Modest sociality and the distinctiveness of intention

Cases of modest sociality are cases of small scale shared intentional agency in the absence of asymmetric authority relations. I seek a conceptual framework that adequately supports our theorizing about such modest sociality. I want to understand what in the world constitutes such modest sociality. I seek an understanding of the kinds of normativity that are central to modest sociality. And throughout we need to keep track of the relations—conceptual, metaphysical, normative—between individual agency and modest sociality. In pursuit of these theoretical aims, I propose that a central phenomenon is shared intention. I argue that an adequate understanding of the distinctiveness of the intentions of individuals allows us to provide a construction of attitudes of the participants, and of relevant inter-relations and contexts that constitutes shared intention. I explain how shared intention, so understood, differs from a simple equilibrium within common knowledge. And I briefly contrast my views with aspects of views of John Searle and Margaret Gilbert.

The distinctiveness of the word-length effect

The authors report 2 experiments that compare the serial recall of pure lists of long words, pure lists of short words, and lists of long or short words containing just a single isolated word of a different length. In both experiments for pure lists, there was a substantial recall advantage for short words; the isolated words were recalled better than other words in the same list, and there was a reverse word-length effect: Isolated long words were recalled better than isolated short words. These results contradict models that seek to explain the word-length effect in terms of list-based accounts of rehearsal speed or in terms of item-based effects (such as difficulty of assembling items).     

Orthographie distinctiveness of homonyms

Ratings of orthographic distinctiveness were obtained for 139 homonym pairs. Mean ratings on a 9-point scale ranged from 7.75 to 2.44. Reliability of the ratings was high (r = .91). In addition, orthographic distinctiveness was found to be independent of disparity in perceived meanings of the separate homonym forms.     

Acquired equivalence and distinctiveness of cues

In Experiments 1 and 2, rats received initial training in which two stimuli (A and N) were either followed by the same consequence (food) or by different consequences (food and no food). Subsequently N was paired with electric shock and the generalization of conditioned suppression to A was assessed. Suppression to A was more marked when A and N had both been followed by food than when they had had different outcomes. In Experiment 3, 3 stimuli (A, B, and N) were presented initially. For one group, A and N were paired with food and B was nonreinforced: for a second group, B was paired with food and A and N were nonreinforced. Generalization of suppression was found to be more substantial to A than to B for both groups. These results indicate that the extent to which stimuli are treated as being equivalent is partly determined by their reinforcement histories.     

Perceptual distinctiveness and proactive interference in the primacy effect

When subjects monitor a list of verbal items for one item which is to be selected and remembered, they are more likely to recall the critical item if it is the first member of the list than if it is presented towards the centre of the list. The present experiment examined the possibility that this primacy results from an accumulation of proactive interference from incidentally processed early members of the list which would cause a decrement in the recall of later members. By changing the semantic category of the list members before presentation of the critical item any accumulated interference would have been released, but this procedure produced no weakening of the primacy effect and so the interference theory of primacy was not supported. An alternative explanation of the effect was discussed in which it is assumed that the first member of a series is perceptually distinct from central members.     

Familiarity,relative distinctiveness,and the generation effect

In Experiment 1, psychology experts and novices showed generation effects with both psychology related and other words. In Experiment 2, music experts who were sports novices and sports experts who were music novices showed a generation effect in a recognition test for all words regardless of domain (music or sports). Moreover, the effect was greater for words from the subjects’ “nonexpertise” area. In Experiments 3A and 3B, music experts showed a greater generation effect for sports words than for music words in a free recall test but only when the sports and music words were studied together. These results are inconsistent with the semantic elaboration -requirement for the generation effect that predicts less of an effect, if any, with less familiar materials. Rather, they provide evidence for the idea that the generation effect is influenced by relative distinctiveness of the to-be-remembered items.     

Bizarre imagery, interference, and distinctiveness

Previous studies have shown that bizarre and common images produce equivalent levels of recall in unmixed-list designs. Using unmixed lists, we tested the view that bizarre images would be less susceptible than common images to common sources of interference. In all experiments, subjects imaged a list of either bizarre or common sentences and then performed some kind of interfering task before recalling the initial list of sentences. Experiment 1 showed that bizarre images were better accessed than common images after imaging an intervening list of common sentences. Also, components of common images tended to be better recalled than those of bizarre images after imaging an intervening list of bizarre sentences. Experiments 2a and 2b showed that interfering tasks consisting of studying lists of common concrete nouns did not differentially affect memory for bizarre and common images. In Experiment 3, labeling and imaging an interfering list of common pictures produced higher recall of bizarre images. Generally, bizarre images appeared to be less susceptible than common images to interference from certain types of common encodings. Importantly, the superior recall of bizarre images was always due to greater image (sentence) access, whereas higher recall of common images was associated with greater recovery of the image (sentence) constituents. Explanation of the precise pattern of results requires consideration of the distinctive properties of bizarre images.     

Spatial distinctiveness effect in categorisation

The aim of the present study was to show that the probability of an item being retrieved is proportional to its spatial distinctiveness, and that this distinctiveness effect can be obtained in an implicit memory task. The participants were presented with two phases in which they had to categorise pictures of objects as either “kitchen utensils” or “do-it-yourself tools”. In our encoding phase, the pictures were successively presented in different positions on the screen. The positions were arranged in one of two different configurations: a “distinctive condition” in which the pictures were placed in two circles, one central and one peripheral, such that the distance between the pictures was greater when they were in a peripheral position than in a central position, and a “nondistinctive” condition, in which the distance between the pictures was constant irrespective of their central or peripheral position. In the test phase, the same pictures were presented for categorisation, mixed with new pictures at the centre of the screen. The results clearly confirmed our expectations.     

Rated graphic distinctiveness of consonants

Mean ratings of graphic distinctiveness were obtained for pairs of consonants. The comparisons were between uppercase forms of different consonants, lowercase forms of different consonants, and uppercase vs lowercase forms of the same consonants. The ratings were demonstrated to have satisfactory reliability and to covary moderately well with feature-component measures of letter-pair distinctiveness.     

Emotionality,distinctiveness, and recollective experience

Two experiments investigated the effects of emotional stimuli on recollective experience in recognition memory. In Experiment 1, words judged to evoke a positive emotional response (e.g., warmth, freedom) or a negative emotional response (e.g., mucus, corpse) were associated with more “remember” responses than emotionally neutral words (e.g., crate, border) when presented in mixed lists. This effect was stronger with negative words than with positive words. In Experiment 2 the effects of emotional stimuli were eliminated when participants studied pure lists of either all emotional or all neutral words. These findings are discussed in relation to Rajaram's (1996) distinctiveness account of recollective experience.     

Retrieval conditions and false recognition: testing the distinctiveness heuristic

High levels of false recognition are observed after people study lists of semantic associates that all converge on a nonpresented lure word. In previous experiments, we have found that orienting participants to encode distinctive information about study list items by presenting them as pictures as opposed to words produces marked reductions in false recognition. We have suggested that these reductions reflect the operation of a distinctiveness heuristic: Participants demand access to detailed pictorial information in order to support a positive recognition decision. The present experiments provide additional evidence on this point and allow us to distinguish between the distinctiveness heuristic account and an alternative account based on the impoverished encoding of relational information that occurs when one is studying pictures. In Experiment 1, even when only half of the items in a study list were presented as pictures, a general suppression of false recognition was observed that could be attributable to impoverished encoding of relational information. Experiment 2 provided a critical test of the distinctiveness heuristic account: We manipulated test instructions and found that differences in false recognition rates between picture and word encoding were attenuated in a retrieval condition that did not encourage reliance on a distinctiveness heuristic.     

Helping the cognitive system learn: exaggerating distinctiveness and uniqueness

The caricature advantage demonstrates that performance is better when exaggerated stimuli are presented rather than a faithful image. This can be understood with respect to a theoretical framework in which caricaturing maximises the distinctiveness and thus minimises any perceptual or representational confusion. In this study we examine the possibility to harness caricatures to enhance learning. Thus, during learning the caricatures help the cognitive system pick up the unique and distinctive features of the learned material. This in turn helps to construct representations that correctly direct attention to the critical information. We trained 113 participants to identify aircraft across any orientation and found that the use of caricature is advantageous. However, the caricature advantage was most effective in complex learning where it is difficult to differentiate among different aircraft. Furthermore, the caricature advantage for subsequent recognition is attenuated when over‐learning has been achieved. These results are discussed in terms of the learning situations in which caricatures can be most effective in enhancing learning. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating the role of distinctiveness in the generation effect

According to the distinctiveness interpretation, generating words from word fragments leads to more distinctive memory traces than reading intact words. As a test of this hypothesis, the generation effect was experimentally compared to three phenomena previously attributed to distinctiveness. Experiments 1 and 2 proved that the generation effect was unlike conceptual and encoding task distinctiveness. In Experiment 3 the generation effect and the effects of orthographic distinctiveness were compared. These two manipulations had similar effects on memory, but the effects were additive—challenging the hypothesis that the generation effect is a result of the unusual appearance of to-be-generated items. Thus, the generation effect is inconsistent with current theories of distinctiveness. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that generated items receive more encoding resources than read items, and that increased attention to generated items may be at the expense of attention to intact items in the list.     

Encoding distinctiveness and the encoding shift penalty in children and adults

This study determined some of the reasons for developmental differences in retrieval variability. The critical manipulation involved the use of semantic orienting questions at both acquisition and retrieval for elementary school children (7 and 10 years of age) and adults. The retrieval questions biased the sampling of cue information compatible or incompatible with the information sampled in acquisition. The recall difference that resulted is the Encoding Shift Penalty. Experiment 1 manipulated encoding distinctiveness at acquisition and the delay between acquisition and retrieval. Experiment 2 varied acquisition encoding constraint and employed two retrieval trials varying the kind of retrieval question. Among other findings, the results suggest that (1) the acquisition encoding of adults is more distinctive than is that of children; (2) encoding distinctiveness affects the probability of sampling and resampling compatible cue information, and the identification of target event information once cue comptibility is ensured at retrieval; and (3) incompatible initial samples of retrieval cue information for children may interfere with their ability to resample successfully.     

Facial aging, attractiveness, and distinctiveness.

A standard facial caricature algorithm has been applied to a three-dimensional (3-D) representation of human heads, those of Caucasian male and female young adults. Observers viewed unfamiliar faces at four levels of caricature--anticaricature, veridical, moderate caricature, and extreme caricature--and made ratings of attractiveness and distinctiveness (experiment 1) or learned to identify them (experiment 2). There were linear increases in perceived distinctiveness and linear decreases in perceived attractiveness as the degree of facial caricature (Euclidean distance from the average face in 3-D-grounded face space) increased. Observers learned to identify faces presented at either level of positive caricature more efficiently than they did with either uncaricatured or anticaricatured faces. Using the same faces, 3-D representation, and caricature levels, O'Toole, Vetter, Volz, and Salter (1997, Perception 26 719-732) had shown a linear increase in judgments of face age as a function of degree of caricature. Here it is concluded that older-appearing faces are less attractive, but more distinctive and memorable than younger-appearing faces, those closer to the average face.