The difficulty with recalling people's names: The plausible phonology hypothesis

Abstract

Recalling the name of a person is a simple, but often a problematic, everyday task. There are various explanations of this phenomenon, but here it is argued that the explanations offered so far, by failing to consider learning of names, have overlooked a simple account of name recall difficulty. The starting observation for this viewpoint is that names of people are often non-words, in that they have never been encountered before. This is not true of, say, names of professions. Not only does the relatively high rate of new exemplars mean that people's names are likely to be underlearned, but furthermore, even for equal degrees of learning, a person's name is at a disadvantage because of the high plausibility of most phonologies: “dreaner” is much more readily accepted as the name of a person than as the name of their profession. So specifying the phonology of people's names is inherently a more demanding task, compared to the phonology of other names. The implications of this view are explored with regard to explanations of empirically established name recall phenomena in normal subjects, the patterns of performance of anomic patients and the difficulty of name recall in different word domains. It is shown that these arguments, derived from a real world fact, account in a simple way for existing data and make predictions in different areas of research.     

An ecological study of professors' memory for student names and faces: A replication and extension

Abstract

This experiment measured university professors' memory for the names and faces of current and former students over a two-semester span. If courses function as contextual retrieval cues for professors to remember their students, the passing of each semester should diminish the distinctiveness of these cues. Based on the Bruce and Young (1986) model of face recognition, we hypothesised that as contextual cues become less distinctive, performance should suffer more on name recall tests than on name or face recognition tests. We found that name free recall and portrait-cued name recall declined very sharply after one semester (6 months), and face recognition declined after two semesters (12 months), whereas name recognition remained perfect These results provide a general replication and extension of Bahrick (1984), and show that difficulties in recalling names cannot be due to any weakening of name representations in memory. We suggest that name recall may be dependent on contextual cues that become less distinctive with succeeding semesters.     

Middle age and marriage: Affiliative men and assertive women

Abstract

This paper reviews recent literature on the psychological changes that occur in middle age in men and women which indicate that men tend to become more affiliated and women more assertive. A series of cases are presented to illustrate the impact of these changes on middle age and marriage.     

Naming faces and naming names: Exploring an interactive activation model of person recognition

Abstract

In this paper we present an interactive activation and competition (LAC) model of name recognition. This is an extension of a previous account of name retrieval (Burton & Bruce, 1992) and is based on a functional model due to Valentine, Bredart, Lawson, and Ward (1991). Several empirical effects of name recognition are simulated: (1) names that are known are read faster than names that are unknown; (2) common names are read faster than rare names; and (3) rare names are recognised as familiar faster than common names. The simulations demonstrate that these complex effects can arise as a natural consequence of the architecture of the LAC model. Finally, we explore a modification of the Valentine et al. functional model, and conclude that the model as originally proposed is best able to account for the available data.     

Perceived Coparenting Support and Later Relationship Status among Cohabiting Parents

Abstract

To help with the fragile nature of cohabiting parents' relationship, more understanding about their interpersonal experiences is needed to identify factors that matters for their relationship stability. We examined how cohabiting parents' perceived coparenting support from their partner was associated with their later relationship status (married/cohabiting/not together). Further, we examined the possible moderating effect of perceived coparenting support on the association between marriage plans and later relationship status. Results suggested that the associations between fathers' plans and couples' marriage entrance as well as continued cohabitation were dependent upon fathers' perceived coparenting support from mothers. Clinical and research implications are discussed.     

Public Reactions to Unusual Names

Abstract

A sample of lower income Blacks, lower income Whites, higher income Blacks, and higher income Whites in the United States were asked about children's first names, the reasons the names were selected, and the identity of the persons who named the children. The most frequent reason for naming children in all four groups was “I/we just liked it.” The Whites were more likely than the Blacks to have named the child after a family member. Shoppers were then asked to rate the unusual names, along with a random sample of usual names, on six attributes: successful, moral, healthy, warm, cheerful, and gender appropriate. The shoppers were divided into eight groups in a two-income levels, two sexes, and two races design. The ratings were higher for usual names for all six attributes for all eight groups of raters. Although the unusual names had negative connotations for a wide variety of people in the community, name choices were usually the result of parents' current nonrational preferences.     

Proper name retrieval in old age: Converging evidence against disproportionate impairment

Abstract

In this article, the task of separating specific from general effects of normal aging on cognition is illustrated by considering the retrieval of proper names as a possible case of exceptional or disproportionate age-related impairment. First, existing evidence both for and against disproportionate impairment is reviewed from several sources, including self-rated questionnaires, diary and laboratory studies of memory failures, and the speeded naming of objects versus people. Some new regression analyses of naming responses are then presented; they demonstrate that the effect of age on proper name retrieval can be removed by taking into account the effect of age on other processes not involving proper name retrieval. Finally, data from face and voice identification tasks are analyzed in terms of conditional probabilities which reveal that the effect of age on the final stage of name retrieval is no greater than the effect of age on the earlier stages of recognition and semantic information retrieval. the findings from these different methods converge on the conclusion that proper name retrieval is not disproportionately impaired by normal aging. Some possible explanations for older people's persistent complaints of poor memory for names are discussed.     

Towards a unitary account of access dysphasia: A single case study

Abstract

We report the case of a patient, H.E.C., with a profound verbal comprehension impairment. His comprehension impairment involved both common names (animal and inanimate items) and proper names. Within the proper name category, his comprehension of country and famous peoples' names was better than his comprehension of common forenames. By using matching to sample techniques, H.E.C.'s impairment was found to be affected by presentation rate and by semantic relatedness, but not by word frequency. An analysis of his responses showed marked inconsistency and serial position effects (i.e. a decrement of performance on subsequent presentations of the same items). H.E.C.'s comprehension deficit was interpreted in terms of an “access” impairment within the word-meaning system. A unitary account of this impairment in terms of a deficit that delays the return, following activation, of the set of representations underlying a word, to a “ready state” is proposed.     

What’s In a Name? Marital Name Choice Revisited

In two studies we assessed the percentage of brides who chose nontraditional marital names and characteristics that were related to name choice. In Study 1 we analyzed wedding announcements from The New York Times, 1982–2002. In Study 2 we surveyed the name choices, reasons for them, and associated characteristics of a sample of 126 college-educated women who have been part of a longitudinal study since 1993. A substantial minority of brides (29%) chose nontraditional names in Study 1, whereas 46% did in Study 2; the difference reflects the higher proportion of Women of Color and the higher educational level of women in Study 2. Other characteristics associated with nontraditional naming were: older age at marriage, more feminist attitudes, higher career commitment, and less value of the role of mother.     

The Suffocation of Marriage: Climbing Mount Maslow Without Enough Oxygen

This article distills insights from historical, sociological, and psychological perspectives on marriage to develop the suffocation model of marriage in America. According to this model, contemporary Americans are asking their marriage to help them fulfill different sets of goals than in the past. Whereas they ask their marriage to help them fulfill their physiological and safety needs much less than in the past, they ask it to help them fulfill their esteem and self-actualization needs much more than in the past. Asking the marriage to help them fulfill the latter, higher level needs typically requires sufficient investment of time and psychological resources to ensure that the two spouses develop a deep bond and profound insight into each other's essential qualities. Although some spouses are investing sufficient resources—and reaping the marital and psychological benefits of doing so—most are not. Indeed, they are, on average, investing less than in the past. As a result, mean levels of marital quality and personal well-being are declining over time. According to the suffocation model, spouses who are struggling with an imbalance between what they are asking from their marriage and what they are investing in it have several promising options for corrective action: intervening to optimize their available resources, increasing their investment of resources in the marriage, and asking less of the marriage in terms of facilitating the fulfillment of spouses’ higher needs. Discussion explores the implications of the suffocation model for understanding dating and courtship, sociodemographic variation, and marriage beyond American's borders.     

What's in a name? access to information from people's names

Abstract

The processing of people's names is contrasted with face recognition and word recognition. The effects of the familiarity of initial and surnames and frequency of surnames (the number of people with the same surname) were investigated in several tasks. It was found that the effects of name familiarity and surname frequency were analogous to the effects of word frequency in tasks which did not require access to memory for individuals (a nationality decision and naming latency). In tasks which do require access to memory for individuals (familiarity decision and a semantic classification), the effect of surname frequency was analogous to the effect of distinctive-ness in face recognition. The results are discussed in terms of a functional model of name processing in which name recognition units mediate between the output of word recognition units and access to identity-specific semantics.     

The Pathway Toward Clinical Self Confidence

This study was designed to determine the most common pathway toward the development of clinical self-confidence for therapists during the first year of client contact. Telephone interviews were conducted with 39 recent graduates of a master's level marriage and family therapy program. Subjects were asked to graph their development of clinical self-confidence over the first 12 months of their clinical experience. Results reveal a three-stage model of therapist development. The implications for training within each stage of development are identified with an emphasis on the role of the supervisor.     

The changes in psychological characteristics and reactions of elite athletes from injury onset until full recovery

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to describe the psychological characteristics and reactions of injured athletes and to examine the changes in these reactions throughout their rehabilitation. This study examined 136 elite injured athletes from 25 sports at four phases: upon injury, partial recovery, semi-recovery, and full recovery. Injury appraisal, athlete's demographics, and emotional and psychological variables were measured. Duration of injuries ranged from 4 to 99 weeks (M = 19 weeks). Changes were examined through a series of repeated measure MAN-OVAs with polynomial contrasts. Findings were typically as expected: increased confidence and vigor and decreased negative emotional responses over the recovery period. The changes over the recovery period were not always at a constant rate. Confidence of adhering to rehabilitation, passive, and emotion-focused coping, remained stable over time. The initial injury appraisal, regarding anticipated loss of time and the psychological impact of this, needs to be examined further. The psychological state of the athlete at the various stages of recovery has important implications for those diagnosing injuries and implementing rehabilitation programs.     

Name‐changes in post‐war France: The traumatic experiences of the Shoah and its consequences on the second and third generation with reference to the example of name‐changes

Starting from our collective initiative to work on the theme of ‘The strength of the name’, which has given rise both to a conference as well as a documentary called: And their name, they have changed it, I have sought to draw attention in this article to the difference between proper names, patronymic names, and the so‐called Name‐of‐the‐father. Pronouncing names involves designating the languages of names, which also refer to the accents of names, since I have proposed the idea that each name is evocative of a language, and that changing it also modifies the language of the name. I have approached the question of the name by considering cases of name‐changes, essential with regard to Ashkenazi Jewish families who changed their name after the Shoah, along with the trauma that numerous Jewish families suffered after the war. French jurisprudence does not permit reversion to the original name, once it has been changed to a more French‐sounding name, owing to the immutability of the name and the foreign sound of the names of origin.     

Elaborative processing of pictures in verbal domains

Four experiments were performed to evaluate the effect of semantic and nonsemantic verbal elaboration of the names of pictures on free recall, picture-name recognition, and picture recognition. Elaboration was manipulated by having subjects decide if the names of pictures contained two letters, rhymed with another word, or were appropriate in a sentence frame. Semantic elaboration of the names of pictures in sentence contexts requiring positive responses resulted in better name recall (Experiment 1) and name recognition (Experiments 1 and 2) than did nonsemantic elaborations (rhyme- and letter-identification tasks). However, the effects of elaborating pictures-names were greatly reduced for picture recognition (Experiments 3 and 4). The results are described in terms of elaborative processing after semantic access. Following initial semantic access, the names of pictures may be further elaborated. Semantic elaboration of the names of pictures typically leads to better retention than does nonsemantic elaboration. However, perceptual records about the appearance of objects may be relatively independent of orienting tasks that elaborate pictures- names.     

Who Has the Power?

SUMMARY

“Who Has the Power” describes the impact of a wife's change in role on her husband. Despite the seemingly harmonious nature of traditional gender behavior, uni-dimensional roles cannot sustain a dynamic marriage. In order for a lively marriage to be sustained, both partners must alter their style of relating when either one changes. When this is achieved, the couple moves from an illusion of themselves and the coupling and can begin to deal with the reality of who they are.     

Commitment: A variable in women's response to marital therapy

Abstract

The relationship between commitment to one's marriage at the onset of therapy and changes during marital therapy was examined. In a sample of 42 couples seeking marital therapy, wives' commitment level accounted for a significant amount of unique variance in marital satisfaction before therapy and gains in marital satisfaction resulting from therapy. In keeping with earlier findings, results for men were less striking, and often nonsignificant. The importance of considering the variable of commitment in marital research is discussed.     

Learning letter names and sounds: Effects of instruction, letter type, and phonological processing skill

Preschool-age children (N = 58) were randomly assigned to receive instruction in letter names and sounds, letter sounds only, or numbers (control). Multilevel modeling was used to examine letter name and sound learning as a function of instructional condition and characteristics of both letters and children. Specifically, learning was examined in light of letter name structure, whether letter names included cues to their respective sounds, and children’s phonological processing skills. Consistent with past research, children receiving letter name and sound instruction were most likely to learn the sounds of letters whose names included cues to their sounds regardless of phonological processing skills. Only children with higher phonological skills showed a similar effect in the control condition. Practical implications are discussed.