What skilled typists don’t know about the QWERTY keyboard

We conducted four experiments to investigate skilled typists’ explicit knowledge of the locations of keys on the QWERTY keyboard, with three procedures: free recall (Exp.?1), cued recall (Exp.?2), and recognition (Exp.?3). We found that skilled typists’ explicit knowledge of key locations is incomplete and inaccurate. The findings are consistent with theories of skilled performance and automaticity that associate implicit knowledge with skilled performance and explicit knowledge with novice performance. In Experiment?4, we investigated whether novice typists acquire more complete explicit knowledge of key locations when learning to touch-type. We had skilled QWERTY typists complete a Dvorak touch-typing tutorial. We then tested their explicit knowledge of the Dvorak and QWERTY key locations with the free recall task. We found no difference in explicit knowledge of the two keyboards, suggesting that typists know little about key locations on the keyboard, whether they are exposed to the keyboard for 2 h or 12 years.     

Memory Characteristics in Relation to Age and Community Identity: The Influence of Rehearsal on Visitors’ Recollections of the 2005 Aichi World Exposition,Japan

ABSTRACT

This study investigated autobiographical memory characteristics in relation to age and community identity using Japanese visitors’ recollections of their experiences of the 2005 Aichi World Exposition in Japan, which they had attended 4 years past. A total of 82 visitors completed a 38-item Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ). Age was grouped in 2 levels—younger adult visitors (ages 18 to 30) and older adult visitors (ages 60 to 82)—and community identity by 2 distinct community groupings—visitors from Kansai area and visitors from Aichi area. Autobiographical memory characteristics, reflected by the factors of the MCQ, were explored through analysis of variance in terms of age and community identity to determine the influence on visitors’ long-term memories of the Aichi Expo. Explanations of the significant effects include sociocultural identities that motivate recollection and rehearsal activity and lead to clear or improvised autobiographical memories of the event.     

Nanomachining of nanocrystalline nickel by focused ion beam

Nanocrystalline and sub-microcrystalline samples of nickel have been machined by a focused Ga⁺ ion beam (30?keV and 187?pA) at doses of 8.92?×?10¹⁶?–?2.68?×?10¹⁸ ions/cm² and their surface topography was investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Values of the root-mean-square (RMS) roughness increase with increasing ion dose. The surfaces of the nanocrystalline Ni were smoother than those of the sub-microcrystalline Ni, indicating that smoothing due to diffusion for the former works more effectively than that for the latter.     

Selective attention to stimulus features modulates interocular suppression

Psychological and neurophysiological studies have shown that attention modulates various sorts of perceptual processing. Here, we report that attention affects the perceptual dominance of binocular rivalry. Experiments using a dichoptic masking paradigm revealed that when an observer was attending to one of the two orientations of the elements of a monocular texture, a texture briefly presented to the opposite eye suppressed the perception of the elements with the attended orientation, while the elements with the orientation which was ignored sustained their dominance. Moreover, subsequent experiments indicated that the suppression depended on the orientation of the texture elements constituting the mask, but was independent of their locations. These results suggest that attention to specific features modulates interocular suppression in a mode which is different from that found in a previous study [Ooi and He, 1999 Perception 28 551 -574].     

Information regarding structure and lightness based on phenomenal transparency influences the efficiency of visual search

Phenomenal transparency reflects a process which makes it possible to recover the structure and lightness of overlapping objects from a fragmented image. This process was investigated by the visual-search paradigm. In three experiments, observers searched for a target that consisted of gray patches among a variable number of distractors and the search efficiency was assessed. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the search efficiency was greatly improved when the target was distinctive with regard to structure, based on transparency. Experiment 3 showed that the search efficiency was impaired when a target was not distinctive with regard to lightness (ie perceived reflectance), based on transparency. These results suggest that the shape and reflectance of overlapping objects when accompanied by transparency can be calculated in parallel across the visual field, and can be used as a guide for visual attention.     

Modification of depth and distance perception caused by long-term wearing of left-right reversing spectacles

For 35 to 39 days, four observers wore continuously left-right reversing spectacles which pseudoscopically reverse the order of binocular disparity and direction of convergence. In three tests, we investigated how the visual system copes with the transformation of depth and distance information due to the reversing spectacles. In stereogram observation, after a few days of wearing the spectacles. the observers sometimes perceived a depth order which was opposite to the depth order that they had perceived in the pre-spectacle-wearing period. Monocular depth cues contributed more to depth perception in the spectacle-wearing period than they did in the pre-spectacle-wearing period. While the perceived distance significantly decreased during the spectacle-wearing period, we found no evidence of adaptive change in distance perception. The results indicate that the visual system adapts itself to the transformed situation by not only changing the processing of disparity but also by changing the relative efficiency of each cue in determining apparent depth.     

Object–Color Associations in Preschool Children’s Drawings

This study examines children’s abilities to identify a color-specific object by associating it with a given color. During the experimental sessions in preschool classrooms, 156 children aged 3–5 years were engaged in a drawing and coloring task. The experiment investigated whether the color of the object drawn by the child was congruent to the color that he/she had previously chosen. The results showed that children older than four years of age used object color knowledge to associate the given color with an object, suggesting that children acquire this ability at the same age that they learn to choose a typical color from a color-specific object. The developmental model of object representations is discussed on the basis of these results.     

Additivity of retinal and pursuit velocity in the perceptions of depth and rigidity from object-produced motion parallax

Two psychophysical experiments were conducted to investigate the mechanism that generates stable depth structure from retinal motion combined with extraretinal signals from pursuit eye movements. Stimuli consisted of random dots that moved horizontally in one direction (ie stimuli had common motion on the retina), but at different speeds between adjacent rows. The stimuli were presented with different speeds of pursuit eye movements whose direction was opposite to that of the common retinal motion. Experiment 1 showed that the rows moving faster on the retina appeared closer when viewed without eye movements; however, they appeared farther when pursuit speed exceeded the speed of common retinal motion. The 'transition' speed of the pursuit eye movement was slightly, but consistently, larger than the speed of common retinal motion. Experiment 2 showed that parallax thresholds for perceiving relative motion between adjacent rows were minimum at the transition speed found in experiment 1. These results suggest that the visual system calculates head-centric velocity, by adding retinal velocity and pursuit velocity, to obtain a stable depth structure.     

慢性应激对大鼠海马Akt/FKHRL1信号通路活性的影响

探讨慢性应激对大鼠海马Akt/FKHRL1信号通路活性的影响,及其应激源特异性。将24只雄性SD大鼠随机分为心理应激组、束缚应激组和正常对照组（n=8）。用Western-blotting方法测定28天应激后海马Akt、FKHRL1蛋白含量及其磷酸化水平。结果表明,应激后三组大鼠海马磷酸化Akt、FKHRL1含量差异有统计学意义（p < 0.01;p < 0.001）,束缚应激组低于正常对照组（p < 0.01）。提示慢性应激能导致海马磷酸化Akt、FKHRL1表达水平降低,但其影响程度与应激源特异性有关     

No Benefit of Eye-Closure Rehearsal in a Unimodal Recognition Memory Test for Word Items

Recent studies have suggested that closing the eyes helps memory retrieval in recall tests for audiovisual clips that contain multimodal information. In two experiments, we examined whether eye-closure improves recognition memory performance for word lists presented unimodally (i.e., visually or aurally). In the encoding phase, participants saw or heard a list of unrelated, meaningful word items. After a fixed retention interval of 1 week (Experiment 1, n = 110) and 5 min (Experiment 2, n = 44), the participants were asked to mentally rehearse the items with their eyes open or closed, and then they performed a recognition test. The results revealed no effect of eye-closure rehearsal on recognition performance. We discuss the possible reasons why no eye-closure benefit was found in recognition memory tests for unrelated word items.