Persuasion or Alignment?

Persuasion is a fact of social life, one upon which positive and negative views can be taken. Argumentative rhetoric is often functionally defined as aiming to persuade. Different views on persuasion are taken in argumentative studies, and many other disciplines focus on persuasion. This article takes an “inter-discursive” view of argumentation, and, following the “Hamblin’s trend”, suggests a possible replacement for the concept of persuasion by the inter-discursive concept of alignment.     

Spreading activation or spooky action at a distance?

How do preexisting connections among a word's associates facilitate its cued recall and recognition? A spreading-activation model assumes activation spreads to, among, and from a studied word's associates, and that its return is what strengthens its representation. An activation-at-a-distance model assumes strengthening is produced by the synchronous activation of the word's associates. The spread model predicts that connections among the studied word's associates will have a greater effect on memory when more of its associates return activation. The distance model predicts that total connections are important, not their direction. The results of cued recall experiments supported the distance model in showing that that connections among the associates facilitated recall regardless of the number of returning connections.     

The effects of alerting signals in action control: activation of S–R associations or inhibition of executive control processes?

Non-informative, task-irrelevant auditory alerting signals often lead to increased interference effects in selective attention paradigms (e.g., Simon, Eriksen flanker). Some authors conclude that the alerting attentional network, activated by the alerting signal, reveals an inhibitory influence upon the executive attentional network, resulting in attenuated executive control. Alternatively, in the present study we argue that increased interference effects might be explained by alerting signals facilitating response activation processes (i.e., the activation of established S–R links). In a modified Eriksen-flanker paradigm, we contrasted these assumptions. We used word flanker stimuli for which S–R associations were established and word flanker stimuli without S–R associations. The presence of an alerting signal increased flanker compatibility only for flanker stimuli for which S–R associations existed while flanker compatibility effects were the same for all flanker types in conditions without alerting signals. Therefore, we conclude that alerting signals enhance stimulus triggered visuo-motor response activation processes.     

Same-hand and different-hand finger pairings in two-choice reaction time: presence or absence of response competition?

Several two-choice reaction time experiments have compared conditions in which the two possible responses were from the same hand (same-hand pairing) or from different hands (different-hand pairing). Studies that used only the two relevant fingers on response keys reported shorter reaction times for the different-hand pairing. In other studies, two additional but irrelevant fingers were also in contact with response keys. These fingers were irrelevant in the sense that they never were required to respond. With this procedure, equivalent reaction times were found between same-hand and different-hand pairings. Reeve and Proctor (1988) recently have argued that using only two fingers results in response competition between the two fingers from the same hand, yielding shorter reaction times for the different-hand pairing condition. In contrast, when four fingers are placed on response keys, response competition should be absent for both the same-hand and the different-hand pairing conditions, resulting in equivalent reaction times. In the present work, reaction times associated with the same-hand pairing condition remained unchanged, irrespective of the number of fingers positioned on keys. In the different-hand pairing condition, reaction times were found to be longer when four fingers were used than when only two fingers rested on response keys. Thus, when four fingers are placed on keys, response competition appears to be present rather than absent. Other results showed that the response competition found in the different-hand pairing condition decreases with practice.     

Hyperstriatal function in the pigeon: response inhibition or response shift?

Experiment 1 showed that pigeons with lesions of the anterior or posterior hyperstriatum were impaired relative to unoperated controls and to control operates having neostriatal lesions on both acquisition and reversal of a simultaneous position discrimination. The observation that hyperstriatal birds showed more tendency than controls to halt responding altogether in this situation cast doubt on the notion that the reversal deficit was due to a loss of response inhibition. A second experiment supported an alternative hypothesis, that hyperstriatal birds have a deficit in the ability to shift responding to an alternative stimulus as a consequence of nonreinforcement.     

Movements or targets: What makes an action in action–effect learning?

According to ideomotor theory, actions become linked to the sensory feedback they contingently produce, so that anticipating the feedback automatically evokes the action it typically results from. Numerous recent studies have provided evidence in favour of such action–effect learning but left an important issue unresolved. It remains unspecified to what extent action–effect learning is based on associating effect-representations to representations of the performed movements or to representations of the targets at which the behaviour aimed at. Two experiments were designed to clarify this issue. In an acquisition phase, participants learned the contingency between key presses and effect tones. In a following test phase, key–effect and movement–effect relations were orthogonally assessed by changing the hand–key mapping for one half of the participants. Experiment 1 showed precedence for target–effect over movement–effect learning in a forced-choice RT task. In Experiment 2, target–effect learning was also shown to influence the outcome of response selection in a free-choice task. Altogether, the data indicate that both movement–effect and target–effect associations contribute to the formation of action–effect linkages—provided that movements and targets are likewise contingently related to the effects.     

Sex differences in conformity: Instrumental or communal response?

Male and female introductory psychology students (N=88) were asked to read a clinical case history and the opinion consensus of either (a) their peers, (b) advanced psychology students, or (c) Ph.D. clinical psychologists that the patient should be hospitalized for at least 90 days (an extreme treatment). Subjects then indicated on a scale of 10 to 90 days, the length of hospitalization they thought best. In a significant interaction effect (sex of subject × expertise of source) males were least influenced by the opinions of their peers and increasingly influenced as the source became more expert. Females, however, seemed most influenced by their peer group, recommending longest hospitalization terms in that condition. Results are interpreted in terms of sex-role identification and the emergence of an instrumental (task) or communal set.     

Changes in repeated references: Collaboration or repetition effects?

According to the Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs' collaborative model of reference, the repetition of a referential communication task produces changes in the making of references (decreasing number of words and of turns with the passing trials, increasing number of definite references and of labels), and these changes are interpreted as revealing the outgrowth of a collaborative process aiming at mutual understanding at the lowest cost. Using a repeated referential paradigm but without any physically present interlocutor, the present study aimed at answering the question of whether these changes are attributable to the mere repetition of the referential task. In adifferent addressee (DA) condition, the subjects were told before each new trial that what they would say would be presented later to another person; in asame addressee 9SA) condition, the subjects were told before each new trial that what they would say would be presented to the same person. With the passing trials, the subjects in the DA condition produced more and more words, but did not use any definite references or labels: These observations have no common point with the ones obtained within a conversational framework. The data obtained from speakers in the SA condition were only slightly different and far from being close to the ones gained in referential dialogues: The number of words remains constant, there was only a slight increase of definite references, and there were no labels. Repetition itself clearly cannot account for the changes in referring that have been reported in recent studies of how subjects cooperate in the making of references.This research was partly supported by a project grant from the National Fund for Scientific Research (Belgium) to Y. Chantraine, research assistant at the University of Louvain in Belgium.     

Risky decision: Attention effects or masking effects?

The Marshak bid procedure shows that more money is required to induce a S to exchange gamble a for gamble e and then e for b if e differs from a only in the winning amount and differs from b only in the probability of winning, rather than if e differs from a only in the probability of winning. This is contrary to most theories of risky decision making which imply that the amount of money necessary to effect a 2-step exchange between a and b should be independent of the intermediary gamble. One might attempt to explain the effect by saying that the S attends to the dimension which is different between gambles. But the explanation is untenable if one assumes that states of attention are defined as weightings of the dimensions. An alternative explanation is put forward which basically assumes that winning amounts mask differences in probability of winning more than vice versa. The formalization of the theory is given in terms of Fechnerian integration over imperfect differentials.     

The activation of alternative response candidates: When do doubts kick in?

In the current study, we investigated at which moment during visual object categorization alternative interpretations are most strongly activated. According to an early activation account, we are uncertain about how to interpret the visual information early in the categorization process. This uncertainty will vanish over time and therefore, the number of possible response candidates decreases over time. According to a late activation account, the visual information is categorized quickly, but after extensive viewing alternative interpretations become more strongly activated. Therefore, the number of possible response candidates increases over time. To increase perceptual uncertainty we used morphed figures composed of a dominant and nondominant object. The similarity rating between morphed figures and their nondominant object was taken as indicator for the activation of the nondominant response candidate: high similarity indicates that the nondominant object is relatively strongly activated as an alternative response candidate. Presentation times were varied in order to distinguish between the early and late activation account. Using a Bayesian model selection approach, we found support for the late activation account, but not for the early activation account. It thus seems that in a late stage of the categorization process the influence of the nondominant response candidate is strongest.     

Are nominal same-different matches slower due to differences in level of processing or to response competition?

Eriksen, O’Hara, and Eriksen (1982) have proposed that the latency advantage ofsame overdifferent judgments when the match is based upon physical identity is due to differential amounts of response competition between the responses by which the judgment ofsame ordifferent is signified. Responses of “different” are slowed by a high level of priming in the competing response signifyingsame. In the present experiment, the response competition model is extended to nominal matches and in particular to what Proctor 1198D has termed the “name-physieal disparity”—a pair of letters are more rapidly judged to have the same name if they are the same ease (e.g., a a) than if they are in different eases (e.g., A a). While response competition effects were found to occur in nominal matches of this kind, the name-physieal disparity was greater than could be attributed solely to response competition. Evidence was obtained that part of the name-physieal disparity could be attributed to the subject’s having two chances to make a-nominal raatch when the letter pair was identical both physically and in name. The match could be made either on the basis of the physical or the name code. It was assumed that name and physical codes were processed at least partially independently.     

The list-strength effect: Strength-dependent competition or suppression?

If several items are associated with a common cue, the cued recall of an item is often supposed to decrease as a function of the increase in strength of its competitors' associations with the cue. Evidence for such a list-strength effect has been found in prior research, but this effect could have been caused both by the strength manipulations and by retrieval-based suppression, because the strengthening and the output order of the items were confounded. The experiment reported here employed categorizable item lists; some categories in each list contained strong items only, some contained weak items only, and some contained both strong and weak items. Strengthening was accomplished by varying the exposure time of the items. The testing sequence of the items from each category was controlled by the use of category-plus-first-letter cues. When the typical confounding of strengthening and output order was mimicked, list-strength effects were found, which is consistent with prior research. However, when this confounding was eliminated, the list-strength effects disappeared: The recall of neither strong nor weak items varied with the strengths of the other category exemplars. This pattern of results indicates that the list-strength effect is not the result of strength-dependent competition, but is caused by output-order biases and a process of suppression.     

Precue effects in visual search: Data or resource limited?

Precuing an observer as to where a target is more likely to occur in a subsequent visual array can increase the detectability (d′) of a target at that location. This is often attributed to the observer’s increased allocation of some limited cognitive resource (“attention”) to the cued location. Two experiments are reported which are difficult to interpret in this way even though they involve similar cue effects. The first involves postcuing a location well after the array but before the observer responds, so that the cue can influence the response but not the observation. The second involves precuing, but with slow sequential presentation of array elements prior to the response, so the observer need not share any limited resource while processing each element in turn. Enhanced detectability similar to that produced with precues and simultaneous presentation of elements is shown to occur in each experiment. An alternative data-limited (rather than resource-limited) interpretation of these effects is provided by a mathematical model in which the observer integrates equally noisy or degraded internal representations of the array elements, but gives more weight to cued elements in selecting a response. Theoretical parameters of the model are shown to provide separate measures of both an observer’s overall sensitivity and precue effects in cost-benefit analyses of cuing data.     

Amodal completion in visual search: preemption or context effects?

In a previous study, search for a notched-disk target abutting a square among complete-disk nontargets and squares was inefficient in 250-ms exposures, but relatively efficient in 100-ms exposures. This finding was interpreted as evidence that amodal completion proceeds through a mosaic and then a completion stage, with the latter preempting the former. We used the same target but changed its context: Nontargets were instead notched disks near squares. Task set was also different: Participants searched for a complete disk. Contrary to the prediction of the preemption model, search was efficient in the 100-ms condition and inefficient in the 250-ms condition. We propose that in both the present and the previous studies, the target was ambiguous, and task set and context affected how it was perceived. In both experiments, set effects were evident for 100-ms exposures; context effects were evident for 250-ms exposures.     

Neighborhood effects in visual word recognition: Facilitatory or inhibitory?

In five experiments, in which subjects were to identify a target word as it was gradually clarified, we manipulated the target's frequency of occurrence in the language and its neighborhood size—the number of words that can be constructed from a target word by changing one letter, while preserving letter position. In Experiments 1–4, visual identification performance to screen-fragmented words was measured. In Experiments 1 and 2, we used the ascending method of limits, whereas Experiments 3 and 4 presented a fixed-level fragment. In Experiment 1, there was no relation between overall accuracy and neighborhood size for-words-between three and six letters in length. However, more errors of commission (guesses) were made for high-neighborhood words and more errors of omission (blanks) were made for low-neighborhood words. Letter errors within guesses occurred at serial positions having many neighbors, and these positions were also likely to contain consonants rather than vowels. In Experiment 2, a smallfacilitatory effect of neighborhood size on bothhigh- and low-frequency words was found. In contrast, in Experiments 3 and 4, using the same set of words,inhibitory effects of neighborhood size, but only for low-frequency words, were found. Experiment 5, using a speeded identification task, showed results parallel to those of Experiments 3 and 4. We suggest that whether neighborhood effects are facilitatory or inhibitory depends on whether feedback allows subjects to disconfirm initial hypotheses that the target is a high-frequency neighbor.