The Effects of Prior Processing Episodes on Basic level Superiority

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of prior processing episodes on people's preference for categorizing objects at the basic level (e.g. dog) relative to their preference for categorizing at the superordinate (e.g. animal) and the subordinate (e.g. Dalmation) levels. The prior processing episode in Experiment 1 was designed to induce subjects to activate representations at the superordinate level, and those in the remaining experiments were designed to induce subjects to differentiate objects at the subordinate level. After the prior processing episodes, subjects performed either a free naming or a picture categorization task that required them to decide whether an illustrated object belonged to a specified category. Results showed that prior processing episodes modestly reduced the superiority of basic level to superordinate level and subordinate level in categorization but not in free naming. The results suggest that the basic-level advantage is subject to the effects of context, but the effects are not as strong as the context effects on other aspects of categorization behaviour (e.g. rating typicality of a category member). Hence, the preference for the basic level is a somewhat more stable, invariant aspect of conceptual representation. Possible determinations of this stability are discussed.     

一致的先前知识对类别学习影响机制探讨

探讨一致的先前知识对类别学习的影响,包括2个实验。被试是112名大学生,分别探讨不同实验任务和不同项目呈现时间引发的机械特征在类别学习中的重要程度和加工程度不同的情况下先前知识对类别学习的影响。结果表明:(1)在实验任务为项目类别归属判断任务时,机械特征重要程度低,主题特征与机械特征在学习上存在竞争关系;在实验任务为项目类别归属及记忆任务时,机械特征重要程度高,主题特征与机械特征在学习上存在促进关系。(2)在限制步速呈现项目时,机械特征加工程度低,主题特征与机械特征在学习上存在竞争关系;而在自定步速呈现项目时,机械特征加工程度高,主题特征与机械特征在学习上不存在竞争关系。     

Effects of Prior Juror Experience on Juror Behavior

A psychological assumption underlying the common and legally sanctioned use of jurors with previous jury experience is that such prior experience has little effect on a juror's behavior. The empirical evidence on this assumption is reviewed. Special attention is devoted to recent research that indicates two types of potential bias among experienced jurors. The theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.     

加工时间和加工速度对工作记忆广度的影响

对工作记忆广度机制的四个模型:资源共享模型、任务转换假说、干扰说和时间资源共享模型进行了检验。以60名大学本科生为被试,完成工作记忆广度任务和转换任务。结果表明:加工时间和加工项目数不是影响工作记忆广度的主要因素;工作记忆广度受到加工速度的影响;工作记忆广度和线索-任务转换代价呈显著的负相关关系。结果支持时间资源共享模型,工作记忆广度取决于注意在加工和存储之间快速、灵活的转换。     

学校不同群体的阅读信念对记叙文意义建构的影响

采用问卷调查的方法,考察学校三类群体(初中生、大学生、教师)的阅读信念(reading belief)对记叙文意义建构的影响。结果发现:(1)学校三类群体对记叙文的意义建构不同:在表层信息上,教师和大学生显著优于初中生,教师和大学生之间水平相当;而在整体理解上,教师显著优于大学生和初中生,而且大学生也显著优于初中生;(2)在初中阶段,传递信念对记叙文意义建构起主导作用;(3)在大学阶段,互动信念对记叙文意义建构起主导作用。     

The Effects of Syntactic Complexity on Processing Sentences in Noise

This paper discusses the influence of stationary (non-fluctuating) noise on processing and understanding of sentences, which vary in their syntactic complexity (with the factors canonicity, embedding, ambiguity). It presents data from two RT-studies with 44 participants testing processing of German sentences in silence and in noise. Results show a stronger impact of noise on the processing of structurally difficult than on syntactically simpler parts of the sentence. This may be explained by a combination of decreased acoustical information and an increased strain on cognitive resources, such as working memory or attention, which is caused by noise. The noise effect for embedded sentences is less than for non-embedded sentences, which may be explained by a benefit from prosodic information.     

The Effects of Word-Order and Case Marking Information on the Processing of Japanese

Many studies in processing English report that verb information plays a significant role in processing the rest of the sentence (e.g., Boland & Tanenhaus, 1991). Japanese is subject-object-verb (SOV), head-final language with the phenomena of scrambling and phonologically null pronouns. The fact that verb information does not become available until the end of a clause leads one to ask whether other types of information may be utilized in the on-line processing of Japanese. The current study investigated whether word order and case markers play a role. Overall, no effect of word order was observed, even though the frequency of the scrambled sentences was low. Experiment 1 found no extra processing load in processing scrambled sentences. In Experiment 2, no effect of word order was found in the parser's decision making in computing a syntactic structure prior to the verb. On the other hand. Experiment 3 found that the parser was sensitive to the variety of case-marked arguments. The results of the three experiments are more congruent with the nonconfigurational structure than with the configurational structure at the stage of preverbal syntactic processing in Japanese.     

Forewarning of a Threat and Prior Knowledge of Outcome Effects on Children's Emotional Responses to a Film Sequence

An experiment examined the influence of prior information on children's emotional responses to a frightening program. Children at two age levels (5–7 and 9–11 years) viewed a program that included a threatening scene and a happy resolution. Before viewing, they heard one of four audiotaped introductions created by factorially varying information about the threat (forewarning, no forewarning) and the happy outcome (prior knowledge, no prior knowledge). Emotional responses were assessed through self-reports, facial expressions (coded using hard's Affex coding scheme), and skin temperature (as an index of physiological arousal). Self-reports of emotion revealed that forewarning of the threat increased anticipatory fear but did not affect emotional responses to the threatening scene. Prior knowledge of the happy outcome tended to reduce anticipatory fear but had a somewhat inconsistent effect on fear during the threatening scene. Changes in skin temperature over time were consistent with predictions, but no effects of the manipulations emerged for facial expressions of negative affect. Expected age differences were not observed for either type of prior information. Responses to the happy outcome were also examined. Children's reports of coping strategies and the results of manipulation checks were considered in interpreting the findings.     

Gender Effects in Information Processing on a Nonverbal Decoding Task

Women typically outperform men on the ability to assess other people??s nonverbal behavior. This difference might occur because women are taught to be more sensitive to emotional and nonverbal cues at a very early age compared to men. As a consequence, women might use a more favorable cognitive processing style than men during nonverbal decoding. The present study investigated whether this gender difference is due to the use of different cognitive information processing styles (global or local). Participants (N?=?137) were Swiss undergraduate students that were randomly assigned to either a global (focusing on the whole) or a local (focusing on details) priming of information processing style, or to a control group. They then performed a nonverbal decoding task. Results showed that compared to the control group, local priming had beneficial and global priming detrimental effects for nonverbal decoding accuracy. This was due to an improved performance in men after the local priming; women??s performance was not significantly affected by the local priming. Global priming increased nonverbal decoding accuracy in men and decreased performance in women. We conclude that women already use the more beneficial local processing style by default and that men??s performance can be boosted when providing them a processing strategy.     

The Effects of Real-World Knowledge on Text Processing Among Older Adults

In the present study, the effects of knowledge on text processing were investigated among older adults. Past research has shown that knowledge reduces processing time among older readers, however, this finding was based on schematic knowledge. Schematic knowledge is a highly prescribed knowledge that draws on commonly held general world knowledge. Domain knowledge, on the other hand, is specialized real-world knowledge within a particular area (e.g., chess, physics, cooking). Past research has shown that domain knowledge engages additional processing resources among younger adults. If this is true of the elderly, then this type of knowledge may pose a challenge to older adults. Regression analyses were used to investigate word-by-word reading time patterns among high- and low-knowledge older adults. Older high-knowledge readers did in fact increase resource allocation to texts that drew on domain knowledge and in turn showed higher levels of recall. These data suggest that knowledge promotes the productive allocation of processing resources among older adults, thus enabling them to take full advantage of knowledge.     

The Effects of the Application on Processing of Information From the Employment Interview.1

Subjects observed and evaluated employment interviews after forming initial impressions of the applicants' paper credentials. Contrary to expectations, differential recognition of interview content was not found to mediate the effects of the application on perceptions of the interview. Instead, interviewers showed a biased interpretation of the interview performance. Applicants were perceived as doing a better job in answering the questions of the interviewer, displaying more sales-consistent traits, and making more favorable statements the more favorable their paper credentials. Note taking led to more accurate recognition of information from the interview but did not attenuate the biasing effects of the application.     

The Effect of Prior Fear Levels on UCS-expectancy Ratings to a Fear-relevant Stimulus

This study investigated the effect of levels of prior fear to a fear-relevant stimulus on UCS expectancy ratings in a threat conditioning procedure. The results suggested that UCS-expectancy ratings are independently influenced by both the nature of the stimulus (whether it is fear-relevant or fear-irrelevant) and the level of prior fear to the stimulus. Furthermore, significantly higher UCS-expectancy levels caused by prior fear and stimulus type were accompanied in some stages of the experiment by greater magnitudes of skin conductance responses during the stimulus.     

The Effects of Redundancy in Bimodal Word Processing

A field experiment examined the tactical peacekeeping behaviors of military-officer teams undergoing training as United Nations military observers. Teams encountered a simulated human-rights violation where two civilians were being abused. Proximity of the female civilian to the team leader was manipulated and significantly influenced teams' commitment to saving the civilians' lives. Proximity increased the frequency of behaviors that were specifically oriented toward saving the civilians' lives and did not increase confrontational behavior. Finally, trainees' performance assessments were lower if they intervened but failed to save lives than if they did little to intervene and also failed to save lives.     

Effects of Accelerated Reading Rate on Processing Words' Syntactic Functions by Normal and Dyslexic Readers: Event Related Potentials Evidence

In the present study, the authors examined differences in brain activity, as measured by amplitudes and latencies of event related potentials (ERP) components, in Hebrew-speaking adult dyslexic and normal readers when processing sentence components with different grammatical functions. Participants were 20 dyslexic and 20 normally reading male college students aged 18–27 years. The authors examined the processing of normal word strings in word–by-word reading of sentences having subject-verb-object (SVO) syntactic structure in self- and fast-paced conditions. Data revealed that in both reading conditions, the N100 and P300 ERP components were sensitive to internal processes such as recognition of words' grammatical functions. However, the results revealed that fast-paced reading rate might affect this process, as was reflected in the systematic changes of amplitudes and latencies of both ERP components. In accelerated reading, a significant decrease of latencies and increase of amplitudes in dyslexics were shown. It was also found that influence of fast-paced reading rate was realized in the full usage of the word-order strategy in sentence processing. In turn, this fact confirmed the hypothesis concerning a syntactic processing “weakness” in dyslexia.     

Prior knowledge on the illumination position

Visual perception is fundamentally ambiguous because an infinite number of three-dimensional scenes are consistent with our retinal images. To circumvent these ambiguities, the visual system uses prior knowledge such as the assumption that light is coming from above our head. The use of such assumptions is rational when these assumptions are related to statistical regularities of our environment. In confirmation of previous visual search experiments, we demonstrate here that the assumption on the illumination position is in fact biased to the above-left rather than directly above. This bias to the left reaches 26 degrees on average in a more direct shape discrimination task. Both right-handed and left-handed observers have a similar leftward bias. We discuss the possible origins of this singular bias on the illumination position.     

The Effects of Scandalous Information on Recall of Policy‐Related Information

Political observers often criticize the news media's focus on scandalous activities of candidates as distracting voters from the “real issues.” However, the extent to which such a fondness for scandal influences voters remains unclear. The present study examines whether exposure to scandalous information about a candidate interferes with memory for policy‐related information. Two possibilities are considered. One possibility is that scandalous information attracts substantial attention and processing from individuals thereby interfering with previously stored campaign information. A second possibility argues that conceiving of memory as organized in associative networks suggests that scandalous information facilitates, rather than interferes with, recall of policy‐related campaign information. Based on data from a longitudinal experiment, I conclude that exposure to scandalous information is less hazardous to voters than is often suggested by political observers.     

The Relative Effects of Abstract Versus Concrete Processing on Proactivity in Depression

Low levels of proactivity are characteristic of individuals with depression. Two studies were conducted to compare the relative effects of abstract versus concrete processing on proactivity in high dysphoric individuals. In Study 1, participants read information about an upcoming research study and were then randomly allocated to a writing task that induced them to think about participating in that study in either an abstract (e.g., Why you would participate in the study?; n = 25) or concrete (e.g., How you will participate in the study?; n = 25) way. Participants were then asked to indicate whether they would sign up to the study. As expected, more participants indicated that they would take part in the study in the concrete condition (76%) than in the abstract condition (36%). In Study 2, high dysphoric participants were asked to identify their ideal part-time job and were then randomly allocated to a writing task that induced them to think about applying for the job in an abstract (n = 26) or concrete (n = 25) way. There was no difference between conditions in self-reported intentions of proactivity. However, significantly more participants in the concrete condition opted to look at an employment assistance website and returned to the lab to collect a job application package. Overall, these findings suggest that abstract processing could contribute to low levels of proactivity in depression, and that facilitating the use of concrete processing could help to alleviate this problem. Our results also point to the need for greater conceptual clarification of the distinction between concrete processing about proactive behavior and implementation intentions (identifying specific steps for completing an action/goal).     

The Influences of Friends' and Parental Smoking on Adolescent Smoking Behavior: The Effects of Time and Prior Smoking1

This research examines the relative importance of parental and friends' influences on adolescents' smoking behavior and changes in the effects of social influences during adolescence. Data were collected at 4 times from 7th to 9th grades. Random-effects ordinal regression models were employed to predict the repeated classification of adolescent smoking status using time effects, prior smoking status, friends' smoking, and parental smoking. In general, the effects of friends' smoking are stronger than those of parental smoking, and these differences increase over time. In addition, friends' smoking has greater effects on nonsmokers than smokers. Separate models for males and females disclose some gender differences. In particular, the effects of friends' smoking are stronger for females than for males, and the increasing trend of friends' influences is more noticeable for females than for males. Models for 4 ethnic groups also suggest differential susceptibility to social influences in different cultures.