Commonalities and differences in similarity comparisons

Similarity is a central component of many cognitive processes. Current research suggests that similarity is well characterized as a comparison of structured representations. This process yields commonalities, differences related to the commonalities (alignable differences), and differences not related to the commonalities (nonalignable differences). In the first study, further evidence for this tripartite distinction is provided in a commonality and difference listing study involving pairs of pictures. This study indicates that alignable differences rather than nonalignable differences are central to the comparison process by virtue of their connection to the commonalities. The second study further demonstrates that alignable differences count more against the similarity of a pair than do nonalignable differences. We end by discussing implications of the distinction between alignable and nonalignable differences for other cognitive processes involving comparisons.     

Choice-Process Satisfaction: The Influence of Attribute Alignability and Option Limitation

This research investigates how choice-process satisfaction is influenced by limitation of choice option and by the types of features used to represent the options. Studies of choice satisfaction have focused on how satisfied the decision maker feels about the choice that has been made and have overlooked the importance of the process through which the decision maker makes a choice, i.e., choice-process satisfaction. We show that the comparability of choice options through alignable features increases choice-process satisfaction, whereas option limitation (i.e., making one option unavailable from a set of equally attractive options) decreases choice-process satisfaction. Further, this decrease in satisfaction, relative to all options being available, occurs for people who are given a set of options in which the difference features are alignable (i.e., differences of a corresponding dimension) but not for people who are given a set of options in which the difference features are nonalignable (i.e., differences of unique dimensions). We propose that alignable differences are easier to compare and have more weight in people's attribute processing, and thus give rise to a perception of a greater amount of information about the option set that is relevant for choice. Making an option unavailable in this case would have a bigger impact than in a situation in which all options have nonalignable differences. Nonalignable differences are difficult to process and are less likely to make people aware that there is very much information about the options for decision making. This explanation and the interaction effect between option limitation and feature alignability are tested in four experiments.     

Processing Product Unique Features: Alignability and Involvement in Preference Construction

Consumers often form preferences based on the presented attributes of choice options. Previous research has suggested that consumers tend to form their preferences using the attributes that are related to common aspects between the options (i.e., alignable differences) and ignore attributes that are unique to individual options (i.e., nonalignable differences). We combine cognitive psychology and motivation research from social psychology and propose that consumers’ preference formation can be systematically affected by whether they focus more on alignable differences or more on nonalignable differences of the options as a function of consumers’ involvement with the task. The results of 3 experiments show that preference judgment favors alignable differences over nonalignable differences in a low‐motivation condition. In contrast, high motivation to process information enables consumers to increase their use of nonalignable differences in preference formation, which can result in a preference reversal relative to the low‐motivation condition. The results suggest that a preference reversal occurs when the nonalignable differences of the target option are superior to both the nonalignable differences and the alignable differences of the reference option. However, the reversal does not occur when the nonalignable differences of the target option are superior only to the nonalignable differences of the reference option. Theoretical and managerial implications relating to differentiation, positioning, and communication strategies for innovative brands are discussed.     

3～5岁儿童概念比较过程研究

本研究以两个实验探讨了儿童的一个认知过程:人优先考虑共同性,其次才是组合差异性与非组合差异性。3~5岁三个年龄组儿童分别对日常生活的基本概念进行类似性判断与差异性判断。实验1的结果表明,3岁年龄组的儿童还没有表现出组合差异性,4岁年龄组的儿童初步表现出明显的组合差异性,5岁年龄组的儿童表现出明显的组合差异性。他们首先考虑共同性,其次才是组合差异性与非组合差异性。实验2的结果表明,5岁儿童比4岁儿童更多地表现了组合差异性的判断能力。最后以结构组合的观点讨论了这些结果。     

The importance of being nonalignable: a critical test of the structural alignment theory of similarity

The structural alignment theory of similarity distinguishes 2 types of difference that may occur between stimuli: Alignable differences are those related to a commonality, whereas nonalignable differences are not related to a commonality. Alignment theory predicts that alignable differences should be more heavily weighted than nonalignable differences in similarity judgment. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that, contrary to this prediction, nonalignable differences exerted a greater impact than alignable differences in similarity and difference judgments of geometric stimuli. Experiment 3 revealed that the relative weight accorded a given difference was also affected by contextual constraints. Thus, although the experiments supported the validity of the distinction between alignable and nonalignable differences, results were discordant with the specific prediction of structural alignment theory.     

Alignable and nonalignable differences in causal explanations

Prior research indicates that people may base their causal explanations on distinctive features between an event and a contrasting background instance in which the event did not occur. Research on similarity judgments suggests that there are two types of distinctive features: alignable differences, which are corresponding characteristics of a pair, and nonalignable differences, which are characteristics of one item for which there are no corresponding characteristics in the other. In three experiments, the hypothesis that people's evaluations of causal explanations vary as a function of feature alignment was examined. The results suggest that people will rate explanations differently on the basis of alignable or nonalignable differences, depending on the type of the event, and that alignability depends on the relational structure among the features of the event.     

What makes a man similar to a tie? Stimulus compatibility with comparison and integration

We argue and show that different properties of stimuli are compatible with different types of processing. Specifically, object pairs from the same taxonomic category (e.g., chair-bed) tend to be alignable and thus compatible with comparison, whereas object pairs that play different roles in thematic relations (e.g., chair-carpenter) tend to be nonalignable and compatible with integration. Using object pairs that varied orthogonally in alignability and thematic relatedness, we demonstrated that stimulus compatibility modulates processing and affects the outcomes of tasks that are currently believed to involve only comparison (similarity ratings, Experiment 1; listing commonalities and differences, Experiment 2) or only integration (thematic relatedness ratings, Experiment 3). Our findings and others that we have reviewed suggest that: (1) many cognitive tasks involve both comparison and integration, and (2) the relative influence of each process is modulated by an interplay between the task-appropriate and the stimulus-compatible process. We believe that single-process models should be extended to take this interplay into account.     

Does remembering emotional items impair recall of same-emotion items?

In the part-set cuing effect, cuing a subset of previously studied items impairs recall of the remaining noncued items. This experiment reveals that cuing participants with previously-studied emotional pictures (e.g., fearevoking pictures of people) can impair recall of pictures involving the same emotion but different content (e.g., fear-evoking pictures of animals). This indicates that new events can be organized in memory using emotion as a grouping function to create associations. However, whether new information is organized in memory along emotional or nonemotional lines appears to be a flexible process that depends on people’s current focus. Mentioning in the instructions that the pictures were either amusement- or fear-related led to memory impairment for pictures with the same emotion as cued pictures, whereas mentioning that the pictures depicted either animals or people led to memory impairment for pictures with the same type of actor.     

Alignment effects on learning multiple,use-relevant classification systems

People often learn multiple classification systems that are relevant to some goal or use. We compared conditions in which subclassification within a category hierarchy was predicted by values on either the same (alignable) or different (nonalignable) dimensions between category hierarchies. The results indicated that learning in alignable conditions occurred in fewer blocks and with fewer errors than did learning in nonalignable conditions. This facilitation was not the result of differences between conditions in the representations learned by the participants, the number of dimensions needed for subclassification (Experiment 1), or the objective complexity of the learning task (Experiment 2). The facilitated learning in the alignable conditions appears to reflect a commitment on the part of the learner to alignment: the belief that the structure relevant to the use of one category system will also be relevant to the use of a comparable system.     

Testing two theories of conceptual combination: alignment versus diagnosticity in the comprehension and production of combined concepts

People often interpret novel noun-noun combinations by transferring a property from one constituent concept of the combination to the other. Two theories make different predictions about these "property" interpretations. Dual-process theory predicts that properties transferred will be alignable differences of the concepts being combined. Constraint theory predicts that properties transferred will be diagnostic properties of the concepts in which they originate. An experimental study tested these contrasting predictions in interpretation comprehension and interpretation production tasks. The results showed that participants reliably preferred diagnostic property interpretations, whether alignable or nonalignable, in both tasks. There was no reliable preference for alignable interpretations in either task. This confirms constraint theory's predictions about property interpretations and goes against the predictions of dual-process theory.     

Episodic effects on picture identification: implications for theories of concept learning and theories of memory

The effects of differences in study processing on free recall of picture names and on generalization in picture identification were investigated. Experience with degraded pictures produced poorer subsequent free recall of picture names than did naming intact pictures. For the test of picture identification, pictures that were identical to a studied picture, pictures that shared a name with a studied picture (same name), and new test pictures were presented, and the amount of clarification required to identify a picture was measured. Experience with degraded pictures produced better subsequent identification of identical test pictures but poorer later identification of same-name test pictures than did naming intact pictures. The importance of these episodic effects for theories of concept learning and theories of memory is discussed. It is argued that distinctions between memory systems (e.g., episodic-semantic) must be couched in terms of a theory of concept learning and that the data are inconsistent with a simple distinction.     

On the necessity of alignment: reply to Costello and Keane (2001)

In their article, "Testing two theories of conceptual combination: Alignment versus diagnosticity in the comprehension and production of combined concepts," F. J. Costello and M. T. Keane (2001) evaluate the role of alignment in the interpretation of noun-noun combinations. They found that participants were not strongly biased to prefer and produce interpretations with alignable differences. Instead, participants sometimes preferred and produced interpretations with nonalignable differences. These results are surprising given that most research has found advantages of alignable differences over nonalignable differences. Costello and Keane also found that feature diagnosticity better predicted their results, and they concluded that alignment does not play an important role in conceptual combination. However, drawing on recent work, the author of the present article gives an alternative interpretation of Costello and Keane's results, showing that alignment is crucial in conceptual combination. The author also shows that the dual-process model accounts for their results.     

Strategy combination during execution of memory strategies in young and older adults

The present study investigated whether people can combine two memory strategies to encode pairs of words more efficiently than with a single strategy, and age-related differences in such strategy combination. Young and older adults were asked to encode pairs of words (e.g., satellite-tunnel). For each item, participants were told to use either the interactive-imagery strategy (e.g., mentally visualising the two words and making them interact), the sentence-generation strategy (i.e., generate a sentence linking the two words), or with strategy combination (i.e., generating a sentence while mentally visualising it). Participants obtained better recall performance on items encoded with strategy combination than on items encoded with interactive-imagery or sentence-generation strategies. Moreover, we found age-related decline in such strategy combination. These findings have important implications to further our understanding of execution of memory strategies, and suggest that strategy combination occurs in a variety of cognitive domains.     

Structural alignment facilitates the noticing of differences

High-similarity concept pairs that elicit many commonalities also elicit many related differences (Gentner & Markman, 1994; A. B. Markman & Gentner, 1993a, 1993b, 1996; A. B. Markman & Wisniewski, 1997). This finding has been used to support the claim that the comparison process is one of structural alignment. However, it is possible that the difference advantage results from some other property of high-similarity pairs, such as a greater number of stored differences. The present experiments demonstrate that the comparison process itself leads to the greater psychological availability of differences. In three experiments, participants listed commonalities for word pairs and then listed differences under a time pressure for these old pairs and new pairs. In Experiment 1, participants listed more differences for old than for new pairs, consistent with the claim that the comparison process facilitates noticing differences. In Experiment 2, we showed that the difference-listing advantage is specific to the comparison process: Mere coprocessing of the pairs (specifically, providing thematic relations) does not facilitate, and in fact appears to inhibit, difference listing. In Experiment 3, pairs with deeper common systems elicited a larger number of specific alignable differences than did pairs with shallow sets of commonalities. Overall, the results support the structural alignment claim that the comparison process promotes the noticing of both commonalities and related differences.     

Collaborative inhibition in spatial memory retrieval

Collaborative inhibition refers to the finding that pairs of people working together to retrieve information from memory—a collaborative group—often retrieve fewer unique items than do nominal pairs, who retrieve individually but whose performance is pooled. Two experiments were designed to explore whether collaborative inhibition, which has heretofore been studied using traditional memory stimuli such as word lists, also characterizes spatial memory retrieval. In the present study, participants learned a layout of objects and then reconstructed the layout from memory, either individually or in pairs. The layouts created by collaborative pairs were more accurate than those created by individuals, but less accurate than those of nominal pairs, providing evidence for collaborative inhibition in spatial memory retrieval. Collaborative inhibition occurred when participants were allowed to dictate the order of object placement during reconstruction (Exp. 1), and also when object order was imposed by the experimenter (Exp. 2), which was intended to disrupt the retrieval processes of pairs as well as of individuals. Individual tests of perspective taking indicated that the underlying representations of pair members were no different than those of individuals; in all cases, spatial memories were organized around a reference frame aligned with the studied perspective. These results suggest that inhibition is caused by the product of group recall (i.e., seeing a partner’s object placement), not by the process of group recall (i.e., taking turns choosing an object to place). The present study has implications for how group performance on a collaborative spatial memory task may be optimized.     

Associative asymmetry in probed recall of serial lists

For pairs of meaningful items (e.g., words), recall accuracy is nearly identical for forward and backward probes. That is, after studying an A-B pair, subjects can recall A given B as well as they can recall B given A (Kahana, 2002). To assess whether this symmetry property is unique to pairs, we investigated the effects of study direction on probed recall of word triples and serial lists. Two experiments revealed a forward-recall advantage in both triples and serial lists. In addition, compound cues produced better recall than did single-item adjacent cues, which, in turn, produced better recall than did remote cues. These findings suggest a discontinuity between the associative processes supporting memory for pairs and those supporting memory for sequences of three or more items.     

情绪刺激在虚假记忆产生中的作用:来自ERP与眼动的联合证据

摘 要 为探索情绪刺激如何影响虚假记忆及其在分离虚假记忆与真实记忆神经活动中的作用,以IAPS图片为标准情绪刺激,19名大学生为被试,使用DRM实验范式,从行为、眼动和ERP三个方面进行了联合分析。结果发现,情绪的唤醒度和效价都能促使虚假记忆的产生,只是唤醒度影响时程更早。眼动和ERP的联合分析还发现了在情绪刺激下虚假记忆与真实记忆在神经活动层面上存在差异：早期虚假再认图片比真实再认图片需要更深的加工来实现对目标的识别;晚期虚假再认需要更多的信息搜索、比较等加工来完成其决策行为。     

Temporal clustering and sequencing in short-term memory and episodic memory

A model of short-term memory and episodic memory is presented, with the core assumptions that (a) people parse their continuous experience into episodic clusters and (b) items are clustered together in memory as episodes by binding information within an episode to a common temporal context. Along with the additional assumption that information within a cluster is serially ordered, the model accounts for a number of phenomena from short-term memory (with a focus on serial recall) and episodic memory (with a focus on free recall). The model also accounts for the effects of aging on serial and free recall, apparent temporal isolation effects in short- and long-term memory, and the relation between individual differences in working memory and episodic memory performance.     

Younger and older adults’ collaborative recall of shared and unshared emotional pictures

Although a group of people working together recalls more items than any one individual, they recall fewer unique items than the same number of people working apart whose responses are combined. This is known as collaborative inhibition, and it is a robust effect that occurs for both younger and older adults. However, almost all previous studies documenting collaborative inhibition have used stimuli that were neutral in emotional valence, low in arousal, and studied by all group members. In the current experiments, we tested the impact of picture-stimuli valence, picture-stimuli arousal, and information distribution in modulating the magnitude of collaborative inhibition. We included both younger and older adults because there are age differences in how people remember emotional pictures that could modulate any effects of emotion on collaborative inhibition. Results revealed that when information was shared (i.e., studied by all group members), there were robust collaborative inhibition effects for both neutral and emotional stimuli for both younger and older adults. However, when information was unshared (i.e., studied by only a single group member), these effects were attenuated. Together, these results provide mixed support for the retrieval strategy disruption account of collaborative inhibition. Supporting the retrieval strategy disruption account, unshared study information was less susceptible to collaborative inhibition than shared study information. Contradicting the retrieval strategy disruption account, emotional valence and arousal did not modulate the magnitude of collaborative inhibition despite the fact that participants clustered the emotional, but not neutral, information together in memory.     

Integrative and semantic relations equally alleviate age-related associative memory deficits

Two experiments compared effects of integrative and semantic relations between pairs of words on lexical and memory processes in old age. Integrative relations occur when two dissimilar and unassociated words are linked together to form a coherent phrase (e.g., horse-doctor). In Experiment 1, older adults completed a lexical-decision task where prime and target words were related either integratively or semantically. The two types of relation both facilitated responses compared to a baseline condition, demonstrating that priming can occur in older adults with minimal preexisting associations between primes and targets. In Experiment 2, young and older adults completed a cued recall task with integrative, semantic, and unrelated word pairs. Both integrative and semantic pairs showed significantly smaller age differences in associative memory compared to unrelated pairs. Integrative relations facilitated older adults' memory to a similar extent as semantic relations despite having few preexisting associations in memory. Integratability of stimuli is therefore a new factor that reduces associative deficits in older adults, most likely by supporting encoding and retrieval mechanisms.