Individual differences in procedures for knowledge acquisition from maps

This study investigated the procedures subjects use to acquire knowledge from maps. In Experiment 1, three experienced and five novice map users provided verbal protocols while attempting to learn a map. The protocols suggested four categories of processes that subjects invoked during learning: attention, encoding, evaluation, and control. Good learners differed from poor learners primarily in their techniques for and success at encoding spatial information, their ability to accurately evaluate their learning progress, and their ability to focus attention on unlearned information. An analysis of the performance of experienced map users suggested that learning depended on particular procedures and not on familiarity with the task. In Experiment 2, subjects were instructed to use (a) six of the effective learning procedures from Experiment 1, (b) six procedures unrelated to learning success, or (c) their own techniques. The effective procedures set comprised three techniques for learning spatial information, two techniques for using self-generated feedback to guide subsequent study behaviors, and a procedure for partitioning the map into sections. Subjects using these procedures performed better than subjects in the other groups. In addition, subjects' visual memory ability predicted the magnitude of the performance differential.     

Distance estimation from cognitive maps

Four experiments investigated map clutter as a source of distortion in subjects' estimates of distance. In Experiments 1 (incidental learning) and 2 (intentional learning), subjects estimated distances between pairs of points on a memorized map. In both experiments, estimates increased as a linear function of the number of intervening points along the route. In Experiment 3, subjects estimated distances while viewing the map. The effect of clutter was reduced but not eliminated. In Experiment 4, the clutter effect was demonstrated using subjects' preexperimental knowledge of United States geography. Psychophysical power functions relating true to estimated distance provided a good fit to both memory and perception data. These results suggest an analogy between perceptual and memorial processes of distance estimation. A model proposed to account for the data assumes that subjects perceptually scan a route (or image of a route) from start to destination and use scan duration to determine path distance.     

Cognitive structures in comprehension and memory of narrative discourse

The effects of structure and content variables on memory and comprehension of prose passages were studied in two experiments. The experimental passages exemplify a class of simple narrative stories that is described by a generative grammar of plot structures. A comprehension model is proposed that assumes a hierarchical organizational framework of stories in memory, determined by the grammar, representing the abstract structural components of the plot. The quality and characteristics of subjects' memory for stories were tested on a variety of experimental tasks in which story organization was manipulated. Comprehensibility and recall were found to be a function of the amount of inherent plot structure in the story, independent of passage content. Recall probability of individual facts from passages depended on the structural centrality of the facts: Subjects tended to recall facts corresponding to high-level organizational story elements rather than lower-level details. In addition, story summarizations from memory tended to emphasize general structural characteristics rather than specific content. For successively presented stories, both structure and content manipulations influenced recall. Furthermore, repeating story structure across two passages produced facilitation in recall of the second passage, while repeating story content produced proactive interference. The implications for a model of memory for narrative discourse are discussed.     

Differences in spatial knowledge acquired from maps and navigation

Models of the spatial knowledge people acquire from maps and navigation and the procedures required for spatial judgments using this knowledge are proposed. From a map, people acquire survey knowledge encoding global spatial relations. This knowledge resides in memory in images that can be scanned and measured like a physical map. From navigation, people acquire procedural knowledge of the routes connecting diverse locations. People combine mental simulation of travel through the environment and informal algebra to compute spatial judgments. An experiment in which subjects learned an environment from navigation or from a map evaluates predictions of these models. With moderate exposure, map learning is superior for judgments of relative location and straight-line distances among objects. Learning from navigation is superior for orienting oneself with respect to unseen objects and estimating route distances. With extensive exposure, the performance superiority of maps over navigation vanishes. These and other results are consonant with the proposed mechanisms.     

The determinants of beliefs in human nature

This study set out to examine which of a range of ‘demographic’ factors best predicted peoples' beliefs in the heredity vs environmental determinants of specific features in human nature. Ss' sex, age, education, class, voting pattern and religion were related to their beliefs in the heredity vs environmental determinants of six human characteristics: physical characteristics, psychological skills, personality, beliefs, psychological problems and physical problems. Both univariate and multivariate analyses demonstrated the close relationship between the independent demographic variables, particularly education and voting pattern, and the dependent belief variables, particularly personality and beliefs. The literature on correlates of political beliefs was examined and related to the findings in this study.     

Temporal effects on attributions for one's own behavior: The role of task outcome

Previous investigations into how attributions for one's own behavior change over time have resulted in surprisingly inconsistent results. Two experiments were conducted to account for these discrepant findings. In Experiment 1 male undergraduates were given feedback indicating that they had done either well or poorly on a skill-assessment test. Half of the subjects believed they were being videotaped when performing the test, half did not. In addition, half of the subjects completed attribution questionnaires immediately after the feedback, whereas half completed the questionnaires 2 or 3 days later. It was found that subjects who felt they had succeeded on the task made attributions that were more dispositional over time and subjects who felt they had failed made attributions that were more situational over time. No effect for the videotape manipulation was found. Experiment 2 replicated the task outcome effect and provided evidence suggesting that the effect was caused by a selective forgetting of unflattering attributions.     

Developmental trends in the use of perceptual and conceptual attributes in grouping,clustering, and retrieval

In Experiment I, two tasks were administered to children aged 4, 5, and 9 in order to investigate preference for perceptual versus conceptual attributes in grouping of common objects, and in various aspects of memory. The grouping task revealed a clear chronological progression: color and form determined the youngest children's grouping about equally; form dominated in the 5-year-olds; and most of the oldest children grouped primarily by conceptual attributes. In the memory task, three lists—one organized by color, one by form, one by superordinate category—were presented for free, followed by cued recall. Clustering showed the developmental shift from color to form to concept, while cued recall showed conceptual superiority at all ages. Experiment II replicated the memory task, yielding the same results. The results were discussed in terms of the relative abstractness and predictability of conceptual versus perceptual attributes and the difficulty of abstraction in encoding and the function of predictability in retrieval.     

Behavioral contrast and generalization across settings in the treatment of autistic children

Previous research on the generalization of treatment gains across settings has typically focused on the question of whether generalization occurs or does not occur. However, the experimental literature suggests another possibility: that behavioral contrast may occur in extra-therapy settings if the reinforcement procedures in the therapy setting are highly discriminable from those in other settings. Therefore, this investigation was designed to systematically assess whether: (1) a highly discriminable treatment procedure in one setting would produce a behavioral contrast effect in other unmanipulated settings; and (2) such contrast-like trends could be eliminated if initially different reinforcement procedures in two settings were subsequently made similar. The results for the eight autistic children who participated in this investigation showed that: (1) When very different reinforcement procedures (primary rewards or punishment in therapy settings, and no rewards or punishment in extra-therapy settings) were in effect, the children showed contrast-like behavior changes in the untreated extra-therapy settings; and (2) such trends in responding could be eliminated, resulting in generalization of treatment gains, if the reinforcement procedures were subsequently made relatively similar in the two settings, even if the procedures consisted essentially of noncontingent reinforcement.     

Comparative assessment of a coping model for school adolescents

Four brief, interpersonal coping courses were conducted in a junior high school setting for early adolescent students who volunteered for the experience. Two of the classes (N=24) consisted of students who regularly utilized school guidance personnel; the remaining two classes (N=19) consisted of adolescents from the general school population. Course objectives included higher self-esteem and increased ability to perceive, interpret, and express nonverbal communication and feeling. Session tape recordings provided verbal data for analysis by the Hill Interaction Matrix (HIM) procedure. Results showed that the intervention had significant impact on students' patterns of interaction: interactions were fewer, but longer; conventional interactions decreased, while speculative ones increased; and personal and relationship content increased. Generally, the two class types exhibited similar patterns and changes, although some specific differences were detected. Social class background, stressful life events, and the intensity of the problems experienced by the two types of student were postulated as the sources of this variability. When coupled with ancillary postcourse data, these results support the conclusion that students' interpersonal coping skills were improved by the experience.     

A multitrait-multimethod examination of affect structure: hedonic level and emotional intensity

Past research on the personality structure of affect suggests that hedonic level and emotional intensity are two separate major dimensions. The present study employed a multitrait-multimethod approach to verify this finding. Seventy-four University of Illinois students completed daily mood reports and self-report questionnaires, and their parents completed a questionnaire about them. Both hedonic level and intensity measures were used. The convergent validities (monotrait-multimethod correlations) were all significant and tended to be highest for emotional intensity. The multitrait-monomethod coefficients were nonsignificant, as were the correlations based on different measures of different traits. The data were interpreted as supporting the distinction between hedonic level and affect intensity, as well as supporting the validity of the measures.     

Further tests of a meta-model of youthful marijuana use

This paper tests a meta-model of youthful marijuana use on students in Grades 11, 12 and 13. Although the specific models for each grade varied in detail, all followed a meta-model making the following assumptions: (1) that use or nonuse of marijuana depends primarily on attitude towards use; (2) that attitude largely reflects the perceived functional and dysfunctional consequences of use; and (3) that what people perceive as functional or dysfunctional depends on relevant personality characteristics. All three models showed satisfactory goodness-of-fit in terms of nonsignificant overidentification tests (minimum P > 0.25) and small discrepancies between observed correlations and the corresponding theoretically implied correlations. A notable feature of the Grade 13 data in contrast to those for Grade 12 and previously reported findings was the seeming unimportance of the perceived value of marijuana use for gaining acceptance from peers. It was suggested that this might reflect the selective survival into Grade 13 in the sampled community of more independently-oriented students.     

The nature of curiosity in children

This study examined several behaviors claimed to reflect curiosity in order to determine whether there are one or more types of curiosity. A secondary purpose was to examine the relations between the one or more types of curiosity and sex, social class, intelligence, achievement level, and ratings of personality traits. In two individual sessions 84 American first-grade boys and girls were administered five tasks which measured observation of complex and simple stimuli, preference of complex and simple stimuli, preference for the unknown, structure of meaning, and object exploration. A normalized Varimax factor analysis allowed the extraction of five factors: manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. Only the first factor was related to a demographic variable, sex. The nature of the factors and their theoretical and practical significance are discussed.     

How teachers use the group I.Q. test scores

Ninety elementary school teachers, grades 2–6, in two school districts in Ohio were interviewed to obtain information on how they used the results of group IQ tests. Twenty-seven of 90 teachers (30%) reported making “little or no use” of the test scores. Most of these teachers presumably had more faith in their own tools and observations than in the IQ test scores. However, 76 of 90 teachers (84%, including the ones who made little use of the test scores) stated that they used the test scores for one or more purposes. The four most frequently mentioned uses were: (a) “for discussion in parent conferences” (51%); (b) “to know a student's potential and/or determine ability-motivation discrepancy” (42%); (c) “to plan instruction” (39.5%) and (d) “for referral purposes” (29%). The instructional strategies mentioned by the teachers varied and were categorized into 21 categories.     

Personality correlates of retrieval processes in intentional and unintentional forgetting

Early accounts of intentional forgetting relied exclusively on mechanisms that operate at encoding. The results of more recent experiments indicate that memory-retrieval inhibition also is involved, thus linking waking intentional forgetting with hypnotic amnesia. The present Experiment 1 was designed to provide further support for the retrieval-inhibition hypothesis by testing four alternative explanations for some of the recent results. Experiment 2 examined the role of word affect in both intentional forgetting and unintentional forgetting to evaluate theoretical interpretations of the retrieval mechanisms thought to be involved. Unintentional forgetting of negative words was consistent with a repression-like interpretation, whereas intentional forgetting of negative words appeared to be limited by sensitization. Personality correlates of the recall results were identified and were found to be in support of these interpretations.     

Motivation and learning: Neurophysiological mechanisms in a “model” system

The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying behavioral motivation and associative learning are described in an invertebrate “model” system, the carnivorous marine mollusc Pleurobranchaea. Feeding motivation can be controlled via nutritional history and is represented centrally in the feeding motor network as a change in the balance of synaptic excitation and inhibition at the level of interneurons that initiate feeding behavior, i.e., feeding “command” interneurons. Associative learning, induced by avoidance conditioning of feeding behavior, manifests identically at the level of the command interneurons, but is distinguished from non-associative motivational changes by processes that occur in identified neurons and pathways presynaptic to the command interneurons. Motivation and learning are therefore linked mechanistically by convergent neurophysiological mechanisms at the level of central neurons that initiate behavior.     

Individual differences in process outcomes for verbal analogy and classification solution

Adult performance on verbal analogy and classification problems was assessed in terms of the outcomes of process execution. Measures were obtained for the accuracy of stem processing and subsequent alternative processing. The process-outcome measures obtained within each task accounted for overall performance scores and were differentially related to ability. This was shown by ability differences in the models accounting for subjects' overall accuracy and in the correlational patterns. Analogy and classification problem forms differed in the measures most important for predicting individual differences. Specifically, measures of alternative processing were more important in classification than analogy solution and application was shown to be important for analogy solution. In addition, common process-outcome measures showed the highest correlations across problem forms, consistent with the assumption that both induction tasks tap similar psychological processes. The results are discussed with respect to previous studies assessing commonality and individual differences among children in process-outcomes.     

Effects of noise on sensitivity of introverts and extraverts to signals in a vigilance task

Forty Ss, previously classified as introverts or extraverts on the basis of scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory, performed a visual vigilance task while being stimulated with noise at an intensity level of either 65 or 85 dB. Introverts given noise of 65 dB intensity showed an improvement in detection rate across trials, whereas introverts given noise of 85 dB intensity showed a decline in detection rate. Extraverts responded to noise of 65 dB intensity with a slight decrease in detection rate, but showed an improvement in detection over trials when noise of 85 dB intensity was given. When noise of the lower intensity was given, introverts showed greater sensitivity to signals than extraverts. When noise of the higher intensity was given, introverts and extraverts were equal in sensitivity. The results are discussed in terms of a hypothesized relationship between stimulation and arousal, with E-I as a moderator variable.     

The dispositional shift in attribution over time

Two experiments examined the effect of time on causal attributions. In Experiment I, subjects who described themselves into a tape recorder assumed more personal responsibility for their behavior after 3 weeks' time than others who explained their behavior immediately after its occurrence. In Experiment II, actor-subjects took part in a getting acquainted conversation and explained their behavior more dispositionally and less situationally after 3 weeks' time than they had initially, while observer-subjects experienced no change over time. Results were interpreted in terms of an altered self-perspective in memory and the diminished salience of situational details over time.     

Point of view in personal memories

A structural aspect of personal memories was examined in four studies. In some memories, one has the perspective of an observer, seeing oneself “from the outside.” In other memories, one sees the scene from one's own perspective; the field of view in such memories corresponds to that of the original situation. The existence of “observer” and “field” memories was confirmed in Study 1, using a recall questionnaire. In Study 2, the similarity structure of a specified set of eight to-be-recalled situations was established: the significant dimensions were “emotionality” and “self-awareness.” Study 3 related these dimensions to the observer-field distinction; situations involving a high degree of emotion and selfawareness were most likely to be recalled with an observer perspective. Recall set was varied in Study 4: a focus on feelings (as opposed to objective circumstances) produced relatively more field memories. Studies 3 and 4 also showed that events reported as more recent tend to be recalled in the field mode. Thus a qualitative characteristic of personal memories—the perspective from which they are experienced—is apparently related to characteristics of the original event, to the individual's purpose in recalling that event, and to the reported recall interval.