bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Permission Schemas and the Selection Task
Authors: Griggs Richard A. , Cox James R.
Published: September 2011

Cheng and Holyoak's abstract permission schema version of Wason's selection task and the standard abstract version of the task were examined in two experiments, each a factorial design with type of problem (permission vs. standard), presence or absence of a checking context, explicit or implicit negatives on the not-p and not-q cards, and presence or absence of a rule clarification statement as factors. The original permission problem violation-type instruction was employed in Experiment 1, and Margolis's not-p and not-q violation instruction (Griggs & Jackson, 1990) was used in Experiment 2. Subjects were 640 university undergraduates, with each subject solving only one problem. The major findings for permission tasks were: (1) facilitation for the abstract permission version was replicated but found to be dependent upon the presence of explicit negatives on the not-p and not-q cards; and (2) this facilitation was enhanced by the Margolis not-p and not-q instruction. Per Girotto, Mazzocco, and Cherubini (1992), these findings and the observed error patterns are consistent with pragmatic schema theory. The major findings for the standard version of the task were: (1) none of the factors significantly impacted proportion correct [performance was poor, ≤10% correct in 15 of 16 conditions] and (2) the number of not-p & not-q incorrect selections was increased significantly for the not-p and not-q instruction. These results are discussed in terms of Manktelow and Over's argument that the standard abstract task and the permission schema version are actually different problems.
Reasoning with three Types of Conditional: Biases and Mental Models
Authors: Ormerod Thomas C. , Manktelow Kenneth I. , Jones Gregory V.
Published: September 2011

Two experiments are reported which compare conditional reasoning with three types of rule. These consist of two types of rule that have been widely studied previously, if p then q and p only if q, together with a third type, q if p. In both experiments, the p only if q type of rule yields a different pattern of performance from the two other types of rule. Experiment 1 is an abstract rule-evaluation task and demonstrates differential effects of temporal order and of suppositional bias. Experiment 2 investigates rule generation, rephrasing, and comparison, and demonstrates differential effects of temporal order and of thematic content. An analysis of the results is offered in terms of biases and mental models. Effects of rule form and context can be explained as reflecting the different sequences in which mental models are created for each rule form. However, it is necessary to consider the internal structure of individual mental models to account for effects arising from temporal ordering of rules.
Working Memory and Conditional Reasoning
Authors: Toms Margaret , Morris Neil , Ward Deborah
Published: September 2011

Little is known about the role of working memory in conditional reasoning. This paper reports three experiments that examine the contributions of the visuo-spatial scratch pad (VSSP), the articulatory loop, and the central executive components of Baddeley and Hitch's (1974) model of working memory to conditional reasoning. The first experiment employs a spatial memory task that is presented concurrently with two putative spatial interference tasks (tapping and tracking), articulatory suppression, and a verbal memory load. Only the tracking and memory load impaired performance, suggesting that these tap the VSSP and central executive, respectively. Having established the potency of these interference tasks two further experiments examined the effects of tapping and tracking (Experiment 2) and articulation and memory load (Experiment 3) on a conditional reasoning task. Neither tracking nor tapping affected the number of inferences accepted or response latency. Articulation also failed to affect conditional reasoning but memory load selectively reduced acceptance of modus tollens inferences. These results are discussed in terms of both rule-based and mental models theories of reasoning. While these data cannot discriminate between the two perspectives they provide support for one of the central assumptions in each: that some errors in reasoning are attributable directly to working memory demands. Taken together these experiments suggest that conditional reasoning requires an abstract working memory medium for representation; it does not require either the VSSP or the articulatory loop. It is concluded that the central executive provides the necessary substrate.
Information Relevance, Working Memory, and the Consideration of Alternatives
Authors: Mynatt Clifford R. , Doherty Michael E. , Dragan William
Published: September 2011

People routinely focus on one hypothesis and avoid consideration of alternative hypotheses on problems requiring decisions between possible states of the world–-for example, on the “pseudodiagnosticity” task (Doherty, Mynatt, Tweney, & Schiavo, 1979). In order to account for behaviour on such “inference” problems, it is proposed that people can hold in working memory, and operate upon, but one alternative at a time, and that they have a bias to test the hypothesis they think true. In addition to being an ex post facto explanation of data selection in inference tasks, this conceptualization predicts that there are situations in which people will consider alternatives. These are:

1. “action” problems, where the alternatives are possible courses of action;

2. “inference” problems, in which evidence favours an alternative hypothesis.

Experiment 1 tested the first prediction. Subjects were given action or inference problems, each with two alternatives and two items of data relevant to each alternative. They received probabilistic information about the relation between one datum and one alternative and picked one value from among the other three possible pairs of such relations. Two findings emerged; (1) a strong tendency to select information about only one alternative with inferences; and (2) a strong tendency, compared to inferences, to select information about both alternatives with actions.

Experiment 2 tested the second prediction. It was predicted that data suggesting that one alternative was incorrect would lead many subjects to consider, and select information about, the other alternative. For actions, it was predicted that this manipulation would have no effect. Again the data were as predicted.
Context-Sensitive Heuristics in Statistical Reasoning
Authors: Bolger Fergus , Harvey Nigel
Published: September 2011

Previous work has shown that people use anchor-and-adjust heuristics to forecast future data points from previous ones in the same series. We report three experiments that show that they use different versions of this heuristic for different types of series. To forecast an untrended series, our subjects always took a weighted average of the long-term mean of the series and the last data point. In contrast, the way that they forecast a trended series depended on the serial dependences in it. When these were low, people forecast by adding a proportion of the last difference in the series to the last data point. When stronger serial dependences made this difference less similar to the next one, they used a version of the averaging heuristic that they employed for untrended series. This could take serial dependences into account and included a separate component for trend. These results suggest that people use a form of the heuristic that is well adapted to the nature of the series that they are forecasting. However, we also found that the size of their adjustments tended to be suboptimal. They overestimated the degree of serial dependence in the data but underestimated trends. This biased their forecasts.
Auditory Recency in Immediate Memory
Authors: Surprenant Aimée M. , Pitt Mark A. , Crowder Robert G.
Published: September 2011

Six experiments investigated the locus of the recency effect in immediate serial recall. Previous research has shown much larger recency for speech as compared to non-speech sounds. We compared two hypotheses: (1) speech sounds are processed differently from non-speech sounds (e.g. Liberman & Mattingly, 1985); and (2) speech sounds are more familiar and more discriminable than non-speech sounds (e.g. Nairne, 1988, 1990). In Experiments 1 and 2 we determined that merely varying the label given to the sets of stimuli (speech or non-speech) had no effect on recency or overall recall. We varied the familiarity of the stimuli by using highly trained musicians as subjects (Experiments 3 and 4) and by instructing subjects to attend to an unpracticed dimension of speech (Experiment 6). Discriminability was manipulated by varying the acoustic complexity of the stimuli (Experiments 3, 5, and 6) or the pitch distance between the stimuli (Experiment 4). Although manipulations of discriminability and familiarity affected overall level of recall greatly, in no case did discriminability or familiarity alone significantly enhance recency. What seems to make a difference in the occurrence of convincing recency is whether the items being remembered are undegraded speech sounds.
Limb-Segment Selection in Drawing Behaviour
Authors: Meulenbroek Ruud G.J. , Rosenbaum David A. , Thomassen Arnold J.W.M. , Schomaker Lambert R.B.
Published: September 2011

How do we select combinations of limb segments to carry out physical tasks? Three possible determinants of limb-segment selection are hypothesized here: (1) optimal amplitudes and frequencies of motion for the effectors; (2) preferred movement axes for the effectors; and (3) a tendency to continue using already-recruited limb-segments. We tested these factors in a graphic production task. Seven subjects produced back-and-forth drawing movements of gradually changing amplitude. The largest amplitude to be covered, trial duration, movement axis, and direction of amplitude change (from small to large or vice versa) were varied between trials. Selspot recordings were used to study the relative contributions of the fingers, hand, and arm to displacements of the pen. The temporal order of limb-segment involvement was also studied. The results confirmed the predicted effects of the three limb-segment selection factors. We conclude that limb-segment coordination is adaptively related to biomechanical features of the motor system and to the computational demands of movement selection itself.
Does it All Go Together When it Goes? The Nineteenth Bartlett Memorial Lecture
Authors: Rabbitt Patrick
Published: September 2011

As groups of people age, the differences in the cognitive abilities of the most and least able become more extreme. This increase in between-individual variance is accompanied by an increase in within-individual variance: the difference between individuals’ levels of performance on their best and least well retained skills. The implications of increasing between-individual variance are discussed in terms of the range of different factors that may affect cognitive ageing. Increases in within-individual variance are discussed in terms of differences betweeen “fluid” and “crystallized” abilities. The usefulness of this distinction and its functional implications are questioned. The hypothesis that age-related declines in “fluid” abilities are best modelled in terms of declines in a single factor is evaluated. Evidence is presented of disparate rates of decline, even of “fluid” cognitive abilities, such as performance on IQ tests, ability on information-processing tasks, and efficiency on memory tasks. Data from large-scale cross-sectional studies suggests that cognitive skills do not “all go together when they go”, but that there may, rather, be characteristic patterns, or syndromes, of cognitive ageing.
The Return of “Visiting Relatives”: Pragmatic Effects in Sentence Processing
Authors: Farrar William T. , Kawamoto Alan H.
Published: September 2011

Two experiments were performed to investigate the role of syntactic and pragmatic cues on the disambiguation of noun phrases of the form VERB+ing NOUN+s, like visiting relatives, that can be interpreted as either singular or plural noun phrases. Both experiments used a self-paced reading task in which reading times were measured for two words, a verb and an adverb, immediately following the potentially ambiguous noun phrase. The interpretation of the noun phrase as singular or plural was biased by pragmatic cues in the first experiment and by syntactic cues in the second experiment. In both experiments, subjects were faster to read the adverb following the verb when the interpretation biased by the cues agreed in number with the verb that immediately followed the target noun phrase than when it did not agree with the verb. These results suggest that pragmatic cues, like syntactic cues, can be utilized rapidly in sentence processing.
Category-Specific Naming Impairments? Yes
Authors: Sartori Giuseppe , Miozzo Michele , Job Remo
Published: September 2011

Recently, Stewart, Parkin, and Hunkin (1992) have questioned previously reported cases of selective damage in processing items from categories of animate objects, arguing that there has been a lack of adequate control for visual familiarity, visual complexity, and name frequency of the stimuli employed. When re-testing Michelangelo (see Sartori & Job, 1988), one of the patients cited by Stewart et al. (1992), with a set of materials matched on all three factors, the asymmetry in naming animal and artefact items still remains. An analogous pattern is obtained when–-in addition to such factors–-the visual similarity within the sub-sets of animals and artefacts is taken into account. These results constitute empirical evidence for category-specific impairments and cannot be interpreted as being due to isolated or conjoint effects of visual familiarity, visual complexity, or name frequency.
On the Existence of Category-Specific Impairments. A Reply to Parkin and Stewart
Authors: Job Remo , Miozzo Michele , Sartori Giuseppe
Published: September 2011

Parkin and Stewart (this issue) criticize Sartori, Miozzo, and Job's (this issue) demonstration of a category-specific naming impairment for living things when sets of living and non-living things were matched for familiarity, visual complexity, name frequency, and visual similarity. In this paper we discuss the points raised by Parkin and Stewart and argue that they do not undermine our demonstration of a category-specific impairment.
Factors Affecting the Learning of Foreign Language Vocabulary: Imagery Keyword Mediators and Phonological Short-Term Memory
Authors: Ellis Nick , Beaton Alan
Published: September 2011

In order to investigate the cognitive processes involved in learning Foreign Language (FL) vocabulary, this study evaluates different methods of instruction. It demonstrates that keyword techniques are effective for receptive learning but that repetition is a superior strategy for learning to produce the foreign word. Performance is optimal when learners combine both strategies. The nature of the keyword is crucial–-whereas imageable noun keywords promote learning, verb keywords actually impede it. A theoretical analysis of the roles of phonological short-term memory, imagery, and lexical factors in FL vocabulary learning is presented.
Prosopagnosia: A Face-Specific Disorder
Authors: McNeil Jane E. , Warrington Elizabeth K.
Published: September 2011

A follow-up study of a patient, WJ, with a very severe prosopagnosia is reported. After a stroke he became a farmer and acquired a flock of sheep. He learnt to recognize and name many of his sheep, and his performance on tests of recognition memory and paired-associate learning for sheep was significantly better than on comparable tests using human face stimuli. It is concluded that in some instances prosopagnosia can be a face-specific disorder.
Attention Reduces Perceived Brightness Contrast
Authors: Tsal Yehoshua , Shalev Lilach , Zakay Dan , Lubow R.E.
Published: September 2011

The effects of attention on brightness perception was investigated in four experiments. In the first three, subjects estimated the brightness of a briefly presented small grey square by selecting a number that corresponded to one of four possible squares varying on a lightness-darkness dimension. In the last experiment, subjects matched the brightness of two peripheral squares, one attended and one unattended. When the stimulus appeared on a white background (Experiments 1, 2, and 4a) it was judged as brighter when attention was directed to its location than when attention was diverted to another location. When the stimulus appeared on a dark background (Experiments 3 and 4b), the opposite pattern of results was obtained: the attended stimulus was judged as darker than the unattended one. These results show that attention reduces the perceived contrast between the stimulus and its background, suggesting that attention enables subjects to provide a more veridical judgement of stimulus brightness by limiting processing resources to the square itself, at the expense of the surrounding background. As attention produced a directional brightness effect rather than just an improvement in report accuracy, the results can be attributed to early perceptual processing effects, hence providing support for early selection views of attention.
When a ROWS is a ROSE: Phonological Effects in Written Word Comprehension
Authors: Coltheart Veronika , Patterson Karalyn , Leahy Judi
Published: September 2011

When skilled readers make speeded categorization judgements about printed words, errors occur to homophones of real category exemplars. In Experiments 1 and 2, for example, subjects incorrectly accepted both the word STEAL (as a member of the category A METAL) and the nonword JEAP (as A VEHICLE) significantly more often than incorrect non-homophonic items matched in orthographic similarity to real exemplars. Experiment 3 demonstrated equivalent error rates for homophone targets differing from real exemplars by various types of single-letter change, but reduced error rates, especially for non-word homophones, when subjects were instructed to accept only correctly spelled instances. Experiments 4 and 5 established that the magnitude of the homophone effect is predicted by the degree of orthographic similarity between homophonic mates but not by spelling-sound regularity of the presented homophone. The results suggest that automatic phonological activation plays a major role in the comprehension of written words.
Identity Primes Produce Facilitation in a Colour Naming Task
Authors: Burt Jennifer S.
Published: September 2011

Five experiments examined associative or identity priming effects in a colour-naming task with colour-neutral words. In Experiment 1, subjects instructed to read the prime silently showed no associative priming effect but a colour-naming facilitation with identity priming. In Experiment 2, the typical associative priming interference in colour naming was demonstrated in subjects recalling the prime word, but not in subjects reading the prime silently, whereas associative primes facilitated word naming regardless of the prime response requirement. The remaining studies investigated the colour-naming facilitation observed with identity primes. Experiment 3 showed no effects on the facilitation of colour naming from varying the letter case of a silently read prime. Experiment 4 showed facilitation when subjects recalled the prime, and a target frequency effect, with faster colour-naming latencies for high- and medium- than low-frequency targets. In Experiment 5, there was no facilitation for naming the colour of target words paired with non-word primes differing in their initial letter from the target. Taken together, the results suggest that the facilitation of colour naming following identical primes reflects faster target word recognition, whereas the associative priming interference reflects an attentional effect.
Effects of Age on the Ability to Remember Common and Rare Proper Names
Authors: Jones S.J. , Rabbitt P.M.A.
Published: September 2011

Difficulties in remembering proper nouns increase with age. One factor is that names are arbitrary labels. Another is that because many people share the same names, mutual discriminability between names is less than than that between other words. Discriminability between names may reduce as the number of acquaintances increases. Also, most people have both a first and a second name. These have to be learned as a pair, but they may be of unequal distinctiveness and so be unequally well remembered. An experiment was designed to evaluate the relative effects of distinctiveness of first and second names on free and cued recall.

Subjects (aged 60-69 or 70-79 years, matched on Mill-Hill vocabulary score) were asked to remember one of four lists of 16 names. Each was presented four times. The names were either common, rare, or a combination of the two–-a common first name with a rare surname, or vice versa. Subjects first freely recalled the names. They were next cued by either first name or surname to recall the remaining half of name pairs. Interactions between effects on recall of subjects’ ages and of the relative distinctiveness of first and second names provide partial support for a model incorporating “relative distinctiveness” as a factor in failures of name recall in old age.
The Internal Clock: Electroencephalographic Evidence for Oscillatory Processes Underlying Time Perception
Authors: Treisman Michel , Cook Norman , Naish Peter L. N. , MacCrone Janice K.
Published: September 2011

It has been proposed that temporal perception and performance depend on a biological source of temporal information. A model for a temporal oscillator put forward by Treisman, Faulkner, Naish, and Brogan (1990) predicted that if intense sensory pulses (such as auditory clicks) were presented to subjects at suitable rates they would perturb the frequency at which the temporal oscillator runs and so cause over- or underestimation of time. The resulting pattern of interference between sensory pulse rates and time judgments would depend on the frequency of the temporal oscillator and so might allow that frequency to be estimated. Such interference patterns were found using auditory clicks and visual flicker (Treisman & Brogan, 1992; Treisman et al., 1990). The present study examines time estimation together with the simultaneously recorded electroencephalogram to examine whether evidence of such an interference pattern can be found in the EEG.

Alternative models for the organization of a temporal system consisting of an oscillator or multiple oscillators are considered and predictions derived from them relating to the EEG. An experiment was run in which time intervals were presented for estimation, auditory clicks being given during those intervals, and the EEG was recorded concurrently. Analyses of the EEG revealed interactions between auditory click rates and certain EEG components which parallel the interference patterns previously found. The overall pattern of EEG results is interpreted as favouring a model for the organization of the temporal system in which sets of click-sensitive oscillators spaced at intervals of about 12.8 Hz contribute to the EEG spectrum. These are taken to represent a series of harmonically spaced distributions of oscillators involved in time-keeping.
Hemispheric Asymmetries for Temporal Resolution: A Signal Detection Analysis of Threshold and Bias
Authors: Nicholls Michael E. R.
Published: September 2011

Divided visual field techniques were used to investigate hemispheric asymmetries for (a) the threshold of fusion of two flashes of light and (b) the detection of simultaneous versus successive events for a group of normal, right-handed adults. A signal detection analysis revealed a higher level of accuracy for the right visual field-left hemisphere (RVF-LH) relative to the left visual field-right hemisphere (LVF-RH) for both tasks. These results were interpreted in terms of a general left-hemisphere advantage for the discrimination of fine temporal events. The implications of these results for models of temporary asymmetry that describe the left hemisphere's advantage in terms of an exclusive specialization or relative superiority are then discussed.
Strategic Associative Priming in the Lexical Decision Task
Authors: Cañs José Juan , Bajo Maria Teresa
Published: September 2011

Two experiments explore the nature of prelexical expectancy processes in the lexical decision task. The strength of the prime-target relationship and the size of the associative set defined by the prime were manipulated in both experiments. In Experiment 1, the proportion of strong relative to weak primes induced subjects to include strong and weak candidate words in their expectancy set, whereas in Experiment 2 that proportion attempted to induce subjects to include mainly strongly related words. Results showed that priming depended on whether the primes were included in the set. Thus, in Experiment 1 facilitation was obtained for both strong and weak primes, whereas in Experiment 2 the facilitation of weak primes depended on the size of the associative set defined by the prime. Results are discussed within a theoretical framework that includes prelexical expectancy processes in the lexical decision task.
The Effect of Cue-Familiarity, Cue-Distinctiveness, and Retention Interval on Prospective Remembering
Authors: Brandimonte Maria A. , Passolunghi M. Chiara
Published: September 2011

Five experiments investigated the effects of cue familiarity, cue distinctiveness, and retention interval on prospective remembering. Results showed that (1) performance in a prospective memory task is facilitated when the cue is unfamiliar and/or distinctive; and (2) it is impaired by 3-minutes’ delay between the instructions and the task (Experiment 1). A beneficial effect of distinctiveness was also found when perceptual rather than semantic distinctiveness was tested (Experiment 2). Experiments 3 and 4 ruled out the hypotheses that “unfulfilled expectancy” of an event (i.e. non-appearance of the cue during training) (Experiment 3), or some sort of “habituation” in the target context (Experiment 4), may have caused the low performance observed in the delayed conditions. Finally, results from Experiment 5 showed that delay negatively affected prospective remembering when it was filled with either a demanding interpolated activity (practice in a STM task) or an undemanding motoric activity (repetitive hands movements). Unfilled delay and an undemanding verbal activity (counting) were found not to affect prospective memory. Implications for the mechanisms underlying prospective remembering are discussed.
The Effects of Modality and Elaboration on Perceptual Identification
Authors: Budd T. W. , Carroll M.
Published: September 2011

This paper describes two experiments on the effects of spoken and written priming on perceptual identification (visual word identification in Experiment 1 and auditory word identification in Experiment 2). Much previous work that has based the priming phase on the processing of word lists suggests that cross-modal priming (auditory-visual and visual-auditory) should be relatively weak. The present studies employed script- or story-based priming and represent a development on the earlier work by Carroll and Freebody (1987). In contrast to priming by list-processing, the reported findings show that homo-modal and cross-modal priming are indistinguishable, although only when the words are congruent with the story. Modality-shift effects are found when target words are incongruent with the stories in which they are embedded at study. Results indicated that memory tests may be much more flexible with respect to the type of processing that can support performance than previous research suggests, and that the data-driven/conceptually driven distinction is not sufficient to account for the pattern of results obtained.
Characteristics of Spatial Memory Span: Is there an Analogy to the Word Length Effect, Based on Movement Time?
Authors: Smyth Mary M. , Scholey Keith A.
Published: September 2011

In studies of verbal short-term memory it has been shown that the length of words to be remembered affects the size of memory span. This word-length effect is attributed to relationships between the rate of rehearsal of verbal material and the time it takes to speak the words being rehearsed. For spatial memory span there may also be an internal rehearsal system linked to overt responding, and if there is a strong analogy to be drawn between the verbal and spatial domains then movement time between spatial targets should predict the number of spatial locations that can be recalled. In the experiments reported here the time taken to move between spatial targets is varied by altering the size of targets and the distance between them. No difference between span performance on a nine-block spatial span task were found, either on immediate recall or on recall after an interval. When recall is of items from an array of 27, grouped in nine sets of three, with only one location in any set being presented on any trial, there is an effect of display size. This effect is consonant with the argument that movement time is related to spatial rehearsal, but other explanations are also possible. However, if recall in this task is scored over the nine sets rather than over the 27 items, then there is no difference between the displays. The results indicate that performance on the normal nine-block spatial-span task cannot be predicted by movement time.
Overlapping Mental Operations in Serial Performance with Preview: Typing. A Reply to Pashler
Authors: McLeod Peter , Hume Mark
Published: September 2011

Pashler (this issue) concluded that the rate of responding in serial choice reaction tasks was controlled by a limit on simultaneous response selection rather than on simultaneous response execution. Film of a skilled typist shows that each finger movement starts as a key earlier in the sequence to be typed is struck (three earlier with words, two with orthographically legal non-words). Thus, her rate of responding is controlled by a limit on the number of responses that can be executed simultaneously, not by a limit on response selection.

Preventing simultaneous response selection is one possible strategy for maintaining correct response order in serial tasks. It is suitable for tasks such as those studied by Pashler, where response selection is relatively slow and response execution is quick. Other strategies are more suitable for tasks where response selection is quick and response execution relatively slow and variable.
Comment on McLeod and Hume, Overlapping Mental Operations in Serial Performance with Preview: Typing
Authors: Pashler Harold
Published: September 2011

This paper deals with the claim made by McLeod and Hume (this issue) that, for a skilled typist, the rate of responding is controlled by a limit on the number of responses that can be executed simultaneously, not by a limit on response selection. I point out that McLeod and Hume's observations are consistent with various interpretations, including one in which response rates are limited by response selection. I also note the importance of trying to distinguish structural and strategic bottlenecks in speeded responding.
The Word-Length Effect in Probed and Serial Recall
Authors: Avons S. E. , Wright K. L. , Pammer Kristen
Published: September 2011

The word-length effect in immediate serial recall has been explained as the possible consequence of rehearsal processes or of output processes. In the first experiment adult subjects heard lists of five long or short words while engaging in articulatory suppression during presentation. Full serial recall or probed recall for a single item followed the list either immediately or after a 5-second delay to encourage rehearsal. The word-length effect was not influenced by recall delay, but was much smaller in probed than in serial recall. Examination of the serial position curves suggested that this might be due to a recency component operating in probed recall. Experiment 2 confirmed a word-length-insensitive recency effect in probed recall and showed that this was resistant to an auditory suffix, unlike the small recency effect found in serial recall. Experiment 3 used visual presentation without concurrent articulation. Under these conditions there was no recency effect for either recall method, but the word-length effect was again much smaller in probed than in serial recall. This was confirmed in Experiment 4, in which the presentation of serial and probed recall was randomized across trials, showing that the differences between recall methods could not be due to encoding strategies. We conclude that for visual presentation, at least part of the word-length effect originates in output processes. For auditory presentation the position is less clear, as serial and probed recall appear to draw on different resources. The nature of the output processes that may give rise to word-length effects is discussed.
The Role of Preparation in Overlapping-task Performance
Authors: De Jong Ritske
Published: September 2011

We examined how performance of two overlapping discrete tasks is organized and controlled. Experiment 1 showed that when stimuli were presented in an unexpected order, expectations rather than actual presentation order determined the order in which the two stimuli were processed. In Experiment 2, when task order was unpredictable, performance was facilitated when task order was repeated on consecutive trials. In Experiment 3, performance of the second but not the first task benefited greatly when task order was held constant as compared to regularly alternated between trials; such effects were especially pronounced at short intertrial intervals. These results suggest that sequential performance of overlapping tasks is scheduled in advance and is regulated by initially allocating the central processing channel to one task and subsequently switching this channel to the other task.
Collaboration in Recall: Do Pairs of People Cross-cue Each Other to Produce New Memories?
Authors: Meudell Peter R. , Hitch Graham J. , Boyle M. M.
Published: September 2011

When people collaborate over their recall of a shared experience, it might be expected that they could “cross-cue” each other so as to produce new memories not available to either member of the pair on their own. In a previous series of experiments (Meudell et al., 1992), we found that pairs of people always recalled more than one person, but we failed to show that social interaction facilitated performance so as to produce such “emergent” new memories. However, a phenomenon akin to cross-cuing was employed by Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) in their classic study of the availability and accessibility of memories; accordingly, in this study, we repeated Tulving and Pearlstone's work directly in a social context. So as to assess whether new memories emerged in collaborating pairs, a sequential design was employed. People learned categorized lists of words, and then all the subjects recalled the items strictly on their own. Subjects then recalled again in pairs (collaboratively) or once more on their own. The results showed that even when the opportunity for cross-cuing was directly manipulated through the provision of categorized lists, no additional new memories emerged in the collaborating groups. Possible mechanisms for the results are considered.
Negative Correlations between Control Performance and Verbalizable Knowledge: Indicators for Implicit Learning in Process Control Tasks?
Authors: Buchner Axel , Funke Joachim , Berry Dianne C.
Published: September 2011

Negative correlations between task performance in dynamic control tasks and verbalizable knowledge, as assessed by a post-task questionnaire, have been interpreted as dissociations that indicate two antagonistic modes of learning, one being “explicit”, the other “implicit”. This paper views the control tasks as finite-state automata and offers an alternative interpretation of these negative correlations. It is argued that “good controllers” observe fewer different state transitions and, consequently, can answer fewer post-task questions about system transitions than can “bad controllers”. Two experiments demonstrate the validity of the argument by showing the predicted negative relationship between control performance and the number of explored state transitions, and the predicted positive relationship between the number of explored state transitions and questionnaire scores. However, the experiments also elucidate important boundary conditions for the critical effects. We discuss the implications of these findings, and of other problems arising from the process control paradigm, for conclusions about implicit versus explicit learning processes.
The Effect of Prior Fear Levels on UCS-expectancy Ratings to a Fear-relevant Stimulus
Authors: Diamond Deborah , Matchett George , Davey Graham C. L.
Published: September 2011

This study investigated the effect of levels of prior fear to a fear-relevant stimulus on UCS expectancy ratings in a threat conditioning procedure. The results suggested that UCS-expectancy ratings are independently influenced by both the nature of the stimulus (whether it is fear-relevant or fear-irrelevant) and the level of prior fear to the stimulus. Furthermore, significantly higher UCS-expectancy levels caused by prior fear and stimulus type were accompanied in some stages of the experiment by greater magnitudes of skin conductance responses during the stimulus.
Is Human Learning Rational?
Authors: Shanks David R.
Published: September 2011

We can predict and control events in the world via associative learning. Such learning is rational if we come to believe that an associative relationship exists between a pair of events only when it truly does. The statistical metric δ P, the difference between the probability of an outcome event in the presence of the predictor and its probability in the absence of the predictor tells us when and to what extent events are indeed related. Contrary to what is often claimed, humans’ associative judgements compare very favourably with the δ P metric, even in situations where multiple predictive cues are in competition for association with the outcome. How do humans achieve this judgemental accuracy? I argue that it is not via the application of an explicit mental version of the δ P rule. Instead, accurate judgements are an emergent property of an associationist learning process of the sort that has become common in adaptive network models of cognition. Such an associationist mechanism is the “means” to a normative or statistical “end”.
Left and Right Hemifield Advantages of Fusions and Combinations in Audiovisual Speech Perception
Authors: Diesch Eugen
Published: September 2011

If a place-of-articulation contrast is created between the auditory and the visual component syllables of videotaped speech, frequently the syllable that listeners report they have heard differs phonetically from the auditory component. These “McGurk effects”, as they have come to be called, show that speech perception may involve some kind of intermodal process. There are two classes of these phenomena: fusions and combinations. Perception of the syllable /da/ when auditory /ba/ and visual /ga/ are presented provides a clear example of the former, and perception of the string /bga/ after presentation of auditory /ga/ and visual /ba/ an unambiguous instance of the latter. Besides perceptual fusions and combinations, hearing visually presented component syllables also shows an influence of vision on audition. It is argued that these “visual” responses arise from basically the same underlying processes that yield fusions and combinations, respectively. In the present study, the visual component of audiovisually incongruous CV-syllables was presented in the left and the right visual hemifield, respectively. Audiovisual fusion responses showed a left hemifield advantage, and audiovisual combination responses a right hemifield advantage. This finding suggests that the process of audiovisual integration differs between audiovisual fusions and combinations and, furthermore, that the two cerebral hemispheres contribute differentially to the two classes of response.
Stimulus–Response Compatibility for Vertically Oriented Stimuli and Horizontally Oriented Responses: Evidence for Spatial Coding
Authors: Weeks Daniel J. , Proctor Robert W. , Beyak Brad
Published: September 2011

It has previously been shown that, when stimuli positioned above or below a central fixation point (“up” and “down” stimuli) are assigned to left and right responses, the stimulus–response mapping up-left/down-right is more compatible than the mapping up-right/down-left for responses executed by the left hand in the left hemispace, but this relation is reversed for responses executed by the right hand in the right hemispace. In Experiment 1, each hand responded at locations in both hemispaces to dissociate the influence of hand identity from response location, and response location was found to be the determinant of relative compatibility. In Experiment 2 responses were made at the sagittal midline, and an inactive response switch was placed to the left or right to induce coding of the active switch as right or left, respectively. This manipulation of relative location had an effect similar to, although of lesser magnitude than, that produced by physically changing location of the response switch in Experiment 1. It is argued that these results are counter to predictions of a movement-preference account and consistent with the view that spatial coding underlies compatibility effects for orthogonally oriented stimulus and response sets.
Externalization, Counter-examples, and the Abstract Selection Task
Authors: Green David W.
Published: September 2011

The five experiments reported in this paper examined the effect of two theoretically motivated, explicit mental procedures on performance in different versions of the four-card, abstract selection task. There was no overall benefit as a result of carrying out these procedures; instead, performance depended upon the extent to which subjects carried out the procedures successfully. Most crucially, the experiments demonstrated that correct selection depends not simply upon envisaging the right counter-example, but upon identifying those cards that could contain potential counter-examples. Such findings are broadly consistent with the theory of mental models. However, contrary to the theory, identification is not sufficient for correct selection. The externalization technique used in these studies provides a way to examine the loci of performance differences in the selection task and therefore provides a way to test rival theoretical claims.
An Interactive Activation Model of Face Naming
Authors: Brédart Serge , Valentine Tim , Calder Andy , Gassi Liliana
Published: September 2011

Burton and Bruce's (1992) model of face naming predicts a “fan effect”, in which naming of famous people about whom many descriptive properties are known should be slower than naming of celebrities about whom few properties are known. An experiment is reported that showed that, contrary to this prediction, knowledge of many descriptive properties facilitated face-naming latency. An alternative architecture for an interactive activation model is proposed in which descriptive properties are represented in separate pools of units for each domain of information and in which names are represented by a separate pool of lexical output units. Computer simulations showed that this model could simulate the previously available empirical data as effectively as Burton and Bruce's (1992) original model. However, the proposed model could also simulate the effect of the number of known descriptive properties upon face-naming latency observed in the experiment reported. The new architecture also has the advantage of being more compatible with current models of speech production, and it allows preserved access to unique semantic properties in the context of impaired face naming as reported in the neuropsychological literature.
Are Names Difficult to Recall because They Are Unique? A Case Study of a Patient with Anomia
Authors: Hanley J. Richard
Published: September 2011

According to Burton and Bruce (1992), names are more difficult to recall than biographical information about people, such as their occupation, because names are unique or highly distinctive. It follows from this that anomic patients who have great difficulty in recalling names should also find it difficult to recall other information that is unique to a particular individual. This paper attempts to evaluate this claim by examining the case of NP, a patient who has severe anomic word-finding difficulties following the rupture and repair of a posterior cerebral artery aneurysm. NP's ability to recall biographical information about people that she cannot name was investigated in a series of experiments. These revealed that she can answer specific questions about the occupations and appearance of well-known people and can recall distinctive meaningful information about them such as the identity of their spouse, even though she is unable to recall their name. It is argued that these results support the view that names are represented in a store separate from that for semantic information about people that we know. The findings are therefore consistent with the sequential stage model of face identification put forward by Bruce and Young (1986) and are explained in terms of the theory of speech production put forward by Levelt (1989).
Priming Production of People's Names
Authors: Valentine Tim , Moore Viv , Brédart Serge
Published: September 2011

Surnames of celebrities that are English words (e.g. “Wood”, “Bush”, “Sleep”) were used to explore the relationship between production of common names and proper names that share the same phonology. No effect of priming of face naming latency was found from a prime task in which a written common name was presented and was read aloud, even when subjects were informed the words that they would read aloud were surnames. Production of common names to complete a sentence did not prime famous-face naming. However, the reaction time required to name a famous face by articulating the surname only was primed by seeing the written full name of the celebrity, whether the surname was read aloud or an occupation decision or a familiarity decision was made. No effect of priming was found if the test task did not require name production. The results are interpreted in terms of the information-processing model of face, name, and word recognition proposed by Valentine, Brédart, Lawson, and Ward (1991). It is concluded that the effect of repetition reflects greater accessibility of lexical output codes resulting from an increase in the weight on links from person identity nodes to the output lexicon. Access to the output lexicon is assumed to be mandatory from written input. Common names access the output lexicon from the word recognition system rather than the person recognition system and therefore do not prime face naming latency.