Episodic Indexing: A Model of Memory for Attention Events

People often remember what they attend to in the world. Such memory can be cast as a kind of mental catalog or index of attended objects. To investigate how such an index is acquired and used, protocol data were collected from a programmer who scrolled to off-screen objects from time to time as she worked. These protocol data were modeled using Soar, which constrains how the index is constructed. In the model, an index entry is an episodic trace encoded during attention. The trace associates the attention event with a time symbol denoting the event's occurrence. Later, the model can ask itself whether it saw that object by calling to mind an image of the attention event. If this image retrieves a time symbol, then the model infers that the object exists and can reason about bringing the object back into view. Episodic indexing is a theory of these encoding and retrieval processes. It posits that information about attention events is encoded automatically, but that retrieval requires effort and knowledge. Episodic indexing is congruent with a range of results on episodic and temporal codes and recognition and recall processes. It incorporates source monitoring (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993) and is a simple and pervasive form of long-term working memory (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995).     

Faith,Family, and Feminism: Irreconcilable Differences?

The purpose of this article is to characterize and evaluate the phases through which feminist positions on the family have evolved in recent history and to suggest feminists in Christian and Jewish theology and religious studies as among the most important participants in current discussions about the family.     

Attorney- client decision- making in criminal cases: Client competence and participation as perceived by their attorneys

The authors employed a structured interview to ascertain public defenders' perceptions of their clients' competence and the degree of their participation in the defense. In a sample of 122 randomly selected, non-dismissed felony cases, attorneys had doubts about the competence of 14.8% (n = 18) of their clients. Attorneys reported that clients whose competence was doubted were less involved in decision-making and, overall, were passive participants in their cases. Nearly one-half of these clients were not referred for assessment by a mental health professional. The authors compare the practices of attorneys faced with clients of suspected competence with those of mental health clinicians treating patients with impairments in decision-making capacity.     

Field dependent eating and perception as a function of weight and sex

It was hypothesized that the greater influence of external cues on obese than on normal individuals' eating behavior is a manifestation of a generalized sensitivity to external cues. Responsivity of nut consumption to the external cue of shells on the nuts and responsivity of judgment of verticality to the external cue of a tilted visual field were assessed for male and female, obese and normal-weight subjects. As predicted, both obese subjects' nut consumption and their judgments of verticality were more influenced by external cues than were those of normals. Females' judgments of verticality were more influenced by external cues than males' were, but the sex differences in eating behavior were not statistically significant. A significant correlation between the field dependence of subjects' eating behavior and their judgments of verticality suggests that a single cause may generate sensitivity to external cues in these two diverse situations.     

“Think Aloud”: A program for developing self-control in young aggressive boys

Think Aloud was designed as a training program to improve self-control in 6- to 8-year-old boys. It involved modeling and verbalization of cognitive activity to foster use of verbal mediation skills in dealing with both cognitive and interpersonal problems. It was hypothesized that this training would lead to improvement in test performance and teacher ratings of classroom behavior in hyperaggressive boys. Twelve aggressive second grade boys participated in daily, 30-minute, individual sessions for 6 weeks. Normal and aggressive control subjects received no intervention. Teachers rated both trained and untrained aggressive boys as improving in aggressive behaviors but they rated the experimental group as showing improvement on a significantly larger number of prosocial behaviors. The pattern of performance on cognitive tests also changed significantly in the experimental group. On pretest, their pattern differed from normals and resembled the aggressive control group, while on posttest their pattern resembled normals and differed from aggressive controls. Suggestions were made concerning additional refinements needed in the program, but overall results indicated potential value in the present approach for providing assistance to aggressive boys in the early grades.This investigation, from the Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of Colorado Medical School, was supported in part by a Research Scientist Award No. MK2-47 356 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by Grant No. NEG 003-0029 from the National Institute of Education. However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the NIE, and no official endorsement by the National Institute of Education should be inferred.We are grateful to Mary Ann Bash and Margaret Simmons for their assistance in carrying out the program and to the Denver Public Schools for their continued cooperation.     

The effect of romantic and nonromantic films on perception of female friendly and seductive behavior

Two experiments investigating gender differences in perception of nonverbal seductive and friendly cues were conducted using standardized videotaped interactions. Results of the first experiment indicated no gender differences in perceptions, contradicting previous results obtained by Abbey (“Sex Differences in Attributions for Friendly Behavior: Do Males Misperceive Females' Friendliness?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982, 42, 830–838), who used a nonstandardized interaction. Results of the second experiment indicated that exposure to romantic and nonromantic scenarios in the media may produce contrast effects primarily affecting male interpretation of female nonverbal cues.     

Evaluative verbalization and delay maintenance behavior in children

An experiment is presented which examined the influence of verbalizations on children's tendencies to postpone immediate gratification in terms of increased delayed reward. Children's verbalizations were varied in terms of their evaluative valence and whether they focused upon the reward itself or the delay task. During a delay task children in experimental groups periodically verbalized evaluative statements that were either positive (I like …) or negative (I don't like …) and which focused upon either the reward itself (… the tokens) or the delay behavior (… to wait). Children who focused on reward, under conditions of either positive or negative evaluation, postponed immediate gratification less than control subjects who made no verbalization. Children who evaluated delay behavior positively postponed immediate gratification longer than silent subjects, though children who negatively evaluated delay behavior did not differ from subjects who did not verbalize. The results are interpreted in terms of the influence of evaluative valence and focus as parameters of plans for delay behavior.