A picture is worth a thousandp values: On the irrelevance of hypothesis testing in the microcomputer age

Hypothesis testing, while by far the most common statistical technique for generating conclusions from data, is nonetheless not very informative. It emphasizes a banal and confusing question (“Is it true that some set of population means are not all identical to one another?”) whose answer is, in a mathematical sense, almost inevitably known (“No”). Hypothesis testing, as it is customarily implemented, ignores two issues that are generally much more interesting, important, and relevant: What is thepattern of population means over conditions, and what are the magnitudes of various variability measures (e.g., standard errors of the mean, estimates of population standard deviations)? The simple expedient of plotting relevant sample statistics with associated variability bars is a substantially better way of conveying the results of an experiment. In today’s microcomputer environment, there are many relatively cheap and easily available applications that allow one to do this. I make some brief, informal comments about some of these applications.     

Serial position effects in the recall of picture sequences

Sequences of 10 pictures of familiar objects were presented for immediate recall, and typically bow-shaped serial position curves were obtained. The effects of redundant stimulus suffixes, and of redundant stimulus prefixes, which could be either extra pictures, or written words (the names of similar familiar objects) were examined. In the prefix conditions, extra words produced a general decrement over positions 1-4, as compared with a control condition. Picture prefixes had no effect. In the suffix conditions, redundant words affected positions 9 and 10, whereas the main effect of redundant pictures was at positions 8 and 9. The differential serial position effects are taken to reflect the presence of two memory codes, a verbal one and a visual one, which vary in trace-strength or accessibility at different list positions.     

The picture absurdities test in the evaluation of dementia

Recognition of picture absurdities was found to be significantly impaired in a group of patients with dementia of Alzheimer type compared to patients with dementia syndrome of depression and cerebrovascular dementia, even when matched for age, education, and dementia severity. None of the other neuropsychological measures investigated, including visual recent memory, Raven's progressive matrices, geographic orientation, and copying of geometric figures, resulted in a similar pattern. Although uncertainty remains as to what the picture absurdities test measures, normal performance likely depends on the integrity of many independently assessable variables, in addition to cognition and judgment utilizing visual data.     

Revisiting Huey: On the importance of the upper part of words during reading

Recent research has shown that that the upper part of words enjoys an advantage over the lower part of words in the recognition of isolated words. The goal of the present article was to examine how removing the upper/lower part of the words influences eye movement control during silent normal reading. The participants?? eye movements were monitored when reading intact sentences and when reading sentences in which the upper or the lower portion of the text was deleted. Results showed a greater reading cost (longer fixations) when the upper part of the text was removed than when the lower part of the text was removed (i.e., it influenced when to move the eyes). However, there was little influence on the initial landing position on a target word (i.e., on the decision as to where to move the eyes). In addition, lexical-processing difficulty (as inferred from the magnitude of the word frequency effect on a target word) was affected by text degradation. The implications of these findings for models of visual-word recognition and reading are discussed.     

Picture recognition without picture identification: a method for assessing the role of perceptual information in familiarity-based picture recognition

The present study examined the claim that unidentifiable test-pictures are processed and recognized on a perceptual, as opposed to a conceptual, level. Using an extension of the recognition without identification paradigm (e.g., Cleary, A. M. & Greene, R. L. (2000). Recognition without identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 1063-1069; Peynircioglu, Z. F. (1990). A feeling-of-recognition without identification. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 493-500), it was observed that when test-pictures were unidentifiable during a masked perceptual identification task, old-new discrimination occurred when the study-list consisted of pictures (Experiments 1-3), but not when the study-list consisted of picture names (Experiment 2) or when picture exemplars served as test-cues (Experiment 3). Results provide converging evidence that a study-test perceptual match is needed for the episodic recognition of unidentified test-pictures. Implications for the present paradigm as a tool for examining the role of perceptual information in recognition-familiarity are discussed.     

On the role of the upper part of words in lexical access: evidence with masked priming

More than 100 years ago, Huey (1908/1968) indicated that the upper part of words was more relevant for perception than the lower part. Here we examined whether mutilated words, in their upper/lower portions (e.g., ), can automatically access their word units in the mental lexicon. To that end, we conducted four masked repetition priming experiments with the lexical decision task. Results showed that mutilated primes produced a sizeable masked repetition priming effect. Furthermore, the magnitude of the masked repetition priming effect was greater when the upper part of the primes was preserved than when the lower portion was preserved-this was the case not only when the mutilated words were presented in lower case but also when the mutilated words were presented in upper case. Taken together, these findings suggest that the front-end of computational models of visual-word recognition should be modified to provide a more realistic account at the level of letter features.     

On the role of the upper part of words in lexical access: Evidence with masked priming

More than 100 years ago, Huey (1908/1968) indicated that the upper part of words was more relevant for perception than the lower part. Here we examined whether mutilated words, in their upper/lower portions (e.g., ), can automatically access their word units in the mental lexicon. To that end, we conducted four masked repetition priming experiments with the lexical decision task. Results showed that mutilated primes produced a sizeable masked repetition priming effect. Furthermore, the magnitude of the masked repetition priming effect was greater when the upper part of the primes was preserved than when the lower portion was preserved—this was the case not only when the mutilated words were presented in lower case but also when the mutilated words were presented in upper case. Taken together, these findings suggest that the front-end of computational models of visual-word recognition should be modified to provide a more realistic account at the level of letter features.     

On the nature of fear of falling in Parkinson's disease

In the elderly, fear of falling (FoF) can lead to activity restriction and affect quality of life (QoL). Our aim was to identify the characteristics of FoF in Parkinson's disease and assess its impact on QoL. We assessed FoF in 130 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) on scales measuring perceived self-efficacy in performing a range of activities (FES), perceived consequences of falling (CoF), and activity avoidance (SAFFE). A significant difference was found in FoF between PD patients who had previously fallen and those who had not and between frequent and infrequent fallers. Patient-rated disability significantly influenced FoF. Difficulty in rising from a chair, difficulty turning, start hesitation, festination, loss of balance, and shuffling were the specific mobility problems which were associated with greater FoF in PD. Disability was the main predictor of FoF, additionally depression predicted perceived consequences of falling, while anxiety predicted activity avoidance. The FoF measures explained 65% of the variance of QoL in PD, highlighting the clinical importance of FoF. These results have implications for the clinical management of FoF in PD.     

On the nature of the verbal memory deficit in Alzheimer''s disease

Verbal memory was investigated in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) with previously documented deficits in word production and comprehension. Procedures were employed to evaluate word recall and recognition within the context of both "multistore" and "levels of processing" models of memory. In addition, memory abilities were evaluated with respect to performance on measures of verbal fluency and language comprehension. As expected, the AD patients performed significantly worse than normal individuals on all tasks. However, in each experiment their pattern of recall across conditions was found to be qualitatively similar to that produced by normal subjects. It was argued that the memory impairment associated with Alzheimer's disease may be largely due to an inability to encode a sufficient number of stimulus features or attributes. Furthermore, this encoding deficit includes, but is not limited to, semantic attributes. Similarities between the performance of the AD patients and reported findings with Korsakoff patients and normal subjects with "weak" memory were discussed.     

Developmental differences in the role of detail in picture recognition memory

Two experiments assess the effect of the amount of physical detail in pictures on picture recognition memory. Children and adults were presented simple and complex line drawings. A “same-different” recognition test followed in which the distractor items were original pictures from the presentation phase with the amount of physical detail altered. For second- and fourth-grade subjects, recognition sensitivity, measured in terms of d′, was similar for pictures in the simple and complex presentation conditions. For adults, however, recognition sensitivity was greater for pictures in the simple than complex presentation condition. This finding with adults was replicated in Experiment 2. Interpretations of this age difference in picture memory processing are discussed, as well as the constraints imposed by various dependent measures used in picture memory studies.     

On the problems of being more or less the same

Sixty children aged 2–3 to 5-2 were given four quantity tasks which tested their understanding of more and same. Two tasks involved addition, two involved judgment of static quantities. One of each type of task required a manipulative response, and one of each required a yes/no judgment. The tasks involved judgments of equality and inequality. Tasks involving a manipulative response were significantly easier than those involving a yes/no judgment, indicating that the nature of the response required of the child is crucial. All other differences were negligible, indicating that the other task variables investigated do not affect the child's ability to respond correctly. The ability to make accurate responses was not strongly associated with counting ability. There was a significant difference in the children's counting responses depending on the method used to elicit it.