Fear imagery and the startle-probe reflex

Blink reflexes to acoustic probes, heart rate, and subjective reports were studied during affective memory imagery. Thirty-six undergraduates memorized 6 pairs of neutral and fearful sentences. After learning each pair, they relaxed and listened to a series of uniform tones, one every 6 s. A change in tone pitch (higher or lower) cued recall of one of the two sentences. At the first cue tone, groups (n = 12) were under different instructions: (a) ignore the sentence and relax, (b) silently articulate the sentence, and (c) imagine the sentence content as a personal experience. At the second cue tone, all subjects performed the imagery task. Startle probes (50-ms, 95-dB white noise) were presented unpredictably during relaxation and recall trials. Probe blink reflexes were larger and cardiac rate faster at fear sentence recall than at neutral sentence recall or relaxation. For probe reflexes, this effect was greater for imagery than for nonsemantic recall tasks.     

Tests of a holistic chunking model of sentence memory through analyses of noun intrusions

A holistic chunking model of sentence acquisition and retrieval is described and tested by a prompted sentence recall procedure. In this procedure, subjects first study a list of unrelated sentences and later receive single-word prompts to cue sentence recall. The model assumes that (1) words in sentences are grouped into propositions during acquisition, (2) the propositions are encoded holistically and later retrieved as units, and (3) the retrieval of one proposition does not automatically lead to recovery of other propositions in a sentence. The model was tested by patterns of intrusion errors. Noun intrusions for elements within a recovered proposition were always related conceptually to the presented nouns, even when a noun violated the co-occurrence restrictions of the verb (e.g., the tray loved the house). In contrast, noun intrusions for elements outside of the scope of a recovered proposition were often unrelated to presented nouns. It was argued that patterns of intrusion errors provide more appropriate tests for sentence structure than do quantitative patterns of correct recall, at least from the framework of the holistic chunking model.     

Connectives and narrative text: The role of continuity

Connectives are text devices that signal the relation between adjacent sentences. Recently there has been a surge of research interest in the role played by connectives in on-line processing. The present research tested the hypothesis that connectives will impact on-line processing to the extent that they signal a text event that represents a departure from the continuity of the events stated in the text. In Experiment 1, participants generated sentences to follow a stimulus sentence. An additive, causal, or adversative connective (or no connective) was provided to serve as the first word of the participants’ sentence. Results showed that sentences generated in response to additive or causal connectives depicted text events that were continuous with the stimulus text. In contrast, sentences generated in response to adversative connectives depicted discontinuous text events. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants read coherent sentence pairs containing inappropriately placed additive, causal, or adversative connectives. Support for the continuity hypothesis was found when it was shown that adversative connectives led to the greatest amount of processing disruption, as measured by longer reading time on the postconnective sentence (Experiment 2) and lower ratings of coherence (Experiment 3). Future research in this area is discussed.     

Negative Cueing Effects with Weak and Strong Intralist Cues

In three experiments, we studied cueing effects of relational and itemspecific information after enacted and non-enacted encoding of short sentences (e.g. lift the pen, fold the paper). In Experiment 1, all subjects were instructed at encoding to remember only the nouns of these sentences; half of the subjects were informed about the categorical nature of the nouns, whereas the other half were not. At retrieval, all subjects were given a free recall test and a cued recall test with the verb of each sentence as the cue. In Experiment 2, all subjects were instructed at encoding to remember the whole sentence; as in Experiment 1, half of the subjects were informed about the categorical nature of the nouns and half were not. At test, all subjects were given two cued recall tests, one categorical cue for each noun in the first test and one verb cue and one categorical cue for each noun in the second test. In Experiment 3, at encoding, all subjects were informed about the categorical nature of nouns and were instructed to remember the whole sentence. In this experiment, the actions were performed with imaginary objects; free recall and cued recall tests were given to different subjects. In all three experiments, there was a negative effect of intralist cueing with verbs. This finding is at odds with the Encoding Specificity Principle, which assumes facilitation of cueing at retrieval if the cues were encoded together with the to-be-remembered information at encoding. Also, the effect of intralist cueing was different after encoding with enactment than after encoding without enactment; this difference holds true for enactment with real objects but not for enactment with imaginary objects. Enactment increased both the relational and the item-specific cueing efficiency. The results are discussed in terms of encoding interference between cues and targets and between item-specific processing and relational processing. Enacted encoding is conceived as integrating episodic information both with respect to item specificity and relational aspects of the information.     

Proactive interference effects on sentence production

Proactive interference refers to recall difficulties caused by prior similar memory-related processing. Information-processing approaches to sentence production predict that retrievability affects sentence form: Speakers may word sentences so that material that is difficult to retrieve is spoken later. In this experiment, speakers produced sentence structures that could include an optionalthat, thereby delaying the mention of a subsequent noun phrase. This subsequent noun phrase was either (1) conceptually similar to three previous noun phrases in the same sentence, leading to greater proactive interference, or (2) conceptually dissimilar, leading to less proactive interference. Speakers produced morethats (and were more disfluencies) before conceptually similar noun phrases, suggesting that retrieval difficulties during sentence production affect the syntactic structures of sentences that speakers produce.     

SEMANTIC AND PHONOLOGICAL CODING PROCESSES IN SKILLED AND LESS SKILLED READERS' READING OF TEXT

Abstract

Two experiments examine the memory coding processes of skilled and less skilled readers during the reading of connected text. In experiment 1, students read several paragraphs which required a lexical decision about an underlined letter string within a sentence. Underlined letter strings were either synonyms, repeated words, or control words in reference to items in the sentence. Students were later asked to recall words related to their lexical decision, as well as verify the occurrence of sentences from the text. Skilled readers recalled more synonyms than poor readers, whereas no differences emerged between groups in their recall of other types of words related to the lexical task or for the verification of sentences. Experiment 2 procedures were similar to Experiment 1, except that synonyms were replaced with homophones and the sentence verification task included phrases related to the homophones. When compared to less skilled readers, skilled readers recalled more homophones and repeated words, but were more likely to be disrupted in correct verification of sentences with homophones. Taken together, the experiments suggest that along with phonological coding, semantic processing contributes an important amount of variance to deficiencies in the reading of connected text.     

Effects of sentence importance on text recall and recognition: The inferential hypothesis

Abstract

The hypothesis that sentences with important information are more likely to be remembered than less important sentences because the former are inferred to a greater extent than the latter, was explored. In three previous studies, sentence importance in the structure of texts had been established: Main sentences were assigned higher importance ratings, and recalled and recognised better than secondary sentences. In the present experiment, the subjects read two out of six 500-word texts at their own pace and performed a recall or a recognition test 8 min and 7 days later. Different text versions were written; in each version, one main sentence and one secondary sentence were removed from the original texts. me results showed: (1) a higher false alarm rate and intrusion proportion for main sentences compared to secondary sentences; (2) superior net recall scores (after deduction of intrusions) and memory scores (after correction for guessing) for main sentences; but (3) equivalent net recognition scores (after deduction of false alarms) and discrimination (d') scores in the immediate test, and a superior net recognition and discrimination of secondary sentences in the delayed test. It is concluded that the inferential hypothesis is consistent with most of the results, and that the probability of coding and retention does not differ as a function of sentence importance, though main information may be retrieved more easily than less important information.     

Similarity information versus relational information: differences in the time course of retrieval

Two experiments are reported that examine the time course of retrieval in a sentence matching procedure. Subjects learned lists of active and passive sentences and were tested with sentences in active or passive, correct or incorrect versions; for example, if "John hit Bill" was a studied sentence, "Bill hit John" would be an incorrect active test sentence. A response signal procedure was used so that accuracy could be measured as a function of time. The data show that sentences containing words from studied sentences are discriminable early in processing from sentences containing all new words, but discrimination of correct from incorrect versions of studied sentences occurs only later in processing (after 600-700 ms). These results demonstrate that different kinds of information are available at different points during the time course of retrieval and so suggest that modifications are required of models that provide only a unitary value for the amount of match between a test probe and information in memory. Early in processing, the growth of accuracy can be explained by a simple model that assumes independent contributions to total amount of match for each of the content words of a sentence, but this independent processing model cannot account for discrimination later in processing. Several, more general, memory models are examined with respect to their abilities to produce independent item information early in processing and relational information later in processing.     

Depth of processing and recall of threat material in fearful and nonfearful individuals

Abstract

Although many studies have examined the nature of memory distortions in anxious individuals, few have considered biases in specific memory processes, such as encoding or retrieval. To investigate whether the presentation of threat material facilitates encoding biases, spider fearful (n=63), blood fearful (n=73), and nonfearful (n=75) participants encoded spider related, blood related, and neutral words as a function of three levels of processing (i.e., structural, semantic, and self referent). Participants subsequently completed either a free recall or a recognition task. All participants demonstrated a partial depth of processing effect, such that they recalled more words encoded in the self referent condition than in the other two conditions, but groups did not differ in their recall of stimuli as a function of word type. Relative to participants in the other groups, spider fearful participants had fewer spider related intrusions in the recall condition, and they made fewer errors in responding to structural and semantic encoding questions when spider related words were presented. These results contribute to an increasingly large body of literature suggesting that anxious individuals are not characterized by a memory bias toward threat, and they raise the possibility that individuals with spider fears process threat-relevant information differently than individuals with blood fears.     

Remembering ads: The effects of encoding strategies,retrieval cues,and emotional response

This study uses the encoding specificity principle ( Tulving & Thomson, 1973 ) and the distinction between episodic and semantic knowledge to test predictions about the effects of processing goals and retrieval cues on memory for emotional and neutral TV commercials. Subjects viewed five emotional and five neutral ads embedded in programming. Encoding instructions asked subjects to either (a) evaluate each product or (b) “just watch” as they viewed the ads. Retrieval cues were either the opening scene of each ad (executional cue) or the product category (categorical cue). Both recall and response-time measures were used to index ad memory-trace accessibility. The results showed that when encoding and retrieval conditions were compatible (evaluation instructions with categorical cue, and just-watch instructions with executional cue) ad memory traces were retrieved more rapidly than when encoding and retrieval conditions were incompatible. In addition, subjects who “just watched” emotional ads were able to retrieve those ad memory traces more rapidly when given an executional cue compared to a categorical cue, whereas subjects who evaluated neutral ads at encoding recalled more ads, and retrieved them more rapidly, when given a categorical cue compared to an executional cue. Finally, we show that searching memory first with an executional cue and then with a product-category cue leads to an increase in ad recall for both emotional and neutral ads, whereas searching first with a categorical cue and then with an executional cue leads to a decrease in ad recall for neutral ads.     

Aging and the impact of causal connections on text comprehension and memory

Abstract

The hypothesis that aging is associated with an increased dependence on text-based organizational cues to support recall was investigated in two experiments. In the first, young and older adults read pairs of sentences that varied in their causal coherence. Recall for the second sentence in each pair was then tested using the first as a cue. the pattern of results suggested that young adults were likely to spontaneously infer causal connections between sentences when none was provided, whereas older adults were more likely to depend upon text-based connections to establish coherence and support memory. Experiment 2 supported this conclusion by demonstrating that the recall performance of older adults benefited more than did that of young and middle-aged adults when participants (a) were prompted to produce a link between sentences or (b) actually produced an integrative response that established a causal connection between the first and second sentences.     

Linguistic structures and mental operations

The internal representations and mental operations used in verifying a sentence against a pictorial referent are examined in an experiment where the location of the false constituent (subject, verb, or object) varied. The latencies for false sentences were ordered: verb, grammatical subject, grammatical object, with verb mismatches being detected the fastest. An information-processing analysis indicated that both comparison and search operations are employed, and that sentences are represented, in general, as a list of propositions with case-relational information. Context and task demands impose order on the list and lead to different operations on these structures. The depth of processing sentences varies from simple lexical comparisons up to full encoding and usage of syntactic and semantic features and case relations.     

The effects of “effort after meaning” on recall: Differences in within- and between-subjects designs

In four experiments, we examined free recall of ambiguous sentences with or without corresponding cues to facilitate comprehension, using Auble and Franks’s (1978) paradigm to examine effort after meaning (Bartlett, 1932). The ambiguous sentences were studied without cues, with cues meaningfully embedded in them, with cues provided shortly before the sentence (precue), or with cues following the sentence after several seconds (delayed cue). When these conditions were manipulated within subjects, the process of cue integration in the pre- and delayed-cue conditions enhanced recall, relative to the no-cue and embedded-cue conditions. Furthermore, in a test condition in which subjects first attempted to recall the cues alone, recall was also best in the delayed-cue condition. The effects described above did not occur when the cue presentation conditions varied between subjects, and on a test of order reconstruction, there was even an advantage for sentences studied in the embedded-cue condition over those studied in the delayed-cue condition. The dissociative effects of experimental design on sentence recall and order reconstruction suggest that effort after meaning might enhance memory for study items at the cost of impairing memory for temporal order information.     

Endogenous Covert Spatial Orienting in Audition Cost-Benefit Analyses of Reaction Times and Event related Potentials

The presentstudy examines mechanisms ofendogenous covertspatialorienting inaudition as revealed by event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and reaction times (RTs). In one experimental condition, subjects were instructed to respond to any target tone irrespective of whether it was presented in a valid (spatially predictive cue), neutral (uninformative cue), or invalid (misleading cue) trial. In another experimental condition, only target tones presented at a cued position required a response-that is, subjects could completely ignore tones presented at the uncued ear. Cue validity had an effect on RT, which consisted in benefits for valid trials and in costs for invalid trials relative to the RTs in neutral trials. There were also distinct ERP effects of cue validity in the 100-300 msec time range. These ERP effects were enlarged in the condition in which uncued tones could be ignored. The effects of cue validity onRTsandERPsdemonstratedcovertorientinginauditionbothforstimulirequiring anovert response andalso for stimuli that did not require a behavioural response. It is argued that this attentional selection is located at intermediate stages of information processing, rather than at peripheral stages such as basic sensory-specific processing or response selection.     

Processing category terms in context: instantiation and the structure of semantic categories

The present study sought to determine if semantic categories processed in context are encoded as particular exemplars. In Experiment 1 we replicated previous results on an extended and modified set of stimuli by showing that when subjects read sentences containing a category term in a context designed to bias encoding toward an atypical exemplar, the atypical exemplar serves as a better retrieval cue than a typical exemplar. In Experiment 2 we tested whether these cued-recall results were due to processes operating at encoding or retrieval. The pattern of semantic interference obtained in a modified Stroop paradigm clearly contradicted the position that readers routinely encode general terms as examples, or "instantiations." In particular, there was significant color-naming interference when typical exemplars served as targets even when preceded by sentences designed to bias encoding toward an atypical exemplar. No significant color-naming interference was generated to atypical exemplars. Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that differences between the cued-recall and Stroop results in the first two experiments were due to encoding strategy differences. It was concluded that assigning a referent to a category term is not a routine activity in sentence encoding and that processing category terms entails activation of summary representations.     

The effect of inducing panic search on the detection of fear-relevant and neutral images

Panic search occurs when the presentation of a fearful facial expression precue, prior to a search display, improves target detection relative to when neutral and positive expressions are used. In the present study, fearful and neutral expressions acted as precues and targets were images of either neutral or threatening animals. It was predicted that detection of a threatening image following a fearful precue would be particularly facilitated. In a first experiment, target detection was better when targets were threatening than neutral, but the predicted cue enhancement did not occur. In a second experiment, when cue type was blocked, participants were particularly facilitated in responding to threatening targets following fearful precues. It is concluded that consistent and repeated exposure to threatening facial expression results in a generalized increase in processing efficiency and that such a state induces a particular facilitation in responding in the presence of threatening targets.     

Focus identification during sentence comprehension: Evidence from eye movements

Three eye movement experiments investigated focus identification during sentence comprehension. Participants read dative or double-object sentences (i.e., either the direct or indirect object occurred first), and a replacive continuation supplied a contrast that was congruous with either the direct or the indirect object. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated focus by locating only adjacent to either the direct or indirect object of dative (Experiment 1) or double-object (Experiment 2) sentences. Reading-time effects indicated that the surface position of the focus particle influenced processing. In addition, Experiment 1 reading times were longer when the replacive was incongruous with the constituent that only adjoined, and particle position modulated a similar effect in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 showed that this effect was absent when only was omitted. We conclude that the surface position of a focus particle modulates focus identification during on-line sentence comprehension.     

Task Demands and Sentence Comprehension in Patients with Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type

Patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and matched normal controls were given three tests of syntactic comprehension in which nonlinguistic visual and memory task demands were varied. In all tasks, subjects were presented spoken semantically reversible sentences with a variety of syntactic structures and required to match the sentence to a picture. In the first experiment, subjects matched the spoken sentence to one of two pictures that appeared either before or immediately following the presentation of the sentence. The target picture depicted the spoken sentence correctly and the foil depicted the reversed thematic roles to those in the sentence (i.e., it was a syntactic foil). The second experiment employed a sentence video-verification task in which subjects were required to determine if the spoken sentence matched a videotaped depiction of the action in the sentence or a syntactic foil. In the third experiment, in different conditions, subjects were required to determine whether the spoken sentence matched a single picture or to choose the picture that matched the sentence from an array of two or three pictures. In this experiment, both lexical and syntactic foils were used. In all tasks, DAT patients were affected by the number of propositions in the presented sentence, but not by the syntactic complexity of the sentence. Control subjects also were unaffected by the syntactic complexity of the sentence; the number-of-proposition effect was present in some experiments in the control population. Comparison of performance across the one-, two-, and three-picture versions of the task showed that the magnitude of the effect of number of propositions increased as the number of pictures in the array increased. In addition, analysis of the data from each of the tasks separately showed that the effect of number of propositions only occurred when subjects were attempting to match the target to a syntactic foil (one-picture version) or to choose between the target and a syntactic foil (two- and three-picture versions). The results support the view that patients with DAT do not have disturbances affecting syntactic processing. In addition, they suggest that the effect of number of propositions arises at a stage of analysis that is partially separate from assigning sentence meaning, such as in holding a representation of the sentence in memory until the pictures can be analyzed and encoded and/or in comparing the results of the picture analysis with a stored representation of the sentence meaning.     

Emotional modulation of attention orienting by gaze varies with dynamic cue sequence

ABSTRACT

Recent gaze cueing studies using dynamic cue sequences have reported increased attention orienting by gaze with faces expressing fear, surprise or anger. Here, we investigated whether the type of dynamic cue sequence used impacted the magnitude of this effect. When the emotion was expressed before or concurrently with gaze shift, no modulation of gaze-oriented attention by emotion was seen. In contrast, when the face cue averted gaze before expressing an emotion (as if reacting to the object after first localizing it), the gaze orienting effect was clearly increased for fearful, surprised and angry faces compared to neutral faces. Thus, the type of dynamic sequence used, and in particular the order in which the gaze shift and the facial expression are presented, modulate gaze-oriented attention, with maximal modulation seen when the expression of emotion follows gaze shift.