Visual-auditory events: cross-modal perceptual priming and recognition memory.

Modality specificity in priming is taken as evidence for independent perceptual systems. However, Easton, Greene, and Srinivas (1997) showed that visual and haptic cross-modal priming is comparable in magnitude to within-modal priming. Where appropriate, perceptual systems might share like information. To test this, we assessed priming and recognition for visual and auditory events, within- and across- modalities. On the visual test, auditory study resulted in no priming. On the auditory priming test, visual study resulted in priming that was only marginally less than within-modal priming. The priming results show that visual study facilitates identification on both visual and auditory tests, but auditory study only facilitates performance on the auditory test. For both recognition tests, within-modal recognition exceeded cross-modal recognition. The results have two novel implications for the understanding of perceptual priming: First, we introduce visual and auditory priming for spatio-temporal events as a new priming paradigm chosen for its ecological validity and potential for information exchange. Second, we propose that the asymmetry of the cross-modal priming observed here may reflect the capacity of these perceptual modalities to provide cross-modal constraints on ambiguity. We argue that visual perception might inform and constrain auditory processing, while auditory perception corresponds to too many potential visual events to usefully inform and constrain visual perception.     

Knowing about People and Naming Them: Can Alzheimer's Disease Patients Do One without the Other?

It has recently been suggested that patients with semantic breakdown may show the phenomenon of so-called 'naming without semantics'. If substantiated, this finding would clearly have a major impact on theories of face and object processing, all of which assume that access to semantic knowledge is a prerequisite for successful naming. In order to investigate this issue, we studied recognition, identification (the ability to provide accurate information), and naming of 50 famous faces by 24 patients with mild to moderate dementia of Alzheimer type (DA T) and 30 age-matched controls. The DA T group was impaired in all three conditions. An analysis of the concordance between identification and naming by each patient, for each stimulus item, established that naming a famous face was possible only with semantic knowledge sufficient to identify the person. Our data support the hypothesis that naming is not possible unless semantic information associated with the target is available. Naming without semantics, therefore, did not occur in patients with DAT. By contrast, there were 206 instances (17% of the total responses) in which the patients were able to provide detailed, accurate identifying information yet were unable to name the person represented. The implication of these findings for models of face identification and naming are discussed.     

Recency and suffix effects in serial recall of musical stimuli

Auditory presentation of verbal items leads to larger recency effects in recall than visual presentation. This enhanced recency can be eliminated if a stimulus suffix (an irrelevant sound) follows the last item. Four experiments tested the hypothesis that recency and suffix effects in serial recall result from a speech-specific process. It was demonstrated that serial recall of musical notes played on a piano exhibited substantial recency effects. These recency effects were reduced when the list items were followed by either a piano chord or the word start. However, a white-noise suffix had no effect on recency. This pattern of data is consistent with current work on auditory perception and places constraints on theories of recency and suffix effects.     

Recency effects in delayed recall of mouthed stimuli

Auditory presentation leads to greater recency effects in recall than does visual presentation. This phenomenon (the modality effect) is found in both free and serial recall and in both immediate and delayed recall. Silent mouthing of visually presented stimuli also leads to enhanced recency effects in immediate serial recall. Two experiments reported here extend the generality of the mouthing effect by demonstrating that enhanced recency effects of mouthed stimuli occur in delayed serial and free recall. These results are inconsistent with theories that attribute the modality effect to a purely auditory sensory memory.     

A BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING AND TRAINING CARDIOPULMONARY RESUSCITATION SKILLS AMONG EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIANS

Many deaths from cardiopulmonary arrest can be prevented by the prompt and effective administration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In this study, we examined the standard training program for teaching CPR to emergency medical technicians (EMTs). We developed an alternative experimental program whereby the behaviors involved in CPR were assessed easily and in greater detail. This assessment provided the basis for a system in which effective CPR skills were reinforced and problems were corrected. Subjects who were trained in CPR according to this experimental program performed more effectively than subjects in the standard program. In addition, retention (maintenance) measures indicated that experimental subjects continued to perform well, often more effectively than professionally employed EMTs.     

Multiple explanations for multiply quantified sentences: are multiple models necessary?

Johnson-Laird, Byrne, and Tabossi (1989) presented a theory of deductive reasoning for inference problems using multiply quantified premises (e.g., "All of the squares are connected to some of the circles"). Their theory classifies such problems into those that require subjects to construct only 1 mental model and those that require multiple models. They presented data that corroborate the theory. This article shows that Johnson-Laird et al.'s major results can be explained without invoking mental models or, in fact, deductive reasoning at all. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that, contrary to the assumption of these authors, reversing the order of the quantifiers in a multiply quantified sentence may produce a sentence that is both more difficult to comprehend and more ambiguous. Finally, some implications for theories of how people understand multiply quantified sentences are noted.     

Evaluating Müller-Lyer effects using single fin-set configurations

Four experiments were conducted to study the bias of perceived length for Müller-Lyer configurations that contained a single set of fins (i.e., two segments that join to form a vertex). The experiments manipulated several factors that have been shown to be critical to the effect: (1) version (which way the apex pointed), (2) length of the stimulus span, (3) presence or absence of a line segment in the span being judged, (4) fin length, (5) fin angle, and (6) the zone in which the response was rendered. Using percent error as the index of perceptual distortion, the major finding was that the two versions show an opposite slope for strength of effect as a function of span. When stimulus spans were plotted against response means (not converting to percent error), an almost perfect linear relation was found. These results indicate that the perceptual effects can be modeled as a linear system having two parameters through which the treatments exert their influence. The results are discussed in relation to major theories of mechanism for the Müller-Lyer illusion.     

TELLING SOMETHING WE CAN'T KNOW:

An interpersonal verb such as annoy or admire can be categorized according to whether its grammatical subject or grammatical object initiates the interaction described by the verb Such a verb can also be categorized according to whether a derived adjective describes its grammatical subject (eg., annoying ) or its grammatical object (eg., admirable ) Although there has been much speculation (eg., Brown & Fish, 1983) that these and other characteristics of these verbs shed light on basic principles of human social interaction, we argue that research to date has failed to demonstrate directly any real-time consequences of these verbs during language comprehension. We present evidence that the initiating-reacting distinction predicts on-line changes in the accessibility of these verbs' arguments, but that the existence of a derived adjective does not. We conclude that tasks that question subjects explicitly about language may fail to reflect the ordinary processes of language comprehension