About the Contributors

Biography

About the Contributors     

The role of reinforcement contingencies in chronic alcoholism: An experimental analysis of one case

investigators have questioned chronic alcoholics and round that some of them have returned to normal social drinking (Davies, 1962; Lemere, 1953; Nørvig and Nielsen, 1956; Selzer and Holloway. 1957; and Shea, 1954). These findings would seem inconsistent with such notions as loss of control or craving as the basis of compulsive drinking. Moreover, antecedents and consequences of these explanatory constructs, have not been elucidated. The purpose of this research was to make an intensive study of a single subject to see if specific conditions could be identified under which a chronic alcoholic's drinking could be controlled, in a setting in which environmental variables could be systematically varied and drinking behavior documented.     

About the Contributors

Note

About the Contributors     

Characterizing the time course of an implicature: an evoked potentials study

This work employs Evoked Potential techniques as 19 participants are confronted with sentences that have the potential to produce scalar implicatures, like in Some elephants have trunks. Such an Underinformative utterance is of interest to pragmatists because it can be considered to have two different truth values. It can be considered true when taken at face value but false if one were to treat Some with the implicature Not All. Two accounts of implicature production are compared. The neo-Gricean approach (e.g., Levinson, 2000) assumes that implicatures intrude automatically on the semantics of a term like Some. Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1985/1996) assumes that implicatures are effortful and not automatic. In this experiment, the participants are presented with 25 Underinformative sentences along with 25 sentences that are Patently True (e.g. Some houses have bricks) and 25 that are Patently False (e.g. Some crows have radios). As reported in an earlier study (Noveck, 2001), Underinformative sentences prompt strong individual differences. Seven participants here responded true to all (or nearly all) of the Underinformative sentences and the remaining 12 responded false to all (or nearly all) of them. The present study showed that those who responded false to the Underinformative sentences took significantly longer to do so that those who responded true. The ERP data indicate that: (a) the Patently True and Patently False sentences prompt steeper N400's--indicating greater semantic integration--than the Underinformative sentences and that (b) regardless of one's ultimate response to the Underinformative sentences, the N400's were remarkably flat, indicating no particular reaction to these sentences. Collectively, the data are taken to show that implicatures are part of a late-arriving, effort-demanding decision process.     

Recognition memory and awareness: A high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of knowing

The well-established advantage of low-frequency words over high-frequency words in recognition memory has been found to occur in remembering and not knowing. Two experiments employed remember and know judgements, and divided attention to investigate the possibility of an effect of word frequency on know responses given appropriate study conditions. With undivided attention at study, the usual low-frequency advantage in the accuracy of remember responses, but no effect on know responses, was obtained. Under a demanding divided attention task at encoding, a high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of know responses was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to theories of knowing, particularly those incorporating perceptual and conceptual fluency.     

Recognition memory and awareness: A high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of knowing

The well-established advantage of low-frequency words over high-frequency words in recognition memory has been found to occur in remembering and not knowing. Two experiments employed remember and know judgements, and divided attention to investigate the possibility of an effect of word frequency on know responses given appropriate study conditions. With undivided attention at study, the usual low-frequency advantage in the accuracy of remember responses, but no effect on know responses, was obtained. Under a demanding divided attention task at encoding, a high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of know responses was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to theories of knowing, particularly those incorporating perceptual and conceptual fluency.