Change in perceptual form attenuates the use of the fluency heuristic in recognition

Four experiments (total N=295) were conducted to determine whether within-modality changes in perceptual form between the study and the test phases of an experiment would moderate the role of the fluency heuristic in recognition memory. Experiment 1 showed that a change from pictures to words reduced the role of fluency in recognition memory. In Experiment 2, the same result was found using counterfeit study lists that supposedly consisted of pictures or words. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that changes in the font used to present the study and test words also attenuated the contribution of fluency to the recognition decision when font change was manipulated between subjects, but not within subjects. Results suggest that the fluency heuristic is subject to metacognitive control, since participants' attributions of perceptual fluency depend on the perceived usefulness of fluency as a cue to recognition.     

It just felt right: The neural correlates of the fluency heuristic

Simple heuristics exploit basic human abilities, such as recognition memory, to make decisions based on sparse information. Based on the relative speed of recognizing two objects, the fluency heuristic infers that the one recognized more quickly has the higher value with respect to the criterion of interest. Behavioral data show that reliance on retrieval fluency enables quick inferences. Our goal with the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study was to isolate fluency-heuristic-based judgments to map the use of fluency onto specific brain areas that might give a better understanding of the heuristic’s underlying processes. Activation within the claustrum for fluency heuristic decisions was found. Given that claustrum activation is thought to reflect the integration of perceptual and memory elements into a conscious gestalt, we suggest this activation correlates with the experience of fluency.     

The heuristic basis of remembering and classification: fluency, generation, and resemblance

People use 3 heuristics (fluency, generation, and resemblance) in remembering a prior experience of a stimulus. The authors demonstrate that people use the same 3 heuristics in classifying a stimulus as a member of a category and interpret this as support for the idea that people have a unitary memory system that operates by the same fundamental principles in both remembering and nonremembering tasks. The authors argue that the fundamental functions of memory are the production of specific mental events, under the control of the stimulus, task, and context, and the evaluation of the coherence of those events, which controls the subjective experience accompanying performance.     

Testing QuickEst: No evidence for the Quick-Estimation heuristic

The Quick-Estimation heuristic (QuickEst) was introduced by Hertwig, Hoffrage, and Martignon (1999 Hertwig , R. , Hoffrage , U. , & Martignon , L. (1999) . Quick estimation: Letting the environment do the work . In G. Gigerenzer , P. M. Todd , & the ABC Research Group (Eds.) , Simple heuristics that make us smart (pp. 209 – 234) . New York : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]) as a fast and frugal method to generate numerical estimates. The heuristic posits that estimate-relevant knowledge is organised and searched according to ordered reference classes that are based on binary cue values. Two experiments tested two main predictions derived from QuickEst with respect to the memory search and estimation behaviour of human participants. The results provided no evidence that QuickEst is used in numerical estimation processes. As alternative explanation of our findings, we discuss a cyclic sampling mechanism that retrieves information from memory according to their associative strength.     

Sound and pattern in artificial fluency: Spectrographic evidence

This study was designed to yield objective information relative to Wingate's hypothesis that common influences are operative in conditions widely reported to induce fluency in stutterers (Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 1969, 12, 677; 1970, 13, 861; Stuttering: Theory and Treatment, New York: Irvington-Wiley, 1976). Spectrographic tracings of the same phrase uttered under four ameliorative conditions and, as usually spoken, were obtained from four stutterers and four normal speakers. Comparisons among these tracings support the inference that the reduction in stuttering typically found in these conditions reflects certain changes in manner of speaking, principally in the pattern of intonation.     

Converging evidence for information-processing stages: A comparative-influence stage-analysis method

The isolation and identification of stages of information processing has been a goal of experimental psychologists for over 100 years. Several methodological procedures for pursuing this goal have been developed, but few attempts have been made to compare the results from the different methods. A new comparative-influence stage-analysis technique based on a combination of two earlier methods is proposed, and several experiments utilizing the new technique are reported. The overall results from the new stage-analysis method are quite consistent with those obtained from earlier methods and provide important converging evidence for the concept of stages of information processing. The new stage-analysis technique also provides a theoretical statement of the relationship between tachistoscopic and reaction time tasks, and illustrates the translatability of accuracy and speed as measures of human performance.     

Converging evidence that fear of success is multidimensional

Fear of Success (FOS) was originally conceived as a unidimensional motive. However, there is both theoretical and empirical support for the hypothesis that FOS is multidimensional. We factor analyzed the responses of 236 undergraduates to twenty-oneConcern Over the Negative Consequences of Success items and found four factors. Our four factors show considerable overlap with dimensions based on theoretical accounts of FOS etiology as well as with the factor structures obtained from two other factor analytic studies. Thus, there is converging evidence that FOS is multidimensional. The relationship between multidimensional FOS and a multidimensional approach to achievement motivation is discussed.     

The use of heuristic strategies in the interpretation of pronouns

The aim of the two experiments reported here was to distinguish between two heuristic strategies that have been proposed to account for the assignment of pronouns: the subject assignment strategy and the parallel function strategy. According to the subject assignment strategy, a pronoun is assigned to a preceding subject noun phrase, whereas according to the parallel function strategy, a pronoun is assigned to a previous noun phrase in the same grammatical position as the pronoun. These two strategies were tested by examining the interpretation of single object pronouns, first in a reading task and second in an assignment task. In both experiments, there was a strong preference for assigning an object pronoun to the preceding subject noun phrase, thus supporting the subject assignment strategy. However, this was only the case for pronouns that were linguistically ambiguous. When assignment was constrained by gender, there was no effect of either strategy. It is suggested that heuristic strategies are only used in the absence of other strong cues to assignment.     

The semantic organization of the animal category: evidence from semantic verbal fluency and network theory

Semantic memory is the subsystem of human memory that stores knowledge of concepts or meanings, as opposed to life-specific experiences. How humans organize semantic information remains poorly understood. In an effort to better understand this issue, we conducted a verbal fluency experiment on 200 participants with the aim of inferring and representing the conceptual storage structure of the natural category of animals as a network. This was done by formulating a statistical framework for co-occurring concepts that aims to infer significant concept-concept associations and represent them as a graph. The resulting network was analyzed and enriched by means of a missing links recovery criterion based on modularity. Both network models were compared to a thresholded co-occurrence approach. They were evaluated using a random subset of verbal fluency tests and comparing the network outcomes (linked pairs are clustering transitions and disconnected pairs are switching transitions) to the outcomes of two expert human raters. Results show that the network models proposed in this study overcome a thresholded co-occurrence approach, and their outcomes are in high agreement with human evaluations. Finally, the interplay between conceptual structure and retrieval mechanisms is discussed.     

The self-regulating child: Converging evidence from psychoanalysis,infant research,and sociolinguistics

This paper takes up certain similarities between psychoanalysis, developmental psycholinguistics, and infant research with particular relationship to children's self-regulation. The point is made that these disciplines are currently moving toward agreement concerning the early social construction of the mind and its eventual privatization. Each depicts the progression from other- to self-regulation as a key dimension, one fraught with impressively complex dynamics. Further, each relies upon similar methodologies to arrive at its arguments. It is determined that the boundaries separating these three disciplines are man-made, and much can be gained by crossing them.     

Converging evidence for the role of relative timing in speech

In an earlier article (Tuller, Kelso, & Harris, 1982a) we suggested that the timing of consonant-related muscle activity was constrained relative to the period between onsets of muscle activity for successive vowels. Here, we reexamine those data based on reservations posed by Barry (1983). Next, we present a kinematic study of articulation that extends and strongly supports our original observations. Finally, we very briefly survey some converging lines of evidence for a functionally significant vowel-to-vowel period in speech and how this may relate to the role of temporal invariance in motor skills in general.     

Converging evidence that fear of success is multidimensional

Fear of Success (FOS) was originally conceived as a unidimensional motive. However, there is both theoretical and empirical support for the hypothesis that FOS is multidimensional. We factor analyzed the responses of 236 undergraduates to twenty-oneConcern Over the Negative Consequences of Success items and found four factors. Our four factors show considerable overlap with dimensions based on theoretical accounts of FOS etiology as well as with the factor structures obtained from two other factor analytic studies. Thus, there is converging evidence that FOS is multidimensional. The relationship between multidimensional FOS and a multidimensional approach to achievement motivation is discussed.     

Judgments of learning reflect encoding fluency: conclusive evidence for the ease-of-processing hypothesis

According to the ease-of-processing hypothesis, judgments of learning (JOLs) rely on the ease with which items are committed to memory during encoding--that is, encoding fluency. Conclusive evidence for this hypothesis does not yet exist because encoding fluency and item difficulty have been confounded in all previous studies. To disentangle the effects of encoding fluency and item difficulty on JOLs, we used a variant of the learner-observer-judge method in which participants observed the study phase of another participant and indicated his or her JOLs. At the same time, the to-be-studied word pairs were concealed by strings of symbols. Our experiment revealed that participants use self-paced study time as a cue for JOLs when they themselves have studied and recalled word pairs before. This metacognitive monitoring of study time provides strong support for the ease-of-processing hypothesis.     

Converging evidence for the functional significance of imagery in problem solving

Two kinds of explanations have been offered for the process by which three-term series problems are solved, one in terms of linguistic principles and the other in terms of visual-spatial imagery. Two experiments are reported in which three different classes of operations are brought to bear on the problem: (1) Manipulation of stimulus attributes (characteristics of problems), (2) manipulation of variables that selectively encourage or inhibit the use of imagery (facilitating instructions; the suppression of visualization by reading), and (3) measurement of relevant individual differences (spatial-reasoning ability). All of the results indicate that imagery plays a functional but not a necessary role in the solution of three-term series problems; it is suggested that imaginal representation is functional because it reduces the load on memory. An adequate explanation of problem-solving will have to address certain general issues, such as the diversity of forms of cognitive representation and differences within and between individuals in the choice of problem-solving strategies.     

Pathway control in visual word processing: Converging evidence from recognition memory

The extent to which readers can exert strategic control over oral reading processes is a matter of debate. According to the pathway control hypothesis, the relative contributions of the lexical and nonlexical pathways can be modulated by the characteristics of the context stimuli being read, but an alternative time criterion model is also a viable explanation of past results. In Experiment 1, subjects named high- and low-frequency regular words in the context of either low-frequency exception words (e.g., pint) or nonwords (e.g., flirp). Frequency effects (faster pronunciation latencies for high-frequency words) were attenuated in the nonword context, consistent with the notion that nonwords emphasize the characteristics of the frequency-insensitive nonlexical pathway. Importantly, we also assessed memory for targets, and a similar attenuation of the frequency effect in recognition memory was observed in the nonword condition. Converging evidence was obtained in a second experiment in which a variable that was more sensitive to the nonlexical pathway (orthographic neighborhood size) was manipulated. The results indicated that both speeded pronunciation performance and memory performance were relatively attenuated in the low-frequency exception word context in comparision with the nonword context. The opposing influences of list context type for word frequency and orthographic neighborhood size effects in speeded pronunciation and memory performance provide strong support for the pathway control model, as opposed to the time criterion model.     

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.     

Beyond grounded theory: The use of a heuristic approach to qualitative research

The grounded theory approach has become established as the qualitative methodology of choice for many counselling and psychotherapy researchers. It is now becoming apparent to many researchers that there are significant difficulties associated with defining what the grounded theory method actually is, and how is should be implemented. In addition, its popularity has tended to keep other qualitative approaches under‐explored and under‐utilised. This paper explores some of the methodological issues raised by the grounded theory approach, before presenting and then contrasting heuristic inquiry as a very different but equally useful form of qualitative methodology. Finally, the notion of researcher as bricoleur will be considered in the light of the need to develop pluralistic approaches to qualitative research in counselling and psychotherapy.     

Inhibition of task set: Converging evidence from task choice in the voluntary task-switching paradigm

This study looked for evidence of task-set inhibition in a voluntary task-switching paradigm. Participants performed one of three tasks on a digit: parity (even or odd), size (less than or greater than 5), or distance (near or far from 5). On each trial, they were allowed to choose which task to perform, with encouragement to perform each task equally often overall and in a random sequence. The question was whether participants would avoid performing a task that they had recently switched away from (e.g., the task performed on trial n22), because the task set was still inhibited. Results confirmed that participants strongly avoided performing the n22 task (e.g., ABA) in favor of performing other tasks (e.g., ABC). This occurred both when participants were required to switch tasks every trial (Experiment 1) and when they were allowed to repeat tasks (Experiment 2). The results suggest that a task set is inhibited during switching to a new task, reducing the likelihood that this task will be selected in the near future.