Test-retest reliability of the Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt in chronic schizophrenics

This study assesses the test-retest reliability of the revised Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt Test (BGT). The API system identifies 207 possible distortions in a BGT protocol. Test-retest reliability for 40 schizophrenic patients tested twice with a mean interval of 6.4 years (SD=3.8 years) was good, ranging from .71 to .80. Further reliability and validity studies are needed to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the system.     

A hybrid model of categorization

Category learning is often modeled as either an exemplar-based or a rule-based process. This paper shows that both strategies can be combined in a cognitive architecture that was developed to model other task domains. Variations on the exemplar-based random walk (EBRW) model of Nosofsky and Palmeri (1997b) and the rule-plus-exception (RULEX) rule-based model of Nosofsky, Palmeri, and McKinley (1994) were implemented in the ACT-R cognitive architecture. The architecture allows the two strategies to be mixed to produce classification behavior. The combined system reproduces latency, learning, and generalization data from three category-learning experiments--Nosofsky and Palmeri (1997b), Nosofsky et al., and Erickson and Kruschke (1998). It is concluded that EBRW and ACT-R have different but equivalent means of incorporating similarity and practice. In addition, ACT-R brings a theory of strategy selection that enables the exemplar and the rule-based strategies to be mixed.     

Shared neighborhood effects in masked orthographic priming

Several studies have found effects of orthographically related masked nonword primes on lexical decisions to target words. These effects have been explained by the neighborhood characteristics of the target word (Forster, 1987), but the neighborhood characteristics of the prime in combination with the target are also found to be important (Hinton, Liversedge, & Underwood, 1998). In this study, we present a new account of masked form-priming effects based on the shared neighborhood of prime and target. Shared neighbors are words that are activated by both prime and target. According to the interactive activation model (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981), shared neighborhood determines the size of priming effects. This prediction was tested and confirmed in a masked priming experiment that manipulated the shared neighborhood density of complete primes.     

Loss of rapid phonological recoding in reading Hanja, the logographic script of Korean

The role that recent experience has in the processing of Korean Hanja characters was investigated in two masked priming experiments. Two groups of Korean native speakers that differed in their recent exposure to Hanja were asked to name single Hanja characters (targets) that were immediately preceded by masked presentations of the same characters (repetition priming), Hanja characters that were homophones of the target (homophone priming), or unrelated characters (baseline). The results showed that the group that had been less recently exposed made more errors and were slower than the group that had been the more recently exposed. Furthermore, there was no character homophone priming for the less recently exposed group, although they did show a robust repetition priming effect. On the other hand, the more recently exposed group showed both strong character repetition and homophone priming effects. We suggest that regular exposure to characters supports their rapid and automatic processing. It is argued that the different patterns of priming for the two groups were due to how rapidly the orthographic and phonological information of the prime could be resolved.     

Interpretation of significance levels by psychological researchers: the .05 cliff effect may be overstated

Comments about previous studies indicate that the interpretation of significance levels by psychological researchers is unequivocally dictated by a binary decision-making framework. In particular, confidence in ap level would drop abruptly just beyond the fateful .05 level (cliff effect). A replication of Rosenthal and Gaito’s (1963) experiment on the degree of confidence inp levels shows that these claims should be moderated. Detailed analysis of individual curves reveals that the attitude of researchers towardp values is far from being as homogeneous as might be expected. However, most psychological researchers in our study rated graduated confidence judgments, as either exponential or linear. Only a minority ofall-or-none respondents exhibited an abrupt drop in confidence.     

Getting scientists to think about what they are doing

Research scientists are trained to produce specialised bricks of knowledge, but not to look at the whole building. Increasing public concern about the social role of science is forcing science students to think about what they are actually learning to do. What sort of knowledge will they be producing, and how will it be used? Science education now requires serious consideration of these philosophical and ethical questions. But the many different forms of knowledge produced by modern science cannot be covered by any single philosophical principle. Sociology and cognitive psychology are also needed to understand what the sciences have in common and the significance of what they generate. Again, traditional modes of ethical analysis cannot deal adequately with the values, norms and interests activated by present-day technoscience without reference to its sociological, political and economic dimensions. What science education now requires is ‘metascience’, a discipline that extends beyond conventional philosophy and ethics to include the social and humanistic aspects of the scientific enterprise. For example, students need to learn about the practices, institutions, career choices, and societal responsibilities of research scientists, and to rehearse in advance some of the moral dilemmas that they are likely to meet. They need also to realise that science is changing rapidly, not only in its research techniques and organisational structures but also in its relationships with society at large.     

PET evidence for multiple strategies of categorization

It is widely held that people use multiple strategies to categorize their experiences in the world. We conducted a pair of neuroimaging experiments to identify the neural correlates of two of these strategies— rule application and exemplar similarity. Participants were instructed to perform either a ruleor an exemplar-based categorization task while changes in cerebral blood flow were measured using positron emission tomography. Patterns of neural activity were consistent with the predictions of cognitive models of rule- versus exemplar-based categorization and with existing neuroscience data. The identification of strategy-specific neural patterns offers future researchers a diagnostic tool for assessing strategy use in other situations.