Sequential letter and word recognition in deaf and hearing subjects

To examine the processing of sequentially presented letters of familiar and nonsense words, especially among Ss of vastly differing experience on sequential tasks, three groups of Ss were tested on letters of words spelled sequentially on an alphanumeric display and on letters of words fingerspelled. These were a deaf group (N=33) with little or no hearing and who varied in their fingerspelling ability; a staff group (N=12) who taught fingerspelling and were highly proficient; and a hearing group (N=19). Of principal interest was the finding that the hearing Ss did better on nonsense letter recognition, while the deaf group did better on word recognition. Word length was important except to the staff Ss on fingerspelled words, which also suggests that concentration on fingerspelling proficiency forces attention to the whole word and not its component letters. Hearing Ss, who are the group faced with an unfamiliar task, seemed to attend to each letter and hence had more difficulty with recognition of the longer unit.     

社交焦虑个体对于不同威胁信息的注意偏向

目的:研究社交焦虑个体对不同类型词语的注意偏向。方法:被试41名,采用情绪Stroop范式,研究词与非词不同比例条件下高低社交焦虑个体对不同类型词(被关注词、被评价词、躯体威胁性词、中性词和非词)的注意偏向。结果:在词和非词比例高的条件下,高社交焦虑组在负性评价词和受他人关注词上的Stroop效应显著大于低社交焦虑组。结论:高社交焦虑个体对负性评价和他人关注的词语存在注意偏向。     

Mediating interpersonal expectancies via vocal cues: Differential speech intensity as a means of social influence

Differential vocal emphasis in the tape-recorded instruction reading for a standard person perception task was manipulated by mechanically raising or lowering the volume of the key words describing the success or failure response alternatives on the rating scale. In a series of three experiments, Ss exposed to success emphasis in the instructions rated the stimulus persons as more successful than did Ss exposed to failure emphasis. This trend was reversed for Ss who listened twice to the instructions. None of the Ss reported awareness of the influence attempt.     

Language habits and detection in very short-term memory

Target letters in briefly presented word displays are known to be better detected than when they are presented in anagram arrangements of the words’ letters. Target detection may have been higher for word displays either because Ss identified the words and then determined if a word possessed the target or because, in word displays, Ss could anticipate letters from the transitional probabilities (TRP) of letters in the language (TRP hypothesis). Detection in Experiment I was identical for words and for pseudowords, stimuli which were meaningless rearrangements of the words’ letters but which presented the words’ level of interletter TRP. Randomly rearranged displays, with lower TRP values, yielded lower detection rates. Experiment II showed that detection increased with TRP levels in nonword displays. The results support the TRP hypothesis and thus are consistent with a serial-scanning process in very short-term memory, but are also consistent with a special variant of a parallel process.     

Relationship between affect and memory: motivation-based selective generation.

Two experiments examined the influence of anger and retaliatory motivation on memory for negative material. In the 1st study, 60 male undergraduates memorized words with positive, negative, and neutral semantic connotations. It was found that angered men who expected to retaliate against their provocateur recalled more negative words than other words, and more than Ss in all other affect and evaluation conditions. Angered men in the nonretaliation condition displayed no differences in negative word recall. The 2nd experiment investigated memory for details of a provoking experience. Angered men who expected to retaliate more accurately recalled the details of their provocation, but whether they were given the retaliation information before or after provocation had no bearing on memory for these details. Results are discussed in terms of a motivation-based selective generation hypothesis for the relationship between anger and memory.     

Recombinative generalization of within-syllable units in prereading children

This study demonstrates recombinative generalization of within-syllable units in prereading children. Three kindergarten children learned to select printed consonant-vowel-consonant words upon hearing the corresponding spoken words. The words were taught in sets; there were six sets, presented consecutively. Within sets, the four words that were taught had overlapping letters, for example, sat, mat, sop, and sug. Tests for recombinative generalization determined whether the children selected novel words with the same components as the trained words (e.g., mop and mug). Two children demonstrated recombinative generalization after one training set, and the 3rd demonstrated it after two training sets. In contrast, 2 other children, who received tests but no training, showed low accuracy across six sets. The 3 experimental children then demonstrated highly accurate printed-word-to-picture matching, and named the majority of the printed words. These findings are a promising step in the development of a computerized instructional technology for reading.     

Detection and criterion change associated with different test contexts in recognition memory

Three groups of physics Ss and three groups of arts Ss viewed 20 physics words (PWs) and 20 common words (CWs) in a randomly ordered inspection sequence. Ss were then assigned to one of three recognition test conditions where the inspection items were embedded in different sequences of 120 additional words (60 PWs + 60 CWs; 100 PWs + 20 CWs, 20 pWs + 100 CWs). Signal-detection and Luce analyses examined the effects of the different test contexts on Ss′ true sensitivity and response bias. While all Ss found detection of PWs easier than CWs, these judgments varied according to the properties of the recognition sequences. This latter finding was interpreted as indicating that Ss adopted a conservative and probabilistic strategy for the recognition task as a whole rather than utilizing different strategies for PWs and the CWs where these would result in superior overall performance.     

高、低强迫症状个体的词语再认差异

比较了高强迫症状（High obsessive compulsive symptom, HOC）和低强迫症状（Low obsessive compulsive symptom, LOC）被试对于不同类型词语（强迫症敏感词、情绪词和中性词）再认成绩和记忆信心的差异。结果发现,HOC组记忆保存量显著低于LOC组（p<0.05）,表明HOC组对强迫症敏感词存在一定的偏好;通过对被试反应信心的检测和信号侦察论的应用,发现HOC组对中性词再认正误的判断觉察能力（d’值）低于LOC组（边缘显著：p＝0.054）;在正确反应信心上,被试类型和词语类型间存在交互作用,F(1,22)=4.60,p<0.05。本研究认为HOC组辨别能力的缺损可能导致其记忆信心方面的降低,这种假设还需要进一步的认知和脑功能研究来证实。     

Verbal interference in a perceptual comparison task

When Ss had to indicate if the colors of pairs of items from the Stroop test were the same or different, the usual interference effect was completely eliminated. However, when the verbal information consisted of SAME and DIFF rather than color names, interference was reestablished. This indicates that the perceptual comparison task does not eliminate interference simply by rendering Ss insensitive to the meanings of words.     

Effects of short-term memory contents on short-and long-term memory searches

The Ss memorized a long-term set (LT set) of 20 words before participating in a recognition memory test. On each trial Ss were given a new short-term set (ST set) of from one to four words or one to four digits. The Ss gave a positive response to a test item that was a member of either the ST or the LT set and gave a negative response to a test item not in either set; both words and digits were used as test stimuli. The results indicated that reaction time (RT) to positive test items from the ST set was an increasing function 0f the size of the ST set; the same was also true for negative responses to test digits when the ST set was composed of digits. RT to other test stimuli, however, did not depend on ST set size. These results are consistent with the view that Ss access long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) simultaneously rather than sequentially. The results also showed that Ss responded more quickly to test items from the LT set when the ST set contained digits than when it contained words. Negative test items that were words, however, were rejected more slowly when the ST set contained digits than when it contained words. These results suggest that the search of LTM was affected by the contents of STM.     

Interaction between affect and cognition in word perception

Investigated the hypothesis that the accuracy with which a briefly shown word is perceived depends on both the affective tone of the word and the activation of the corresponding memory code. To increase activation, expectation and word frequency were manipulated. Ss were exposed to a 25-ms flash of a target word. They then chose, from a word pair, the target word. In half the trials, this word pair was given before the flash to create an expectation. Consistent with the hypothesis, when the words were infrequent, accuracy in perception was lower for affective than for neutral words regardless of expectation. When the words were frequent, there was no effect of affective tone in the absence of expectation; in the presence of expectation, accuracy was higher for affective than for neutral words. The valence of the affective words had no effect. Results are interpreted in terms of attentional mechanisms implicated in conscious perception.     

Factors influencing drinking behavior in alcoholic panickers and non-panickers

Male alcoholics who (a) experienced panic attacks prior to abusing alcohol, (b) experienced panic attacks subsequent to abusing alcohol, and (c) had not experienced panic attacks were compared on three sets of measures: the Panic Attack Questionnaire, the Restrained Drinking Scale, and the Inventory of Drinking Situations. The results showed that two groups of Ss who experienced panic attacks were more likely than non-panickers to use drugs other than alcohol, began drinking at an earlier age, had a greater proportion of parents with panic and alcohol related problems, had higher drinking restraint scores, and drank in more situations. The Ss who experienced panic attacks prior to abusing alcohol were more likely than the other groups to drink in situations similar to those related to agoraphobic fears. It was postulated that alcoholics who experience panic attacks, especially those who experienced panic attacks prior to abusing alcohol may be using alcohol to reduce anxiety or fear related to panic attacks.     

Luminous targets: Visibility fluctuations modified by similar verbal responses

Ss reported visibility fluctuations in a luminous target consisting of small, medium, and large circles. Each S had previously learned a response to each of the three circles. The experimental group learned two words which were free associates of each other and a third unrelated word. The control group learned three unrelated words. Concurrent visibility for the pair of circles associated with related words was greater than for the pairs associated with unrelated words. Thus word associations influence perception of stimuli for which the words are responses.     

Graphing calculators and students' conceptions of the derivative

This study compared the effect of using graphing calculators on college students' conceptual understanding of the derivative with the traditional teaching approach in Calculus I course. Students (49 men and 52 women) in four classes at a large public university participated. On a posttest, women who were taught calculus using the graphing calculator had significantly higher scores than those taught by the traditional method.     

Letter names and phonological awareness help children to learn letter-sound relations

Two experimental training studies with Portuguese-speaking preschoolers in Brazil were conducted to investigate whether children benefit from letter name knowledge and phonological awareness in learning letter-sound relations. In Experiment 1, two groups of children were compared. The experimental group was taught the names of letters whose sounds occur either at the beginning (e.g., the letter /be/) or in the middle (e.g., the letter /‘eli/) of the letter name. The control group was taught the shapes of the letters but not their names. Then both groups were taught the sounds of the letters. Results showed an advantage for the experimental group, but only for beginning-sound letters. Experiment 2 investigated whether training in phonological awareness could boost the learning of letter sounds, particularly middle-sound letters. In addition to learning the names of beginning- and middle-sound letters, children in the experimental group were taught to categorize words according to rhyme and alliteration, whereas controls were taught to categorize the same words semantically. All children were then taught the sounds of the letters. Results showed that children who were given phonological awareness training found it easier to learn letter sounds than controls. This was true for both types of letters, but especially for middle-sound letters.     

Anxiety sensitivity and history of panic as predictors of response to hyperventilation

In this study, we examined the effects of anxiety sensitivity on the response to hyperventilation in college students with and without a history of spontaneous panic attacks. Reiss et al.'s (Behav. Res. Ther. 24, 1-8, 1986) Anxiety Sensitivity Index and Norton et al.'s (Behav. Ther. 17, 239-252, 1986) Panic Attack Questionnaire were used to select Ss. Following five min of voluntary hyperventilation, high anxiety sensitivity Ss reported more anxiety and more hyperventilation sensations than did low anxiety sensitivity Ss. A history of panic was only associated with enhanced responding to hyperventilation in Ss with high anxiety sensitivity; low anxiety sensitivity Ss who had experience with panic were no more responsive than low anxiety sensitivity Ss who had never had a panic attack. These findings suggest that high anxiety sensitivity may be a crucial determinant of panic attacks provoked by biological challenges (e.g. hyperventilation, sodium lactate infusion).     

Proactive and reactive aggression in early adolescence as precursors to anti- and prosocial behavior in young adults

Three groups of adolescents who were 14 years old in 1974 were formed on the basis of peer nominations and teacher ratings in an ongoing longitudinal study: 1) reactively aggressive (REA) individuals who displayed reactive, that is, self-defensive aggression but not proactive aggression (43 boys, 35 girls); 2) proactively aggressive (PROA) individuals who attacked another person without a reason (56 boys, 35 girls); and 3) nonaggressive (NONA) individuals who were low in proactive and reactive aggression (48 boys, 45 girls). The groups were compared at ages 8, 14, and 27 in variables representing the constructs of a two-dimensional model of emotional and behavioral regulation. The REA Ss were characterized by higher self-control, especially constructiveness, at each age and better adult adjustment than the PROA Ss. The PROA males were prone to externalizing problems and criminality in adulthood, whereas the PROA females were prone to internalizing problems and neuroticism in adulthood. Both exhibited conduct problems in adolescence, and became heavy users of alcohol in adulthood. The PROA Ss had more children at age 27 than the other Ss. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Pictures and words in visual search

Ss in three experiments searched through an array of pictures or words for a target item that had been presented as a picture or a word. In Experiments I and II, the pictures were line drawings of familiar objects and the words were their printed labels; in Experiment III, the stimuli were photographs of the faces of famous people and their corresponding printed names. Search times in Experiments I and II were consistently faster when the array items were pictures than when they were words, regardless of the mode of the target items. Search was also faster with pictures than with words as targets when the search array also consisted of pictures, but target mode had no consistent effect with words as array items. Experiment III yielded a completely different pattern of results: Search time with names as targets and faces as search array items was significantly slower than in the other three conditions, which did not differ from each other. Considered in relation to several theories, the results are most consistent with a dual-coding interpretation. That is, items that are cognitively represented both verbally and as nonverbal images can be searched and compared in either mode, depending on the demands of the task. The mode actually used depends on whether the search must be conducted through an array of pictures or words.     

Effect of subliminal stimuli on consumer behavior: negative evidence.

The study corrected methodological weaknesses found in previous experiments designed to test the contentions of motivational research theorists that subliminal stimulation can affect buying behavior. The words "Hershey's Chocolate" were presented to a group of 18 experimental Ss below a forced-choice detection threshold. The 19 control Ss had a blank slide superimposed over the same background media. In a highly controlled buying situation neither experimental nor control Ss purchased Hershey's products, but on comparable chocolate products, the experimental Ss bought 5 and the control Ss, 3. A second study tested 15 experimental and 12 control Ss with the stimulus presented just below a recognition threshold. No experimental Ss bought Hershey's; two control Ss did. No support was found for the claims of motivational research theorists.