Memory for performed and imaged noun pairs and verb pairs

Summary In a previous study by Engelkamp, cued recall of performed verb pairs was shown to be poorer than free recall of the same word pairs. For visually encoded verb pairs and for noun pairs, cued recall gave higher scores than free recall. This interaction between test types and encoding interactions was taken as support for the theory that motormemory representations differ from visual memory representations. With some modifications, the present experiment is an extension of one of Engelkamp's experiments. The subjects were given instructions that emphasized, more than those of Engelkamp, the integration aspect, and a further condition enacting noun pairs was added. Several parallel observations were made, but the crucial interaction between tests and encoding conditions was not replicated. The results are interpreted in terms of a problem-solving analysis.     

Memory for sentences and noun phrases of extreme depth

Memory for orally presented noun phrases and sentences was investigated in two experiments. Syntactic depth (D) of the phrases and sentences was varied with D approaching the values of 7 ± 2. Consistent with recent investigations, these studies found D not to be generally related to recall of sentences, phrases, or individual words within sentences. However, recall of individual words from an adverbial noun phrase apparently was related to D. The apparent relationship is accounted for not by depth of individual words, but in terms primarily of superior noun retention and its interaction with serial position effects. In addition, conditional recall probabilities for another type of phrase, a noun phrase with prenominal adjectives, indicate stronger relationships between adjectives and the noun than between successive adjectives. It is concluded that the Yngve grammar is deficient as a psycholinguistic model.     

Letter processing in the visual system: different activation patterns for single letters and strings

One would expect that a lifetime of experience recognizing letters would have an important influence on the visual system. Surprisingly, there is limited evidence of a specific neural response to letters over visual control stimuli. We measured brain activation during a sequential matching task using isolated characters (Roman letters, digits, and Chinese characters) and strings of characters. We localized the visual word form area (VWFA) by contrasting the response to pseudowords against that for letter strings, but this region did not show any other sign of visual specialization for letters. In addition, a left fusiform area posterior to the VWFA was selective for letter strings, whereas a more anterior left fusiform region showed selectivity for single letters. The results of different analyses using both large regions of interest and inspections of individual patterns of response reveal a dissociation between selectivity for letter strings and selectivity for single letters. The results suggest that reading experience fine-tunes visual representations at different levels of processing. An important conclusion is that the processing of nonpronounceable letter strings cannot be assumed to be equivalent to single-letter perception.     

Memory for symmetry: real or artifact

Subjects recalled nonrandom digit sequences according to either (a) free recall or (b) a serial recall mode in a series of three studies. Sequential structure was varied with specific rules determining higher-order structure of either (a) arithmetic, (b) symmetrical, or (c) haphazard types. In Experiment I, 18 temporal patterns of 12 digits each were presented visually. Although symmetric patterns were easier than the other two pattern types, this superiority was not determined by recall mode. In Experiment II, 6 temporal patterns of 18 digits each were presented visually, with results similar to those of Experiment I. Auditory patterns equivalent to those of Experiment II were presented in Experiment III. In this study, although the free recall mode produced slightly superior recall with symmetrical sequences, this difference was not statistically significant. It was concluded that superior memory for symmetries cannot be wholly accounted for by organizational strategies made possible by a free recall mode.     

Effects of pre-exposure to the same or different pattern of extra-maze cues on subsequent extra-maze discrimination

In two experiments, rats learned a spatial discrimination between maze arms defined by their relationship to a variety of extra-maze cues. Prior exposure to the actual arms between which animals were required to discriminate tended to retard subsequent learning (by comparison with a control group either given no pre-exposure to the extra-maze cues or exposed only to arms pointing in the opposite direction), whereas prior exposure to arms intermediate between those used in discrimination training tended to facilitate subsequent learning. These results are consistent with the suggestion that pre-exposure will facilitate discrimination learning when it reduces the associability of features or elements common to the stimuli between which animals are required to discriminate, more than it reduces the associability of the features or elements unique to each.     

Conformity among cowitnesses sharing same or different information about an event in experimental collaborative eyewitness testimony

Using the Mori technique in which two different movies presented on the same screen were viewed separately by two groups without their noticing the duality, two experiments were carried out with 138 undergraduates in groups of varying sizes to examine the effects of cowitnesses with the same or different information on these witnesses' memory distortion. Exp. 1 investigated the cowitness effects in a one-versus-two situation, while Exp. 2 investigated the effects in a two-versus-two situation. Analysis showed isolated eyewitnesses who had no supporting cowitnesses changed their minds more frequently toward the majority and, when they had a cowitness who shared the same information, they tended to stick to their original reports even after being confronted with conflicting information in a discussion.     

Muscle activation is different when the same muscle acts as an agonist or an antagonist during voluntary movement

During movement, the intrinsic muscle force-velocity property decreases the net force for the shortening muscle (agonist) and increases it for the lengthening muscle (antagonist). The authors present a quantitative analysis of the effect of that muscle property on activation and force output of the same muscle acting as agonist and antagonist in fast and medium speed goal-oriented movements. They compared biceps activation and force output when that muscle was the agonist in a series of elbow flexions and when it was the antagonist in a series of elbow extensions. They performed the same analysis for the lateral, long, and medial heads of the triceps muscle. Muscle EMG was about 2 times larger and the angular impulse developed by the modeled contractile torque was up to 3 times larger when the muscle or muscles acted as the agonist than when the same muscle or muscles acted as the antagonist in movements with similar kinematics. The large effect of the muscle force-velocity property strongly suggests that the neural controller must account for intrinsic muscle properties to generate movements with a commonly observed bell-shaped velocity profile.     

Latency of different verbal responses to the same stimulus

A response of reading (letter O) or of naming (circle) can be given to the same sign O. The verbal reaction time is higher when naming than when reading (difference 100 millisec.). This fact verifies that naming is a longer process than reading, the difficulty of perceiving the stimulus being equal.

The response “zero” which may be given to the same sign is nearer to the reading-response time than the naming-response. These facts can be explained if we say that uncertainty for coding concrete signs is greater than for alphabetical or numerical signs.     

On the problems of being more or less the same

Sixty children aged 2–3 to 5-2 were given four quantity tasks which tested their understanding of more and same. Two tasks involved addition, two involved judgment of static quantities. One of each type of task required a manipulative response, and one of each required a yes/no judgment. The tasks involved judgments of equality and inequality. Tasks involving a manipulative response were significantly easier than those involving a yes/no judgment, indicating that the nature of the response required of the child is crucial. All other differences were negligible, indicating that the other task variables investigated do not affect the child's ability to respond correctly. The ability to make accurate responses was not strongly associated with counting ability. There was a significant difference in the children's counting responses depending on the method used to elicit it.     

Loudness enhancement and summation in pairs or short sound bursts

When a pair of short, temporally spaced sound bursts is presented and the listeners are requested to match the loudness of a third, comparison burst to the overall loudness of the pair, a fundamentally different result is obtained than when they are instructed to match the loudness of the comparison burst to that of the second burst in the pair. Loudness-level changes occurring in the first situation are designated as loudness summation; those occurring in the second situation, as loudness enhancement. Some parameters of both phenomena are studied. The results lead to the suggestion of a principle of maximum similarity in stimulus matching and to a reinterpretation of some earlier data.     

Lexical access in the production of noun phrases.

In order to encode an event or a thought into language, the speaker has to access words from the mental lexicon and order them according to the rules of syntax. The present study taps into these components of language production as they proceed in time. The utterances investigated were Dutch noun phrases with a prenominal adjective (e.g., het groene huis--the green house). The results of two picture--word interference experiments showed interference effects from semantically related noun distractors, extending findings from production of single words to the production of phrases. In addition, the syntactic format of the noun phrase had an influence on the size and the time course of the semantic interference effect. On the basis of the results of these two experiments, a working model of the processes involved in the production of noun phrases is proposed.     

Ignorance or integration: the cognitive processes underlying choice behavior

The fast‐and‐frugal heuristic framework assumes noncompensatory tools for human preferences (i.e., priority heuristic) and inferences (i.e., take the best heuristic). According to this framework, these heuristics predict choice behavior as well as model the cognitive processes underlying such behavior. The current paper presents two studies that juxtapose predictions derived from these two simple heuristics with alternative predictions derived from compensatory principles. Dependent measures that included reaction time, choice pattern, confidence level, and accuracy were better predicted by compensatory indices than by noncompensatory indices. These findings suggest that people do not rely on limited arguments only, but tend to integrate all acquired information into their choice processes. This tendency was replicated even when the experimental task facilitated the use of noncompensatory principles. We argue that the fast and frugal heuristics can predict the final outcome only under certain conditions, but even in these particular situations they are not applicable to the processes underlying choice behavior. An integrative model for choice behavior is proposed that better represents the data. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.