bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Intra‐individual variability in divergent thinking in response to audio, visual, and tactile stimuli
Authors: Jaquish Gail A.
Published: April 2011

This study explored intra‐individual variability in divergent thinking (fluency, flexibility, and originality) in response to audio, visual, and tactile stimuli. Forty‐four participants responded to three divergent thinking tasks. The divergent thinking assessors were structurally similar (i.e. duration of task, amount of stimuli presented, time allowed for responding), but differed in that one was based on auditory stimuli, a second used visual stimuli, and the third required participants to respond to tactile stimuli. A within‐subjects repeated measures research design was used; task treatment order was counterbalanced across subjects. A principal components factor analysis with oblique rotation distinguished three divergent thinking factors defined by sensory modality response preferences. Within‐individual differences in level of originality appeared as a function of the kind of stimuli which served to evoke divergent thinking. Results are discussed in the light of the need for discriminating the dimensionality of creativity as a construct.
Selective retrieval and free emission of category exemplars in schizophrenia
Authors: Allen Heidelinde A. , Frith Christopher D.
Published: April 2011

In a free emission task, normals, chronic schizophrenics with only positive and those with only negative symptoms generated as many exemplars from natural language categories as they could in three minutes. While the overall output level of both schizophrenic groups was lower than that of the normals, neither showed intrusions of unrelated words, and the temporal distribution of the output was marked by a clustering pattern inconsistent with a selective attention deficit hypothesis.
Sex and age differences in sensation seeking: Some national comparisons
Authors: Ball Ian L. , Farnill Douglas , Wangeman John F.
Published: April 2011

Zuckerman et al. (1978) reported national comparisons and sex and age differences on the total score and the four subscales of the recently constructed Sensation Seeking Scale, Form V (SSS). The samples showed clear sex differences and a strong decline with age. Sex differences were seen to reflect different kinds of socialization and the age decline was thought to be associated with biological processes.

Australian data were collected from 335 females and 363 males, distributed over the age range 17–60 years. Overall, males showed higher SSS scores than females, replicating Canadian, American and English data. Thrill and adventure seeking scores showed this difference most clearly. However, the total SSS scores displayed a significant sex by age interaction, a result differing most markedly from previously published findings, with females in the 30–39 age group recording higher scores than males. The experience seeking (ES) results were particularly different from English data, displaying a significant sex by age interaction. Whereas males showed a decline over age on ES, females reported increasing ES behaviours until the fall towards male levels in the 40–49 age group. The elevation in ES by the younger female groups, accompanied by dips in the linear trends for disinhibition and boredom susceptibility scores for males at the 30–39‐year level, contributed to the major sex by age interaction in total SSS scores. Scale reliabilities were generally higher than those reported by Ridgeway & Russell (1980). The evidence strongly indicated the wisdom of control for age in research on sensation seeking.
Anxiety and the measurement of handedness
Authors: Beaton Alan A. , Moseley Laurie G.
Published: April 2011

University students completed Annett's (1970) Handedness Inventory (n = 254) and the Trait Scale of the Spielberger Anxiety Questionnaire (n = 247). No relationship was found between anxiety and the hand preference classes distinguished by Annett (1970). Discrepancies between these findings and others reported in the literature are attributed to methodological factors concerning the measurement of handedness.
Interpreting the output of multivariate analyses: A discussion of current approaches
Authors: Share David L.
Published: April 2011

Current approaches to the issue of interpreting the output of multivariate analyses are examined and two broad classes of approach distinguished: univariate and multivariate. Most researchers opt for interpretations that deal with variables one at a time rather than in combination. This approach is appropriate for univariate but not for multivariate techniques which are essentially tools for investigating combinations of psychological attributes which may determine outcome scores or category membership. Assessing the relative importance of individual variables is also inappropriate. A number of multivariate approaches that deal with combinations of variables are then examined. These include the use of simultaneous test procedures (STPs), rotation, and the simplification of canonical variates.
On choosing to make aversive events predictable or unpredictable: Some behavioural and psychophysiological findings
Authors: Evans Philip D. , Phillips Keith C. , Fearn Joan M.
Published: April 2011

Choice and psychophysiological correlates of choice were examined for 36 subjects in a laboratory paradigm where one of two visual display channels could be selected. The first gave warning of an aversive event (shock or noise). The second channel provided an interesting distraction but gave no warning of an aversive event. The subjects were led to believe that aversive events were either avoidable, possibly avoidable or unavoidable. The events were also described as differing in likelihood from trial to trial.

Results suggested that threat of unexperienced events produced more monitoring for warning. Controllability and likelihood enhanced choice of monitoring though male subjects showed some anomalous results. There was some tentative evidence to suggest that subjects scoring internally on the locus of control dimension may show more definite preference for one or other channel.

Monitoring was associated with greater subjective tension, tonic heart‐rate and skin conductance fluctuations. The pattern of correlations among arousal and choice indices across trials suggested that the cardiovascular measure reflected the vigilant aspect of active coping whilst the subjective tension and electrodermal measures reflected affective aspects of arousal.

Results are discussed in terms of the literature on coping strategies and stress, and possible applications of experimental work on controllability.
Phonological confusability in short‐term memory for sentences as a predictor of reading ability
Authors: Jorm Anthony F. , Share David L. , Maclean Rod , Matthews Russell
Published: April 2011

Upon entry to kindergarten, a group of 477 children was given sentence memory tasks involving rhyming and non‐rhyming sentences. These tasks were readministered to the children at the end of Grade 1 when the children were also tested for reading ability. Short‐term memory for sentences was found to correlate with Grade 1 reading ability on both occasions when it was tested. Furthermore, at both ages the children found rhyming sentences harder to recall than non‐rhyming sentences. However, contrary to some previous research, the study failed to find that poor readers were less severely penalized when the short‐term memory sentence stimuli rhymed. The possible role of scaling artifacts in producing inconsistent results between studies is discussed.
Fear of animals: What is prepared?
Authors: Bennett‐Levy Jamie , Marteau Theresa
Published: April 2011

The present study examines one aspect of the concept of preparedness: what characteristics of animals humans are prepared to fear. Group I subjects (n = 64) rated how fearful they were of 29 small, harmless animals. Group II subjects (n = 49) made ratings of the perceptual characteristics of these same animals. Fear ratings were found to be significantly correlated with animal characteristics' ratings. It was suggested that preparedness to fear certain animals (e.g. snakes) is not a function of the animals per se but of their fear‐evoking perceptual properties and their discrepancy from the human form.
Noise, time of day and test expectations in recall and recognition
Authors: Breen‐Lewis Kristin , Wilding John
Published: April 2011

Eighty‐five compared with 65 dBC white noise presented at input was found to improve the free recall of subjects expecting a recall test and to impair that of subjects anticipating a recognition test, suggesting that noise enhances differences in strategies between recall and recognition test expectations.

The results of a similar experiment examining the interaction between test expectations and time of presentation showed that test expectations had no effect on recall in the morning but influenced performance in the afternoon. Thus noise appears to reinforce the instructions and morning presentation to override them.

It was concluded that the effects of noise and time of day must be considered in relation to the task requirements.
High speed memory scanning in retarded and non‐retarded adolescents
Authors: Todman John , Gibb Charles McDonald
Published: April 2011

Four groups of 13–14‐year‐olds, classified on the basis of Raven's Progressive Matrices scores as intellectually above average, average, below average and retarded, were subjects in a Sternberg (1966) type memory scanning task in which memory sets of two, three and four letters were used. Slope values of the memory search function did not differ between groups, whereas intercept values decreased with higher intelligence up to the average intelligence level. There was an overall inverse relation between intercept values and intelligence (r = −0.77) and similar relations obtained within the three non‐retarded groups (rs ≥ −0.57), but not within the retarded group (r = −0.06). Possible connections between these results and findings from inspection time studies are discussed.
The experience of unemployment among black and white urban teenagers
Authors: Warr Peter , Banks Michael , Ullah Philip
Published: April 2011

The psychological health and labour market commitment of 1150 unemployed 17‐year‐olds in 11 urban areas of England were examined. Distress levels were significantly higher than among comparable employed samples, and symptoms had usually commenced after the onset of unemployment. Unemployed black respondents (of Afro‐Caribbean descent) were found to exhibit significantly lower levels of distress and depression than whites. However, no differences were recorded between black and white respondents in respect of anxiety, financial strain and concern over being unemployed.

Commitment to the labour market was significantly greater among white males than black males, perhaps because the latter have responded realistically to their disadvantaged labour market position. However, ethnic differences in commitment were generally absent in the case of females. Length of time out of work was unrelated to affective well‐being and employment commitment in both ethnic groups, but job search attitudes were significantly less positive among respondents who had been unemployed for longer periods.
Lateralization effects in reading pointed and unpointed Hebrew
Authors: Koriat Asher
Published: April 2011

Hebrew has two forms of spelling, pointed and unpointed. In the pointed spelling, diacritical signs (pointing) are added to consonantal letters to convey vowel information. These are omitted in the unpointed spelling. Since pointing conveys information that is critical for the prelexical derivation of phonology, it was hypothesized that its absence would prove detrimental for left hemisphere (LH) but not for right hemisphere (RH) reading and that, for the former, pointing effects would increase with increasing word length. Three experiments, one involving lexical decision and two involving word pronunciation, yielded little support for these hypotheses; rather, pointing had an overall adverse effect on performance, and this effect tended to be more pronounced for LH reading. In general, however, the results indicated an LH advantage. Since for central vision pointing has been found to aid performance under similar conditions, the results were seen to suggest a distinction between the visual and the phonological effects of pointing: pointing may impair early stages of visual analysis but may aid in the derivation of speech codes.
Converging operations and reported mediators in the investigation of mental imagery
Authors: Richardson John T. E.
Published: April 2011

The role of mental imagery in human cognition and memory has been studied by means of a variety of experimental procedures. However, it is frequently not possible to make unambiguous predictions concerning the interactions among these procedures, and it is thus unclear whether they can be said to ‘converge’ upon a single theoretical construct. This problem can be resolved by means of the systematic collection of subjects' reports, which provide a crucial additional source of evidence on the availability and efficacy of imaginal mediators in cognitive tasks. Two experiments studied mediator reports in paired‐associate learning, and it was concluded: that imagery instructions enhance the availability of imaginal mediators rather than their efficacy; that stimulus concreteness enhances both the availability and the efficacy of such mediators; that mental imagery is not an effective mediating device in the case of abstract material; that imagery instructions enhance the availability of imaginal mediators in the case of both concrete and abstract material; but that such instructions may depress the recall of items which fail to produce imaginal mediators.
Orthographic and phonetic coding in developmental dyslexia
Authors: Rack John P.
Published: April 2011

Memory coding in dyslexic readers and reading‐age‐matched controls was investigated using cued recall. In the first phase of the experiment subjects made rhyme judgements about pairs of words. In the second phase one member of each pair (the cue) was used to cue recall of the other member of the pair (the target). Cues and targets were either rhyming and orthographically similar, rhyming and orthographically distinct, orthographically similar and not rhyming, or unrelated.

Dyslexics were as accurate at detecting rhyme compared to the reading‐age‐matched controls; however, they were slower and were subject to a greater orthography effect (Seidenberg & Tanenhaus, 1979). Overall memory performance did not differ between the two groups. However, dyslexics were found to make more use of an orthographic code with both visual and auditory presentation. They made less use of a phonetic code in the visual but not the auditory condition. The results support the view that dyslexics have less easy access to a phonological code in memory, but they are able to compensate for this by increased use of a visual/orthographic code.
Assessing spelling strategies for the orthography of Dutch verbs
Authors: Assink Egbert M. H.
Published: April 2011

Homophone orthography problems form the hard core of spelling difficulties in any language with an alphabetic writing system. For that reason they constitute most interesting material for experiments exploring individual differences in the use of spelling strategies. A total of 253 subjects participated in an experiment with a notoriously difficult homophone problem: the orthography of weak prefix verbs in Dutch. The characteristic difficulty of this category of verbs is that, contrary to the general rule, the present tense singular and past participle have an identical pronunciation (both sounding with final [t]), whereas in spelling the present tense takes ‐t and the past participle ‐d. Weak prefix verbs mutually differ in whether they are more frequent in the ‐t form (present) or in the ‐d form (past participle). In a Cloze‐type task, subjects were asked to supply endings for these verbs, with relative frequency of the two forms being manipulated. The other factor manipulated was the extent to which the grammatical context was helpful in making it apparent which ending was required. Although the effect of both factors was established, it appeared that the impact of frequency is predominant. No interaction between factors was found. In the discussion the results are evaluated and possible links to research in the Anglo‐Saxon language area are indicated.
On‐line resolution of anaphoric pronouns: Effects of inference making and verb semantics
Authors: Garnham Alan , Oakhill Jane
Published: April 2011

An experiment is reported in which sentences containing anaphoric pronouns were presented for self‐paced reading. Some of the pronouns could be resolved on the basis of their gender alone, others required inferences based on knowledge about the world. Subjects spent longer reading the second clause of a sentence when an inference was required to resolve the pronoun, suggesting that the pronouns were resolved as they were read. Resolution was not delayed until it was required by the experimental task of answering a question. The data were also pertinent to the question of whether verb semantics enables a reader to predict subsequent pronominalization. It was found that any such prediction only facilitated reading when the pronoun could be resolved on the basis of syntactic information.
Prior beliefs and statistical inference
Authors: Evans J. St B. T. , Brooks P. G. , Pollard P.
Published: April 2011

This research aims to resolve an apparent paradox between findings in the literatures on statistical judgement and deductive reasoning. In the former, a tendency to ignore base‐rates has often been interpreted as a failure to take account of Bayesian ‘prior’ probabilities. On the other hand there is evidence that prior beliefs influence deductive inferences when they are formally irrelevant. In this paper two experiments are reported in which subjects were required to make two types of statistical judgement, one of which should be affected by prior beliefs and the other of which should be independent of any prior opinions. Genuine real‐world beliefs, as opposed to stated base‐rates, were used to determine prior probabilities. As predicted, subjects' inferences were significantly affected by prior opinions on both kinds of question. However, prior beliefs exerted a significantly stronger influence on the question for which they would be deemed relevant in a Bayesian analysis.
Momentary time sampling with time series data: A commentary on the paper by Brulle & Repp
Authors: Harrop Alex , Daniels Michael
Published: April 2011

The accuracy of momentary time sampling was investigated as a function of (a) the emitted duration of instances of behaviour, and (b) the rate (probability) of emission of behaviour. A computer simulation randomly generated pseudo‐behaviours of durations 1, 10 and 20 notional seconds (constant within each condition) at probabilities of onset of 1/6 and 1/60. Twenty runs, each of one notional hour, were generated for each combination of duration and rate. Simulated momentary time sampling of each run was carried out at intervals of 15, 30 and 60 notional seconds. The results indicated that the accuracy of momentary time sampling was not simply a function of the interval size, but that the emitted duration and rate of behaviour must be considered when evaluating the technique. The conclusion of Brulle & Repp (1984) that momentary time sampling at intervals of 10, 20 and 30s accurately estimates duration of behaviour was modified to take account of these results. A more cautious use of the technique is advocated and it is suggested that, in general, the use of momentary time sampling at intervals of 30s or less is justifiable only when the record indicates that behaviour occurred during at least 25 per cent of the observational period.
Peripheral vision and the aetiology of child pedestrian accidents
Authors: David S. S. J. , Foot H. C. , Chapman A. J. , Sheehy N. P.
Published: April 2011

Three experiments examined whether age and sex differences in pedestrian accidents might be partly attributable to differences in the visual perception of peripheral stimuli. Primary schoolchildren and adults responded individually to the presentation of lights at retinal eccentricities of 2°, 20° and 40°. Experiments 1 and 2 measured reaction times and Expt 3 measured subjects' expectations of foveal and peripheral events. There were no age or sex differences in expectations. Lights were detected fastest in the 20–40° range. Movement times were not variable across eccentricities. As expected, adults' and 11‐year‐olds' detections were faster than eight‐ and six‐year‐olds'. A case is made for more problem‐analytic and multi‐theoretical research in the area of child pedestrian accidents.
The objective measurement of body image using a video technique: Reliability and validity studies
Authors: Collins J. K.
Published: April 2011

A method for the objective measurement of the conscious aspects of body image is described with data on reliability and validity. Essentially it involved photographing subjects and scanning the photograph with a video‐camera. The subject adjusts a control which varies the images on the television monitor to give a representative continuum from endomorphy through mesomorphy to ectomorphy without distorting height. A permanent record of the accuracy of the judgement and of the judgement time is registered on a pen recorder as impulses from the control are relayed when the subject adjusts the control dial. Test‐retest reliability and validity are discussed using control and clinical subjects.
Two comparisons of recognition and recall by signal detection measures
Authors: Welford A. T.
Published: April 2011

Two experiments are reported which applied signal detection measures to recall and compared them with similar measures of recognition. In both experiments there were more correct responses in recognition but also more false ones. As a result, the signal detection measure of discrimination d' was closely similar for both recognition and recall. The difference between recognition and recall could be accounted for by a more stringent criterion for response in the latter. The second experiment showed that, as in previous experiments on psychophysical discrimination, d' rose approximately linearly with the square root of the number of times the stimuli were repeated. The rate of increase was closely similar for recall and recognition. Possible reasons for the differences of criterion between recall and recognition are briefly discussed. The results emphasize the need to take false as well as correct responses into account when studying either recognition or recall.
A developmental study of children's stereotyping of facially deformed adults
Authors: Rumsey Nichola , Bull Ray , Gahagan Denis
Published: April 2011

A frequent complaint of facially deformed people is that they are rejected by others. This study was designed to examine whether negative reactions to facially deformed people would be demonstrated by girls and boys aged 5–11 years. The children were asked to attribute positive or negative characteristics to photographs in which adults were shown before and after minor oral surgery. Despite the relatively small differences in appearance between each adult's before‐ and after‐operation photographs, it was found that, whereas overall the younger children selected faces at around chance level (i.e. 50 per cent), the 11‐year‐olds on 75 per cent of occasions selected in response to questions concerning friendliness and helping (deemed ‘positive’) the after‐operation photographs, and in response to questions concerning fear and anger (deemed ‘negative’) the before‐operation photographs. When the children's own judgements of facial attractiveness were related to the faces they had chosen in response to positive and negative questions, while again for the five‐year‐olds only chance responding (50 per cent) was observed, by age seven 75 per cent, and by age 11 90 per cent, of choices suggested facial stereotyping.
What is integration? Remembering a story and remembering false implications about the story
Authors: Hammersley Richard , Read J. Don
Published: April 2011

In three experiments, subjects read a story, followed by a summary of the story that included both true and false information about the story, then recalled either the story or the summary. Subjects occasionally incorporated details of misleading summary statements into their story recalls. However, these statements were recalled as parts of the summary more often than as parts of the story. When recall was delayed a week, subjects were more misled if they had read the summary a few minutes earlier, compared with one week before, and more misled than they were immediately after presentation of the story. However, if they read the summary a week after the story and then recalled after a second week, they were rarely misled. The effects of delay were not only due to decay of memories, but also to subjects’ decreased confidence in their memories for the original event and the increased likelihood of accessing the older original representation when the newer representation was no longer extremely recent. It is concluded that the misleading effects were not due to alteration of a single memory representation, but to the use of either of two separate records – of the original story and of the summary – in reconstruction of the story.
The effect of mood and demand on memory
Authors: Alexander Lynne , Guenther R. Kim
Published: April 2011

Mood biasing – the tendency to remember information consistent with one's prevailing mood – was demonstrated in an experiment in which mood‐induced subjects recalled personal experiences and a list of self‐descriptive personality traits based on a bogus personality test. Elated subjects recalled more positive experiences and traits while depressed subjects recalled more negative experiences and traits. A second experiment assessed the contribution of demand characteristics to mood biasing. Mood‐induced subjects told that people who experience mood induction tend to remember information contrary to their mood did not show any mood selectivity effect for the recall of personality traits but did show the usual mood‐dependent retrieval effect for recall of personal experiences. The relevance of the mood‐induction paradigm to mood biasing in clinical depression is discussed.
Peripheral vision and child pedestrian accidents
Authors: David S. S. J. , Chapman A. J. , Foot H. C. , Sheehy N. P.
Published: April 2011

In both adults and children, peripheral vision is poorer than foveal vision, but there is evidence that detection in peripheral vision is relatively poorer in children than it is in adults. That may contribute to the particularly high pedestrian accident rates of children. Two laboratory experiments investigated peripheral vision in men and women and in boys and girls aged 7, 9 and 11. Using an array of stationary lights, Expt 1 examined reactions to apparent movement (the phi phenomenon) in mid and extreme periphery; and, using film sequences of a moving car, Expt 2 included a comparison of foveal and peripheral fields. Overall there was little evidence to support the hypothesis that children have poorer peripheral vision than adults relative to their foveal vision. Nonetheless there were some experimental differences: in Expt 1, 7‐year‐olds made fewer detections, particularly in the extreme periphery; and, in both experiments, detections tended to be slower. The relatively complex car movements in Expt 2 were detected faster in foveal than peripheral vision. There were no sex differences. Children detected more movements on the left. In Expt 2 these detections were faster, and children made relatively more simulated road crossings when the car approached from the left (all adults ‘crossed’ in all trials).
Tolman and modern conditioning theory
Authors: Mackintosh N. J.
Published: April 2011

Tolman proposed that the changes we observe in studies of animal learning do not directly mirror what the animal has learned in the way stimulus‐response theory implied. Pavlovian conditioning, for example, involves the acquisition of sign‐Gestalt expectancies, which are only indirectly related to behaviour. This account of conditioning is widely accepted today, and Tolman was alert to its central problem, that of explaining the form of the conditioned response. His scattered thoughts on this question have not yet been superseded by any more systematic theory. But Tolman was convinced that Pavlovian conditioning was a relatively uninteresting form of learning to be sharply distinguished from discrimination or maze learning. His argument here is unconvincing: the theory of Pavlovian conditioning he proposed is quite powerful enough to encompass the results of research in these areas.
Affective asymmetry in social perception
Authors: Tuohy A. P.
Published: April 2011

Moreland & Zajonc (1982) obtained measures of familiarity, favourability, and similarity to self in person perception, and argued that these are all mediated via a single affective factor. Their data can, however, be interpreted to support a two‐factor model such as that previously advanced by Zajonc (1980). An experiment was carried out to investigate this possible interpretation, using ratings on the same three indices for 45 trait adjectives. Independent links were found between similarity and familiarity, and between similarity and favourability, thus supporting dual mediation. It was also found that, while the response distributions for familiarity and similarity were symmetrical about the subject means, the favourability distribution was strongly asymmetrical. It was inferred that the informational bias identified by Benjafield & Adams‐Webber (1976) may constitute an operating characteristic of a relatively independent affective mediator.
Forgetting of word associates as a function of recall interval
Authors: Jones Eileen B. , O'Gorman J. G. , Byrne Brian
Published: April 2011

A series of experiments is reported which sought to replicate the observations of Parkin et al. (1982) that recall of self‐generated associates of emotional words is poorer than recall of associates of neutral words on immediate testing, but that the reverse is true when testing is delayed. In the first experiment independent groups of subjects were tested for recall immediately after administration of the word association test used by Parkin et al. and after an interval of one day. Associates of emotional words were less well recalled than associates of neutral words at both time intervals. In the second experiment different stimulus materials were used in an attempt to control for a number of possible confounds in the word list used in the first experiment. Independent groups were tested for recall immediately and after intervals of one hour, one day and one week. Results indicated poorer recall for associates of emotional than neutral words at all test intervals. A third experiment examined attributes of the words given as associates in Expt 2 and demonstrated that the major difference between the associates of emotional and neutral words was their affective value. A possible interpretation of the influence of emotion on forgetting was offered in terms of network theory of human memory.
Foveal and parafoveal processing of asynchronous Stroop stimuli
Authors: Long Gerald M. , Lyman Brian J.
Published: April 2011

Two experiments are presented which used a form of the Stroop colour‐word task to study the processing of target and distractor information under changing conditions of temporal and spatial proximity. Experiment 1 focused on the marked empirical discrepancies in previous research reported in the recent literature. A coloured target and a distractor (neutral, facilitative or interfering) that were separated by variable onset asynchronies were presented foveally to observers. The findings of this study indicate strong distractor effects on response latency at the intermediate stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) (around 0 ms) and a clear monotonic decrease in reaction time for colour naming at extreme positive and negative SOAs. Experiment 2 used this same task but presented targets parafoveally and distractors foveally. This manipulation resulted in the same general pattern of processing as found in Expt 1. In addition, a laterality effect was found when the target and distractor were incongruent; the left visual field/right hemisphere showed significantly greater interference as indicated by longer reaction times. These results are discussed in terms of current models of information processing of compound stimuli.
The effects of independently validated strategies on visual hemifield asymmetry
Authors: Richards Anne , French Christopher C.
Published: April 2011

The study described here employed a sentence‐picture verification task in order to examine the effects of different information‐processing strategies on hemisphere performance of this task. The original task was slightly modified to allow brief presentation of the picture stimulus to either the left or right visual field. A simple strategies model of hemisphere function would predict an RVF advantage when using a linguistic strategy and an LVF advantage when using a pictorial strategy. Experiment 1 included no explicit instructions on which strategy to employ, thus allowing subjects to use their naturally preferred strategy whilst Expt 2 used explicit instructions to induce the appropriate strategies in two separate experimental blocks. Examination of the data for both experiments strongly supports the claim that the strategies were successfully induced, but in neither case was any clear‐cut support for the strategies model of hemisphere function obtained.
The role of mental imagery in models of transitive inference
Authors: Richardson John T. E.
Published: April 2011

The idea that mental imagery might be implicated in transitive inference has not received any substantial experimental confirmation. In contrast, the involvement of mental imagery has received clearer support in research on symbolic or mental comparisons. Moreover, the two areas of research have produced quite different accounts of the cognitive representations which the use of mental imagery might promote. This investigation considered whether effects attributable to mental imagery could be identified in transitive inference using a task as similar as possible to that involved in symbolic comparisons. Neither the concreteness of the transitive dimension nor the spatial ability of the subjects had any effect upon performance, while the concreteness of the stimuli was negatively related to performance. It was concluded that mental imagery probably plays no role at all in transitive inference, and that its involvement in symbolic comparisons is limited to decisions in which relevant information is available in long‐term or semantic memory.
Visual memory for pictorial stimuli in a serial choice reaction‐time task
Authors: Marshall Eileen , Walker Peter
Published: April 2011

Three experiments investigated the nature of the single‐item visual recency effect in the serial choice reaction‐time task (Rabbitt & Vyas, 1979; Walker & Marshall, 1982). The first experiment demonstrated that, like single letters varying in case, pictorial stimuli yield visual priming that is limited to consecutive stimuli and is unaffected by the presentation of an irrelevant stimulus in the response‐stimulus interval. The second experiment confirmed that repeating a picture produces facilitation over and above repeating the object that it portrays. In addition, it was observed that name priming, but not visual or object priming, decreases with practice. This indicated that visual priming and object priming occur during identification. Finally, in Expt 3, an irrelevant picture was presented unpredictably in the response‐stimulus interval. Previous results had suggested that this manipulation would provide evidence for distinct visual and object codes. Although the results were inconclusive, they do indicate that time intervals and presence of intervening information per se do not explain the loss of visual and object priming effects. It was suggested that the unpredictable irrelevant stimulus may have been disrupting a process whereby memory and perception interact directly at the level of a visual code.
The effect of unattended speech on serial recall following auditory presentation
Authors: Hanley J. Richard , Broadbent Carol
Published: April 2011

This study was designed to test the explanation of the effects of unattended speech on serial recall put forward by Salamé & Baddeley (1982). As in their study, the effects of unattended speech were examined under conditions of articulatory suppression but, whereas Salamé & Baddeley used visual presentation of target items, the study reported here employed auditory presentation. In Expt 1, which used a between‐subjects design and a nine‐digit list, there were no effects of unattended speech when articulation was suppressed. Experiments 2 and 3 employed a within‐subjects design and attempted to make the experimental task rather less exacting. Under these conditions, an unattended speech effect was observed, regardless of whether articulatory suppression occurred during presentation only or whether it continued during recall. It is argued that, consistent with the views of Salamé & Baddeley, unattended speech produces interference to a phonological input store rather than to the process of articulation itself.
Individual differences in negative priming: Relations with schizotypal personality traits
Authors: Beech Anthony , Claridge Gordon
Published: April 2011

A study is reported of normal subjects, selected for degree of schizotypal personality traits, on a cognitive task designed to measure, in a negative priming paradigm, the extent to which they differed in interference and presumed inhibitory effects on performance. The main individual differences measure used ‐ a new scale of schizotypy ‐ showed, as predicted, a significant correlation with negative priming. The correlation with a measure of ‘interference’ was non‐significant but in the expected direction. The results are judged relevant to research implicating a weakening of inhibitory selective mechanisms in schizophrenia and to models in abnormal psychology proposing a continuum between normal and abnormal cognitive function. As such, they suggest a soundly based theoretical approach to the analysis of the individual variations in information processing commonly observed in general cognitive psychology.
Fearlessness and courage: A laboratory study of paratrooper veterans of the Falklands War
Authors: McMillan T. M. , Rachman S. J.
Published: April 2011

In two earlier studies it was found that decorated military bomb‐disposal operators showed lower cardiac responses under stress than comparable but non‐decorated operators. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether that distinctive reaction to stress could be demonstrated in other military subjects. The stress reactions of decorated and non‐decorated paratrooper veterans were therefore investigated. Utilizing the method that was employed in previous studies, it was found that members of the Second Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, who had been decorated for conduct during the Falklands War, did not differ from similarly experienced but non‐decorated paratroopers in cardiac response to laboratory stress, or in their ratings of fear. A relationship between estimates of physical fitness and cardiac response to stress was not found.

When the results from the two groups of paratrooper veterans were combined to form a single group, it was found that their cardiac responsiveness and subjective accounts of fear were lower than those of non‐decorated bomb‐disposal operators. The relatively low levels of fear in the reports given by these veteran paratroopers, and their competent behavioural responses during the stress test, justifies their description as ‘fearless’.
Attentional bias and decision order in a reasoning task
Authors: Evans J. St B. T. , Ball L. J. , Brooks P. G.
Published: April 2011

An experiment is reported which is designed to test the hypothesis that selection errors in the abstract form of the Wason four‐card selection task derive from an attentional bias. Specifically, it is hypothesized that subjects' choices are based upon the perceived relevance of the exposed sides of the cards, as determined by linguistic cues, and that they do not reflect any analysis of the possible hidden sides of the card as required by the logical task.

The methodology used derives from an earlier, unpublished experiment in which the task was presented by a microcomputer which recorded the order in which decisions were made about each of the four cards. It was predicted that subjects would consider first those cards deemed to be ‘relevant’. The earlier study had found predicted associations between decision order and decision frequency based upon the well‐established ‘matching bias’ effect. This finding was replicated and extended to another linguistic bias in the experiment reported here which improved upon the design of the previous experiment in several respects.

In the earlier study, a strong left‐to‐right influence of spatial layout of the cards on decision order was also observed. In the present experiment a rectangular layout reduced but did not eliminate the effects of spatial location. Subjects' decisions to accept or reject cards were also biased by their spatial location, in a surprising manner. The results are discussed with reference to contemporary theories of reasoning.
Individual cognitive analysis of competent and impaired reading
Authors: Seymour Philip H. K.
Published: April 2011

A cognitive model of basic reading functions is described together with experimental procedures that may be used to investigate the efficiency and operation of its components in individual subjects. Illustrative results obtained from competent and impaired readers aged about 11 years are presented. Competent reading, defined in terms of efficiency within a morphemic route to phonology, may be achieved despite quite marked inefficiencies in adjacent systems, including a grapheme‐phoneme translation process. Both these functions are typically impaired in poor readers, although the balance of relative impairment may vary. The index of relative impairment may be used to define subtypes of disability, referred to as phonological dyslexia and morphemic dyslexia. However, this procedure did not identify groups of subjects who shared a common set of processing characteristics. Some theoretical and diagnostic implications are discussed.
Effects of word imageability and age of acquisition on children's reading
Authors: Coltheart Veronika , Laxon Veronica J. , Keating Corriene
Published: April 2011

Research on children's reading has shown that words high in imageability are easier to read than words low in imageability. It has been suggested that this occurs because low imageability words are acquired later in life than are high imageability words. The effects of age of acquisition and imageability were studied in two reading tasks. In Expt 1, nine‐year‐old children had to read aloud words differing in age of acquisition (but matched for imageability, length and frequency). A highly significant effect of age of acquisition on reading accuracy was obtained. The children also had to read aloud words differing in imageability (but matched for age of acquisition, length and frequency). Although imageability affected accuracy, the difference in high and low imageability words was significant only for the poorer readers in the sample. Thus, it appears that age of acquisition of words is a major determinant of reading accuracy and that the imageability effect is attributable to this variable, except for poor readers, who do show a genuine effect of imageability upon reading accuracy. In Expt 2 adult naming latencies were obtained for the same tasks. These latencies were significantly lower for acquired words early than for words acquired later. Word imageability did not affect adult naming latencies.
Knowing more about what we can tell: ‘Introspective access' and causal report accuracy 10 years later
Authors: White Peter A.
Published: April 2011

Nisbett & Wilson (1977a) proposed that people lack ‘introspective access' to their mental processes, and that retrospective causal reports about those processes are in general inaccurate. This paper reviews the literature subsequent to that proposal. This literature has established that: (i) the term ‘process' lacks clear, adequate and valid definition; (ii) the proposal depends upon an untested assumption that verbal reports are valid indicators of ‘introspective access’; (iii) knowledge of the process is not sufficient for an accurate report about causal relations between stimuli and responses. Hypotheses about causal report accuracy can be tested, but there are severe methodological difficulties associated with measures of actual effects, the conditions under which retrospective causal reports are given and the use of ‘observer’ groups to rule out specific sources of information. Of the recent studies, none has achieved unambiguous support for, or falsification of, even a weak form of the proposal. There is no justification at present for using the proposal to interpret null results on verbal report measures. Some issues of broader significance are discussed, including the usefulness of verbal reports in research, the place of cultural beliefs in theoretical statements, and the social and practical context of verbal reports.
Intelligence as an explanation
Authors: Howe Michael J. A.
Published: April 2011

Although the level of someone's intelligence is frequently put forward as being a possible reason for that person's success or failure at intellectual tasks, intelligence level is in reality only a descriptive measure, not an explanatory concept. Ten conceivable states of affairs are described, which if proved to contribute to or be indicated by measured intelligence would legitimize the assertion that a statement about someone's intelligence can help to explain their degree of success at mental tasks. These are that level of intelligence is reliably related to (1) observable physiological variables, (2) variability in basic mental processing mechanisms, (3) the capacity to learn or remember, (4) fundamental thinking skills, (5) the ability to reason abstractly, (6) the complexity of a person's cognitive functioning, (7) adaptability or mental flexibility, (8) executive controlling functions, or (9) unspecified biological mechanisms, or (10) that indications of measured intelligence level precisely identify intellectual qualities that an individual possesses. The evidence fails to provide firm confirmation of the existence of any of these 10 states of affairs, indicating that measures of intelligence level have little or no explanatory value.