Children's memory for television advertising: effects of programme–advertisement congruency

The effects of the surrounding programme environment and level of involvement upon children's memory (year 6 primary school, mean age 11.1, SD = 0.4, 48 boys and 69 girls) for television advertisements was examined by manipulating the degree of congruency between the production genre of the programme and the advertisements embedded within it. In Experiment One (n = 56) the ad‐break comprised either all cartoons (n = 4) or all non‐cartoons (n = 4). In Experiment Two (n = 61) cartoon and non‐cartoon advertisements were equally represented in each ad‐break. After viewing, participants provided evaluative ratings of the programme and completed memory tests for advertisements, using prompted recall and brand‐recognition tasks. Memory performance overall was better for cartoon advertisements than for non‐cartoon advertisements, with the latter being poorly remembered when presented in the non‐cartoon programme. In Experiment Two, the programme had no effect on overall recall of advertising, but was related to brand recognition, which was better for advertisements placed in the cartoon programme. Free recall of non‐cartoon advertisements was best when placed in the cartoon programme, while free recall only of cartoon advertisements was best when placed in the non‐cartoon programme. The measures of audience involvement (programme ratings) did not show any significant correlation with memory for advertising. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An eye-movement-contingent probe paradigm

A new eye-movement-contingent probe task is presented in which readers’ eye movements are monitored as they read sentences and respond to a probe word; the timing of the display of the probe word is dependent on fixation of a target word. The present study examined semantic priming effects. The target word was either related (doctor) or unrelated (lawyer) to the probe word (nurse), and the probe appeared 120, 250, 500, or 750msec after the reader first fixated on the target word. When the probe word appeared (in the location of the target word), the rest of the sentence disappeared until the participant named the probe word. Then the sentence reappeared, and the participant continued reading the sentence. Naming times to the probe word were recorded, as was sentence reading time and the eye movement behavior relative to the onset of the probe word. Priming effects were observed, since probe reaction time to related probes was faster than that to unrelated probes. Ways in which this paradigm can be used to study various issues in language processing are discussed.     

Spatial knowledge of a real school environment acquired from virtual or physical models by able-bodied children and children with physical disabilities

In Experiment 1, 2 groups of able-bodied children were exposed to both a complex single-tier virtual environment (VE) and a physical model of a different environment. For 1 group, the VE accurately modeled a real school, and for the other group the physical model did so. In transfer testing in the real school, orientation accuracy was greater in the group exposed to the VE of the real school. In Experiment 2, children with physical disabilities explored the VE model of the real school and were tested as in the 1st experiment. Measures of orientation accuracy and map-placing were significantly better in this group than in the guessing adult control group. The results illustrate the potential for VEs as useful spatial training media.     

Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: a cultural look at new look

Abstract - In two studies, a newly devised test (framed-line test) was used to examine the hypothesis that individuals engaging in Asian cultures are more capable of incorporating contextual information and those engaging in North American cultures are more capable of ignoring contextual information. On each trial, participants were presented with a square frame, within which was printed a vertical line. Participants were then shown another square frame of the same or different size and asked to draw a line that was identical to the first line in either absolute length ( absolute task ) or proportion to the height of the surrounding frame ( relative task ). The results supported the hypothesis: Whereas Japanese were more accurate in the relative task, Americans were more accurate in the absolute task. Moreover, when engaging in another culture, individuals tended to show the cognitive characteristic common in the host culture.     

Violating stereotypes: Eye movements and comprehension processes when text conflicts with world knowledge

We investigated the effect of discourse context on the access of word meaning during reading. Target words were role names (e.g., electrician) for which there was a gender stereotype (e.g., electricians are stereotypically male). Target sentences contained a reflexive pronoun that referred to the role name (e.g., The electrician taught herself ...). Participants read these target sentences with or without paragraph context while their eye movements were monitored. In the absence of discourse context and in neutral discourse contexts, fixation times on the reflexive pronoun and immediately following the pronoun were inflated when the pronoun specified a gender that mismatched the stereotype, indicating that the gender stereotype was activated upon encountering the role name. When prior discourse context indicated the gender of the role-named character, this mismatch effect was eliminated. The mismatch effect indicates that gender stereotypes are automatically activated in the absence of disambiguating information. The lack of an effect when gender has previously been specified is consistent with the lexical reinterpretation model proposed by Hess, Foss, and Carroll (1995).     

Environmental enrichment modifies the PKA-dependence of hippocampal LTP and improves hippocampus-dependent memory

cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) is critical for the expression of some forms of long-term potentiation (LTP) in area CA1 of the mouse hippocampus and for hippocampus-dependent memory. Exposure to spatially enriched environments can modify LTP and improve behavioral memory in rodents, but the molecular bases for the enhanced memory performance seen in enriched animals are undefined. We tested the hypothesis that exposure to a spatially enriched environment may alter the PKA dependence of hippocampal LTP. Hippocampal slices from enriched mice showed enhanced LTP following a single burst of 100-Hz stimulation in the Schaffer collateral pathway of area CA1. In slices from nonenriched mice, this single-burst form of LTP was less robust and was unaffected by Rp-cAMPS, an inhibitor of PKA. In contrast, the enhanced LTP in enriched mice was attenuated by Rp-cAMPS. Enriched slices expressed greater forskolin-induced, cAMP-dependent synaptic facilitation than did slices from nonenriched mice. Enriched mice showed improved memory for contextual fear conditioning, whereas memory for cued fear conditioning was unaffected following enrichment. Our data indicate that exposure of mice to spatial enrichment alters the PKA dependence of LTP and enhances one type of hippocampus-dependent memory. Environmental enrichment can transform the pharmacological profile of hippocampal LTP, possibly by altering the threshold for activity-dependent recruitment of the cAMP-PKA signaling pathway following electrical and chemical stimulation. We suggest that experience-dependent plasticity of the PKA dependence of hippocampal LTP may be important for regulating the efficacy of hippocampus-based memory.     

Category effects on stimulus estimation: Shifting and skewed frequency distributions—A reexamination

Duffy, Huttenlocher, Hedges, and Crawford (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17(2), 224–230, 2010) report on experiments where participants estimate the lengths of lines. These studies were designed to test the category adjustment model (CAM), a Bayesian model of judgments. The authors report that their analysis provides evidence consistent with CAM: that there is a bias toward the running mean and not recent stimuli. We reexamine their data. First, we attempt to replicate their analysis, and we obtain different results. Second, we conduct a different statistical analysis. We find significant recency effects, and we identify several specifications where the running mean is not significantly related to judgment. Third, we conduct tests of auxiliary predictions of CAM. We do not find evidence that the bias toward the mean increases with exposure to the distribution. We also do not find that responses longer than the maximum of the distribution or shorter than the minimum become less likely with greater exposure to the distribution. Fourth, we produce a simulated dataset that is consistent with key features of CAM, and our methods correctly identify it as consistent with CAM. We conclude that the Duffy et al. (2010) dataset is not consistent with CAM. We also discuss how conventions in psychology do not sufficiently reduce the likelihood of these mistakes in future research. We hope that the methods that we employ will be used to evaluate other datasets.     

Twenty‐First‐Century Counseling Theory Development in Relation to Definitions of Free Will and Determinism

This article is a continuation of Wilks's ( 2003 ) review of the development of counseling theory in relation to definitions of free will and determinism. The original review showed that theoretical synthesis was in part achieved when causal events inherent in absolute determinism were incorporated into a soft self‐determinist process. This review traces three 21st‐century challenges to self‐determinism and provides evidence supporting the inclusion of both self‐determinism and indeterminate free will in a single but asymmetrical causal model.