bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Isofrequency and Multifrequency: Coordination Patterns as a Function of the Planes of Motion
Authors: Deborah J. Serrien , Swinnen Stephan P.
Published: September 2011

A series of studies examine the maintenance of the relative phase of simultaneous cyclic limb movements by the manipulation of the planes of motion during isofrequency and multifrequency conditions. To evaluate predictions from a dynamic pattern approach in which differences in the limbs’ uncoupled frequencies give way to competitive interactions when the limbs are moved simultaneously, Experiment 1 determined the preferred frequencies of single-limb movements during sagittal and transverse planes of motions. The results revealed that the plane in which the motion was produced significantly affected the cycle frequencies. In investigating isofrequency coordination, Experiment 2 showed that homologous limbs were more accurate in attaining the relative phasing when moving in one as compared to two separate planes, whereas no such effect was observed for non-homologous limbs. Furthermore, the planes of motion significantly influenced the variability of relative phasing such that two-plane motions were less stable than one-plane motions. Experiment 3 examined the effect of the planes of motion upon multifrequency coordination and demonstrated that the homologous and homolateral limbs were less successful in producing the relative phasing when the motions were produced in one as compared to two planes, whereas this effect was not observed for the heterolateral limbs. These findings indicate that frequency detuning resulting from the planes manipulation affects the quality of phase-locking during isofrequency and multifrequency conditions, even though it may be assumed that additional neural constraints are involved in the interlimb coordination process.
Rephrasing between Disjunctives and Conditionals: Mental Models and the Effects of Thematic Content
Authors: Richardson Juliet , Ormerod Thomas C.
Published: September 2011

Two experiments are reported that investigate whether the logical equivalence of conditionals and disjunctives is paralleled by a psychological equivalence. In these experiments, subjects rephrased from one form into the other. Experiment 1 demonstrated strong effects of familiarity and causality of rule content. Similar findings were found in Experiment 2 with a different conditional rule syntax. An account of the experiments is given in terms of mental models theory: In this account, task performance can be seen to depend upon the extent to which the model sets used by subjects to generate rephrasings are complete, task content being the most important factor affecting model set completion. A “Minimal Completion” strategy is proposed to operate in the absence of thematic content. The experiments also falsify the long-held assumption that conditionals with negative antecedents are always interpreted as their disjunctive equivalents. This raises doubts about the mental models explanation for matching bias in conditional reasoning.
The Dynamics of Bimanual Circle Drawing
Authors: Carson Richard G. , Thomas Julie , Summers Jeffery J. , Walters Megan R. , Semjen Andras
Published: September 2011

A bimanual circle drawing task was employed to elucidate the dynamics of intralimb and interlimb coordination. Right-handed subjects were required to produce circles with both hands in either a symmetrical (mirror) mode (i.e. one hand moving clockwise, the other counter-clockwise) or in an asymmetrical mode (i.e. both hands moving clockwise or counter-clockwise). The frequency of movement was scaled by an auditory metronome from 1.50 Hz to 3.25 Hz in8 (8-sec) steps. In the asymmetrical mode, distortions ofthe movement trajectories, transient departures from the target pattern of coordination, and phase wandering were evident as movement frequency was increased. These features suggested loss of stability. Deviations from circular trajectories were most prominent for movements of the left hand. Transient departures from the required mode of coordination were also largely precipitated by the left hand. The results are discussed with reference to manual asymmetries and mechanisms of interlimb and intersegmental coordination.
Spatial Coupling in the Coordination of Complex Actions
Authors: Franz Elizabeth A.
Published: September 2011

The majority of investigations on coordinated action have focused on temporal constraints in movements. Recent studies have demonstrated spatial constraints when the hands produce different trajectory shapes simultaneously. The focus of the current study was to determine whether spatial coupling occurs in individual parameters of the actions, or whether the shapes per se undergo accommodation. Subjects were tested on a bimanual paradigm to investigate the nature of spatial constraints in complex tasks. Shape and size of the required trajectories were varied for the two limbs. When trajectories that require different shapes were assigned to the two hands, disruption in the spatial characteristics of the trajectories was observed. Disruption in the global patterns of the trajectories could be described on the basis of coupling in individual parameters of action, direction, and amplitude, which could be inferred by decomposing the trajectories into orthogonal components. Amplitude accommodation in these orthogonal components of motion increased linearly with the difference in required amplitude for the two limbs. Interpretations of these effects suggest that directional coupling is a result of interference between two different response plans, whereas amplitude coupling may be related to either planning or execution variables. These results strongly suggest the need for further investigation of the spatial domain of complex coordinated action.
Coordinating Actions
Authors: Haggard Patrick
Published: September 2011

The motor system composes complex actions by combining simpler submovements. This presumably involves sharing information about the progress of one submovement with the centres controlling another submovement, to ensure that the second happens in an appropriate relation to the first. This process is called coordination. In this paper Idiscuss evidence that coordinating actions indeed involves an active process of sharing information about the current state of movements. Coordination appears to be qualitatively different from the process of reacting to external stimuli. This may reflect the importance of predictive representations in coordination. Finally, the processes underlying coordination appear to be organized in a response-specific fashion, as a number of relatively independent circuits. The development and tuning of these circuits may, in part, be what makes an action “skilled”.
Visual Perception Modifies Goal-directed Movement Control: Supporting Evidence from a Visual Perturbation Paradigm
Authors: Proteau Luc , Masson Guillaume
Published: September 2011

It is well known that dynamic visual information influences movement control, whereas the role played by background visual information is still largely unknown. Evidence coming mainly from eye movement and manual tracking studies indicates that background visual information modifies motion perception and might influence movement control. The goal of the present study was to test this hypothesis. Subjects had to apply pressure on a strain gauge to displace in a single action a cursor shown on a video display and to immobilize it on a target shown on the same display. In some instances, the visual background against which the cursor moved was unexpectedly perturbed in a direction opposite to (Experiment 1), or in the same direction as (Experiment 2) the cursor controlled by the subject. The results of both experiments indicated that the introduction of a visual perturbation significantly affected aiming accuracy. These results suggest that background visual information is used to evaluate the velocity of the aiming cursor, and that this perceived velocity is fed back to the control system, which uses it for on-line corrections.
Has the Wheel Turned Full Circle? Fifty Years of Learning Theory, 1946–1996
Authors: Mackintosh N.J.
Published: September 2011

Fifty years ago, learning theory, whose principles were derived from experiments on conditioning in animals, was a central focus of much of experimental psychology. But the cognitive revolution that swept through human experimental psychology in the 1960s, especially when it was taken up by many animal psychologists themselves, seemed to consign traditional learning theory to the scrap heap. Liberation from the shackles of old-fashioned behaviourism, however, should not be bought at the price of dismissing associative learning theory. Suitably modified and extended, associative theory is capable of explaining much of the behavior of animals and of pointing precisely to the ways in which that behaviour is complex. And under some circumstances, at least, the behaviour of people mirrors that of other animals and is equally amenable to an associative analysis.
Free Associations with EPS and Memory
Authors: Morton John
Published: September 2011

In celebrating 50 years of EPS involvement in memory, I have taken a personal line rather than trying to achieve even coverage. Accordingly, the paper is in three parts. In the first, some early papers that have resonance for today's debates are described. Their framework was Bartlettian, with versions of schema theory as the guiding principles, and they were formative in my undergraduate education. This phase ended in the 1950s. From then, there was an explosion of work in memory in the U.K., the most important parts of which saw light at the EPS. This requires a proper history, which requires a proper space. In the second part, then, rather than show favourites or sample at random, my own involvement in EPS and memory is fallibly revisited, to give some flavour of the excitement, as well as some of the ideas. In the final part, some current work is described, and the Current State Buffer is introduced, in the hope of anticipating a little of the next 50 years.
“… On the Basis of Velocity Clues Alone”: Some Perceptual Themes 1946–1996
Authors: Mollon J.D.
Published: September 2011

Three factors that have transformed perceptual research in the last fifty years are the digital computer, single-unit electrophysiology, and molecular biology. Amongst the developments in which members of the Experimental Psychology Society have been central are: the recognition of the role of optic flow in spatial vision; the demonstration that our perceptual systems contain parallel pathways extracting different information from the sensory array; the identification of specific detectors that can be selectively adapted in psychophysical experiments; and the transfer of the concepts of fourier analysis from audition to vision. The history of Opponent Process Theory offers an example where experimental psychologists have been misled by too simple an interpretation of physiological recordings.
Effects of Case Marking and Word Order on Sentence Parsing in Finnish: An Eye Fixation Analysis
Authors: Hyönä Jukka , Hujanen Heli
Published: September 2011

Effects of case marking and word order on syntactic parsing in Finnish were examined by registering readers’ eye fixation patterns while they read single sentences for comprehension. Target nouns appearing towards the beginning of the sentence took one of three grammatical roles: subject, object, or adverbial. The subject phrase in the sentence-initial position is the canonical order in Finnish, but the two other word orders are less frequent. In one experimental condition, the grammatical role of the target noun was signalled by a case inflection attached to the preceding adjective modifier; in the second condition this was not the case. The results showed a facilitation effect in sentence parsing due to case marking. Similarly, there was an effect of word order, where the canonical SVO order was associated with greater processing ease than were non-canonical word orders. The two factors interacted so that there was no effect of case marking for the SVO order, but a significant case marking effect for the two marked word orders. The same pattern of results showed up as both immediate and delayed effects. The results speak against the notion of head licensing proposed by Abney (1989) and Prichett (1991).
Explicit Learning of a Dynamic System with a Non-salient Pattern
Authors: Geddes Bruce W. , Stevenson Rosemary J.
Published: September 2011

We examine the hypothesis that a specific goal leads to implicit learning, whereas a nonspecific goal leads to explicit learning, even though the pattern to be learnt is non-salient. Subjects learned a dynamic control task (Berry & Broadbent, 1984). One group of subjects had a specific control goal, the second group had a non-specific pattern-search goal, and the third group had both goals. On measures of learning (control performance, prediction, and general questions), the non-specific group learnt explicitly, outperforming the other two groups on all learning measures. The specific group performed next best on control performance and prediction questions but performed very poorly on general questions. The dual-goal group performed poorly on all measures. Non-specific subjects predicted well on both familiar and unfamiliar situations. Specific-goal subjects predicted well on familiar situations, regardless of whether their previous response had been correct or incorrect. Dual-goal subjects predicted well only on familiar correct situations. We conclude that the non-specific group learned through explicit hypothesis testing, the specific group learned through a mixture of explicit problem solving and implicit instance learning, and the dual-goal group learned instances. Results are discussed in terms of dual-space models of problem solving and hypothesis testing and in terms of implicit instance learning. We consider how the choice of learning goal affects the cognitive processes used during learning and suggest that having subjects learn the same information implicitly or explicitly is potentially useful for drawing clearer distinctions between implicit and explicit modes of learning.
Cognitive Neuropsychology and Developmental Disorders: Uncomfortable Bedfellows
Authors: Bishop D.V.M.
Published: September 2011

Cognitive neuropsychology provides a theoretical framework and methods that can be of value in the study of developmental disorders, but the “dissociation” logic at the centre of this approach is not well suited to the developmental context. This is illustrated with examples from specific language impairment. Within the developing language system there is ample evidence for interaction between levels of representation, with modularity emerging in the course of development. This means that one typically is seeking to explain a complex pattern of associated impairments, rather than highly selective deficits. For instance, a selective impairment in auditory processing can have repercussions through the language system and may lead to distinctive syntactic deficits that are seen in written as well as spoken language. Changes in the nature of representations and in the relationships between components of a developing system mean that cross-sectional data at a single point in development may be misleading indicators of the primary deficit. Furthermore, traditional cognitive neuropsychology places a disproportionate emphasis on representational (competence) deficits, with processing (performance) deficits being relatively neglected. Methods for distinguishing these two kinds of impairment are discussed, as well as other approaches for elucidating the underlying nature of developmental disorders.
Judging the Importance of Constant and Variable Candidate Causes: A Test of the Power PC Theory
Authors: Vallée-Tourangeau Frédéric , Murphy Robin A. , Drew Susan , Baker A.G.
Published: September 2011

In two causal induction experiments subjects rated the importance of pairs of candidate causes in the production of a target effect; one candidate was present on every trial (constant cause), whereas the other was present on only some trials (variable cause). The design of both experiments consisted of a factorial combination of two values of the variable cause's covariation with the effect and three levels of the base rate of the effect. Judgements of the constant cause were inversely proportional to the level of covariation of the variable cause but were proportional to the base rate of the effect. The judgements were consistent with the predictions derived from the Rescorla-Wagner (1972) model of associative learning and with the predictions of the causal power theory of the probabilistic contrast model (Cheng, 1997) or “power PC theory”. However, judgements of the importance of the variable candidate cause were proportional to the base rate of the effect, a phenomenon that is in some cases anticipated by the power PC theory. An alternative associative model, Pearce's (1987) similarity-based generalization model, predicts the influence of the base rate of the effect on the estimates of both the constant and the variable cause.
Interfering with the Central Executive by Means of a Random Interval Repetition Task
Authors: Vandierendonck André , De Vooght Gino , Van der Goten Koen
Published: September 2011

Four dual-task experiments are reported in which a short-term memory task is performed concurrently with a random interval repetition task, which was designed to interfere with functions normally attributed to the central executive in the working memory model of Baddeley and Hitch (1974). The task was found to interfere with supra-span serial recall and with backward memory span, but did not disrupt performance on a forward-memoryspan task. The effects were observed in dissociation with effects of articulatory suppression and matrix tapping, so that the locus of the effects of the new task is not due to the slave systems. In addition, single-task random-interval repetition performance was sampled and compared to performance in the dual-task conditions of all four experiments. Although quality of tapping performance differed between the single-task and the dual-task conditions, it was not related to recall performance. All the results are discussed with reference to the working memory model.
Speech Perception in Children with Specific Reading Difficulties (Dyslexia)
Authors: Adlard Alan , Hazan Valerie
Published: September 2011

Many experimental studies over the last two decades have suggested that groups of children who suffer significant delay in reading also show a weakness in phoneme discrimination and identification. In order to look further at the relation between type of reading deficit, auditory acuity, and speech discrimination, a group of 13 children with specific reading difficulty (SRD), 12 chronological-age controls, and 12 reading-age controls were tested on a battery of speech-perceptual, psychoacoustic, and reading tests. A sub-group of children with Specific Reading Difficulty (SRD) were poor at speech discrimination tests, whereas the rest of the SRD group performed within norms. For this sub-group, discrimination performance was particularly poor for consonant contrasts differing in a single feature that was not acoustically salient, and problems were encountered with nasal and fricative contrasts as well as with stop contrasts. These children did not differ from controls in their performance on non-speech psychoacoustic tasks. An evaluation is made of the reported phonemic awareness skills of beginning readers with regard to speech-processing issues which may help in understanding what factors are important in reading development.
Disentangling Context Availability and Concreteness in Lexical Decision and Word Translation
Authors: van Hell Janet G. , de Groot Annette M. B.
Published: September 2011

This study examines contrasting predictions of the dual coding theory and the context availability hypothesis regarding concreteness effects in monolingual and bilingual lexical processing. In three experiments, concreteness was controlled for or confounded with rated context availability. In the first experiment, bilingual subjects performed lexical decision in their native language (Dutch, L1). In the second experiment, lexical decision performance of bilinguals in their second language (English, L2) was examined. In the third experiment, bilinguals translated words “forwards” (from L1 to L2) or “backwards” (from L2 to L1). Both monolingual and bilingual tasks showed a concreteness effect when concreteness was confounded with context availability. However, concreteness effects disappeared when abstract and concrete words were matched on context availability, and even occasionally reversed. Implications of these results for theories that account for concreteness effects, particulary in bilingual processing, are discussed.
Knowing about People and Naming Them: Can Alzheimer's Disease Patients Do One without the Other?
Authors: John R. Hodges , Greene John D.W.
Published: September 2011

It has recently been suggested that patients with semantic breakdown may show the phenomenon of so-called “naming without semantics”. If substantiated, this finding would clearly have a major impact on theories of face and object processing, all of which assume that access to semantic knowledge is a prerequisite for successful naming. In order to investigate this issue, we studied recognition, identification (the ability to provide accurate information), and naming of 50 famous faces by 24 patients with mild to moderate dementia of Alzheimer type (DA T) and 30 age-matched controls. The DA T group was impaired in all three conditions. An analysis of the concordance between identification and naming by each patient, for each stimulus item, established that naming a famous face was possible only with semantic knowledge sufficient to identify the person. Our data support the hypothesis that naming is not possible unless semantic information associated with the target is available. Naming without semantics, therefore, did not occur in patients with DAT. By contrast, there were 206 instances (17% of the total responses) in which the patients were able to provide detailed, accurate identifying information yet were unable to name the person represented. The implication of these findings for models of face identification and naming are discussed.
The Effect of Practice on the Control of Rapid Aiming Movements: Evidence for an Interdependency between Programming and Feedback Processing
Authors: Khan Michael A. , Franks Ian M. , Goodman David
Published: September 2011

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate how the control of aiming movements performed as fast and as accurately as possible changes with practice. We examined: (1) the influence of visual feedback on the initial impulse and error correction phases of aiming movements during acquisition; and (2) the effect of removing visual feedback at different levels of practice. Results from the acquisition trials indicated that vision had a major impact on the organization of the initial impulse and error correction phases. Also, consistent with findings from research involving temporally constrained movements, the cost of removing vision was greater after extensive levels than after moderate levels of practice. Collectively, these results denote the importance of visual feedback to the learning of this particular class of aiming movements. Learning appears to be a dual process of improved programming of the initial impulse and increased efficiency of feedback processing. Practice not only acts on programming and feedback processes directly, but also indirectly through a reciprocal interplay between these two processes.
The Effect of Word Length on Immediate Serial Recall Depends on Phonological Complexity, Not Articulatory Duration
Authors: Service Elisabet
Published: September 2011

Immediate recall for sequences of short words is better than for sequences of long words. This word-length effect has been thought to depend on the spoken duration of the words (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975) or their phonological complexity (Caplan, Rochon, & Waters, 1992). In Finnish both vowel and consonant quantity distinguish between words. Long phonemes behave like phoneme repetitions. In Experiment 1, subjects were presented with auditory lists of three kinds of pseudowords based on Finnish phonotactics: short CVCV-structures (e.g. / tepa/), long two-syllable items with long phonemes (e.g. / te: p: a/), and long three-syllable items with CVCVCV structures (e.g. / tepalo/). Although both kinds of long stimuli (of identical spoken length) took longer to read, only three-syllable items were more difficult to remember than the short stimuli. Experiment 2 contrasted the effect of number of syllables with number of different phonemes. The long two-syllable items were replaced by two-syllable items of equal spoken duration but containing six different phonemes (e.g. / tiempa/). These two-syllable items were as difficult to recall as were the three-syllable items. Experiment 3 controlled for the possibility that long stimuli might be rehearsed in a shorter form. It is concluded that aspects of phonological complexity are critical for word-length effects. Implications of this finding for working memory theory are discussed, and future work based on multi-layered phonological representations is proposed.
Increases in Intrusion Errors and Working Memory Deficit of Poor Comprehenders
Authors: De Beni Rossana , Palladino Paola , Pazzaglia Francesca , Cornoldi Cesare
Published: September 2011

This study tests the hypothesis that the ability to inhibit already processed and actually irrelevant information could influence performance in the listening span test (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) and have a crucial role in reading comprehension. In two experiments, the listening span test and a new working memory test were given to two groups of young adults, poor and good comprehenders, matched for logical reasoning ability. In Experiment 1, the poor comprehenders had a significantly lower performance in the listening span test associated to a higher number of intrusions—that is, recalled words that, in spite of being in sentence form, were not placed in the last position. In Experiment 2, a new working memory test was devised in order to analyse more effectively the occurrence of intrusions. Subjects were required to listen to a growing series of strings of animal and non-animal words. Whilst listening, they had to detect when an animal word occurred, and at the end of each series they had to recall the last word of each string. The poor comprehenders obtained a significantly lower performance in the memory task and made a higher number of intrusions, particularly of animal words.
Conditional Probabilities, Potential Surprise, and the Conjunction Fallacy
Authors: Fisk John E. , Pidgeon Nick
Published: September 2011

Tversky and Kahneman (1983) found that a relationship of positive conditional dependence between the components of a conjunction of two events increases the prevalence of the conjunction fallacy. Consistent with this finding, the results of two experiments reveal that dependence leads to higher estimates for the conjunctive probability and a higher incidence of the fallacy. However, contrary to the theoretical account proposed by Tversky and Kahneman, the actual magnitude of the conditional relationship does not directly affect the extent of the fallacy; all that is necessary is for a positive conditional relationship to exist. The pattern of results obtained can be accounted for in terms of Shackle's (1969) “potential surprise” theory of subjective probability. Surprise theory predicts that the impact of the conditional event will be at its maximum where the relationship is a negative one. Tversky and Kahneman's model, on the other hand, predicts the maximum effect when the relationship is positive. In all 12 scenarios tested, multiple regression analysis revealed that the standardized beta weight associated with the conditional event was greater when the relationship was a negative one. Thus the outcome was supportive of the surprise model rather than Tversky and Kahneman's account.
The Role of Implicit Memory in Controlling a Dynamic System
Authors: Dienes Zoltán , Fahey Richard
Published: September 2011

The relationship between implicit memory and implicit learning is explored. Dienes and Fahey (1995) showed that learning to control a dynamic system was mediated by a look-up table consisting of previously successful responses to specific situations. The experiment reported in this paper showed that facilitated performance on old situations was independent of the subjects’ ability to recognize those situations as old, suggesting that memory was implicit. Further analyses of the Dienes and Fahey data replicated this independence of control performance on recognition. However, unlike the implicit memory revealed on fragment completion tasks, successful performance on the dynamic control tasks was remarkably resilient to modality shifts. The results are discussed in terms of models of implicit learning and the nature of implicit memory.
Irrelevant Sound Disrupts Order Information in Free Recall as in Serial Recall
Authors: Beaman C. Philip , Jones Dylan M.
Published: September 2011

The claim that the sensitivity of free recall to disruption by irrelevant sound is a function of the extent to which rote rehearsal is employed as a mnemonic strategy was investigated in two experiments. The degree of disruption by irrelevant sound in terms of both item and order information was contrasted under serial and free recall instructions. Irrelevant sound was found to disrupt order and item information equally in serial and free recall tasks (Experiment 1). Contrary to previous reports, an effect of irrelevant sound was also demonstrated on free recall of particularly long lists, and the interaction between list length and retention interval in the irrelevant sound effect was examined (Experiment 2). Generally, the results support the view that irrelevant sound disrupts the use of order cues.
Automatic Spatial Updating during Locomotion without Vision
Authors: Martin J. Farrell , Thomson James A.
Published: September 2011

People can update their spatial relationships relative to the environment while walking without vision. The hypothesis that such updating is automatic was tested in a locomotor task in which the subjects were asked to refrain from updating their positions. Subjects walked without vision to one of four previously seen targets via a second location. In one condition—the updating condition—the subjects were asked to walk to the real position of the target relative to the second location; in another—the ignoring condition—they were asked to imagine that they had not moved from the starting point and to walk from the second location as if walking to the target from the initial location. When the subjects were asked to start walking to the target as soon as it was named by the experimenter, they performed better in the updating condition than in the ignoring condition. When the subjects were allowed more time to respond, the difference in performance between these two conditions disappeared. The results suggest that the subjects automatically updated their positions as they moved, but that, given enough time, they could override this updating retrospectively using more deliberate cognitive processing.
The Effect of Age of Acquisition on Speed and Accuracy of Naming Famous Faces
Authors: Moore Viv , Valentine Tim
Published: September 2011

Three experiments examined whether famous faces would be affected by the age at which knowledge of the face was first acquired (AoA). Using a multiple regression design, Experiment 1 showed that rated familiarity and AoA were significant predictors of the time required to name pictures of celebrities’ faces and the accuracy of producing their names. Experiment 2 replicated an effect of AoA using a factorial design in which other attributes of the celebrities were matched. In both Experiments 1 and 2, several ratings had been collected from participants before naming latency data were collected. Experiment 3 investigated the accuracy and latency of naming celebrities without any prior exposure to the stimuli. An advantage for naming early acquired celebrities was observed even on the first presentation. The participants named the same celebrities in three subsequent presentations of the stimuli. The effect of AoA was not significant on the fourth presentation. The implications of these results for models of face naming and directions for future research are discussed.
Cross-domain Repetition Priming in Person Recognition
Authors: Burton A. Mike , Kelly Stephen W. , Bruce Vicki
Published: September 2011

Three experiments examining repetition priming of personal names are reported. In each experiment, faces are used as prime stimuli and people's names as the test stimuli. Experiment 1 fails to demonstrate priming from faces to names when the same task—a familiar/ unfamiliar judgement—is made in prime and test phases. Experiment 2 shows that priming is observed when the same semantic judgement (British/ American) is made in prime and test phases. Experiment 3 shows that priming is observed when different semantic judgements (dead/ alive, British/ American) are made at prime and test phase. These results suggest that transfer appropriate processing cannot provide the sole account of repetition priming in person recognition. Instead, the results are interpreted in terms of a structural account of priming, embedded within an interactive activation and competition model of person recognition.
Are Faces “Special” Objects? Associative and Sem antic Priming of Face and Object Recognition and Naming
Authors: Barry Christopher , Johnston Robert A. , Scanlan Lesley C.
Published: September 2011

Faces represent a “special” class of physically similar stimuli but it remains uncertain whether they are processed by cognitive systems that are functionally separate from those used for objects. This paper reports two experiments, which examine whether there exist qualitative differences in the semantic and associative priming of faces, “structurally similar” objects (living things), and “structurally distinct” objects (artefacts). Recognition was examined in Experiment 1 using the familiarity judgement task for faces and the object decision task for objects, and naming was examined in Experiment 2. Both experiments compared, within subjects, priming by associates (e.g. Eric Morecambe → Ernie Wise, lion → tiger and lock key) and priming by non-associates from the same semantic category (e.g. Keith Richards → Paul McCartney, bee → spider and nail-file → comb) against both “neutral” and unrelated prime conditions. Both experiments produced a remarkably similar pattern of results. For faces, there was a substantial priming effect from associates but no reliable priming from non-associates of the same semantic category. In contrast, both structurally similar and distinct objects were primed reliably by both associates and semantically (i.e. categorically) related non-associates. The results are interpreted within a model that proposes that the semantic representations of objects are inter-connected by abstracted superordinate categories, but that the representations of people (the elements of which, we propose, are specific biographical descriptive information units) are inter-connected by networks of inter-personal relatedness rather than by “categories” of celebrity.
Period Duration of Physical and Im aginary Movement Sequences Affects Contralateral Amplitude Modulation
Authors: Heuer Herbert , Spijkers Will , Kleinsorge Thomas , van der Loo Hanno
Published: September 2011

The hypothesis was tested that the strength of cross-manual effects of voluntary amplitude modulations in bimanual tasks increases when less preparation time is available during the execution of a sequence of movements. By means of the continuation procedure, various period durations (600, 800, 1200, and 1800 msec) of movement sequences were imposed. Subjects performed bimanual periodic arm movements on two digitizers: constant-amplitude movements (short or long) with the one hand, and movements of constant short or constant long amplitudes and movements of alternating short and long amplitudes with the other hand. Period-duration-dependent modulations of the amplitude were observed in movements of instructed constant amplitudes when the other hand performed alternating-amplitude movements, but not when the other hand performed constant-amplitude movements. Not only physical performance, but also the imaginary production of alternating-amplitude movements resulted in period-duration-dependent cross-manual effects, though reduced in size. The pattern of results is in agreement with a recently proposed two-level model of cross-manual effects according to which cross-talk can occur at the programming level as well as at the execution level.
Random Generation and the Executive Control of Working Memory
Authors: Baddeley Alan , Emslie Hazel , Kolodny Jonathan , Duncan John
Published: September 2011

A series of experiments explores the capacity for generating sequences of random responses, relating it to the central executive component of working memory. Experiment 1 shows a broadly similar pattern of redundancy increasing with speed of generation for both the verbal generation of digits and the manual pressing of keys. In both cases deviations from randomness are shown to reflect the increasing use of a limited number of stereotyped response sets. The remaining experiments use keyboard generation. Experiment 2 demonstrates that concurrent immediate serial recall decreases randomness, and that longer recall sequences produce less random output. Experiments 3 and 4 show that whereas simple counting has no effect on randomness, serial recall, semantic category generation, and concurrent digit generation have substantial effects, and a concurrent fluid intelligence test has the greatest influence on the randomness of key pressing. It is suggested that the task of random generation resembles that of category fluency because it requires the subject to switch retrieval plans and inhibit repetition. On this basis it is predicted that a task involving repeated switching of categories will interfere with generation, despite being predictable and having a low memory load. Experiments 5 and 6 confirm this prediction. Strengths and limitations of the switching hypothesis are discussed, as are the implications of our results for the analysis of executive processes.
The Representation of Sublexical Orthographic-Phonologic Correspondences: Evidence from Phonological Dyslexia
Authors: Mary F. Lesch , Martin Randi C.
Published: September 2011

Although there is considerable evidence that grapheme and body units are involved in assembling phonology from print, there is little evidence supporting the involvement of syllabic representations. We provide evidence on this point from a phonological dyslexic patient (ML) who, as a result of brain damage, is relatively unable to read nonwords. ML was found to be able to perform tasks assumed to reflect processes involved in assembled phonology (i.e. segmentation, orthographic-phonologic conversion, and blending) when the units involved were syllables, but demonstrated considerable difficulty when they were onset, body, or phoneme units. Additionally, both ML and matched controls were much better able to find words in an anagrams task (Treiman & Chafetz, 1987) when they resulted from the combination of segments corresponding to syllables than when they did not. It is suggested that the relationship between print and sound is represented at multiple levels (including the syllable) (Shallice, Warrington, & McCarthy, 1983) and that ML's nonword reading impairment is the result of disruption of representations below the level of the syllable.
The Effects of Cuing on the Detection of Bilateral Symmetry
Authors: Wenderoth Peter , Welsh Sebastian
Published: September 2011

Pashler (1990) demonstrated that detection of mirror symmetry can be facilitated by precuing the symmetry axis orientation with a line. In Experiment 1, Pashler's result of a valid pre-cuing benefit was repeated, but it was also shown that invalid cuing produces performance costs, relative to a non-informative cue. Experiment 2 showed that the effect is not purely visual because the letters “V” and “H” can produce the same valid and invalid cuing effects. In Experiments 3Aand 3B, cue and pattern locations were varied, both absolutely and relative to each other. The results support an explanation for Pashler's atypical finding that horizontal symmetry can be detected faster than vertical symmetry. They also showed that the cuing effect is not local, contrary to Pashler's conclusion, but global and hence functionally useful.
Shattered Illusions: The Effect of Explicit Memory Mediation on an Indirect Memory Test
Authors: Gooding P. A. , Mayes A. R. , Meudell P. R.
Published: September 2011

Four experiments were conducted to explore the possible involvement of explicit memory in an indirect memory test in which white noise accompanying old sentences was judged to be quieter than white noise accompanying new sentences (Jacoby, Allan, Collins, & Larwill, 1988). Experiment 1 established that this effect lasted up to 1 week. Experiment 2 found that a group of amnesic patients showed a noise effect that was marginally above chance and not significantly less than that of their matched controls after a delay of one day. Effects of time pressure at test (Experiment 3) and divided attention at study (Experiment 4) suggested that the memory processes mediating the noise effect were not automatic, although the possibility that the processes involve enhanced fluency is also discussed.
Face Naming in Dementia: A Reply to Hodges and Greene (1998)
Authors: Brennen Tim
Published: September 2011

A case study by Brennen, David, Fluchaire, and Pellat (1996) reported the case of a patient who could occasionally name celebrities with very low concurrent levels of semantic access, which is difficult to reconcile with current models of face identification. Hodges and Greene (1998) attribute Brennen et al.'s case study to artifactual explanations and provide new data, which, they claim, is evidence against the “theory of naming without semantics”. This reply demonstrates that Hodges and Greene's arguments are unconvincing and that aspects of Hodges and Greene's data in fact provide support for Brennen et al.'s conclusions. It is also argued that in cases of dementia direct naming has been reported for other stimuli domains as well.
Inferring Sublexical Correspondences from Sight Vocabulary: Evidence from 6- and 7-year-olds
Authors: Stuart Morag , Masterson Jackie , Dixon Maureen , Quinlan Philip
Published: September 2011

We report an experiment designed to investigate 6-to-7-year-old children's ability to acquire knowledge of sublexical correspondences between print and sound from their reading experience. A computer database containing the printed word vocabulary of children taking part in the experiment was compiled and used to devise stimuli controlled for grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) frequency and rime neighbourhood consistency according to the children's reading experience. Knowledge of GPC rules and rime units was compared by asking children to read aloud three types of nonword varying in regularity of GPC and consistency of rime pronunciation.

Results supported the view that children can acquire knowledge of both GPC rules and rime units from their reading experience. GPC rule strength affects the likelihood of a GPC response; rime consistency affects the likelihood of a rime response.
How Body Asymmetries Determine Accessibility in Spatial Frameworks
Authors: Bryant David J. , Geoffrey Wright W.
Published: September 2011

Spatial frameworks are a class of spatial mental model that code locations of objects relative to the body axes. Spatial frameworks predict accessibility of spatial relations from memory primarily on the basis of the relative asymmetry of the body axes, such that highly asymmetric axes lead to faster retrieval of information. The present research examined how bodily asymmetries affect retrieval. Experiment 1 contrasted two theoretical accounts. The Salience Account proposes that relative degrees of asymmetry render axes differentially salient, and hence differentially foregrounded in one's mental model. The Direction Decision Account proposes that an explicit decision process is necessary to access specific locations along body axes. The ease of the decision process presumably depends on the degree of asymmetry that exists to discriminate poles along a body axis. The spatial framework pattern of accessibility was observed both when subjects identified specific directions of objects and when subjects identified just the axis to which objects were associated, supporting the Salience Account. Experiment 2 investigated whether lateralization affects accessibility from spatial frameworks. Performance of highly lateralized individuals did not differ from that of weakly lateralized individuals.
Memory Span for Arabic Numerals and Digit Words: Evidence for a Limited-capacity, Visuo-spatial Storage System
Authors: Chincotta Dino , Underwood Geoffrey , Ghani Kartini Abd , Papadopoulou Eliana , Wresinski Maja
Published: September 2011

Six experiments examined the determinants of the numeral advantage effect: the finding that memory span for Arabic numerals ( 1, 2, 3, etc.) is greater than for digit words ( one, two, three, etc.). The speed of item identification for numeral and digit words was unrelated to memory span for the same items and a larger memory span for numerals persisted under concurrent random generation (Experiment 1). The numeral advantage, however, was abolished when the items were presented in random locations within an invisible 3×3 grid (Experiment 2) and in locations on a horizontal plane that ran contrary to the natural direction of reading (Experiment 3). When the items were presented in the same location, a disruption of the spatial component of visuo-spatial working memory eliminated the numeral advantage (Experiment 4), whereas interference with the visual component of the system did not (Experiment 5). When the items were spatially distributed in a 3×3 matrix, however, neither visual nor spatial interference abolished the effect (Experiment 6). Taken together, these findings suggest that the numeral advantage effect is mediated by discrete components in visuo-spatial working memory dedicated to the temporary storage and renewal of visual codes and questions the assumption that the underlying mechanisms in immediate, visual serial recall are equivalent between stimulus categories.
The Effects of Cueing Target Location and Response Mode on Interference and Negative Priming Using a Visual Selection Paradigm
Authors: Richards Anne
Published: September 2011

Two experiments are reported that examine the effects of cueing the location of a target in the prime display on interference and subsequent negative priming. The prime and probe displays comprised two words, a target and a distractor. In the prime display, the two words were either the same (response compatible) or different (response incompatible). The target in the probe display was unrelated to the prime distractor (control), the same word as the distractor (ignored repetition), or semantically related to the distractor (ignored semantic repetition). In Experiment 1, cueing the location of the prime target significantly reduced the interference effect but not the subsequent identity negative priming (NP) effect. In contrast, not cueing the prime target resulted in the elimination of the identity NP. There was no evidence of semantic NP in this experiment. In Experiment 2, where a categorization response was required, significant interference was obtained in the prime display that was not influenced by cueing the location of the target. Although there was significant semantic NP, identity NP failed to reach significance. The two experiments were analysed together, and findings are discussed in relation to current models of negative priming.