological limitations or inadvertent experimenter bias, these defects being compounded by most studies only considering population preferences and ignoring individual differences in preference. A series of experiments is described in which highly significant and temporally stable, but somewhat idiosyncratic, individual preferences were found. A taxonomy of these preferences, as well as of those for three separate types of triangle preference, is provided, based on factorial analysis. Two clear factors were demonstrated, one based on the square, and the other upon a proportion similar to that of the golden section.
Cognitive style, set and sorting strategy
Authors: O'Connor Kieron P. , Blowers G. H.
Published: April 2011

Cognitive style was examined as a predictor of subjects' preference for response strategy, as opposed to attainment of a given response level, in a sorting task. Frame dependence, as scored by Nyborg's analysis of rod and frame test performance, and morphophilic sorting behaviour were compared in 20 normal subjects, and found to be correlated at the P < 0.001 level of significance. From further analysis of the sorting task it is argued that differences in attentional ‘set’ selection can account for different sorting strategies employed. Field‐dependent subjects prefer to adopt a stimulus set and field‐independents, a response set, in selective attention.
A bilingual word‐length effect: Implications for intelligence testing and the relative ease of mental calculation in Welsh and English
Authors: Ellis N. C. , Hennelly R. A.
Published: April 2011

Five experiments are reported. These demonstrate that, in bilingual subjects, Welsh digits take longer to articulate than their English equivalents, and this difference is paralleled by the finding that digit span in Welsh is significantly smaller than that in English. These differences are attributable to bilingual word‐length differences, and it is this, rather than intellectual differences, which explains why the norms for Welsh children on the digit span test of the Welsh Children's Intelligence Scale are reliably less than those for the same age American children tested on the similar digit span procedure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. These findings lead to the prediction that mental calculation in the Welsh language will be more difficult than that in English.

An interaction between translation and storage in working memory is demonstrated. This finding accords with the working memory formalization of Baddeley & Hitch (1974). It is shown that translation towards the language of preference is faster than that in the reverse direction.
Intelligence and semantic judgement time
Authors: Seymour P. H. K. , Moir W. L. N.
Published: April 2011

An information‐processing analysis of intelligence proposed by Eysenck and Furneaux was examined in an experimental study of semantic categorization and free recall by 11 year old children of varying intelligence. Although the general level of the reaction time in the categorization task was inversely related to intelligence, predicted relationships with error frequency and the slope of the memory search function were not obtained. The subjects' continuance in a free recall task was also unrelated to their intelligence. Some implications of these results are discussed.
When does context influence recognition memory?
Authors: Godden Duncan , Baddeley Alan
Published: April 2011

Hewitt (1977) has distinguished intrinsic context, which is directly involved in the encoding of material and extrinsic context comprising such arbitrary features of the learning situation as environment of learning. While both types of context influence recall, with better performance when the original context is reinstated, recognition effects have been observed only with intrinsic context. The present study uses the contrast between the land and underwater environments to explore this apparent discrepancy. Subjects learned lists of 36 words either on land or under water, and subsequently tried to recognize them from a list of 72 words presented in either the same or the alternative environment. In contrast to an earlier recall study, no trace of context dependency was observed. Implications for the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic context are discussed.
The validity of age‐of‐acquisition ratings
Authors: Gilhooly K. J. , Gilhooly M. L. M.
Published: April 2011

A number of recent studies have reported that words rated by adults as early acquired are retrieved more rapidly than words rated as later acquired. Age‐of‐acquisition ratings have been found to be highly reliable, but the validity of the ratings has been little investigated. This paper reports two validation studies. In the first, words were taken from a standardized vocabulary test and rated by naive adult subjects for age‐of‐acquisition. The adult ratings agreed closely with the rank order of the vocabulary test words, an order based on age norms. In the second study, words that had already been rated on age‐of‐acquisition by adult subjects were given as a vocabulary test to groups of subjects ranging in age from approximately 5–21 years. Objective estimates of age‐of‐acquisition from the vocabulary test data were highly correlated with the subjective age‐of‐acquisition ratings. In both experiments, multiple regression analysis indicated that rated age was the major independent predictor of the objective age‐of‐acquisition indices. It was concluded that ratings are valid measures of true age‐of‐acquisition.
Cultural anchorages: Artifacts in field and laboratory studies
Authors: MacNeil M. K. , Pace D. J. , Wark R. A.
Published: April 2011

Frequency distributions compiled from data in two unrelated judgement situations were analysed with regard to the greater frequency of certain numbers relative to other numbers. In a laboratory situation subjects were requested to give their ‘best estimates' of the distance between two tachistoscopically presented points of light. In the second situation, data were collected from hunters who estimated the number of quail they had killed during the preceding season. The frequency distributions from both studies contained significantly more anchored than non‐anchored judgements. Analysis of the numbers given in the laboratory (hex situation) study also showed a strong preference for ‘multi‐anchored’ rather than non‐anchored numbers. In the field (quail‐kill) study the ‘triple‐anchored’ numbers were the estimates given with proportionately the greatest frequency.
Factor stability of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory as a function of test‐retest performance, age and sex
Authors: McFarland K. , Anderson J.
Published: April 2011

The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) was administered to 600 students from two urban secondary schools and two universities. The respondents were categorized by age (three groups) and sex. The questionnaire was re‐administered to a sample of 69 respondents after an interval of 4 weeks. Principal axes factor analysis of the test and retest data showed the EHI to have a single factor which exhibited a high stability over the test‐retest time period. However, one item (the use of scissors) was relatively unstable in relation to the derived (handedness) factor. A simple factor structure was also extracted from each ‘age × sex’ data set. The handedness factor showed a high stability across both age and sex. However, three items (knife, broom and box‐lid) did not load well on the handedness factor and were generally unstable in relation to this factor. When assessing handedness with this questionnaire it is recommended that responses to particular items be weighted according to their stability and their contribution to the handedness factor. Alternative scoring procedures would seriously affect the otherwise high validity that this questionnaire has for assessing handedness.
Phoneme monitoring, syllable monitoring and lexical access
Authors: Segui J. , Frauenfelder U. , Mehler J.
Published: April 2011

In this experiment we investigated the role of the lexical status (word/non‐word) of the target item in the determination of phoneme and syllable detection times. Subjects monitored either the initial stop consonants (/b/, /d/, /p/) or the initial CV syllables (/ba/, /de/, /pi/) in bisyllabic target items (word/non‐word) in mixed lists. The lexical status of the target item did not introduce significant differences for phoneme or syllable detection times. However, significant differences were found between the phoneme and syllable detection times. In addition, a strong correlation between the phoneme and syllable RTs for each item (word/non‐word) was obtained. The first result shows that subjects can respond to both initial phonemes and syllables prior to lexical access. The second result suggests that phoneme detection is highly dependent on syllable identification.
The role of sound, shape and orthographic cues in early reading
Authors: Snowling Maggie , Frith Uta
Published: April 2011

In the present experiment the ability of young children to read texts distorted so as to reduce sound, shape or orthographic cues was observed. Good readers, with reading ages beyond seven years, found texts in which orthographic cues were reduced more difficult to read than texts in which sound or shape cues were reduced. Poorer readers were not differentially affected by the different distortions. The results support Gibson & Levin's (1975) contention that orthographic cues are used in reading from a reading age of around seven years.
Masking, beneficial arousal and adaptation level: A reply to Hartley
Authors: Poulton E. C.
Published: April 2011

This is a reply to Hartley's (1981) four criticisms of my 1978 a paper in the Psychological Bulletin. Two of Hartley's criticisms are rejected. The two remaining criticisms are accepted, but neither is crucial to the ‘masking hypothesis’. An experiment is reported which shows that people tap louder in quiet when they wear ear protectors than when they do not. This is due to their level of adaptation. It is pointed out that in Hartley's (1981) claimed ‘replication’ of Hockey's (1970) Expt B, two of his results for tracking go reliably in the opposite direction to Hockey's.
Concrete word dyslexia
Authors: Warrington Elizabeth K.
Published: April 2011

An experimental investigation of a single patient, CAV, with an acquired dyslexia in which there was a significant impairment in his ability to read concrete words compared with abstract words is reported. CAV's ability to identify single letters and non‐words was very impaired. His comprehension of words he could not read was poor and semantic priming effects were demonstrated. His concrete word dyslexia was characterized by a lack of consistency and by a high incidence of visual errors. Both quantitative and qualitative aspects of this hitherto undescribed syndrome are in some respects similar to those described in patients with the complementary syndrome of relative impairment of abstract word reading. It is argued that this concrete word reading deficit provides a further example of category specificity in the organization of the semantic systems subserving reading.
Left and wrong in adverts: Neuropsychological correlates of aesthetic preference
Authors: Ellis Andrew W. , Miller Diane
Published: April 2011

Twenty left‐handed and 20 right‐handed subjects were found to differ significantly in their preferences for the left‐right arrangement of words and pictures in advertisements. The right‐handers preferred the picture to the left of the text, while left‐handers had no overall preference, but showed a wider range of individual variation. The results are interpreted as demonstrating an influence of hemispheric specialization on everyday aesthetic preferences.
Retention over a period of REM or non‐REM sleep
Authors: Tilley Andrew J.
Published: April 2011

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that REM sleep is a phase of intensified memory consolidation. Pairs of subjects were woken in the middle of the night and presented with a categorizable list of 24 words in the form of six four‐word quartets. Arousal measures (CFF) were taken and immediate free recall attempted before sleep was resumed. Subjects were reawakened at the beginning or end of their next REM period and tested for retention following further CFF trials. Recall was facilitated when a period of REM sleep intervened during the retention interval, but deteriorated when sleep was composed entirely of non‐REM (NREM) sleep stages. The relative improvement following REM sleep was found to be a function of higher retrieval efficiency. It was suggested that either the high arousal associated with REM sleep incidentally maintained the memory trace in a more retrievable form or that REM sleep facilitates consolidation giving rise to improved retrieval.
The cognitive psychology of everyday life*
Authors: Baddeley Alan
Published: April 2011

Over the last 40 years, experimental psychology has concentrated almost exclusively on studying behaviour in the laboratory. While laboratory‐based research is likely to retain its importance, it is essential that the theories and concepts developed in this way be exposed to the more bracing conditions found outside the laboratory. Examples of the value of such research are given from the area of stress where work on alcohol and driver performance are discussed, and from studies of everyday memory, illustrated by work on saturation advertising and on absent‐mindedness. Developments so far have been primarily in the area of cognitive psychology, but it is suggested that a willingness to move outside the laboratory is likely to be even more fruitful in studying the problems of conative and orectic psychology, the study of the will and the emotions.
The effects of noise on recall of categorized lists
Authors: Smith Andrew P. , Jones Dylan M. , Broadbent Donald E.
Published: April 2011

Five experiments investigated the effects of moderate intensity noise (80 or 85 dBC) on recall of categorized lists. Generally the results confirmed previous findings which have shown that in certain circumstances noise reduces clustering. There was no effect of noise on the number of words recalled except in a cued recall condition where noise impaired recall. No reliable individual differences in the effects of noise were found and there was no evidence to suggest that 80 dBC noise impaired clustering more than 85 dBC noise. It is suggested that the detrimental effects of noise on clustering were due to reduced initial recall by category followed by greater subsequent recall of individual words. Conditions which changed this recall pattern abolished the detrimental noise effect. This suggests that noise produces a change in strategy rather than a passive change in association strength or some similar mechanical concept.
Preference for lateral directional properties: A reply to Gordon
Authors: Freimuth Marilyn , Wapner Seymour
Published: April 2011

Gordon's (1981) methodological criticisms of our study on the influence of directional properties of lateral organization on evaluation of paintings are addressed. We conclude that our study ‐ which reconceptualized the problem by focusing on directional properties and differences in process dependent on exposure time ‐ used adequate controls and methodology that produced findings (evaluations were influenced by left‐right sequential organization with a 5 s exposure and by more inclusive formal features with a 20 s exposure) which advanced our understanding of the relation between lateral organization and evaluation.
Divergent thinking in arts and science students: The effect of item content
Authors: Webster Michelle A. , Walker M. B.
Published: April 2011

Two four‐item tests of divergent thinking were developed. Both included the item types: uses, similarities, consequences and instances. The first test concerned non‐scientific objects while the second concerned objects that were of specific interest to engineers. One hundred and thirty‐nine engineering students and 94 business studies students took both tests. Using a fluency measure of divergent thinking it was shown that item content has a significant effect on divergent production. The result casts doubt on the validity of previous studies which have found that arts students are better able to think divergently than science students.
Can passive touch be better than active touch? A comparison of active and passive tactile maze learning
Authors: Richardson Barry L. , Wuillemin Dianne B. , Mackintosh Gail J.
Published: April 2011

In a comparison of the performance of active (n = 15) and passive (n = 15) mechanically yoked subjects who learned their way through a tactile maze, it was shown that active subjects made more errors and took a greater number of trials to reach criterion than did passive subjects. In addition, the difference between active and passive performance was largely accounted for by the greater number of repeated errors made by active subjects. In a second experiment it was found that the poorer performance of active subjects could be attributed to the interfering effects of decisions about which way to move. However, the responsibility for the production of movement had no effect on performance. It was argued that the results reflected limits to the cognitive system, not the haptic system.
Anaphoric reference to instances, instantiated and non‐instantiated categories: A reading time study
Authors: Garnham Alan
Published: April 2011

Experiments using memory paradigms have shown that general terms receive context‐dependent encodings. The results of these experiments can only provide indirect evidence about representations set up at the time of presentation. Those studies which have concerned themselves with on‐line processing of general terms have produced only equivocal results. The present experiment investigates the encoding of category and instance nouns as a function of (i) whether their referents were previously described by category or instance nouns; (ii) whether preceding context suggests what kind of thing is being referred to. Where context gives no specific information about a category member, the occurrence of an instance noun in a following sentence provides extra new information about its referent. It was found that this extra new information takes time to process. However, when context has already suggested an instantiation of a category noun, then the later occurrence of the appropriate instance noun does not slow readers down. The results indicate that representations set up during reading are the product of both the linguistic input and of general knowledge. There is no reason to suppose that further elaboration of these representations is required in order to achieve a full understanding of a text.
Constructive processes in skilled and less skilled comprehenders' memory for sentences
Authors: Oakhill Jane
Published: April 2011

An experiment was carried out to investigate seven‐eight‐year‐old children's memory for aurally presented sentences. A recognition‐memory task was used to probe constructive memory processes in two groups differentiated by their ability at comprehending printed text. The recognition errors of both groups indicated that they constructed meanings implied by the original input sentences, whilst demonstrating poor memory for the syntactic form of the sentences. The tendency to construct meanings implied by the original input sentences was greater in children who scored higher on tests of reading comprehension of text. These results indicate that constructive memory processes are related to comprehension ability in young readers.
Information extraction from brief verbal displays: Half‐field and serial position effects for children, normal and illiterate adults
Authors: Davidoff J. B. , Beaton A. A. , Done D. J. , Booth H.
Published: April 2011

Adults learning to read for the first time and two groups of control subjects (matched for reading age or chronological age) were tachistoscopically presented with three types of vertically oriented letter string in the left or right visual field. Contrary to predictions that age or deprivation from textual experience would affect differential hemispheric processing, there were no significant differences between the three groups in the size or direction of visual field asymmetries that were not independent of performance level. However, the normal adults showed markedly different serial position curves from the other two groups. This suggests that the manner in which information is extracted from a visual display varies with level of reading attainment but is not affected by the age at which reading skills are acquired.
Handedness, anxiety and sex differences
Authors: Wienrich A. M. , Wells P. A. , McManus C.
Published: April 2011

Anxiety scores of 35 male and 35 female students (28 right‐handers, 23 left‐handers and 19 mixed‐handers) were assessed in relation to the handedness classification of each individual. Females were found to show higher anxiety scores than were males; but in contradiction to previous findings, left‐handers and mixed‐handers were not found to be more anxious than right‐handers. Extremes of handedness, however, were closely related to anxiety scores, with the strongly right‐handed and the strongly left‐handed both showing higher anxiety scores than those whose hand preferences were less extreme.