Categorization generated by extended prototypes—An axiomatic approach

We suggest a model of categorization based on prototypes. A set of entities, identified with some finite dimensional Euclidian space, is partitioned into a finite number of categories. Such a categorization is said to be generated by extended prototypes if there is a set of distinguished entities, one for each category, such that the categorization is determined by proximity to these prototypical entities. The prototypes are called extended since they are described by points in a higher dimensional space than the entities. Sufficient conditions for a categorization to be generated by extended prototypes are provided. These conditions are also necessary if the prototypes are in general position.     

Reducing the Misinformation Effect Through Initial Testing: Take Two Tests and Recall Me in the Morning?

Initial retrieval of an event can reduce people's susceptibility to misinformation. We explored whether protective effects of initial testing could be obtained on final free recall and source‐monitoring tests. After studying six household scenes (e.g., a bathroom), participants attempted to recall items from the scenes zero, one, or two times. Immediately or after a 48‐hour delay, non‐presented items (e.g., soap and toothbrush) were exposed zero, one, or four times through a social contagion manipulation in which participants reviewed sets of recall tests ostensibly provided by other participants. A protective effect of testing emerged on a final free recall test following the delay and on a final source‐memory test regardless of delay. Taking two initial tests did not increase these protective effects. Determining whether initial testing will have protective (versus harmful) effects on memory has important practical implications for interviewing eyewitnesses. © 2015 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thoughts about the internalised speaking object: psychoanalytic psychotherapy with children of delayed verbal development

This paper discusses the meaningful effects of intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy on language development in children with verbal delay or disorder. Three clinical cases of children aged five to seven are presented; two of these display significant verbal delay and one exhibits unusually high verbal abilities. Following Meltzer, the author explores the concept of the ‘internalised speaking object’ – a good object speaking to the child, which has been internalised. This internal model is essential for the child’s development of language and speech. At times, these children experience this internal object as a persecutory object which must be warded off and avoided. Even more so, when the external object addresses the children verbally, language itself becomes a persecutor and they experience a fear of disintegration. During such times, the therapist must find new and creative ways for communication. The author describes his therapeutic efforts in dealing with these difficulties which stem both from the lack of a reciprocal verbal communication and from the therapist becoming a persecutory object to the child, and demonstrates the manner in which he facilitated gradual shifts in the patient, from an anxious and defensive position into a more relaxed one. These efforts set in motion a process of internalisation of a speaking object by the child and the development of internal language, that is, thinking along with expressive verbal language. The article furnishes some evidence to support the idea that verbal development relies significantly on establishing good, strong and healthy early object relations.     

From Yeshiva to Academia: The Argumentative Writing Characteristics of Ultra-Orthodox Male Students

Argumentation - This study compares the argumentative writing characteristics of students from different sociocultural backgrounds. We focused on Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) students, educated...     

Repetition proportion affects masked priming in nonspeeded tasks

Masked repetition priming is often greater when a larger proportion of trials involve repetition primes, suggesting that a context-sensitive unconscious process may be operating. Two recent studies have failed to obtain an effect of prime proportion in the perceptual identification (PI) task, suggesting that the effect may not occur in nonspeeded tasks. Contrary to this possibility, we report proportion effects with masked repetition primes in two nonspeeded tasks: PI and fragment completion (FC). A proportion effect occurred in the accuracy measure only in the FC task, but it occurred in the reaction time measure in both tasks. Prior failures to find proportion effects in the PI task thus may have been due, in part, to the dependent measure used. We interpret our findings in light of several recent accounts of prime proportion effects with brief primes.     

Missing data: prevalence and reporting practices

Results are described for a survey assessing prevalence of missing data and reporting practices in studies with missing data in a random sample of empirical research journal articles from the PsychINFO database for the year 1999, two years prior to the publication of a special section on missing data in Psychological Methods. Analysis indicates missing data problems were found in about one-third of the studies. Further, analytical methods and reporting practices varied widely for studies with missing data. One may consider these results as baseline data to assess progress as reporting standards evolve for studies with missing data. Some potential reporting standards are discussed.     

Memory of the traumatic event as a risk factor for the development of PTSD: lessons from the study of traumatic brain injury

Traumatic memories, and the mechanisms by which they operate, continue to occupy a central role in the scientific investigation of risk factors for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, empirically based studies are constrained by practical and ethical considerations and are limited to naturalistic models. Consequently, the paradigms most appropriate for the exploration of the relationship between traumatic memories and PTSD have been identified in conditions involving traumatic events where memories may be compromised. Indeed, traumatic brain injury, a condition that is commonly associated with memory impairment, has often been utilized as a naturally occurring model for the study of traumatic memory and its contribution to the development of PTSD. This article presents a critical review of these research efforts and discusses their theoretical and clinical implications.     

Assessing the costs and benefits of production in recognition

The production effect is a memory advantage for items studied aloud over items studied silently. Although it typically is found within subjects, here we also obtained it between subjects in a recognition task—providing new evidence that production can be an effective study strategy. Our experiment, and a set of meta-analyses, also evaluated whether the within effect reflects costs to silent items and/or benefits to aloud items. Contrary to a strong distinctiveness account, we found little evidence that aloud items show an additional within-subjects benefit. Instead, silent items suffered an additional within-subjects cost. Blocking silent and aloud items eliminated this cost, suggesting that the cost was due to mixing silent and aloud items. Our discussion focuses on implications for distinctiveness and strength accounts of the production effect and on how to implement production as an encoding strategy depending on the learner’s goals.     

Generation and mnemonic encoding induce a mirror effect in the DRM paradigm

Encoding tasks that increase memory accuracy are appealing from both practical and theoretical perspectives. Within the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, we found that generating list words from anagrams (relative to reading) produced a mirror effect: enhanced recognition of studied words coupled with a reduction in false recognition. Signal detection analyses suggest that the increase in correct recognition was due to enhanced item-specific encoding of the list words, whereas the reduction in false recognition was due to enhanced strategic monitoring at test (i.e., a distinctiveness heuristic), rather than to reduced relational encoding at study. Further support for a distinctiveness heuristic account was obtained using both "theme judgment" instructions and within-group conditions. In our final experiment, we replicated this mirror effect using a purely mnemonic (self-referential) encoding task, showing that extra perceptual cues are not necessary to induce participants to adopt a successful memory-improvement strategy at test.