Assessment of retrieval strategy in incidental, intentional, and inclusion tests with word-fragment cues

The purpose of this study was to assess retrieval strategy in incidental, intentional, and inclusion tests with word-fragment cues following a levels-of-processing manipulation at study. The results of Exp. 1 showed small levels-of-processing effects in incidental tests, and most subjects reported involuntary rather than voluntary retrieval of study-list words. In an intentional test, although levels of processing had a much greater effect, quite a few subjects also reported involuntary rather than voluntary retrieval of study-list words, and these subjects showed a smaller effect of levels of processing than subjects reporting voluntary retrieval. These results suggest that subjects given instructions for both voluntary and involuntary retrieval of study-list words in an inclusion test might not in fact attempt voluntary retrieval at all, but simply adopt an involuntary retrieval strategy. The results of Exp. 2 provided evidence to support this suggestion. The general implication is that where test contamination refers to subjects' failure to use retrieval strategies in accordance with test instructions, inclusion tests can be contaminated, as well as incidental or intentional tests, and that it is always necessary to obtain converging evidence about the actual strategies subjects use.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

The value of possessions in compulsive hoarding: Patterns of use and attachment

Hoarding behavior, patterns of use of possessions, and emotional attachment to possessions were examined among a sample of female undergraduates and a sample of community volunteers. Hoarding behavior was associated with a decreased frequency of use of possessions and excessive concern about maintaining control over possessions. Furthermore, high scores on the hoarding scale were associated with higher levels of perceived responsibility for: (1) being prepared; and (2) the well-being of the possession. Hoarding was also associated with greater emotional attachment to possessions and to the reliance on possessions for emotional comfort. The implications of these findings for the definition of hoarding are discussed.     

Reply to William R. Ferrell’s paper “A model for realism of confidence judgments: Implications for underconfidence in sensory discrimination”

Ferrell’s decision-variable partition model and our subjective distance model belong to the same family of Thurstonial models. The subjective distance model is limited to sensory discrimination with the method of constant stimuli and rooted in such notions as discriminal dispersion and sense distance. Ferrell’s model is intended to be wider in scope and to apply to both cognitive and sensory tasks. Both models need supplementary assumptions to predict calibration phenomena. The point of departure for us is the fact that the model predicts under-confidence under “guessing” and the empirical finding that people are about 100% correct when they report “absolutely certain.” Ferrell makes assumptions about cutoffs on the decision variable. The respondent is assumed to adjust or not adjust cutoffs according to “cues to difficulty.” We disagree with Ferrell’s claim that the hard-easy effect is explained by the respondent’s failure to adjust cutoffs sufficiently when there is a change in level of difficulty, and argue that this amounts to little more than a translation of the hard-easy effect into the lingua of Ferrell’s decision-variable partition model. Our argument is that the hard-easy effect is a consequence of the post hoc division of items according to solution probability. In addition, error variance may contribute to regression effects that enlarge the hard-easy effect. Finally, in contrast to Ferrell’s position, we regard inference (cognitive uncertainty) and discrimination (sensory uncertainty) as different psychological processes. An understanding of calibration in these two areas requires separate models.     

Post‐conversion experiences of native British converts to Islam

Research¹ has been carried out on native British converts to Islam. It was based on formal interviews with 70 converts to Islam, 50 males and 20 females. Interviews were done in various parts of England. The sample consïsted of 66 English, 3 Irish, and 1 Welsh. Fifty‐one had been Anglicans, 12 Catholics, 3 Methodists, and 4 Jews. The research was designed to find out the pre‐conversion, conversion, and post‐conversion experiences of the converts interviewed. The present article is part of the research, looking at the converts’ post‐conversion experiences with regard to intellectual, moral, and social changes, changes in beliefs and practices, behaviour, and social relations.     

Sensorimotor synchronization: Motor responses to pseudoregular auditory patterns

Musically trained and untrained subjects (N=30) were asked to synchronize their finger tapping with stimuli in auditory patterns. Each pattern comprised six successive tonal stimuli of the same duration, the first of which was accented by a different frequency. The duration of interstimulus onset intervals (ISIs) gradually increased or decreased in constant steps toward the end of the patterns. Four values of such steps were used in different trials: 20, 30, 45, and 60 msec. Various time-control mechanisms are hypothesized as being simultaneously responsible for subjects’ incorrect reproduction of the internal temporal ratios of the stimulus patterns. The mechanism of assimilation (of a central tendency) led subjects to enforce a regular (isochronous) structure on the patterns. The influence of other time-control mechanisms (distinction, subjective expression of an accent, sequential transfer) was expressed mainly in differences between intertap onset intervals (ITIs) and the corresponding ISIs at the beginning of the patterns. The duration of the first two ITIs was in the majority of the trials in an inverse ratio to the ratio of the respective ISIs. The distortions resulting from the timing mechanisms concerned were more pronounced in the performance of nonmusicians than in that of musicians.     

On the scaling of visual space from motion—in response to Pizlo and Salacfa-Golyska

Pizlo and Salack-Golyska (1994) have raised an important question about the validity of the interpretation of experiments reported by Lappin and Love (1992)—based on the fact that alternative cues in the image plane might have supported the shape discriminations in those experiments. The meaning of the hypothesis that visual space may be scaled by congruence under motion is clarified, pertinent evidence is reviewed, and new experimental evidence is reported We conclude that visual space can be metrically scaled by congruence of moving shapes.     

Local and global factors of similarity in visual search

Effects of the similarity between target and distractors in a visual search task were investigated in several experiments. Both familiar (numerals and letters) and unfamiliar (connected figures in a 5 × 5 matrix) stimuli were used. The observer had to report on the presence or absence of a target among a variable number of homogeneous distractors as fast and as accurately as possible. It was found that physical difference had the same clear effect on processing time far familiar and for unfamiliar stimuli: processing time decreased monotonically with increasing physical difference. Distractors unrelated to the target and those related to the target by a simple transformation (180° rotation, horizontal or vertical reflection) were also compared, while the physical difference was kept constant. For familiar stimuli, transformational relatedness increased processing time in comparison with that fort unrelated stimulus pairs. It was further shown in a scaling experiment that this effect could be accounted for by the amount of perceived similarity of the target-distractor pairs. For unfamiliar stimuli, transformational relatedness did have a smaller and less pronounced effect. Various comparable unrelated distractors resulted in a full range of processing times. Results from a similarity scaling experiment correlated well with the outcome of the experiments with unfamiliar stimuli. These results are interpreted in terms of an underlying continuum of perceived similarity as the basis of the speed of visual search, rather than a dichotomy of parallel versus serial processing.     

The effect of social support on prenatal care.

This article examines the effects of social support on the receipt of adequate prenatal care. A study was conducted to test the hypotheses that social support helps women overcome obstacles to obtaining such care, and that social support has greater effects on women facing the most obstacles. Survey data were gathered for more than 90% of the women who gave birth in Oklahoma hospitals during specific periods in the summer of 1986. The authors found only weak support for the first hypothesis, and for the second hypothesis found only support that must be qualified according to the measure of social support. Strong evidence indicates, however, that difficulty in paying for prenatal care, personal inconveniences, and unwanted pregnancies are obstacles to obtaining such care. The findings account for some of the frequently observed demographic differences associated with receipt of adequate prenatal care, although such differences persisted even after the obstacles were considered. The authors present implications for policy makers seeking to improve women's receipt of adequate prenatal care.