bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Response Organization in Attention Control and a Perceptual Serial Position Effect
Authors: Underwood Geoffrey
Published: July 2007

To determine the influence of response organization factors in selective attention, a comparison was made between the shadowing and monitoring techniques of attention control and a one-trial serial recall technique in which subjects were instructed to remember one message (attended channel) of a dichotic presentation. Detections of semantic targets in the attended and unattended messages from the remembering condition were quantitatively similar to those from the monitoring condition. This suggests that the low detection rates in the unattended message when subjects are shadowing are a function of the higher processing demands of overt response organization required by this task. A serial position effect was also in evidence: the detection probability was enhanced if the target was positioned towards either end of the serial presentation of 16 items. The primacy observed here, common to all three attention control conditions, indicates more efficient perceptual processing and subsequent categorizing of end items than of central, embedded items. The hypothesis is offered that the principles governing the present primacy effects may also underlie primacy in serial position curves of short-term memory studies.
Short-Term Memory and the Nature of Interference from Concurrent Shadowing
Authors: Kroll Neal E. A.
Published: July 2007

Trigrams were presented visually or auditorily and followed by a 12 s retention interval filled with shadowing numbers or letters. Auditory memory letters followed by letter shadowing were recalled less than auditory memory letters followed by number shadowing or visual memory letters followed by either type of shadowing. The latter three conditions did not differ among themselves. An analysis of the recall intrusions suggested that forgetting of auditory memory letters followed by letter shadowing was caused mainly by a confusion between covert rehearsals and shadowing activity, while forgetting in the other three conditions was caused primarily by proactive interference from earlier memory trials.
The Effect of Body Tilt on the Zöllner Illusion
Authors: Wallace G. K. , Moulden Bernard
Published: July 2007

The magnitude of the Zöllner illusion was measured for a range of intersect angles in the four combinations of subject, vertical or tilted, and display, horizontal or tilted. When the main lines of the display fall on the horizontal retinal meridian, body tilt per se has no effect; there are however, anomalous results when the body is tilted and the main lines do not fall on the horizontal meridian, and the possible implications are discussed.
Rate of Presentation in Running Memory and Direct Manipulation of Input-Processing Strategies
Authors: Hockey Robert
Published: July 2007

An experiment was carried out to examine the effect of presentation rate on recall, as a function of the kind of input-processing carried out by the subject during a running memory task. Subjects listened to long sequences of digits (16–35 items in length), and attempted to recall as many as possible of the last 10 items presented during a 15 s break between successive sequences. Digits were presented at rates of 1, 2 or 3/s in different sequences, distributed randomly throughout a 60-sequence test. Separate groups of 16 subjects were instructed to use one of the following strategies in listening to the digits: Active—rehearsing and grouping digits by threes; Passive—avoiding all forms of organization of the input. The results demonstrate clear and reliable differences between strategies in the effect of rate. Active is best at 1/s and deteriorates monotonically with increases in rate, while Passive shows the opposite trend, improving from 1 to 3/s. The operation of an important input-processing factor is evident in these findings, and is probably at least partly responsible for the previous lack of agreement in studies of the effect of presentation rate in immediate recall.
Multiple Stimulus Discrimination Learning. III. What is Learned?
Authors: Mandler Jean M.
Published: July 2007

Rats were given a multiple stimulus discrimination, with either a constant positive stimulus combined with several negative stimuli or a constant negative stimulus combined with several positive stimuli. Choice data in transfer tests indicated that the discrimination had taken place on the basis of the constant stimulus alone and that the constant stimulus was equally effective in mediating transfer whether it had been positive or negative. While the multiple stimuli did not control choice behaviour, the latency data indicated that some analysis of them had taken place. Analyses of discrepancies in choice and latency data suggest that the two types of measure reflect different processes involved in discrimination learning.
Input-Output Relations in Simple Reaction Time Experiments
Authors: Angel A.
Published: July 2007

The isotonic muscular effort was measured from the thenar muscles of human subjects during simple reaction time experiments. It was found that the output (Θ) was related to the input (φ) by a simple power law, i.e. Θ = φn for visual, auditory and electrical stimuli applied to the digits. The exponents found were 0.21, 0.11 and 1.04 for auditory, visual and electrical stimuli respectively. Although different from those determined by Stevens for the transformation of the input energy to a psychological magnitude, their relative values are almost identical.
The Effect of Task Difficulty and Criteria of Learning on a Subsequent Reversal
Authors: Sweller J.
Published: July 2007

Two experiments using rats were carried out in which it was shown that a quadratic function can best describe the relation between amount of initial discrimination training and speed of reversal learning for both a difficult visual and an easy spatial task. The results are used to explain the rarity of the over learning reversal effect (ORE) using easy tasks such as position discriminations. Implications for the attention theory are also discussed.
Learning Rhythmic Hand Movements
Authors: Frith C. D.
Published: July 2007

Twenty-seven subjects tracked targets moving up and down in a straight-line path formed from the sum of three sine waves. There were nine such tracks varying in average frequency and length of repeating subunit. The latter variable had little effect on performance, but low frequency targets were tracked better than high frequency targets. Only the component frequencies present in the tracks were reproduced to any extent in the subjects' performance. For components in different tracks the highest frequencies were reproduced with the lowest amplitude. However, for components within the track the highest frequency component tended to be reproduced with the highest amplitude. In addition the greatest amount of learning appeared in the highest frequency component within a track.
Memory in a Bisensory Selective Attention Task
Authors: Hall Ralph , Swane Diana
Published: July 2007

Theories of selective attention differ with respect to the amount of processing alleged to be undergone by non-attended material. “Early” selection theorists have argued that only physical properties of the non-attended material are extracted whereas “late” selection theorists have claimed that all inputs are fully analysed with selection taking place at the output stage.

Recent attempts to investigate these theories have investigated memory for non-attended material. The present experiment was designed to investigate memory for physical and semantic properties of non-attended material. Subjects shadowed words presented aurally and were tested for recall of simultaneously presented visual material. The visual stimuli consisted of either patches of colour or the names of those colours, the former containing only physical properties and the latter requiring semantic processing. Different shadowing conditions were employed in which subjects shadowed either colour names or unrelated words.

Recall of the colours was found to be superior to recall of the colour names and recall of both classes of material was found to be superior when subjects shadowed colour names than when they shadowed unrelated words. The results were interpreted as providing evidence for the existence of a post-iconic visual memory store based primarily on physical properties of the input.
Semantic Cueing in Recognition and Recall
Authors: Marcel Anthony J. , Steel R. Gordon
Published: July 2007

This study is concerned with the recognition and recall of semantically ambiguous words (homographs) presented in a semantic context. Changing the semantic context lowered test scores relative to test conditions both without context and with the same semantic context. This effect was found to obtain in both recognition and recall. The results are discussed in terms of the role of retrieval in recognition and recall.
Attention and Hemispheric Differences in Reaction Time during Simultaneous Audio-Visual Tasks
Authors: Geffen Gina , Bradshaw J. L. , Nettleton N. C.
Published: July 2007

The effect of different types of competing auditory tasks on laterality differences in visual perception was investigated. Right-handed subjects were presented with digits which occurred randomly in the left or right visual fields. They responded vocally to previously specified digits in a go, no-go reaction time situation. In the absence of any competing auditory task, digits presented in the right visual field were processed more quickly. This visual field difference in reaction time was in the same direction while subjects performed a secondary musical task. However, when a secondary verbal task had to be performed, digits in the left visual field received faster responses. The results support the view that the right hemisphere is capable of some language functions, and that hemispheric differences in performance have at their basis a quantitative asymmetry, which can be reversed even in normal subjects by overloading their limited capacity.
The Effect of an Irrelevant Dimension on “Same-different” Judgements of Multi-dimensional Stimuli
Authors: Williams Caro
Published: July 2007

Subjects made “same”-“different” judgements of simultaneously presented pairs of visual stimuli which could vary either in shape and colour independently, or in shape alone. In both conditions only shape was relevant to the “same”-“different” judgement. In the former condition “same” and “different” reaction times (RTs) were shorter when the states (“same” or “different”) of the relevant and the irrelevant dimension, colour, were the same. This result is interpreted as support for either a perceptual or a response interference hypothesis. The presence of an irrelevant dimension did not appear to affect differentially “same” and “different” judgements. The need for a re-evaluation of the results from other studies of multi-dimensional stimulus discrimination is discussed.
Visual Storage or Visual Masking? An Analysis of the “Retroactive Contour Enhancement” Effect
Authors: Turvey M. T. , Michaels Claire Farley , Kewley-Port Diane
Published: July 2007

Standing and Dodwell (1972) reported that a contoured target stimulus which is only poorly identified when exposed briefly against a steady background field can be identified accurately if the field is terminated shortly after target offset. This observation was confirmed and, in addition, it was shown that target identification is enhanced when the field is initiated shortly before target onset. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that a continuous background field is not essential for either effect. It was argued that these “retroactive” and “proactive” enhancements of target identification were due to a complex interaction among forward, backward, and simultaneous masking.
Listening to Speech at Two Levels at Once
Authors: Treisman Anne , Squire Rosemary
Published: July 2007

Monitoring performance was compared when subjects were asked to listen simultaneously for two different targets embedded in a sentence and when they listened only for one. The effects of different combinations of targets (phonemes, words, or meanings) were investigated and an attempt was made to separate the effects of particular combinations from the effects of difficulty of the two component targets. Performance was worse when either of two targets might occur than when subjects knew which single type to listen for. However there were no differences attributable to which particular types of targets were being combined. Listening for a phonemic target was as difficult to combine with listening for a semantic target as for another phonemic target. The result is consistent with a central speech analysing system whose limited processing capacity must be shared (at least in this monitoring task) both between and within all relevant levels of linguistic analysis, rather than with relatively independent subsystems for each type of listening.
Lasting Effects of Early Blindness a Case Study
Authors: Ackroyd Carol , Humphrey N. K. , Warrington Elizabeth K.
Published: July 2007

A young woman, blinded by the development of corneal opacity at the age of 3 years, was given a corneal graft at the age of 27. Though the image-forming powers of the eye were largely restored, the patient showed little recovery of functional vision. Six months after operation she could detect and locate conspicuous objects and had some degree of ambient spatial vision but she could not learn to recognize simple visual patterns. Eventually she reverted to the life of a blind person. Her failure to recover is discussed in terms of the known deleterious effects of restricted early visual experience on the development of the visual cortex in animals.
The Effect of Speaker's Voice on Word Recognition
Authors: Craik Fergus I. M. , Kirsner Kim
Published: July 2007

Although it is generally believed that the representational characteristics of verbal stimuli (typescript or speaker's voice, for example) persist for a very brief time in sensory memory, some recent studies suggest that such characteristics may persist much longer. The present experiments show that words are recognized faster and more accurately when they are re-presented in the same voice. This same-voice facilitation did not decline over a 2-min lag. Further experiments showed that subjects could recall the voice in which a word had been presented with 65–75% accuracy after 2 min and 31 intervening items. It is concluded that, in some circumstances, the physical features of verbal stimuli persist in memory for several minutes.
Simultaneous Listening and Speaking and Retention of Prose
Authors: Gerver David
Published: July 2007

In order to examine the effects of simultaneous listening and speaking on comprehension and recall, nine trainee simultaneous interpreters were asked to shadow, listen to, and simultaneously interpret into English three French prose passages. Subsequent tests of comprehension and recall showed that higher scores were obtained in the listening condition than in simultaneous interpretation, which in turn yielded significantly higher scores than shadowing.
Schedules of Reward Shift in the Double Runway
Authors: Wookey P. E. , Strongman K. T.
Published: July 2007

Eighty food deprived rats received 62 trials in a double runway. On Trials 1–30, reward in the first goal box (GB1) was either always two food pellets or always zero pellets. All subjects received two pellets in the second goal box (GB2). On Trials 31–62 subjects in each preshift group (GB1 reward or GB1 nonreward) were shifted to the opposite GB1 reward level on 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100% of occasions. GB2 reward remained unaltered in all cases. For subjects experiencing reward decrease, second runway (A2) run and goal speeds after nonreward were generally enhanced, both within-group and in comparison with never rewarded controls. No such effect was evident on A2 start speed, nor was there any evidence to suggest that A2 performance after decreased reward was a function of the schedule of decrease. Increased GB1 reward resulted in general within-group impairment of A2 start and run speeds, with no effect on A2 goal performance. However, comparisons of speeds after increased reward with those of always rewarded controls revealed no difference on A2 start or run but indicated impairment of A2 goal performance. With the 50% schedule of reward increase, A2 run speeds after nonreward (the training level) exceeded those of never rewarded controls. Results are discussed with reference to McHose's contrast account of double runway phenomena and Amsel's frustration theory.
The Acquisition of Conditioned Suppression as a Function of Interstimulus Interval Duration
Authors: Yeo Anthony G.
Published: July 2007

The effect of interstimulus interval (ISI) variation on the acquisition of a classically conditioned emotional response was investigated using a one-trial conditioning procedure. The optimum ISI was found to be 10 s with a bidirectional gradient for conditioned suppression at ISI above and below 10 s. Control groups demonstrated that conditioning was not a function of either pseudoconditioning, sensitization or stimulus novelty.
Response Effects of Equated Values of Event Frequency, Repetition, and Alternation in One-and Two-cue Probability Learning
Authors: Manning Susan Karp , Clark Elisabeth O.
Published: July 2007

An experiment using 50 college students equated cue values of frequency, repetition, and alternation in one- and two-cue partially random sequences in order to determine whether the cues were responded to independently or in combination and to test earlier results concerning cue saliency. Using improved methods of data analysis, previous findings that repetition is more salient than frequency and frequency more salient than alternation were replicated. In spite of the saliency differences, the design employed demonstrated that both cues in two-cue sequences were responded to and that responses to one-cue appeared to be independent of responses to the other.
Relative Motion and the Adjacency Principle
Authors: Gogel Walter C.
Published: July 2007

The perception of motion of physically moving points of light was investigated in terms of the distinction between absolute and relative motion cues and the change in the effectiveness of the latter as a function of the frontoparallel separation between the points. In situations in which two competing relative motion cues were available to determine the perceived path of motion of a point of light, it was found that the relative motion cue between more adjacent points was more effective than the relative motion cue between more separated points. In situations in which only one relative motion cue was available to determine the perceived motion of a point it was found that the effectiveness of this cue as compared with the absolute motion cue decreased with increased separation. These results are predictable from the adjacency principle which states that the effectiveness of cues between objects is an inverse function of object separation. Some consequences of the study for the theory of motion perception are discussed.
Visual Imagery: A Case Study
Authors: Coltheart Max , Glick Marcia J.
Published: July 2007

This paper describes the performance of a subject who, when presented with a word or a sentence, is abnormally proficient at spelling this material in reverse order. She reports that she does this by visualizing this material and reading off from this visual image. Her tachistoscopic performance is also abnormally good. It is suggested that her superiority in these two tasks is achieved principally because her internal visual representations are extremely resistant to disruption by other mental activities.
Short-Term Memory for Spatial and Temporal Information
Authors: Hitch Graham J.
Published: July 2007

Two experiments examined the probed recall of visually presented letter sequences in which the items appeared at different spatial locations. Three types of probe were compared: (1) spatial position; (2) temporal association; and (3) combined position and association. In the first experiment, in which the spatial locations of the items were correlated with their temporal order, spatial probes were more effective than temporal association probes. In the second experiment spatial location was uncorrelated with temporal order, and spatial probes were less effective than temporal association probes. Regardless of the probe, errors tended to be items presented close in time to correct responses: spatial proximity was far less important. The results are discussed in terms of a storage system in which items and their spatial locations are organized within a temporal format. Both experiments showed superior combined probe performance, demonstrating that short-term retrieval is not limited to the use of one type of cue at a time. Secondary aspects of the results showed additionally that subjects can “edit” their responses to avoid making obvious mistakes, and that spatial location can be partially forgotten rather than being completely lost.
The Effect of Orthographic Structure and Lexical Meaning on “Same-different” Judgments
Authors: Barron Roderick W. , Pittenger John B.
Published: July 2007

Pairs of high frequency English words, orthographically acceptable pseudo-words, and non-word letter strings were presented in a “same”-“different” task. The mean reaction times for “same” judgments were ordered; real words were faster than pseudo-words, and pseudo-words were faster than non-words. The RTs for the “different”, judgments showed no differences among the three types of words, except in the first two days of practice in a blocked presentation condition when the difference between the real words and non-words was marginally significant. These and other results suggest that “same” judgments are based upon a comparison process which efficiently uses higher order semantic and orthographic information in words, whereas “different” judgments are based upon comparison process which performs a self-terminating search of the graphemic information in words. The results were also discussed with reference to hierarchical models of word perception and reading.
Memory of Conditioned Food Aversion follows a U-shape Function in Rats
Authors: Biederman G. B. , Milgram N. W. , Heighington G. A. , Stockman S. M. , O'Neill W.
Published: July 2007

Rats drinking saccharin solution for the first time were poisoned by injection of lithium chloride and then offered saccharin solution 90 min, 1, 2, 3, 7, 10 or 14 days later. The memory function was U-shaped with 90-min and 14-day groups retaining the most aversion to saccharin. Intervention with an anticholinesterase (physostigmine) failed to produce a disruption or enhancement of memory, as might have been expected from theories that the laying down of memories depends on modification of cholinergic synapses.
Aspects of the Syntax of Behavior: Syllable Structure and Speech Rate
Authors: Mackay Donald G.
Published: July 2007

This paper shows that maximal rate of speech varies as a function of syllable structure. For example, CCV syllables such as [sku] and CVC syllables such as [kus] are produced faster than VCC syllables such as [usk] when subjects repeat these syllables as fast as possible. Spectrographic analyses indicated that this difference in syllable duration was not confined to any one portion of the syllables: the vowel, the consonants and even the interval between syllable repetitions was longer for VCC syllables than for CVC and CCV syllables. These and other findings could not be explained in terms of word frequency, transition frequency of adjacent phonemes, or coarticulation between segments. Moreover, number of phonemes was a poor predictor of maximal rate for a wide variety of syllable structures, since VCC structures such as [ulk] were produced slower than phonemically longer CCCV structures such as [sklu], and V structures such as [a] were produced no faster than phonemically longer CV structures such as [ga]. These findings could not be explained by traditional models of speech production or articulatory difficulty but supported a complexity metric derived from a recently proposed theory of the serial production of syllables. This theory was also shown to be consistent with the special status of CV syllables suggested by Jakobson as well as certain aspects of speech errors, tongue-twisters and word games such as Double Dutch.
The Unimportance of Explicit Spatial Information in Serial Recall of Visually Presented Lists
Authors: Hitch Graham , Morton John
Published: July 2007

The superiority of auditory over visual presentation in short-term serial recall may be due to the fact that typically only temporal cues to order have been provided in the two modalities. Auditory information is usually ordered along a temporal continuum, whereas visual information is ordered spatially, as well. It is therefore possible that recall following visual presentation may benefit from spatial cues to order. Subjects were tested for serial recall of letter-sequences presented visually either with or without explicit spatial cues to order. No effect of any kind was found, a result which suggests (a) that spatial information is not utilized when it is redundant with temporal information and (b) that the auditory-visual difference would not be modified by the presence of explicit spatial cues to order.
The Psychological Representation of Speech Sounds
Authors: Lackner James R. , Goldstein Louis M.
Published: July 2007

If one listens to a meaningless syllable that is repeated over and over, he will hear it undergo a variety of changes. These changes are extremely systematic in character and can be described phonetically in terms of reorganizations of the phones constituting the syllable and changes in a restricted set of distinctive features. When a new syllable is presented to a subject after he has listened to a particular syllable that was repeated, he will misreport the new (test) syllable. His misperception of the test syllable is related to the changes occurring in the representation of the original repeated syllable just prior to the presentation of the test syllable.
Control Processes in Typing
Authors: Shaffer L. H.
Published: July 2007

Recent studies have used errors in speech and typing as a source of evidence for the hypothesis put forward by Lashley (1951) that response is hierarchically organized. The present study continues this line of inquiry on typing, using both the form of the error and its latency as data. Earlier models to account for the latency of typing have postulated two stages of output processing and with a slight modification to the notion of a stage it is shown that they can also account for the error data. Suggestions are made on the nature of codes represented in each stage and on the aetiology of errors. An analysis of response latency in the vicinity of errors supports a conclusion that error detection is very rapid and the (inferred) incidence of detection suggests that it is based upon a comparison process rather than an estimate of response likelihood.
On the Relation between Identifying and Locating Masked Targets in Visual Search
Authors: Logan Gordon D.
Published: July 2007

Three experiments were designed to determine whether naming is contingent on locating in a visual search task. Subjects were required to identify a masked target whose location was known (I|L) or unknown (I) and to locate a masked target whose identity was known (L|I) or unknown (L). The location-contingent hypothesis predicts a relationship among the tasks such that P(L) P(I|L) = P(I), since P(I) and P(L) P(I|L) both estimate the joint probability of identifying and locating the target (i.e. P(IλL)). This relationship held in Experiment I where targets were presented alone, and in Experiment II where targets were presented with dots as noise elements, but not in Experiment III where Xs were noise elements. The results are discussed in terms of the generality of the location-contingent hypothesis.
Selective Attention and Target Search with Brief Visual Displays
Authors: Butler Brian
Published: July 2007

In a series of four experiments, subjects were presented with eight item arrays tachistoscopically. In two tasks, the subject was required to recall a digit presented among seven letters or a letter among seven digits. The remaining tasks required the subject to detect the presence of a specific letter either in the context of seven random letters or seven digits. An examination of the effects of a masking stimulus for various target positions suggested that subjects could attend selectively when the target was a different category than its context but had to process the entire array when the target was the same category as the context. The effects of selective attention and masking are explained in terms of parallel and sequential identification processes.
Effects of Lowered Temperature on Time Estimation
Authors: Bell C. R.
Published: July 2007

Body (ear) temperature of 14 subjects was lowered in order to examine its effect upon performance of a task requiring estimation of an interval of 60 s. Although there was some evidence that subjects counted more slowly at lower body temperatures, the inconsistency of the effect was such as to cast doubt on the hypothesis of a “biochemical clock” or “metabolic pacemaker” in the brain said to subserve human time estimation of brief intervals.
The Selective Impairment of Semantic Memory
Authors: Warrington Elizabeth K.
Published: July 2007

The selective impairment of semantic memory is described in three patients with diffuse cerebrallesions. These patients, selected on the basis of a failure to recognize or identify common objects (agnosia for objects), were investigated in detail. In particular, their perceptual, language and memory functions were assessed, and the limits and properties of their recognition difficulties explored.

It was found that knowledge of pictorial representations of objects, and of words, was impaired or impoverished, and in both instances knowledge of subordinate categories was more vulnerable than superordinate categories. Evidence is presented that this impairment of semantic memory cannot be accounted for by intellectual impairment, sensory or perceptual deficits, or expressive language disorder. The implications of damage to the semantic memory system for the operation of other cognitive systems, in particular short and long-term memory functions, are considered. Some tentative evidence for the structural basis for a hierarchically organized modality-specific semantic memory system is discussed.
Adaptation of the Two Arms to opposite Prism Displacements
Authors: Prablanc C. , Tzavaras A. , Jeannerod M.
Published: July 2007

In normal subjects, the two arms were exposed separately to prismatic displacements of opposite sign, using the eye ipsilateral to the exposed arm. Opposite adaptive shifts were induced on each arm whether the eye ipsilateral to the arm (i.e. exposed to a displacement of the same sign as the arm) or the eye controlateral to the arm (i.e. exposed to a displacement of opposite sign) was used during testing. This result precludes the possible role of oculomotor signals in this type of prism adaptation.
Backward and Forward Recall by Deaf and Hearing Children
Authors: O'Connor N. , Hermelin B.
Published: July 2007

Previous work showed that deaf children probably used visual codes for the short-term storage of verbal material. Such a visual code might lack the unidirectional character of a linguistic one. If so, reversed recall of visually presented material might be easier for subjects using visual images, and the deaf might therefore have an advantage in backward recall. Deaf and hearing children matched on forward letter span were tested for the backward recall of six item letter series, and the hypothesis was confirmed for order but not for item errors.
Bigram Frequency Counts and Anagram Lists
Authors: Rawlinson G. E.
Published: July 2007

In the first part of this paper bigram frequency counts are given for the first letter-pairs, last letter-pairs and “other” letter-pairs of words of more than three letters. A short discussion of the use and relevance of such tables is given. In the second part, lists of anagram-pairs of words are given for words of length three or more letters, together with approximate percentages of occurrence of such “anagrammatical” words in the English language.
The Effects of Verbal Labelling on Recognition Memory for Schematic Faces
Authors: McKelvie Stuart J.
Published: July 2007

Four experiments investigated the effects of labelling on the encoding and recognition of schematic faces. In Experiments I and II, hard-to-label (H) faces were recognized better after labelling than after observing, whereas easy-to-label (E) faces were not significantly affected. However, E faces were recognized better after labelling when subjects were instructed to attend carefully to all features of the faces during viewing. In Experiments III and IV, which dealt with each kind of face separately, both E and H faces were recognized better after labelling than after observing. An additional improvement in recognition all of faces was found when labelling subjects knew which label was relevant on each recognition trial and were instructed to use it. It was concluded that (a) a verbal label functions mainly to direct attention to specific facial features during viewing, (b)the effect of the label on recognition is positive or negative depending on whether or not it directs attention to features which are functional for the recognition test, (c) the label also forms part of the representation of the face in memory, and (d) a label may serve as a mediator at the time of testing, but only in the presence of specific cues.
Choice of Definite versus Indefinite Article as a Function of Sentence Voice and Reversibility
Authors: Wright Patricia , Glucksberg Sam
Published: July 2007

Subjects were given reversible and nonreversible active and passive sentences, and selected either definite or indefinite articles for the nominals in each sentence. Experiment I used sentences with the first nominal marked for definiteness, and subjects selected the article for the second nominal. Experiment II had subjects select articles for both nominals. It was found in both experiments that sentence voice affected the marking of the second nominal in reversible sentences, but that sentence voice had no effect in nonreversible sentences. Instead, the marking of the second nominal in nonreversible sentences was affected by the article assigned to the first nominal, but there was no similar effect within reversible sentences. These results are related to suggestions of differential depth of processing for reversible and nonreversible sentences, to the stronger topic-comment distinction within passives than within actives, and to the function of articles in explicating case relations.
Intellectual Differences in Relation to Personal and Family Handedness
Authors: Briggs Gary G. , Nebes Robert D. , Kinsbourne Marcel
Published: July 2007

Right, mixed and left-handed college students were given the complete WAIS, and a series of cognitive factor tests. Results showed left- and mixed-handed individuals to have a significantly lower full scale I.Q. than right-handers. There was no difference between the mixed and left-handers. In all three handedness groups, subjects with a positive family history of sinistrality had a lower full scale I.Q. than did subjects without left-handed relatives. Neither handedness nor family history differentially affected the Verbal or Performance subscales, nor did they have a significant effect on scores in the other cognitive tests. These results are discussed with respect to Levy's theory of hemispheric specialization, and to the role of inheritance and brain damage in the causation of left- and mixed-handedness.
Behavioural Contrast and Autoshaping
Authors: Morris R. C.
Published: July 2007

This experiment was designed to investigate the importance of autoshaping to a signal for reinforcement in the production of behavioural contrast. Two groups of pigeons were given discrimination training on a mult VI-EXT schedule: the stimuli present in the two schedule components shared common attributes, but were distinguished by the presence or absence of a visual feature. For one group (the feature positive group) the feature signalled the availability of reinforcement. For the other group (the feature negative group) the feature signalled nonrein-forcement, and for this group there was no stimulus element which unambiguously signalled reinforcement. The feature positive group showed a higher response rate during the VI component of the mult VI-EXT schedule than the feature negative group. This finding was interpreted as support for the autoshaping explanation of behavioural contrast. The results differed from those of Jenkins and Sainsbury (1969, 1970) in that both the feature positive and the feature negative groups showed discrimination learning.
Delayed One-trial Extinction of the McCollough Effect
Authors: Holding Dennis H. , Jones Paul D.
Published: July 2007

Initial tests of the McCollough effect were made on separate groups at delays of 4, 24 or 96 h after induction, with little apparent decrement. Subsequent tests were made at 4, 24 and 96 h after each initial test delay, again using separate subject groups in order to avoid test-induced extinction. All tests consisted of magentagreen nulling of the aftereffect. A single test session, whenever administered, seems to initiate a decay or extinction process lasting several days, resembling the time course shown by repeated testing. These results are difficult to reconcile with a perceptual conditioning model of the McCollough effect.
Conceptual Encoding and Locus of the Stroop Effect
Authors: Seymour Philip H. K.
Published: July 2007

Subjects reacted to coloured season and month names by naming the season associated with the print colour of the word, or by naming the season opposite to the one associated with the print colour. Reactions were facilitated in both tasks when the word on the display named the season associated with the colour or was a month belonging to that season. Opposite season naming was not facilitated when the word named the response which the subject made. A comparable effect of print colour was found when subjects reacted to season names by naming the colour associated with the name, or with its opposite. These results suggest that Stroop congruity and interference effects occur during conceptual encoding, and not during response production.
Effect of the Length of the Runs of Repetitions on the Simple RT-ISI Relationship
Authors: Granjon Marilyn , Reynard Guy
Published: July 2007

In a simple RT task the temporal organization of the preparatory processes during a given trial depends upon the time characteristics of the total experimental situation as well as upon the information gathered during one or more previous trials. The present experiment was run in order to determine whether or not these long and short term effects operate independently or interact. The effects of the preceding ISI durations on the simple RT for an ISI 1 (1.5 s) or an ISI 2 (3.0 s) are analysed in 3 experimental conditions differing in the maximum number of successive repetitions (2, 3 or 7) of trials with the same ISI. The results show that the distribution of the preparatory activity during a given trial depends firstly on the number of successive ISIs of the same duration preceding this trial, and secondly on the maximum number of repetitions. An explanation of the subjects' strategy based upon “cost of preparation” is proposed.
Response Bias and the Measurement of Choice Alternation
Authors: Still A. W. , MacMillan A. St. C.
Published: July 2007

The problem of devising a measure of alternation of choices that is independent of response bias is considered. Previous solutions are equivalent to the correction for chance guessing in the Yes/No experiment of psychophysics, and require an estimate of response bias, usually from choices on the first of two daily trials. This involves the questionable assumption that response bias is homogeneous over time or across subjects. It is suggested that spontaneous alternation is analogous to the two alternative forced choice situation of psychophysics, and the fourfold point correlation is proposed as an index of alternation that is statistically independent of response bias. Implications for interpreting the effect upon spontaneous alternation of hippocampal and other lesions are considered.
Time and Temperature: A Note on Bell
Authors: Green T. R. G. , Simpson A. J.
Published: July 2007

Bell (1975) reported data concerning the effects of body temperature on time estimation. His analysis led him to doubt whether time estimation was controlled by a metabolic pacemaker. Our analysis of the same data, however, shows that Bell's experiment actually supported the hypothesis.
Contextual Assimilation and Its Effect on the Division of Attention between Nonverbal Signals
Authors: Long John
Published: July 2007

Subjects performed a recognition task in which a low or a high frequency signal was presented simultaneously with a dim or a bright intensity one. The independent variable was the degree of association between the signals on the two dimensions. Unknown to the subjects four levels were tested in separate conditions, 1.0, 0.8, 0.5 and 0.2. Increasing the positive association improved overall sensitivity as measured by d′ on both dimensions, but left contingent sensitivity unchanged. Changing the association did not affect overall bias, as measured by Beta. However, holding context constant by analysis produced significant differences between individual measures of contingent bias in the direction of assimilation, for example “low” responses tended to accompany dim signals and “dim” responses. The differences were unaffected by the changes in association. The results are interpreted as favouring models of contextual assimilation which assume that biasing at some level of processing depends upon the mutually contingent interaction of discrete events rather than on memory and expectation of the relative frequency of conjoint events. Further support for this conclusion comes from previous studies which indicate that assimilation occurs with separate responses but not with unitary ones. The implications of the findings for research on the division of attention are discussed, particularly the need to control variability in measured bias to establish a true change in the allocation of attention. Two generalized models of contextual assimilation are proposed, one based on “object” and the other on “lexical” assimilation. The possible application of these models to synaesthesia is considered.
Exhaustive Memory-Scanning and Familiarity Discrimination: Separate Mechanisms in Recognition Memory Tasks
Authors: Gaffan David
Published: July 2007

Experiment I was a yes-no recognition task with lists of one, two or four items to remember. Each item in the experiment appeared in only one list, and each list was presented only once. One group of subjects performed the task with complex pictures. Their results were incompatible with the hypothesis of exhaustive memory scanning, since the function relating “yes” response latency to list length was not parallel to but steeper than the function for “no” responses. Another group performed the task with words. Their results were consistent with exhaustive memory-scanning. Experiment II was a similar task in which the familiarity was varied of the test items to which the subjects had to respond “no”. That variation affected response latency with pictures but not with words. From these results and from a consideration of relevant neurological data, the hypothesis is advanced that familiarity discrimination and exhaustive memory-scanning are separate mechanisms.
Toward a Statistical Theory of Reasoning
Authors: Evans J. ST. B. T.
Published: July 2007

It is argued that the observed variability of responding in reasoning tasks might usefully be described by mathematical models based on stochastic processes. The data of a number of experiments employing Wason's selection task are reanalysed and it is shown that selection probabilities of individual cards are statistically independent. This is consistent with a class of simple stochastic models and renders conventional “insight” explanations of the data unparsi-monious.

A provisional stochastic model is formulated and subjected to a limited parametric test with reasonably satisfactory results. Some general directions for future research along these lines are suggested.
Effects of Content on Inclusive Disjunction Reasoning
Authors: Roberge James J.
Published: July 2007

An experiment is reported which establishes that inclusive disjunction arguments embedded in concrete content are not always easier to reason with than those involving abstract content. The subjects had to assess conclusions drawn from pairs of premises such as “Either Joan is intelligent or she is rich (or both); Joan is intelligent” or “Either Joan is intelligent or she is rich (or both); Joan is not intelligent”. The terms in the disjunctive premise were varied systematically across three content dimensions (i.e. compatible, abstract and contradictory). An analysis of variance revealed significant differences according to both principle of inference and type of content, and a significant interaction between these factors. The results demonstrated that semantically incompatible premise content had a marked influence on comprehension of inclusive disjunction reasoning schemes. The response patterns suggest that these reasoning schemes invited erroneous judgments based on other logical connectives.
Semantic Memory Retrieval: Analysis by Speed Accuracy Tradeoff Functions
Authors: Corbett Albert T. , Wickelgren Wayne A.
Published: July 2007

Semantic memory retrieval for verifying category—example associations was tested by a speed accuracy tradeoff method: present the category for 2 s, present a correct or incorrect example followed, after a variable lag (0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1, 2, or 3 s), by a signal to make a “yes-no” response in about 0.2 s. Although the strength of the category—example association is higher for high dominance examples of a category, retrieval dynamics did not vary with dominance level. Recognition for category—example associations appears to be a direct-access (parallel) retrieval process. Priming a category by repeated testing of the same category over three consecutive trials had no effect on either asymptotic strength or retrieval dynamics. Partitioning into short, medium, and long latency responses at each lag produced microtradeoff functions which did not lie on the same macrotradeoff function. Retrieval dynamics were invariant with long-term practice.
A Test of Precategorical and Attentional Explanations of Speech Suffix Interference
Authors: Routh David A. , Davison Marilyn Judith
Published: July 2007

It is well-known that a redundant item or “stimulus suffix”, which does not have to be recalled, which is spoken, and which terminates the presentation of a beyond span-length sequence of to-be-remembered (TBR) spoken items, will generate considerable interference in immediate serial recall. Previous work has established that speech suffix interference is not influenced by a number of intrinsic attributes of the suffix. A limitation of this work, however, is the fact that in each study there has been little if any disparity between TBR sequence and suffix in terms of extrinsic attributes. Experiment I extends this work and showed that at least one intrinsic attribute of the suffix (personal significance) has no effect on suffix interference when there is also a marked disparity between TBR sequence and suffix in terms of one specific extrinsic attribute (spatial location). Experiment II simply served to eliminate one possible artifactual explanation of this finding. The result appears to have some theoretical importance since it is inconsistent with Kahneman's (1973) attentional account of suffix interference and with one interpretation of a precategorical hypothesis due to Morton, Crowder and Prussin (1971).