bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Neuropsychological approaches to the study of reading
Authors: Patterson Karalyn E.
Published: April 2011

This paper describes four syndromes of acquired dyslexia (that is, reading deficits in previously literate adults who have suffered neurological damage): deep dyslexia, surface dyslexia, phonological dyslexia and letter‐by‐letter reading. The format of the description inquires whether reading performance in each syndrome is (1) sensitive to dimensions of words (such as word length or part of speech), (2) affected by experimental manipulations (such as exposure duration), and (3) relevant to theoretical issues (such as the nature of codes for word recognition in reading). The four patterns of reading impairment seem to relate in an orderly way to these dimensions, manipulations and issues drawn from the literature on normal word recognition and production. Such orderly relationships, it is claimed, favour the position that neuropsychological observations are germane to conceptions of normal reading.
Lateral organization and the perception of orientation in pictures: A comment on Freimuth & Wapner's experiment
Authors: Gordon I. E.
Published: April 2011

Freimuth & Wapner (1979), in a study of subjects’ evaluations of original and mirror‐reversed pictures, claim that previous experiments in this area suffer from methodological weaknesses. It is argued that Freimuth & Wapner's own procedure contains two flaws which cast doubt upon the validity of their results.
Direct vs. indirect tests of the information available from masked displays: What visual masking does and does not prevent
Authors: Humphreys Glyn W.
Published: April 2011

A comparison was made between two procedures for testing whether an alpha‐numeric character, which was pattern masked to prevent awareness, could access higher‐order information concerning its category. In the indirect test, subjects made categorization responses to a letter or digit target which was immediately preceded by a masked letter or digit stimulus. In the direct test, the target stimulus was not presented; nevertheless, categorization responses were required, and it was assumed that any higher‐order information available from the masked stimulus would be evident in these responses. Using the indirect procedure, category information was shown to be accessed by the masked stimulus, since target discrimination was affected by the category relationship between the stimuli. In contrast, categorization responses when the target was absent (in the direct test) were uninfluenced by the category of the masked stimulus. It was suggested that pattern masking disrupts the information necessary for (direct) report. However, it does not prevent the processing of stimuli to semantic levels, or the (indirect) effect the information accessed on the analysis of subsequent stimuli.
Dissociation of the recency effect and immediate memory span: Evidence from beginning readers
Authors: Byrne Brian , Arnold Lynn
Published: April 2011

A group (n = 12) of poor beginning readers was tested on free recall of 10‐word lists. They demonstrated as strong a recency effect as an IQ‐matched group of good readers. The poor readers showed the inferiority in immediate memory span (Digit Span test of the WISC) typical of that population. The results demonstrate a degree of dissociation between the recency effect and memory span, supporting arguments that the two aspects of performance are manifestations of different memory processes.
Accessing one‐to‐one correspondence: Still another paper about conservation
Authors: Gelman Rochel
Published: April 2011

When given experience designed to highlight the fact that the specific cardinal values of sets in one‐to‐one correspondence are the same (or different), three‐ and four‐year‐old children pass the standard number conservation tasks of equivalence and non‐equivalence. The initial training involved set sizes of three and four items; the conservation transfer trials involved set sizes of eight and 10 items. Even where success was defined as being able to give a correct judgement and explanation on at least one task in the small‐set range and one task in the large‐set range, children did well. In Expt 1, 75 and 88 per cent of the three‐ and four‐year‐olds, respectively, met this criterion. In Expt 2 (run by an experimenter who was naïve to the hypotheses and results of Expt 1) 58 and 75 per cent of the respective age groups met the same criterion. It is concluded that the children must have accessed an available, albeit implicit, ability to use one‐to‐one correspondence. Otherwise they could not have passed the large set‐size tasks which are beyond the range they count accurately. The paper ends with a defence of Rozin's (1976) accessing account of cognitive development.
Parent‐child relations and cognitive approaches to the development of moral judgement and behaviour
Authors: Siegal Michael , Francis Robin
Published: April 2011

This paper examines Piaget's cognitive approach to moral development particularly as it relates to the moral behaviour of young children. Research on moral behaviour and moral reasoning or cognition using measures derived from Piaget's theory has indicated only a weak to moderate correlation between the two. However, it is proposed that the correspondence between some domains of moral behaviour and a type of social ‘hot’ cognition is actually quite considerable. Borrowing from the work of J. M. Baldwin, this cognition consists of thoughts and decisions having a high affective value. These can involve the child's relationships with others and particularly parents. A study is reported in which the rule‐violating behaviour of children aged five and six years was observed in a naturalistic situation. While self‐initiated rule violations were significantly but modestly correlated with low cognitive development, rule violations as reactions to others' misconduct correlated substantially with a lack of identification with the mother (as indicated by children's verbal responses to questions regarding their relationships with others). The implications of a social‐cognitive approach for the study of moral development and behaviour are considered.
Egocentricity in the child and its effect on the child's comprehension of kin terms
Authors: Macaskill Ann
Published: April 2011

Piaget suggested that language acquisition is dependent on cognitive development and this paper presents data which are examined in terms of this hypothesis. As a result of a normative study on the comprehension of kin terms, the author suggested that kin terms could be divided into two categories, child‐centred terms and other‐centred terms. It was hypothesized that the decline of egocentricity in the child was a necessary development for the comprehension of other‐centred terms. Data are presented in support of this hypothesis.
The influence of emotion on immediate and delayed retention: Levinger & Clark reconsidered
Authors: Parkin Alan J. , Lewinsohn Joan , Folkard Simon
Published: April 2011

The experiment reported here examines the effect of emotion on the recall of self‐generated paired associates under conditions of both immediate and delayed retention. The paradigm used was that of Levinger & Clark (1961). The results showed that, with immediate retention, the recall of associates to emotional stimuli was significantly lower than that made to neutral stimuli whilst with delayed retention associations to emotional stimuli were better recalled. It is concluded that the pattern of forgetting shown in the current study can be explained in terms of the known interaction between input arousal and retention interval and, as such, the data do not support the existence of any specific emotional mechanism within the memory system.
The effects of priming with regularly and irregularly related words in auditory word recognition
Authors: Kempley S. T. , Morton John
Published: April 2011

The experiment examines the effects of relatively long‐term (10‐40 minutes) priming on the recognition of spoken words presented in noise. The focus of the experiment was the extent to which the priming was lexical (i.e. whole word), morphological or physical. First, no priming was found for physically related words. Thus ‘deflecting’ spoken clearly in the pre‐training task had no effect on the identification of ‘reflecting’ in the test phase. Second, there was very strong facilitation from a word with a regular inflectional relationship to the test word. Thus the word ‘reflected’ facilitated recognition of ‘reflecting’ almost as much as prior experience of ‘reflecting’ itself and, when responses were scored in terms of the root morpheme, counting ‘reflect’, ‘reflects’ and ‘reflected’ etc. as being correct, the morphemic effect was the same in the two cases. That this was a structural and not a semantic effect was shown by the complete lack of facilitation between irregularly related words such as ‘held/holding’, ‘man/men’, ‘lost/loses’. These data suggest that there is a morphological/structural level of analysis which is pre‐semantic, at which these long‐term facilitation effects take place. They also pose a challenge to the cohort theory of word recognition.
Phonological coding in dyslexic readers
Authors: Johnston Rhona S.
Published: April 2011

A study was made of the ability of 9‐, 12‐, and 14‐year‐old dyslexics to recall auditorily presented rhyming and non‐rhyming letter strings. These children showed a normal phonemic confusability effect, although overall their recall was much poorer than that of their chronological age controls; their recall levels were in fact very similar to those of their reading age controls. It was concluded that although previous studies have argued that poor readers show a weak phonemic confusability effect, this finding does not appear to be generalizable to older poor readers.
The assessment of children with specific reading difficulties (dyslexia) using the British Ability Scales
Authors: Thomson M. E.
Published: April 2011

The use of the British Ability Scales with children having specific reading difficulties is described. Eighty‐three children aged eight to 16 years were given a number of subtests from the British Ability Scales, and their performance on each subtest compared to every other subtest. The children were also divided into three age groups and developmental differences observed.

Based on T scores the children scored significantly less well on Speed of Information Processing, Immediate and Delayed Visual Recall, Recall of Digits, Basic Arithmetic and Word Reading across all the age ranges, when compared to the other abilities. In general subtests involving Speed of Precessing and Short Term Memory were poor, whereas tasks involving Reasoning, Spatial Imagery and aspects of the Use of the Retrieval of Knowledge were found to be average or above average.

Expected reading ages for the children based on other abilities were calculated, and it was found that the children's reading abilities were well below the expected level. Various forms of intelligence quotient were also computed and it is suggested that the four abilities recommended for use in computing an IQ in the current BAS Manual are inappropriate for the dyslexic child.

The children were also divided into auditory‐linguistic and visuo‐spatial ‘subtypes’ of dyslexia, and significant differences were found between the groups on Speed of Information Processing, Recall of Digits, and Block Design Level and Power.

The data are related to previous work in the area of developmental dyslexia.
Redundancy of syntactic information: An aid to young children's comprehension of sentential number
Authors: Nicolaci‐da‐Costa Ana , Harris Margaret
Published: April 2011

Sentences conveying either non‐redundant or increasingly redundant information about number, by means of different syntactic markers, were presented to 20 nursery school children. Comprehension of each sentence was tested in two tasks: pointing to one of a pair of line drawings and acting out with toys the action described by a sentence. The results strongly supported the view that redundancy of syntactic information is a powerful aid to children's comprehension of sentential number. In a second experiment, comprehension of sentences conveying redundant information by repetition of the same number marker was compared with that of non‐redundant sentences. In contrast to the first experiment, redundancy had no significant effect on comprehension. Together, these results suggest that children's comprehension of sentential number is aided by redundancy of information involving different syntactic markers, but not by mere repetition of the same marker.
Spelling errors in context
Authors: Sterling Christopher M.
Published: April 2011

This paper looks at the spelling errors that occurred in the spontaneous writing of 12‐year‐old children. A number of errors occur that are not addressed by the conventional approaches to spelling and which we can best understand by taking account of the psychological context in which they occur. One set of errors relates more to incorrect articulation than to poor spelling. A second set indicates the role of morphemic factors in the spelling of inflected words. Two other sets, one consisting of lexical substitutions, the other of words split into two parts, indicate the existence of a device that monitors the identity of what we write.
Counting processes in deaf children's arithmetic
Authors: Hitch Graham J. , Arnold Paul , Phillips Lesley J.
Published: April 2011

Ten profoundly deaf children and 10 hearing controls matched for arithmetical achievement were given integer additions to classify as right or wrong. Hearing children perform this task by using covert counting strategies which have been assumed to be subvocal. In view of deaf children's poor spoken language abilities it was expected that the deaf group would make little or no use of such covert counting strategies and would rely more on alternative methods such as recalling learned number facts from long‐term memory. The results failed to confirm this expectation and showed that classification times for the deaf were generally consistent with the same counting model as for the hearing. There was no difference between the groups in responses to correct sums involving ties or to incorrect sums, potential indicators of the use of associative retrieval. It is suggested that the covert counting processes of both deaf and hearing children in integer addition do not involve subvocalization. Alternative possibilities and general implications of this result for the education of the deaf are discussed.
A case study of developmental phonological dyslexia
Authors: Temple Christine M. , Marshall John C.
Published: April 2011

H.M. is a 17‐year‐old girl of at least average intelligence and with an above‐average oral vocabulary. She is impaired at non‐word reading in comparison to word reading. She is incapable of reading any long nonsense words or long unusual regular words correctly. Many of her non‐word reading responses are lexicalizations. She reads non‐words homophonic with real words better than she reads non‐words that are not homophonic with real words. Her reading age is 10 years 11 months. A large proportion of her reading errors are derivational or visual paralexias. She makes no semantic errors or errors of regularization and few neologistic responses. H.M. is not influenced by the dimensions of spelling‐to‐sound regularity and word length. There is no effect of word class on single‐word reading although a function word deficit is present when continuous text is read aloud. H.M. is impaired at word reading when the stimulus items are distorted in a manner that reduces the potential for global perception. H.M.'s spelling errors are primarily phonological, though more complex errors are made than those characteristic of surface agraphics. All of these features are consistent with reported cases of acquired phonological dyslexia. H.M. may be confidently regarded as a developmental phonological dyslexic.
Right cerebral hemisphere superiority for recognizing the internal and external features of famous faces
Authors: Young Andrew W.
Published: April 2011

Right‐handed male and female subjects were asked to identify bilaterally presented famous faces from an upright display of all the faces used in the experiment, under four conditions: these involved presentation of upright external features, upright internal features, upright whole faces, and inverted whole faces. The task was one of identification in the sense of picking out presented faces from a display of all the possible faces, and did not require explicit naming of the famous people. Left visual hemifield superiorities were found for upright external features, upright internal features, and upright whole faces, which did not vary across these three conditions. Overall performance levels did vary, with whole faces better identified than internal features, which were in turn better identified than external features. The presentation of inverted whole faces led to poorer overall performance than for upright faces, and no visual hemifield asymmetry. These results show that the right cerebral hemisphere is better able than the left to recognize known faces from both internal and external features.
Structural dimensions in aged self‐concept: A Tennessee Self Concept study
Authors: Gaber L. B.
Published: April 2011

Structural aspects of self‐concept in old age measured by the Tennessee Self Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965) were examined in an aged (X̄ = 79·57, SD = 5·17 years) community sample (n = 82) using multivariate techniques. Three robust factorial dimensions emerged from a principal components analysis: self‐acceptance; doubt resolution/defensiveness; and conflict integration. The importance of defensiveness in aged self‐concept was highlighted.
An investigation into component and configural processes underlying face perception
Authors: Sergent Justine
Published: April 2011

The nature of the processes underlying face perception was examined in two different paradigms using the same set of stimuli varying on three dimensions of two values each. In a simultaneous matching task, both latencies and errors were found to decrease as the number of differences between stimuli increased. Regression analyses showed that the manipulated features interactively contributed to these variations when the faces were presented in their normal upright orientation, whereas no evidence of an interactive processing was found when the faces were inverted. A multidimensional scaling analysis of dissimilarity judgements between pairs of different upright faces revealed that the overall impression of a face was not simply the sum of subimpressions, and that a configuration typical of each face emerged from the relationship among their particular features, giving each face its individuality. The results suggest that faces have both component and configural properties and lend themselves to different processing strategies that are not mutually exclusive and can unfold simultaneously. Some implications of these results for current research on face perception and recognition are outlined.
Traits as semantic categories: A reply to Kline
Authors: Hampson Sarah E.
Published: April 2011

Kline (1984) has misunderstood the implications of the semantic category model of personality which allows for a reconciliation between conflicting views of the nature of traits and does not constitute an attack on trait theory. The criticisms of the experiments supporting the model are shown to be either unfounded or to require experimentation for their resolution.
Factor analysis of a picture‐preference test of personality
Authors: Auld Frank , Kline Paul
Published: April 2011

A picture‐preference test of personality, developed by Cowan (1967), has shown promise of usefulness but poor reliability of its subscales. In order to create more reliable subscales from Cowan's 106‐item test, the authors chose two small groups of items as seeds for scales and then tried adding items to the original scales to increase the K‐R 20 coefficient, adding items to each of these groups so long as the internal consistency index increased. After these two scales had been created, the authors factor analysed 17 variables – including the two scales created from the seed items – that had been derived from the 106 items, using a sample of 1180 subjects. Three factors emerged: (a) a factor measuring deviance, related to Eysenck's ‘psychoticism’, (b) a factor defined by a scale measuring ‘Avoidance of sexual intimacy’, and (c) a factor measuring overcontrol of impulse. Demonstration of the first factor suggests that the picture‐preference method offers an alternate way to measure Eysenck's P; demonstration of the other two factors suggests that there are two hitherto unstudied dimensions of personality that can be measured by Cowan's test.
Optimizing learning by interactive presentation in multi‐trial free recall
Authors: Gaonac'h Daniel
Published: April 2011

This paper presents an experiment concerned with the subjective organization of lists of words in free recall learning. In one condition (interactive presentation), the presentation order of words is determined according to the subjective organization on the previous trials. This type of presentation leads to better learning when compared to a control situation in which words are presented on each trial in random order. Moreover, the results obtained here and in other experiments suggest that the consequences of interactive presentation are not the same for all subjects. It seems possible that this type of presentation constitutes a compensation for difficult learning conditions and for ineffective individual strategies.
Phenobarbitone and the relationship between extraversion and reinforcement in verbal operant conditioning
Authors: Gupta Uma
Published: April 2011

The present investigation was designed to study the relationship between phenobarbitone, extraversion and modes of reinforcement in verbal operant conditioning. A factorial design involving three treatments (placebo and two doses, 30 and 100 mg, of phenobarbitone), two levels of extraversion (extraverts and introverts) and two reinforcement conditions (‘good’ and ‘electric shock’) with repeated measures on the first factor, was used. Sixty postgraduate female students were individually subjected to Taffel's verbal conditioning procedure. The results support the following conclusions: (1) under the placebo condition, the extraverted subjects condition better with the rewarding reinforcer (‘good’) while the introverted subjects condition better with the punishing reinforcer (‘electric shock’); (2) under the influence of the smaller dose of the drug, as compared with the placebo, the conditioning scores of extraverted subjects increase with the punishing reinforcer but decrease with the rewarding reinforcer, while the conditioning scores of the introverted subjects decrease with the punishing reinforcer, under the influence of the larger dose of the drug, but remain uninfluenced with the rewarding reinforcer.
Maintenance rehearsal and the articulatory loop
Authors: Hanley J. Richard , Thomas Anita
Published: April 2011

Watkins & Watkins (1974) observed that free recall performance of terminal items improved significantly when subjects were given explicit instructions about the length of each list of words. They argued that this was consistent with subjects switching to maintenance rehearsal when the end of the list approached. The present experiment investigated whether knowledge of list length would still be of value when subjects had to articulate an irrelevant word during learning, in order to investigate whether an articulatory loop of the kind proposed by Baddeley & Hitch (1974) might be used during maintenance rehearsal. Results showed, however, that while articulatory suppression significantly reduced overall levels of recall, it did not affect the performance of the informed group any more than that of the uninformed group. It is therefore concluded that maintenance rehearsal is most likely to be controlled by the non‐articulatory part of working memory.
How disconfirmatory, confirmatory and combined strategies affect group problem solving
Authors: Gorman Michael E. , Gorman Margaret E. , Latta R. Michael , Cunningham Guy
Published: April 2011

This paper presents three experiments designed to test Karl Popper's idea that scientists should try to falsify, or disconfirm, their hypotheses instead of verifying them. Previous studies indicate that subjects trained to falsify do no better on scientific problem‐solving tasks than subjects trained to confirm. But these studies have all focused on individual subjects. Scientists frequently work in groups. To see how groups disconfirm, subjects in the first two studies reported here were run in groups of four. They were asked to solve a series of related problems based on ‘New Eleusis’, a task designed to model the ‘search for truth’.

In the first study, group members were either allowed to interact or told to work separately. This variable was crossed with a strategy (disconfirmatory vs. confirmatory) variable. There were no significant differences.

In the second study, only interacting groups were run, some methodological problems with the strategy variable were cleared up and a third strategy that combined elements of confirmation and disconfirmation was added. Disconfirmatory groups solved significantly more problems (72 per cent) than confirmatory (25 per cent) with combined (50 per cent) falling in between. Disconfirmatory groups also made significantly more attempts to falsify their hypotheses.

To see if the same results would hold for individuals working on a different task, subjects were trained to disconfirm, confirm or use no strategy on Wason's 2–4‐6 task. Disconfirmatory subjects were again significantly more successful. The overall results suggest that a disconfirmatory strategy is superior for both groups and individuals on tasks that simulate scientific problems. Reasons why this effect was obtained in the present research but not in earlier studies are discussed.
Which theory fails? A reply to McManus
Authors: Annett Marian
Published: April 2011

The claim that the right shift (RS) theory fails is examined and rejected on several grounds. First, it is uncertain that the symmetric bimodal (SB) theory can generate predictions that are clearly distinct from those of the RS theory. Second, the interpretation of the empirical data depends on an analysis of the skills required for the task and of the samples tested; the latter were not drawn from the general population. Third, the aim of seeking algorithmic solutions is inappropriate as an alternative to the original aim (Annett & Kilshaw, 1983) of testing whether previously successful heuristic solutions could be rejected. Fourth, the common‐sense classification into left‐ and right‐handers, although undoubtedly the starting point of all analyses of laterality, including that of the RS theory, has led to little progress in the search for the causes and consequences of lateral asymmetries. The classification can lead to sterile arguments about the ‘true’ incidence of left‐handedness, of which examples are to be found in McManus's paper. Finally, elaborate statistical techniques may assist but cannot supplant the careful evaluation of evidence. The RS theory is falsifiable, but not on the grounds suggested by McManus.
Another look at the ‘new psychophysics’
Authors: McKenna Frank P.
Published: April 2011

The ‘new psychophysics' is reviewed in terms of four issues: (1) the adequacy of the power law as an empirical description, (2) the validity of this law, (3) what is being measured and (4) the theoretical implications of the power law. Each issue is considered in turn with an emphasis on the theoretical implications since it is thought that this approach to psychophysical judgement can best be assessed in this respect. It is found that there are critical weaknesses in this approach to psychophysics.
Interest, knowledge and the memorizing of soccer scores
Authors: Morris Peter E. , Tweedy Margaret , Gruneberg Michael M.
Published: April 2011

The memorizing of new soccer scores was examined in two experiments. In Expt 1, a very high correlation between the recall of scores and performance on a soccer knowledge questionnaire occurred only for real scores. For simulated scores the correlation was barely significant. However, free recall of a word list correlated highly with memory for simulated scores, but not with recall of real scores or questionnaire scores. The specific processes underlying memory for real scores were investigated in Expt 2 where support or dislike for and knowledge of teams were strongly related to recall, but not to the importance of matches and the accuracy of prediction of the results.
Implicit and explicit knowledge in the control of complex systems
Authors: Broadbent Donald E. , FitzGerald Peter , Broadbent Margaret H. P.
Published: April 2011

These experiments deal with the relation between the ability of a person to carry out efficient action in a situation, and that of the same person to answer questions about the situation. Existing knowledge on the topic has various gaps. In particular it is relatively common to show performance changing without change in verbal knowledge, but relatively rare to show changes in verbal knowledge without change in performance. A second major gap is in defining the kinds of task on which discrepancies may be expected to occur, since in everyday life we do quite frequently expect people to know what they are doing. Accordingly, seven groups of subjects were studied controlling two artificial systems, one concerned with transportation and one with a model of the economy. The discrepancy between verbal knowledge and performance was changed by altering the number or salience of the relationships being learned, and this is at least one factor in making tasks show the discrepancy. Several instances were found of change in verbal question answering opposed to or in the absence of any change of decision performance; thus, the discrepancy is not asymmetric affecting only one measure of learning. This implies that all the variables examined affect processes specific to one or other measure, rather than changing a common database. The results challenge a common view of the discrepancy between performance and verbal accounts, and suggest rather that there are alternative modes of processing in human decision making, each mode having its own advantages.
The effects of induced frontalis tension variation on aspects of cognitive efficiency
Authors: Moran Carmen C. , Cleary Patrick J.
Published: April 2011

Sixteen subjects performed a serial reaction‐time task while varying frontalis tension levels. There were three levels of induced tension variation: high, moderate and low. Results indicated that reaction times were differentially affected across the three tension levels, and the slow response end of the reaction‐time distribution was slightly more sensitive to frontalis tension changes than the median. The relative importance of errors of omission and errors of commission may determine which tension level is optimal for task performance, but the results reported here indicate that attempts to reduce frontalis tension levels may be inappropriate in situations requiring sustained alertness.
Reproduction of complex movements: The effects of the presence of vision during encoding or at recall
Authors: Colley Ann , Fossey Jane
Published: April 2011

This study investigated the role of vision in the encoding and reproduction of movement. Kinaesthetic reproductions of a kinaesthetically presented two‐dimensional movement were compared with reproductions where vision was present either during the standard or at reproduction. The main finding was that the presence of vision during the standard resulted in poorer accuracy and greater underestimation of movement size than when it was absent throughout or present during reproduction. The presence of vision during the standard, however, resulted in less distortion of the linear components of movement shape although no such effect was found for the angular components. The initial direction of movement was reproduced more accurately where visual experience of the movement was given, either during the standard or during reproduction.
Cognitive aspects of haptic form recognition by blind and sighted subjects
Authors: Bailes Sally M. , Lambert Robert M.
Published: April 2011

Studies using haptic form recognition tasks have generally concluded that the adventitiously blind perform better than the congenitally blind, implicating the importance of early visual experience in improved spatial functioning. The hypothesis was tested that the adventitiously blind have retained some ability to encode successive information obtained haptically in terms of a global visual representation, while the congenitally blind use a coding system based on successive inputs. Eighteen blind (adventitiously and congenitally) and 18 sighted (blindfolded and performing with vision) subjects were tested on their recognition of raised line patterns when the standard was presented in segments: in immediate succession, or with unfilled intersegmental delays of 5, 10, or 15 seconds. The results did not support the above hypothesis. Three main findings were obtained: (1) normally sighted subjects were both faster and more accurate than the other groups; (2) all groups improved in accuracy of recognition as a function of length of interstimulus interval; (3) sighted subjects tended to report using strategies with a strong verbal component while the blind tended to rely on imagery coding. These results are explained in terms of information‐processing theory consistent with dual encoding systems in working memory.
The effects of noise, cognitive set and gender on mental arithmetic performance
Authors: Gulian E. , Thomas J. R.
Published: April 2011

Recent research on the effects of moderate noise seems to indicate that the main changes in performance are elicited by shifts in the adopted strategy. The present experiment investigated this effect by directly manipulating the cognitive set and following male and female subjects' performances on an arithmetic task under two levels of noise. The results showed that noise significantly impaired rate of work but has no detrimental effect on accuracy. Noise clearly reduced the pace at which female subjects were working, but it hardly affected that of male subjects. The differential response pattern of men and women in quiet and noise when working under different cognitive sets resulted in a significant interaction between these factors. These findings support the idea that the effects of noise are mediated by a constellation of factors whose control is necessary for a realistic evaluation of performance in noise.
Selective effects of minor illnesses on human performance
Authors: Smith A. P. , Tyrrell D. A. J. , Coyle K. , Willman J. S.
Published: April 2011

The study reported here examined the effects of experimentally induced minor illnesses (colds and influenza) on the efficiency of human performance. Influenza impaired the ability to detect and respond quickly to stimuli appearing at irregular intervals, but had no effect on a task requiring hand–eye coordination. In contrast to this, colds impaired hand‐eye coordination but had little effect on the detection tasks. These results are of great practical importance because many skills clearly involve both attentional and motor factors and are, therefore, likely to be impaired by minor illnesses. The findings are also of major theoretical interest because of the dissociation of psychological functions produced by the different types of illness.
Visual memory and motor programmes: Their use by idiot‐savant artists and controls
Authors: O'Connor N. , Hermelin B.
Published: April 2011

Artistically gifted children of normal intelligence and idiot‐savant artists as well as two groups of IQ‐matched controls were tested for their perception of and recognition memory for shapes. They were also tested for their capacity to graphically reproduce the shapes on sight (copying) or from memory. The material consisted of designs of two levels of complexity and structure.

Results showed that while IQ was the determining factor in matching and recognition performance, copying and reproduction ability depended on artistic ability and was independent of level of intelligence. These results are interpreted in terms of access to an intelligence‐independent system of graphic representations which can evoke appropriate motor programmes.
The stress of the transition to university: A longitudinal study of psychological disturbance, absent‐mindedness and vulnerability to homesickness
Authors: Fisher Shirley , Hood Bruce
Published: April 2011

A longitudinal study was conducted to examine the effects of the transition to university in residential and home‐based students. All students showed evidence of raised psychological disturbance and absent‐mindedness following the transition. Although there were no differences between resident and home‐based students in this respect, those who reported homesickness were distinguished from the remainder in terms of higher levels of psychological disturbance and cognitive failure following the transition to university. Covariate analysis established that the gain in psychological disturbance following the transition was greater for the homesick group. The results are discussed in terms of the effects of stressful transitions on psychological state and the concept of personal vulnerability.
Associations between phenomenal and objective aspects of concentration problems in depressed patients
Authors: Watts Fraser N. , MacLeod Andrew K. , Morris Lorna
Published: April 2011

The paper explores a distinction between different kinds of lapse of concentration in depressed patients. The strategy is to begin with the phenomenological distinction between the mind (a) ‘wandering’ on to something else or (b) going ‘blank’. Blanking, but not mind‐wandering, is associated with longer planning times on the ‘Tower of London’ task. In contrast, mind‐wandering but not blanking, is associated with poor memory for prose, at least under ordinary processing conditions. Different phenomenal forms of concentration problem thus have different task performance correlates. A tentative formulation is offered in terms of Shallice's model of the regulation of attention. Mind‐wandering is seen as a problem of ‘contention scheduling’, and blanking as the result of generalized inhibition by the Supervisory Attentional System. It is evident that not all performance deficits in depression can be attributed to the cognitive capacity taken up by competing thoughts.
Interactive tasks and the implicit‐explicit distinction
Authors: Berry Dianne C. , Broadbent Donald E.
Published: April 2011

Two experiments explore the relationship between implicit and explicit processes in the acquisition of complex knowledge. Their purpose is twofold. Firstly, to specify some of the variables that control whether or not performance and explicit knowledge will be associated when people interact with computer‐implemented control tasks. Secondly, to clarify the relationships between implicit and explicit modes of learning on the one hand and implicit and explicit types of knowledge on the other. The experiments show that salience of the relationship between decision and action is a crucial factor in relation to both the distinction between implicit and explicit learning and the distinction between implict and explicit knowledge.
Issues of representation and limited capacity in the visuospatial sketchpad
Authors: Frick Robert W.
Published: April 2011

This article is about a visual short‐term store called the visuospatial sketchpad (VSSP), which is tested by immediate ordered recall. Several claims are made: first, even for categorizable stimuli such as digits and letters, the representation in VSSP is uncategorized and unparsed. Second, the representation in VSSP is parsed and categorized just prior to recall in a process called recovery. The probability of recovering an item depends upon the fidelity of that item's representation. Third, VSSP has a fixed amount of representational medium which is allocated proportionally to the items in the presentation. When too many items are presented for recall, not all of the items are represented with sufficient fidelity to be recovered, producing the phenomenon of limited capacity.
Impossible Objects and the things we do first in vision
Authors: Cowie Roderick I. D.
Published: April 2011

Interpreting an image involves postulating that it represents a structure drawn from some class C. Attention tends to focus on methods where C is large (e.g. ‘rigid structures’) or small (e.g. ‘faces’). However scene analysis programs where C is intermediate have interesting properties. In particular it is often neither easy nor worthwhile to establish the full consequences of the postulates underlying analysis. The price of this incompleteness is that inconsistent interpretations are occasionally accepted. This parallels the psychological phenomenon of seeing ‘Impossible Objects’, so Impossible Objects may indicate that human vision too uses intermediate postulates and develops only a key subset of their implications. If this interpretation is correct, and demonstrations suggest that it is, then the particular pictures which cause us such problems should indicate what the relevant postulates are and to what level they are developed. Experiments and demonstrations suggest that the postulates concern angles between edges and that implications about edges’ orientations, but not their depths, are automatically derived and checked. This makes sense ecologically and computationally. Ecologically, precise depth information would only help in cases involving improbable alignments. Computationally, a description of edge orientation paves the way to obtain various other types of information as required.
What's in a face? The case of autism
Authors: Hobson R. P. , Ouston J. , Lee A.
Published: April 2011

Groups of verbal MA‐matched autistic and non‐autistic retarded adolescents and young adults were tested for their ability to recognize emotion and personal identity in photographed faces and parts of faces. The tasks were to match expressions of emotion across different individuals, and to identify unfamiliar individuals despite changes in emotional expression. Faces were also presented upside‐down. The results indicated a specific abnormality in the way autistic individuals perceive emotion, and possibly sex, in people's faces. In addition, however, autistic subjects’ superior ability in matching upside‐down faces suggested a more far‐reaching abnormality in their perception of faces.
When is an object not an object? The effect of ‘meaning’ upon the copying of line drawings
Authors: Lee Monica
Published: April 2011

A series of studies shows that errors in copying line drawings of a table are directly related to the knowledge that the lines represent a table, and not to difficulty in drawing the lines themselves. When children copy the component parts of line drawings of a table the pattern of error is very similar to that obtained when the whole line drawing is copied or when a table is drawn from imagination. When the same component parts are copied without the knowledge of what they represent very few errors are made.
Handedness in ‘fast ball’ sports: Do lefthanders have an innate advantage?
Authors: Wood C. J. , Aggleton J. P.
Published: April 2011

The study reported here examined whether left‐handedness is an intrinsic advantage in three sports: cricket, tennis and football (soccer). An analysis of cricket yearbooks showed that over the last four decades there was a relatively high proportion of professional cricketers who bowled left‐handed. In contrast, an analysis of handedness in top batsmen, as measured by bowling hand, failed to find any evidence of a handedness effect. Similarly, there was no clear, consistent excess of left‐handed players among an overall sample of 500 male or 252 female professional tennis players or among 167 professional football goalkeepers. The latter group were of particular interest as left‐handed goalkeepers are not tactically favoured by their relative rarity or by the symmetry of the sport. The most parsimonious explanation of the present findings is that any excess of left‐handers in these sports is due to the nature of the game and not to any supposed neurological advantage.
Expertise and configural coding in face recognition
Authors: Rhodes Gillian , Brake Susan , Taylor Karyn , Tan Shirley
Published: April 2011

Diamond & Carey (1986) have argued that expertise in face recognition depends on the ability to code configural properties in addition to isolated features. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments by comparing the effect of inversion on recognition of ‘own race’ (high expertise) and ‘other race’ (low expertise) faces. Use of configural information should be associated with a larger inversion effect than use of isolated features, and therefore inversion should produce a larger recognition decrement for own race than for other race faces. In Expt 1 there was a larger inversion effect in reaction times for recognition of own race faces than other race faces, for both European and Chinese subjects (ceiling effects made interpretation of accuracy difficult). In Expt 2 a larger own race inversion effect was found for recognition accuracy, when test face pairs were randomly selected, but not when they were matched on isolated features. Our results are largely consistent with the hypothesis that expertise is associated with greater use of configural information in faces.
Close encounters of the witness kind: Children's memory for a simulated health inspection
Authors: Davies Graham , Tarrant Amanda , Flin Rhona
Published: April 2011

A total of 128 children from each of two age groups (6–7 years and 10–11 years) took part individually in a simulated health check procedure. This involved direct confrontation between the child and an adult stranger in which the child was touched and an article of clothing (shoes) removed. One week later children took part in a series of tests which examined their testimony of the events in which they participated. Older children were superior to younger on both free and prompted recall of event and appearance information and made fewer errors, both relatively and absolutely, on recall of appearance but not events. The two age groups did not differ in their competence in the construction of Photofit pictures and showed no difference in performance on identification from a photographic array, irrespective of whether the adult was present or absent. The implications of these findings for the current debate over the legal admissibility of children's evidence are discussed.
The effects of concurrent verbalization on performance in a dynamic systems task
Authors: McGeorge P. , Burton A. M.
Published: April 2011

Two experiments are described based on a dynamic systems control task previously shown to favour implicit learning. Subjects asked to verbalize their reasoning whilst performing the task showed significantly improved task performance. This result is in line with suggestions that concurrent verbalization may facilitate task performance. Presentation of graphical information representing the behaviour of the system also aids learning. Both concurrent verbalization and graphical representations probably have the effect of increasing the efficiency with which the available task information is assimilated. When both these aids are available to subjects, the effects of one may be masked by the effects of the other. This would account for the results of previous studies in which no effect of concurrent verbalization has been found. After relatively few exchanges with the system some subjects appear to be developing verbal task knowledge; this may represent the initial stages in the development of a mental model of the system.