bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Accurate non‐word spelling despite congenital inability to speak: Phoneme—grapheme conversion does not require subvocal articulation
Authors: Bishop D. V. M. , Robson J.
Published: April 2011

Previous work has shown that children with motor speech disorders (dysarthria) have no particular difficulty in spelling non‐words containing sounds that they cannot produce accurately in their own speech. This suggests that subvocal articulation is not implicated in generating a graphemic representation from a phonological string. However, it could be argued that, although severely unintelligible, dysarthric individuals may be able to use their own articulation as a basis for translating between phonemes and graphemes. In this study we investigated spelling of words and non‐words in cerebral palsied individuals, including speechless (anarthric) as well as dysarthric subjects. Although spelling abilities of these individuals were below control levels, there was no evidence that different processes were used, and one anarthric individual achieved perfect performance in spelling a list of non‐words which included consonant clusters. It is concluded that spelling by the ‘indirect’ route can be achieved in the absence of any articulation.
Children's performance in the selection task: Plausibility and familiarity
Authors: Girotto Vittorio , Gilly Michel , Blaye Agnes , Light Paul
Published: April 2011

Three experiments exploring the effects of the activation of pragmatic schemas on children's reasoning performance are reported. Pragmatic schemas are defined as clusters of rules concerning actions and goals. Previous results indicated that by evoking ‘permission’ and ‘obligation’ schemas it is possible to facilitate adults' performance on Wason's selection task as well as that of children in a ‘reduced’ version of the same task. Experiment 1 demonstrated that both 9‐10‐ and 14‐15‐year‐olds (n = 160) could produce a high rate of correct performance in the complete version of the task, both when phrased in terms of a familiar permission and of an explicitly rationalized non‐familiar permission. Experiment 2 (n = 40) and 3 (n = 48) demonstrated that 10‐year‐olds could solve the task even when the permission rule was not familiar and was plausible only in virtue of the availability of an implicit rationale. Developmental and general aspects of these results are briefly discussed.
The memory structure of autistic idiot‐savant mnemonists
Authors: O'Connor N. , Hermelin B.
Published: April 2011

The memory organization of six autistic mnemonists was investigated in two experiments. The first of these provided some evidence that the material of special interest to the subjects, in the present instance bus numbers, was stored in memory in a categorized form. The second study showed that though the idiot‐savant mnemonists did not differ from controls in the level of their general memory performance, the factor structure of a number of memory tests differed between the groups. In contrast to the controls, a verbal memory factor which seemed independent of measured verbal IQ was operative in the mnemonist subjects.
The effects of 72 hours of sleep loss on psychological variables
Authors: Mikulincer Mario , Babkoff Harvey , Caspy Tamir , Sing Helen
Published: April 2011

A study was conducted on the effects of 72 hours of sleep loss and modified continuous operations on performance and psychological variables. This paper presents the results of self‐report data of 12 subjects for the following psychological variables: sleepiness, affect, motivation, cognitive difficulties, and waking dreams. The relationship between the self‐report measures and performance in a visual search and memory task is also examined. Most of the psychological variables are significantly affected by the number of days of sleep deprivation, all are significantly affected by hour of day; but only sleepiness, affect and motivation are also significantly affected by the interaction between these variables. The peak hours for self‐reported psychological complaints are generally between 0400 and 0800, while the lowest number of complaints are usually reported in the afternoon/early evening, between 1600 and 2000. In addition, the results showed that (a) the amplitude of the circadian component of the psychological data increased over the period of sleep loss, and (b) psychological data were more highly correlated with a measure of general performance than with accuracy. The mechanisms of sleep deprivation underlying its effects on psychological and performance measures are discussed.
A generation effect in memory without awareness
Authors: Gardiner John M.
Published: April 2011

Priming refers to the facilitatory effects of a prior experience on the performance of some cognitive task or skill. In a word‐fragment completion task, priming is shown if words from a previously presented study list are more likely to be completed than other words. An experiment is described which shows that priming in word‐fragment completion was enhanced for words that had been generated at study, from the same fragments as those used at test, rather than read. Because subjects were unaware that any memory test occurred, this generation effect in primed fragment completion does not depend on conscious recollection. It is argued that the effect arises in some memory system other than episodic memory, and reflects data‐driven rather than conceptually driven processing.
Mode of processing and hemisphere differences in the judgement of musical stimuli
Authors: Burton Andrew , Morton Nicholas , Abbess Sarah
Published: April 2011

The relationship between processing strategy and ear asymmetry was examined in two experiments in which subjects were required to make judgements about monoaurally presented musical chords. In the first experiment, subjects without musical training showed a significant left ear advantage while in those with musical training a significant shift towards a right ear advantage was observed. Performance on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) suggested a strong relationship between analytic processing style and right ear advantage which was significant in the musician groups. The effect of musical training status on ear asymmetry continued to be significant when the scores were adjusted for analytic processing. There was also a clear relationship between self‐reported listening strategies and direction of ear asymmetry, with musicians generally reporting a much greater use of analytic strategies. The second experiment failed to demonstrate a significant influence of explicit instructions in how to carry out a chords task on the direction of ear advantages in musically untrained subjects. The results partially confirm earlier studies comparing subjects with and without musical training, and extend them by demonstrating a clear relationship between ear advantage and a separate measure of processing strategy. The findings of the second experiment, however, do not support clearly the hypothesis that differences in ear asymmetry are produced through the use of different processing strategies.
Categorization of familiar persons from their names: A case of interference
Authors: Bredart Serge
Published: April 2011

It was tested whether or not the orthographic appearance of familiar persons’ names could interfere in semantic decisions about these persons’ identity. Subjects had to categorize famous persons, whose names served as stimuli, according to their membership of the French‐ or Dutch‐speaking community of Belgium. French‐speaking persons with French‐Walloon names (congruent condition) and French‐speaking persons with Dutch‐Flemish names (non‐congruent condition) served as target items. Mean reaction times were longer in the non‐congruent condition than in the congruent one. However, this was the case only for the less famous persons (Expt 1). The presence of an interaction between the degree of familiarity and the occurrence of the interference is interpreted in terms of relative time necessary to access identity‐specific semantic codes on one hand and to derive information from the appearance of names on the other hand. Experiment 2 was performed to ensure that the sets of stimuli used were equivalent with regard to familiarity. Results from Expt 3 support the mentioned hypothesis: the interference was prevented by using a technique known to speed up access to the identity‐specific semantic codes.
Children's knowledge of court proceedings
Authors: Flin Rhona H. , Stevenson Yvonne , Davies Graham M.
Published: April 2011

This paper describes a study of children's legal vocabulary and their knowledge of criminal court procedures. Subjects (aged six, eight, 10 years and adults) were also asked about their feelings regarding a hypothetical court appearance as a witness. All subjects, children and adults, performed best on a vocabulary recognition section, with descriptions and concepts proving more difficult. Observed developmental trends in both legal vocabulary and conceptual appreciation of criminal law replicates previous work from Australia and America and supports the contention that children younger than 10 years are not well informed about the legal system. Results indicated clear deficits in knowledge as well as frequent misconceptions regarding legal personnel and procedures.
Spatial monitoring in visual working memory
Authors: Morris Neil
Published: April 2011

Three experiments examined the role of spatial monitoring in short‐term visual memory. In the first experiment it was found that with consonants presented visually at one location articulatory suppression but not a concurrent tracking task disrupted performance. Experiment 2 demonstrated that tracking was disruptive when consonants were presented at three locations and more serial positions were affected when the locations of the consonants were random rather than highly predictable. Articulatory suppression was also disruptive in this study. The third experiment replicated the first two studies, without an articulatory suppression condition, using a within‐subject design with a strictly forward serial recall constraint. The locus of the tracking effect was modified by this recall constraint suggesting that tracking disrupts a specific process that utilizes spatial monitoring. It was concluded that spatial monitoring depletes resources that can be used to encode visually presented consonants and these resources may be drawn from spatial working memory. The articulatory loop was also implicated given that articulatory suppression also disrupted performance. These results were explained in terms of working memory constellations. Morris (1986 b) suggested that such constellations consist of working memory components, in this instance the articulatory loop and spatial working memory, ‘assembled’ to meet task demands. This probably involves the activation, by the demand characteristics of the task, of modules in working memory that are similar to production system elements.
Evidence for the use of information about internal events to improve the accuracy of causal reports
Authors: White Peter A.
Published: April 2011

There are many sources of information that people can use to improve the accuracy of reports about causal relationships between stimuli and their own responses. Several experiments have been carried out to discover whether internal events between stimulus and response might be one of these, but none has so far succeeded in controlling for all other possible sources of accurate report. A study is reported here in which an attempt was made to achieve this by comparing a group of subjects making reports immediately after some response with a group making reports after a substantial delay. Evidence for report accuracy attributable to information about internal events between stimulus and response was found. Theoretical implications remain unclear, however.
The colour naming of emotional words
Authors: Dawkins Kate , Furnham Adrian
Published: April 2011

The study reported here used the Stroop test in order to distinguish individuals with a repressive ‘coping’ style from low and high anxious persons. The task required the colour naming of words relating to negative emotions. The three groups were identified by use of the Marlowe‐Crowne scale of social desirability and the Spielberger Trait Anxiety scale. As predicted, the task clearly distinguished between repressors and the low anxious: repressors were severely retarded on this task while the low anxious showed no effect on performance. However, the distinction between repressors and the high anxious was less clear. The anxious group also showed a decrement in performance although it was considerably smaller than that produced by repressors. These results are discussed in terms of the implications for the applicability of the test as a measure of repressive coping style.
Refining the measurement of mood: The UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist
Authors: Matthews Gerald , Jones Dylan M. , Chamberlain A. Graham
Published: April 2011

Research using a refinement of existing measures of mood, the UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist (UMACL), is reviewed. A factor analysis (N = 388), using a validated criterion for assessing the number of factors to be extracted, confirmed that the UMACL measures dimensions of energetic arousal, tense arousal and hedonic tone. Psychometric properties of UMACL scales were satisfactory. Discriminant validity was established by showing that correlations between UMACL scales and demographic and personality variables were small in magnitude, though of theoretical importance. Significant correlations between the arousal scales and psychophysiological measures of autonomic arousal demonstrate concurrent validity. A series of studies shows that the UMACL scales are sensitive to external ‘stressors’. Specific influences on each of the three principal scales have been found. Certain stressors appear to evoke a more general stress syndrome associated with reduced energetic arousal and hedonic tone, and increased tense arousal.
The relationship between handedness, anxiety and questionnaire response patterns
Authors: French Christopher C. , Richards Anne
Published: April 2011

State and trait anxiety were found to be unrelated to the handedness categories distinguished by Annett (1970) in a sample of volunteers (N = 385). Furthermore, mean scores for 99 male subjects did not differ significantly from those of 293 females. The mean anxiety levels in this study were much more representative of the general population than those reported in a previous similar study by Beaton & Moseley (1984). A suggestion that subjects classified as mixed‐handed might show a tendency to avoid extreme responses was not supported.
The Kamin blocking effect, incidental learning and psychoticism
Authors: Jones Steven H. , Gray Jeffrey A. , Hemsley David R.
Published: April 2011

The Kamin blocking effect consists in impaired learning of an association between a conditioned stimulus (CS2) and an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) if CS2 is presented simultaneously with a different CS (CS1) already associated with the UCS. It is well established with animal but not human subjects. In the two experiments presented here, the effect was clearly demonstrated with UCS = a computer‐presented yellow square, CS1 = a blue square and CS2 = a noise (Expt 1) or two smaller white squares (Expt 2). The Kamin effect has, by some theorists, been attributed to switching of attention away from CS2, which conveys only redundant information. If so, the size of the effect should co‐vary with indices of selective attention commonly used with human subjects. As predicted, the blocking effect was found to be smaller in subjects who displayed a high degree of incidental learning in either of two tasks in which intentional vs. incidental learning corresponded to (1) words vs. word position, or (2) a target initial word letter vs. non‐target initial letters. We report elsewhere that the blocking effect is absent in acute schizophrenics. In the present experiments, however, there was no systematic relation between any of four measures of psychoticism, or intelligence, and either the blocking effect or incidental learning.
Instructional effects on responses in Wason's selection task
Authors: Griggs Richard A. , Jackson Sherri L.
Published: April 2011

This study examines the effects of three different violation instructions in the abstract selection task. Margolis (1987) hypothesized different selection patterns for each of these instructions. The results of Expt 1 supported all of his predictions, including one for a large number of not‐p and not‐q selections, an extremely infrequent choice for the abstract selection task. In Expt 2, the violation instruction leading to the not‐p and not‐q selections was used in an abstract permission schema selection task problem. In this case, it enhanced the facilitation normally observed for such problems instead of leading to not‐p and not‐q selections. The present results are discussed as support for attentional cueing models of reasoning, specifically Margolis's scenario/linguistic ambiguity theory and Evans's heuristic/analytic processing theory.
The psychometric properties of the Bortner Type A Scale
Authors: Edwards Jeffrey R. , Jr A. J. Baglioni , Cooper Cary L.
Published: April 2011

Recent evidence indicates that the relationship between Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) and coronary heart disease (CHD) is dependent upon the method of measuring TABP. This suggests that the psychometric properties of TABP measures should be carefully investigated. This article examines one widely used TABP measure, the Bortner Scale, using data from 1320 working adults divided into three random samples. The reliability of the Bortner Scale as an overall TABP index is unacceptably low. However, further analyses indicate that, rather than reflecting a single dimension, the Bortner Scale contains two independent dimensions, one reflecting speed and the other reflecting competitiveness. The speed dimension was negatively related to job satisfaction and, to a lesser extent, positively related to anxiety and somatic symptoms, whereas the competitiveness dimension was positively related to job satisfaction. Implications for the use of the Bortner Scale are discussed.
Name recall performance across the adult life‐span
Authors: Crook Thomas H. , West Robin L.
Published: April 2011

Everyday name‐recall tests were administered to 1205 adults ranging in age from 18 to 90 years. They were asked to recall sets of four, six, or 14 names of individuals who introduced themselves on videotape. Immediate recall, acquisition, and delayed retention were examined. The results showed consistent age‐related declines in name recall. Declines in performance were more evident on sets of 14 names rather than four or six names. Age deficits remained across several acquisition trials within the set of 14 names. The largest declines were evident for the old‐old (over 70), although there were also significant performance differences, on some analyses, between the young and middle‐aged groups. Changes in performance were less apparent during the middle‐aged years (40−60 years). Name recall was related to individual differences factors, reaction time and paired‐associate memory for names. The value of assessment and intervention with name recall was stressed.
Complexity and prototypicality as determinants of the appraisal of cubist paintings
Authors: Hekkert P. , van Wieringen P. C. W.
Published: April 2011

In this experiment inexperienced observers (N = 22) scored 40 black‐and‐white slides of cubist paintings on a number of seven‐point rating scales. On the basis of the time it took subjects to identify the depicted human figure, these slides were divided into three subgroups of Low Categorizability (LC), Intermediate Categorizability (IC) and High Categorizability (HC), respectively. For the LC slides ‘beauty’ scores revealed an inverted U‐shaped relation with ‘complexity’. No significant relation between these two variables could be demonstrated, however, for the HC slides. ‘Beauty’ ratings of the latter stimuli increased linearly with the degree of prototypicality. For the IC slides ‘beauty’ showed a (nearly significant) inverted U‐shaped relation to ‘complexity’, as well as a significant linear relation to ‘prototypicality’. The results of this study suggest that, whereas ‘complexity’ determines aesthetic preference for abstract paintings, ‘prototypicality’ determines preference for representational works.
Morphologically based frequency effects in the recognition of irregularly inflected verbs
Authors: Kelliher Susan , Henderson Leslie
Published: April 2011

Lexical decision latencies were compared for two sets of irregularly inflected verb forms. These had been matched pairwise on frequency of occurrence of the word form that was presented for recognition (e.g. bought; shook) but the sets differed on the frequency of their associated citation form (buy vs. shake). The frequency of the citation form was a reliable determinant of recognition speed despite the fact that the citation forms were not presented to the subjects and the relationship between the irregularly inflected form and the citation form cannot be established by purely orthographic analysis. This suggests that the recognition process tapped in lexical decisions involves contact of the stimulus with an abstract, intra‐lexical, morphological representation.
Anticipatory nausea development in cancer patients: Replication and extension of a learning model
Authors: Morrow Gary R. , Lindke JacqueLynne , Black Peter M.
Published: April 2011

Approximately one in four cancer patients during the course of repeated treatments begins to experience nausea in anticipation of chemotherapy treatments. The following characteristics have been associated with the development of this anticipatory nausea: (1) patient age; (2) the experience of nausea/vomiting after first treatment; (3) the severity of nausea after chemotherapy treatment; (4) the severity of vomiting after chemotherapy treatment; (5) feeling warm or hot all over after treatment; (6) a susceptibility to motion sickness; (7) sweating following treatment; (8) feeling of generalized weakness following treatment. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous research linking these characteristics to anticipatory nausea (AN), with special attention to the potential contribution made by interactions of the characteristics. Logistic analyses demonstrated significant contributions to anticipatory nausea aetiology from the learning‐based characteristics of nausea and vomiting presence and their severity; individual difference measures of age and susceptibility to motion sickness were also found to contribute significantly to AN development. Results support a learning theory‐based model of anticipatory side‐effect development as well as the potential contribution of individual difference measures of AN susceptibility.
Do older people know how good they are?
Authors: Rabbitt Patrick , Abson Vicki
Published: April 2011

Information and procedures that have been overlearned during a lifetime form a body of ‘crystallized’ intelligence that is relatively unaffected by ageing. Thus in spite of marked decrements in their ‘fluid’ memory abilities it is possible that older people may retain knowledge about the limitations and characteristics of their own memory (‘metamemory’). To test whether efficiency of metamemory is, indeed, independent of age‐related decline in fluid intelligence, 320 people aged from 50 to 79 years were asked to predict their probable performance on four simple memory tasks which had been carefully explained to them. They then experienced the tasks and their predictions were compared with their actual performances.

Actual task performance was modestly predicted by chronological age and by AH 4 and Mill Hill IQ test scores but not by subjective self‐ratings of everyday memory and cognitive efficiency (the Broadbent CFQ, and the Sunderland & Harris MQ). The data suggest that absolute levels of prediction of performance were associated with self‐confidence and were best predicted by scores on the Beck depression scale and by fluid IQ test scores. There was also evidence that individuals with higher test scores gave more accurate as well as more optimistic predictions of their own abilities. Taken together these results suggest that the accuracy of individuals' assessments of their own abilities does alter with age‐related changes in fluid IQ, but probably more radically by age‐related changes in self‐regard and in life‐style.
William James's The Principles of Psychology: ‘A seemingly inexhaustible source of ideas’
Authors: Valentine Elizabeth R.
Published: April 2011

Selected topics from The Principles of Psychology are evaluated in the light of current psychological knowledge. It is argued that James's main contribution lies in his acute observation of experience, resulting in the framing of searching questions about fundamental problems, and that many of his insights have inspired recent work. This is illustrated with reference to his chapters on the will, attention and emotion. The main advances since his time have been in the reformulation of his ideas in information‐processing terms, enabling their empirical testing in laboratory experiments, computer simulation and neuropsychology.

James' Principles is without question the most literate, the most provocative, and at the same time the most intelligible book on psychology that has ever appeared in English or in any other language … Part of James' genius was his ability to recognize a fundamental problem, to formulate it clearly, to marshall the available facts and theories, and then to throw it back to the reader, cleaned and polished, as a challenge to his curiosity … If ever there was a man who knew how to ask searching questions, it was William James (MacLeod, 1969, p. v.).
Evidence of a negative environmental reinstatement effect
Authors: Wilhite Stephen C.
Published: April 2011

Experiment 1 investigated the suggestion that the effect of reinstating the encoding environment at the time of memory retrieval is most likely to influence performance positively when other retrieval cues are not readily available. It was predicted that a positive environmental reinstatement effect would be more likely in college students' memory for a list of words presented in booklet format than for a passage of prose because the inherent organizational structure of the passage would provide a framework for retrieval and make environmental cues relatively unimportant. However, recall of both types of material was greater in the condition in which study and test took place in different environments (p < ·05). In Expt 2, this same negative environmental reinstatement effect was found using auditory presentation of the word list (p < ·05). The results suggest that reinstating the encoding context at the time of retrieval may under certain conditions prompt reliance on overloaded environmental cues at the expense of other potentially more effective retrieval strategies.
Computer games and cognitive processes: Two tasks, two modes, too much?
Authors: Porter David B.
Published: April 2011

Broadbent's recent explorations of control of dynamic diverges from the ‘ small and simple tradition’. His ‘unselected mode’ of learning and processing, which relies on separate implicit knowledge structures, challenges many traditional assumptions and popular theories of human performance. The two experiments presented here used an arcade‐type computer game. Although they are in the tradition of other dynamic control tasks, they differed along several task dimensions. Their convergent but somewhat counter‐intuitive results support the incorporation and general importance of unselected, non‐verbal channels in the human information processing system.
The relationship between implicit memory and implicit learning
Authors: Berry Dianne C. , Dienes Zoltan
Published: April 2011

Two distinctions in the human learning literature are becoming increasingly influential; implicit versus explicit memory, and implicit versus explicit learning, respectively. To date, these distinctions have been used to refer to apparently different phenomena. Recent research suggests, however, that the same processes may be underlying performance in the two types of task. This paper reviews recent results in the two areas and suggests ways in which the two distinctions may be related.
Working memory in children with specific arithmetical learning difficulties
Authors: Hitch Graham J. , McAuley Ellika
Published: April 2011

Siegel & Ryan (1989) reported that children with specific arithmetical learning difficulties (ALD) were impaired if they had to retain temporary information concurrently with counting visual arrays, but not if the concurrent operations were non‐mathematical. This selective deficit was attributed to an impaired arithmetical working memory system. In the present study 15 children aged eight to nine with ALD were compared with 15 normally achieving controls. Experiment 1 examined performance on a number of tasks assessing span for information storage during concurrent operations. The results confirmed that children with ALD are impaired on concurrent span only when the operations involve counting and showed that this holds independently of the visuospatial or auditory‐verbal characteristics of the task. Experiment 2 went on to investigate the possibility that children with ALD might be impaired at counting or retaining temporary information when each is assessed in isolation. The ALD group tended to count more slowly than controls and had lower auditory digit spans. It is argued that these deficits can account for the selective impairment of ALD children on concurrent counting span, without appealing to a special, arithmetical working memory system. Possible interpretations of the cognitive deficits associated with ALD and their implications for the ability to perform arithmetical skills are discussed.
Daily hassles and mental health: A longitudinal study
Authors: Lu Luo
Published: April 2011

This paper examines the effects of daily hassles and coping styles on mental health in a prospective longitudinal study of a community sample. It was found that daily hassles correlated with psychological symptoms, even after previous symptom levels were controlled. Early experience of hassles influenced later coping practice, and direct coping was more adaptive than suppression in coping with daily hassles.
Hand preference scores and completion of questionnaires: Another look
Authors: Beaton Alan A. , Moseley Laurie G.
Published: April 2011

French & Richards (1990) drew attention to the unexpectedly high anxiety scores reported in Beaton & Moseley's (1984) study of anxiety in relation to handedness. The data of that study are reanalysed and the correct scores are shown to be comparable to those of French & Richards (1990). The reanalysis confirms the conclusion of Beaton & Moseley (1984) that handedness and anxiety are not related. Further analyses of the pattern of responding to questionnaire items provide no support for the view that extreme left‐handers and extreme right‐handers differ in their endorsement of ‘desirable’ or ‘undesirable’ ‘extreme’ items on questionnaires.
Recognition of unfamiliar faces: Procedural and methodological considerations
Authors: Faw Harold W.
Published: April 2011

Although memory for unfamiliar faces has been an active area of research, understanding of this topic has progressed more slowly than that of the processing of familiar faces. After surveying a variety of research paradigms, the present analysis focuses on studies of unfamiliar faces which have employed a standard face‐recognition approach. Procedures used in 112 studies are compared and the need for standardization is examined. A prototype of the studies reviewed is proposed as a suitable procedural model. It is also suggested that greater attention must be paid to the homogeneity of stimuli used in these studies, and that cross‐stimulus comparisons need to be made with caution.
I recognize your face but I can't remember your name: A simple explanation?
Authors: Burton A. Mike , Bruce Vicki
Published: April 2011

When shown the faces of familiar people, subjects are typically slower and less accurate at retrieving names than other semantic information. This finding, along with converging evidence from neuropsychological studies, has influenced most theoretical accounts of face recognition (e.g. Bruce & Young, 1986). These accounts propose that names are stored separately from semantic information, and that they may not be retrieved in the absence of other information. Here we show that it is possible to account for empirical findings without positing a separate store for names. The account is based on an implemented simulation with an interactive activation and competition architecture. We demonstrate that the fact that most names are unique leads naturally to the patterns of recall found in experimental studies.
Qualitative research and psychological theorizing
Authors: Henwood Karen L. , Pidgeon Nick F.
Published: April 2011

Unlike other disciplines in the human sciences, psychology has undervalued the role of qualitative research methods in scientific inquiry. This has done a disservice to psychology, depriving its practitioners of skills which can simultaneously liberate and discipline the theoretical imagination. ‘Grounded theory’ is one useful approach to the systematic generation of theory from qualitative data, and alternative criteria can be advanced for judging the adequacy of research where qualitative methods have been used. An advantage of qualitative research is that theory is generated which is contextually sensitive, persuasive, and relevant.
Errors in young children's decisions about traffic gaps: Experiments with roadside simulations
Authors: Demetre J. D. , Lee D. N. , Pitcairn T. K. , Grieve R. , Thomson J. A. , Ampofo‐Boateng K.
Published: April 2011

Young children's vulnerability as pedestrians has often been attributed to deficiencies in their decision making about vehicle approach times. Some studies have found a preponderance of risky decisions below the age of eight years. In contrast, studies using a closer simulation of road crossing, known as the pretend road, have found a preponderance of overcautious decisions in young children: traffic gaps of adequate size were frequently rejected (missed opportunities). However, the pretend road has potentially distorting characteristics which may account for this divergent pattern of findings. The experiments reported below show that new simulations that eradicate distortions nevertheless validate the pattern of results produced with the pretend road. Differences between adults and young children were pronounced for missed opportunities, but not for risky decisions. Subsidiary analyses suggest that the risky decisions of the youngest children may have arisen through lapses in attention, rather than deficits in timing. These findings run contrary to the view that attributes young children's pedestrian vulnerability to perceptuo‐motor deficiency.
Reduction of alcohol‐induced performance impairment by prior ingestion of food
Authors: Millar Keith , Hammersley Richard H. , Finnigan Frances
Published: April 2011

The study examined the effectiveness of eating a meal prior to drinking alcohol as a means of reducing both peak blood alcohol level (BAL) and alcohol‐induced performance impairment. In a separate‐groups design, 133 male volunteers either fasted or received a standard meal of fixed calorific value and composition. Alcohol was then administered as placebo or at doses to achieve a BAL of 0, 20, 40 or 80 mg/100 ml. Subjects performed a dual task of primary tracking and secondary reaction time, short‐term memory, five‐choice reaction time and critical flicker fusion. Alcohol significantly impaired dual task performance but impairment was significantly reduced for those subjects who had eaten beforehand. BAL was also significantly lower in such subjects. It was concluded that prior ingestion of food might reduce the adverse effects of alcoholic intoxication, although performance remained impaired relative to the sober state.
Knowledge, knerves and know‐how: The role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of a complex motor skill under pressure
Authors: Masters R. S. W.
Published: April 2011

Failure of expert motor skill is common in cases where performers are highly motivated to succeed. One cause of this can be an inward focus of attention in which an attempt is made to perform the skill by consciously processing explicit knowledge of how it works. The resulting disruption of the automaticity of the skill leads to its failure. It follows from this that disruption of automatic processing will be avoided if performers have little or no explicit knowledge of their skill. Subjects in the reported experiment were required to acquire a golf‐putting skill, either explicitly (with knowledge of rules) or implicitly (without knowledge of rules) and were then tested under conditions of stress, induced by a combination of evaluation apprehension and financial inducement. Evidence was found to support the hypothesis that the skill of performers with a small pool of explicit knowledge is less likely to fail under pressure than that of performers with a large pool of explicit knowledge.
Children read affixed words and non‐words
Authors: Laxon Veronica , Rickard Mary , Coltheart Veronika
Published: April 2011

Children aged seven, eight and nine, subdivided according to reading ability were asked to read affixed words and non‐words ending in ‐ed and ‐er morphemes. There was evidence that the performance of these young children was comparable with Taft's (1985) account of skilled reading which suggests that morphologically complex items are decomposed and this facilitates reading in children. Both better and poorer readers read affixed words more accurately than pseudo‐affixed words, and affixed words significantly better than non‐words with a word stem; all readers were better at reading non‐words with a word as opposed to a non‐word stem.

The most notable finding was that words and non‐words ending in ‐er were read more accurately than those ending in ‐ed and adult word reading latencies showed no difference between the two types of ending. This is not straightforwardly explained by decomposition in Taft's (1985) terms, age of acquisition, affix frequency, or by any simplistic recourse to surface and/or base frequency. It is suggested that the explanation lies in the inconsistent pronunciation of the ‐ed ending, and that the syntactic rules for generating affixes need to be augmented by phonological rules in order to explain naming data in children. There was evidence that these children were in a transitional stage between a lexicon which is decomposed and one which is not, and that the lexicon becomes progressively decomposed as suggested by Taft (1985) and Seymour (1987).
The contributions of B. F. Skinner to the interdisciplinary science of behavioural pharmacology
Authors: Blackman D. E. , Pellon R.
Published: April 2011

This paper reviews the impact on behavioural pharmacology of experimental methods and modes of interpretation derived from the work of B. F. Skinner. The techniques of operant conditioning have been widely used to enrich the database of behavioural pharmacology. Their use has repeatedly demonstrated that the effects of a drug on behaviour are schedule‐dependent, i.e. they depend on the characteristics of the behaviour against which the drug is assessed and thus on the environmental determinants of behaviour, as well as on the pharmacological characteristics of the drug and its effects on physiological systems. This major empirical contribution is illustrated by reference to studies of the effects of past behavioural and pharmacological experience, the reinforcing effects of drugs, and the stimulus properties of drugs. Such empirical findings call into question any assumption that the behavioural effects of drugs can be reduced to exclusively pharmacological explanations. They therefore also make a fundamental contribution to the theoretical base of a truly interdisciplinary science of behavioural pharmacology, and make contact with Skinner's non‐reductionistic theoretical analyses of behaviour.
It won't happen to me: Unrealistic optimism or illusion of control?
Authors: McKenna Frank P.
Published: April 2011

Much research indicates that people underestimate their personal probability of encountering negative events. These findings may be interpreted either in terms of unrealistic optimism or in terms of an illusion of control. Current research has not attempted to distinguish between these two positions though it is shown that it is possible to do so. Whereas optimism refers to a generalized expectancy for positive outcomes independent of the source of the outcomes, the illusion of control locates the source of the expected outcome in terms of personal control. By examining conditions in which personal control was either present or absent it was possible to distinguish between the two positions. The results presented clear evidence in favour of the illusion of control with no evidence in favour of unrealistic optimism.
Imagery ability and source monitoring: Implications for eyewitness memory
Authors: Dobson Matthew , Markham Roslyn
Published: April 2011

The present study investigated the effect of self‐reported vividness of visual imagery on the ability to discriminate between memories derived from two external sources of information. Subjects were shown a film of a crime and were then given a written description of the event which included information not seen in the film. In a source monitoring task, high and low imagers were found to be equally proficient in recognizing items as previously presented, but high imagers were poorer at discriminating the source of items based on the written description. This finding is considered in terms of possible encoding and retrieval differences resulting from imagery vividness. The role of vivid visual imagery as a variable underpinning confusions in eyewitness testimony is discussed.
Latent inhibition and recall/recognition of irrelevant stimuli as a function of pre‐exposure duration in high and low psychotic‐prone normal subjects
Authors: De la Casa L. G. , Ruiz G. , Lubow R. E.
Published: April 2011

Learning to ignore non‐relevant stimuli (coloured geometric shapes) was evaluated in high and low psychotic‐prone normal subjects in two experiments. In the first, subjects were tested in a latent inhibition paradigm in a 2 times 2 × 3 factorial design (high vs. low psychotic proneness, as measured by MMPI subscales; pre‐exposure of the stimuli such that they were non‐relevant before the test but relevant in the test vs. absence of such pre‐exposure; three levels of pre‐exposure duration: 3‐, 6‐and 15‐min). Low psychotic‐prone subjects showed the latent inhibition effect (poorer learning as a result of pre‐exposure to the non‐relevant stimuli as compared to no pre‐exposure) at 6‐ and 15‐min durations, but not at 3‐min. High psychotic‐prone subjects failed to show latent inhibition at 3‐ and 6‐min durations, but did show the effect at 15‐min. The second experiment employed a 2 times 3 design (high vs. low psychotic proneness; three levels of pre‐exposure duration of the same stimuli used in Expt 1). High psychotic‐prone normal subjects recalled and recognized more previously non‐relevant stimuli than low psychotic‐prone subjects, particularly after 6‐min pre‐exposure to those stimuli. The data of the two experiments suggest that the attenuation of latent inhibition in high psychotic‐prone subjects as compared to low psychotic‐prone subjects is a result of the increased attention to non‐relevant information.
Clock* this!: An everyday example of a schema‐driven error in memory
Authors: French Christopher C. , Richards Anne
Published: April 2011

An everyday example of a distortion of memory is reported. Subjects were presented with a standard clock with numbers represented by Roman numerals. Of the subjects asked to draw the clock from memory, the majority mistakenly represented the four as ‘IV’ rather than as ‘IIII’ The latter represents the standard form of Roman numeral representation upon clocks, but not elsewhere. It made no difference to performance whether or not subjects were warned in advance that they would have to draw the clock from memory. Subjects asked simply to copy the clock in full view did not make the error. The findings are interpreted in terms of schema theory.
Adolescent identity and school type
Authors: Roker Debra , Banks Michael H.
Published: April 2011

The study examined the Eriksonian notion of exploration of identity alternatives and commitment to goals and beliefs during adolescence, focusing on whether this was associated with school type. A sample of 127 girls from one private and one state school, drawn from comparable social‐class backgrounds, were interviewed in depth. Each subject was classified according to Marcia's (1966) four categories of identity achievement, moratorium, foreclosure and diffusion in the domains of politics and occupation. Significant differences between the private‐ and state‐educated samples are reported for both identity exploration and commitment in the two domains. Possible explanations for these differences are given, and recommendations for future work are made.
Alcohol, reaction time and memory: A meta‐analysis
Authors: Maylor Elizabeth A. , Rabbitt Patrick M. A.
Published: April 2011

Moderate doses of alcohol impair performance on a variety of information processing tasks. Two separate meta‐analyses were conducted on the results of (1) reaction time studies, and (2) recognition memory studies, representing 25 and 16 different task conditions, respectively. In both cases, performance with alcohol (either 0.8 or 1.0 ml/kg body weight) was plotted as a function of performance with no alcohol. For reaction time, a linear fit accounted for 99.7 per cent of the variance. The same function applied not only to the mean but to the distribution of reaction times from the 5th to the 95th percentiles. For recognition memory, a linear fit accounted for 96.2 per cent of the variance in accuracy (expressed as the logarithm of proportion correct). Thus alcohol appears to have a general linear effect on information processing, rather than specific effects on a subset of stages. It is concluded that the results are consistent with a reduced processing resources hypothesis for the impairment with alcohol.
Effect of disorientation on visual analysis, familiarity decision and semantic decision on faces
Authors: Bruyer R. , Galvez C. , Prairial C.
Published: April 2011

The disproportionate effect of vertical inversion on the processing of faces has often been interpreted as indicating differences in perceptive strategies between upright and inverted faces. If this is true, then the mathematical relation between the performance and the angular deviation would not be a linear function. Thirty subjects processed faces shown under 10 angular deviations from upright (0 deg) to upside‐down (180 deg) in steps of 20 degrees, in a random design. Three cognitive levels (a between‐subject factor) were tested, namely, gender classification of unfamiliar faces, familiarity decision on famous vs. unknown faces, and semantic decision (occupation) on famous faces, with 480 items per subject and task. We found no sign of a change of processing strategies for the upright vs. inverted presentations: a clear linear function emerged. However, the nature of the task could influence the effect of the angular deviation on the performance. Results suggest that, up to now, there is no definite proof of qualitatively different mechanisms underlying the processing of upright and inverted faces, respectively.