The effect of name category and discriminability on the search characteristics of colour sets

Within (and between) cultures, people tend to agree on which parts of colour space are easiest to name and what the names for these regions are. Therefore it is likely that the manipulation of ease of naming (nameability) of colours should change performance in tasks where categorisation by colour name is important. More specifically? highly 'nameable' colour sets should lead to better performance than metrically equivalent but less categorically distinct sets, when the task requires categorisation. This hypothesis was investigated by testing observers on a name-based task, the naming and subsequent identification by name of colour sets with up to sixteen members. These sets were designed to be easy to name (nameable), maximally discriminable, or matched discriminable. The first were derived from previously generated data, the second by a standard algorithm to space colours widely in colour space, and the latter by closely matching their metric characteristics to those of an easy-to-name colour set. This final condition was metrically (but not categorically) equivalent to the nameable set. It was found that sets designed to be nameable did indeed lead to superior performance as measured by response times, confidence ratings, and response accuracy. Perceptual colour similarity, measured by a AE metric, did not predict errors. Nameability may thus be a valid, manipulable, aspect of sets of colours, and one which is not otherwise duplicated in the metric characteristics of such sets.     

Introduction to the special section on aging, cognition, and neuroimaging

In response to the recent increase in the number of laboratories engaged in the use of functional and structural neuroimaging to study cognitive aging, this special section has been compiled to serve as an entry into this area for the readers of Psychology and Aging. These articles are representative of the field and cover many of the issues faced by researchers in this area. This introduction presents some background into the techniques that are used and provides an overview of the articles.     

Commitment Shift during Organizational Upheaval: Physicians' Transitions from Private Practitioner to Employee

This longitudinal study examines the individual transition journeys of physicians as their private medical practices are acquired by a large integrated health care system. We test the proposition that transition patterns (trends in an individual's commitments to organization and profession over time) are a function of individual differences in years in profession and perceived organizational enabling characteristics (change involvement, openness to ideas, and work discretion). Three years of survey data were obtained from a panel of 48 physicians who transitioned through an organizational change process. Results challenge traditional assumptions that tenure reinforces commitment and cast doubt on the effectiveness of current medical school curricula in preparing medical graduates to practice in an administrative environment. In addition, results strongly suggest that enabling characteristics of organizational change are critical for compatibility between the organizational and professional attachments of transitioning physicians.     

The disposables: our treatment of violent adolescents

This paper discusses the clinical perceptions of levels of attachment disorder as theorized by John Bowlby. The findings are based on interview data of juvenile delinquent offenders who have committed criminal acts that are serious enough to warrant their being tried as adults. The data are based on clinical interviews, and the interviewer encourages empirical research of the clinical findings. It is suggested that attachment levels may be a viable means of determining appropriate types of rehabilitative interventions for juvenile offenders.     

Not well known, used little and needed: Canadian chaplains' experiences of published spiritual assessment tools

What are Canadian chaplains' experiences of published assessment tools? Utilizing a quantitative and qualitative methodology with multiple investigators and theoretical triangulation, this article reports the results of a survey of chaplains in the Canadian Association for Pastoral Practice and Education (CAPPE) and interview results of 15 chaplains in three focus groups. Findings indicated that published spiritual assessment tools are not well know, used little, criticized for being reductionistic and not fitting the clinical situation. Participants noted, however, that spiritual assessment is needed for spiritual care. Thirty percent reported the development of their own tools (not published) and three published tools were mentioned by 50% and more. Discussion, limitations of the research, and suggestions for education, practice, and future research are offered.     

Blocking is sensitive to causal structure in 4-year-old and 8-year-old children

In a contingency learning task, 4-year-old and 8-year-old children had to predict the outcome displayed on the back of a card on the basis of cues presented on the front. The task was embedded in either a causal or a merely predictive scenario. Within this task, either a forward blocking or a backward blocking procedure was implemented. Blocking occurred in the causal but not in the predictive scenario. Moreover, blocking was affected by the scenario to the same extent in both age groups. The pattern of results was similar for forward and backward blocking. These results suggest that even young children are sensitive to the causal structure of a contingency learning task and that the occurrence of blocking in such a task defies an explanation in terms of associative learning theory.     

Cerebral laterality for famous proper nouns: visual recognition by normal subjects

Lexical processing has long been associated with left-hemisphere function, especially for infrequently occurring words. Recently, however, persons with severe aphasia, including word-recognition deficits, were observed to recognize familiar proper nouns. Further, some patients suffering right-hemisphere damage were poorer at identifying famous names than left-hemisphere-damaged subjects. These observations point to the possibility that some property of the right hemisphere provides an advantage for the processing of familiar or personally relevant stimuli. To investigate this possibility, we conducted split-visual-field studies in which we manipulated stimulus sets, recognition task, and exposure duration. Greater accuracy in the right visual field was found for common nouns and unknown proper nouns, and famous proper nouns were overall more accurately recognized. Performance for famous nouns in the two visual fields was not significantly different when the task required categorization into famous or nonfamous and when stimuli most highly rated as familiar were used. These findings support our proposals that (1) both hemispheres can process famous proper nouns and (2) the right hemisphere is specialized for personal relevance.     

Semisupervised category learning facilitates the development of automaticity

In the human category of learning, learning is studied in a supervised, an unsupervised, or a semisupervised way. The rare human semisupervised category of learning studies all focus on early learning. However, the impact of the semisupervised category learning late in learning, when automaticity develops, is unknown. Therefore, in Experiment 1, all participants were first trained on the information-integration category structure for 2 days until they reached an expert level. Afterwards, half of the participants learned in a supervised way and the other half in a semisupervised way over two successive days. Both groups received an equal number of feedback trials. Finally, all participants took part in a test day where they were asked to respond as quickly as possible. Participants were significantly faster on this test in the semisupervised group than in the supervised group. This difference was not found on day 2, implying that the no-feedback trials in the semisupervised condition facilitated automaticity. Experiment 2 was designed to test whether the higher number of trials in the semisupervised condition of Experiment 1 caused the faster response times. We therefore created an almost supervised condition where participants almost always received feedback (95%) and an almost unsupervised condition where participants almost never received feedback (5%). All conditions now contained an equal number of trials to the semisupervised condition of Experiment 1. The results show that receiving feedback almost always or almost never led to slower response times than the semisupervised condition of Experiment 1. This confirms the advantage of semisupervised learning late in learning.