The development of rulebound strategies for manipulating seriated cups: A parallel between action and grammar

Systematic observation of American children from 11 to 36 months of age playing with seriated nesting cups established the existence of a developmental sequence of rulebound or consistent strategies for combining the cups. The three action strategies seem formally homologous to certain grammatical constructions, and the manipulative strategies are acquired in the same developmental order as the corresponding grammatical structures. These strategies might therefore constitute a manifestation of some underlying structural capacities critical for language acquisition. The development of seriation described by Piaget for children from 4 to 8 years of age working with other materials was replicated in this much younger age range using nesting cups. These stages in the growth of a concept of ordinal quantity turn out to be empirically and theoretically related to the rulebound strategies upon which the study focused.     

Using Social Cognition and Persuasion to Promote Energy Conservation: A Quasi-Experiment1

A quasi-experiment was conducted to determine if the effectiveness of the R.C.S. Home Energy Audit Program could be improved by training auditors to use social-psychological principles during the audit procedure. Nine experienced home energy auditors attended two 1-day workshops in which they were trained to: (a) communicate vividly; (b) personalize their recommendations to homeowners; (c) induce commitment; and (d) frame their recommendations in terms of “loss” rather than “gain”. The effectiveness of the trained auditors was compared with a control group of experienced auditors who did not receive specific training. Both telephone interview data and utility company records pointed to the success of the auditor training. In interviews, customers served by the trained auditors reported a greater likelihood of acting on the auditors' recommendations, and a large number of these customers reported applying for utility programs to finance retrofits. Utility records validated these customer claims: A significantly larger number of customers served by trained auditors actually did apply for retrofit finance programs. A longitudinal measure of actual energy consumption showed no difference between experimental and control households. Taken as a whole, these findings demonstrate the potential for using principles uncovered in the social psychological laboratory to design applied interventions.     

The influence of a secondary task and type of feedback on adaptation to lateral displacement of the visual array

Summary This experiment was designed to investigate the influence of a secondary attention-demanding force-production task on adaptation to prismatic displacement. Recent suggestions by Finke (1979) lead to the prediction that a secondary task executed during adaptation would interfere with the central component of adaptation (as measured by intermanual transfer), but not the peripheral component (adaptation specific to adapted limb). There were three secondary task conditions (no task, easy task, difficult task). Other factors investigated were: type of feedback (continuous, terminal), hand adapted (right, left) and prism orientation (base right, base left). While negative aftereffect was not influenced by the secondary task manipulation, intermanual transfer results provide partial support for Finke's model. Correlational analyses indicate the importance of task-specific parameters in determining the nature of perceptual-motor adaptation.     

Ambient Green and Creativity

This research examined an important applied question: whether viewing ambient green (relative to red) on the wall of a workspace would facilitate creativity. A methodologically sound experiment revealed no influence of green on creativity. Care must be taken when interpreting a null result, but these data do not provide support for the presence of a relation between ambient green and creativity. This research also highlights the need for more research in the area of ambient color and psychological functioning, and the need for caution regarding the tendency to move to real-world recommendations before a firm empirical base is established.     

Using ROC curves to test models of recognition memory: The relationship between presentation duration and slope

Many theories of memory predict that the slope of the z-transformed receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve should decrease with increases in the memory strength of old items. While several prior studies have failed to demonstrate this effect, the results of two experiments demonstrate that increasing presentation duration can reduce the slope of the z-transformed ROC curve. These results raise questions about the generality of prior results and of dual-process theories designed to accommodate those results. We close by emphasizing that determining the experimental circumstances that affect whether or not the slope of the z-transformed ROC curve decreases will provide important constraints on theories of recognition memory.     

Episodic representations support early semantic learning: evidence from midazolam induced amnesia

Current controversy exists regarding the role of episodic representations in the formation of long-term semantic memories. Using the drug midazolam to induce temporary amnesia we tested participants' memories for newly learned facts in a semantic cue condition or an episodic and semantic cue condition. Following midazolam administration, memory performance was superior in the episodic and semantic condition, suggesting early semantic learning is supported by episodic representations.     

Midazolam amnesia and short-term/working memory processes

We examined whether midazolam impairs short-term/working memory processes. We hypothesize that prior dissociations in midazolam's effects on short-term/working memory tasks and episodic memory tasks arise because midazolam has a larger effect on episodic memory processes than on short-term/working memory processes. To examine these issues, .03 mg/kg of participant's bodyweight of midazolam was administered in a double-blind placebo-controlled within-participant design. Performance on the digit span and category generation/recall tasks was examined. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that: (1) midazolam impaired performance on the digit span task; (2) midazolam did not impair performance on the category generation task; (3) midazolam impaired performance on the category recall task; and (4) midazolam's effect on category recall was four times as large as its effect on digit span. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that midazolam did not impair digit span performance when the digit span task was administered at a later time. These results suggest that midazolam can impair short-term/working memory processes, but these effects are substantially smaller than midazolam's effect on episodic memory processes. Moreover, they demonstrate that conscious awareness of materials during study is not sufficient to produce episodic memory.     

Intermittent vision and one-handed catching: the effect of general and specific task experience

In Experiment 1, 15 skilled and 15 less skilled participants performed 1-handed catching in 4 conditions. For both groups, catching performance deteriorated significantly when no visual information was available for 40 ms between 20-ms visual samples (20/40) and continued to decline with subsequent increases in the duration between visual samples (i.e., 20/80 and 20/120). In Experiment 2, 50 participants performed a pretest and a posttest in a 20/80 condition, separated by 4 blocks of practice (N=80). Participants who practiced with intermittent vision (20/40, 20/80, and 20/120) exhibited a significant improvement between pretest and posttest. Although general practice with intermittent vision enabled some adaptation, posttest performance did not equal performance in the 1st block of continuous vision.