Semantic memory verification of binary statements by children at three academic levels

Ninety-six binary statements were administered to 120 children randomly selected from three academic levels. The children were to respond TRUE or FALSE to each statement. Error count and latency for correct responses were used as measures of performance. The Constituent Comparison Model (Carpenter, P., & Just, M. A., Psychological Review, 1975, 82, 45–73), which postulates that verification latency will increase linearly with a linear increase in the number of hypothesized constituent comparisons, accounts quite well for the results obtained in this study. Furthermore, the results suggest an increasing efficiency in semantic memory verification across the three academic levels as reflected by a decrease in variability of performance, a decrease in the time required to read and encode sentences, and a decrease in the time required per constituent comparison.     

Haptic identification of letters using the left or right hand

The present study investigated the effects of the use of the right and left hands on haptic identification of letters of the alphabet. Each of the 64 right-handed subjects was given three series of randomly ordered presentations of the 26 letters of the alphabet. The subjects were asked to feel each letter and name correctly each letter as quickly but as accurately as possible. Analysis showed faster identification by those subjects using their left hands on Series 1 with no hand-differences appearing on Series 2 and 3. Significant over-all improvement in identification time occurred with practice. The results were interpreted in terms of a novelty hypothesis of right-hemisphere function and an explanation of perceptual learning of letter identification.     

A cognitive-psychological perspective on Gillespie's "Lights and lattices": some relations among perception, imagery, and thought

George Gillespie's valuable observations on light and lattice imageries are played in the context of current research and theory on cognitive imagery (Kosslyn, Pylyshyn), ordinary and lucid dreaming, representational geometric imagery in scientific thought, the author's previous writings on altered states of consciousness, and Gibson's views on perception and imagery. Gillespie's reports show categories of imagery deconstruction and abstraction that link these areas and suggest an integrative model of the varieties of symbolic imagery.     

Individual differences in secondary task performance

The purpose of this research was to use secondary task performance as a predictor of performance on a difficult primary task. Reaction time (RT) to secondary probes that occurred during the rehearsal period of an easy memory task were used to measure spare capacity associated with the memory task. This measure was then correlated with performance on a harder version of the same memory task. Experiments 1-4 involved a paired associate memory task. Probe RT was sensitive to the difficulty of the paired associate task, and analysis of individual differences showed that probe RT during the easy version of the task was correlated with performance on a harder version of the task. Experiment 4 also utilized a spatial memory task. Probe RT was less sensitive to the demands of the spatial memory task, and in that case, the "easy-to-hard" prediction was not successful.     

On memory for metaphor

Three experiments investigated how metaphors are represented in memory and the effects on memory of variables known to affect metaphor comprehension. Ten theoretically relevant dimensions were examined. In Experiments 1 and 2, free recall across a variety of orienting tasks was consistently and positively predicted by the rated imageability of metaphoric topics (sentence subjects) and the rated number of interpretations for each metaphor. The number of interpretations effect was reversed in the cued recall task of Experiment 3, as metaphors with fewer interpretations were remembered better. These and other results supported previous suggestions that memory for metaphor involves wholistic representations akin to metaphoric grounds. They also revealed consistent differences in the roles of several variables in comprehension and memory for metaphor.