Quantifying phase correction in sensorimotor synchronization: empirical comparison of three paradigms

Tapping in synchrony with a metronome requires phase error correction, a process often described by a single-parameter autoregressive model. The parameter (α) is a measure of sensorimotor coupling strength. This study compares α estimates obtained from three experimental paradigms: synchronization with (1) a perfectly regular metronome (RM), (2) a perturbed metronome containing phase shifts (PS), and (3) an "adaptively timed" metronome (AT). Musically trained participants performed in each paradigm at four tempi, with baseline interval durations ranging from 400 to 1300 ms. Two estimation methods were applied to each data set. Results showed that all α estimates increased with interval duration. However, the PS paradigm yielded much larger α values than did the AT paradigm, with those from the RM paradigm falling in between. Positional analysis of the PS data revealed that α increased immediately following a phase shift and then decreased sharply. Unexpectedly, all PS α estimates were uncorrelated with the RM and AT estimates, which were strongly correlated. These results suggest that abruptly perturbed sequences engage a different mechanism of phase correction than do regular or continuously modulated sequences.     

Direct versus indirect tests of memory for source: judgments of modality

We studied the relation between performance on direct versus indirect tests of memory for modality. Subjects read or heard words in a mixed list and then were tested by visual perceptual identification (the indirect test) and direct report of items as read, heard, or new. There was a dependent relation between perceptual identification performance and modality judgments, in accord with the hypothesis that subjects base their judgments of modality on relative perceptual fluency. In Experiment 2, we attempted to change the degree of dependence by providing subjects with an alternative basis for modality judgments. Subjects given a mnemonic to encode modality exhibited less dependence between perceptual identification performance and modality judgments than did subjects who encoded modality incidentally. The relation between direct and indirect tests of memory for source characteristics depends on the basis used for each.     

Reinstating study context produces unconscious influences of memory

Having read a word does more to benefit its later perceptual identification when many, rather than few, of the words in the test list have been previously read. Some have suggested that this proportion overlap effect is produced by an intentional use of recognition memory or recall in the perceptual identification task. Contrary to this account, we found that words that are easily recognized (words generated from an anagram at study) do not gain more from increasing overlap than do words that are poorly recognized (words read at study). These findings are problematic for claims that word perception relies on a module, such as a logogen system, that is separate from the rest of memory.     

Best laid plans: Effects of goals on accessibility bias and cognitive control in race-based misperceptions of weapons

This study applied process dissociation (PD) to investigate the role of conscious goals in controlling automatic influences of stereotypes. A priming procedure was used to show that the presence of Black (vs. White) faces caused stereotypical misidentifications of objects. Specifically, Black primes caused lures to be misidentified as weapons, whereas White primes caused weapons to be misidentified as non-threatening objects. By manipulating the goals with which participants completed the experiment, we demonstrated that the stereotype bias was invariant across conscious goals to avoid vs. use the influence of race. PD analysis provided three major insights. First, the impact of race was mediated solely through an unintentional accessibility bias. Second, requiring participants to respond rapidly increased the impact of stereotypes, an effect that was mediated by a reduction in controlled discrimination among stimuli. Finally, calling attention to race increased the stereotype accessibility bias, regardless of whether race was made salient with the intention to use, or the intention to avoid the influence of race.     

Checking for Systematic Value Preferences Using the Method of Triads

Value preferences have long been central to research in political science and psychology. Despite their well‐established theoretical importance, however, their measurement is still an open question. Early research on values relied heavily on ranking instruments for data collection, but more recent work calls this measurement technique into question. Specifically, it is argued that traditional ranking instruments are (1) too long, (2) too complex, and (3) may force respondents to make ad hoc differentiations between values of similar importance, behind which there is no systematic preference. As a result, the reliability of the measure is called into question, and measurement error remains a concern. In this article, we discuss the method of triads—a technique used to gather rankings data that affords the researcher the opportunity to assess the extent to which random error affects preference rankings. Using the method of triads to collect preference data on five values central to American political culture, we find that Americans' value preferences are clearly structured and driven by systematic preferences, even when psychological theory suggests they may not. We also compare the predictive validity of the data collected with the method of triads against that of the data collected with traditional importance ratings. We show that models of ideology, party identification, presidential approval, and vote‐choice fit to “triads” data explain more variance than models fit to ratings data.     

Growing Up with an Anxious Sibling: Psychosocial Correlates and Predictors of Sibling Relationship Quality

Relationships between young people with anxiety and their non-affected siblings are important for both individuals in the dyad, and for family dynamics throughout the lifespan; however, these relationships are not well understood. This study examined the experience of growing up with an anxious sibling from the sibling without anxiety’s point of view. We measured psychosocial factors associated with sibling relationship quality in 64 young adults with an anxious sibling. Overall, participants with anxious siblings were resilient, reporting comparable sibling relationship quality, anxiety symptoms, and psychological functioning relative to peers without anxious siblings. The contributions of caregiver burden and attributions about the causes of the sibling’s anxiety-related behavior accounted for significant variance in both sibling relationship warmth/closeness and conflict, with responsibility attributions emerging as an individual predictor of conflict. Clinical and research implications for understanding sibling relationships in the context of anxiety, and for the role of attributions in family relationships are considered.     

On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning

Although the majority of research on human memory has concentrated on a person's ability to recall or recognize items as having been presented in a particular situation, the effects of memory are also revealed in a person's performance of a perceptual task. Prior experience with material can make that material more easily identified or comprehended in perceptually difficult situations. Unlike with standard retention tests, effects of prior experience on a perceptual task do not logically require that a person be aware that he or she is remembering. Indeed, amnesic patients purportedly show effects of practice in their subsequent performance of a perceptual or motor task even though they profess that they do not remember having engaged in that prior experience. The experiments that are reported were designed to explore the relationship between the more aware autobiographical form of memory that is measured by a recognition memory test and the less aware form of memory that is expressed in perceptual learning. Comparisons of effects on perceptual learning and recognition memory reveal two classes of variables. Variables such as the level of processing of words during study influenced recognition memory, although they had no effect on subsequent perceptual recognition. A study presentation of a word had as large an effect on its later perceptual recognition when recognition memory performance was very poor as it did when recognition memory performance was near perfect. In contrast, variables such as the number and the spacing of repetitions produced parallel effects on perceptual recognition and recognition memory. Following Mandler and others, it is suggested that there are two bases for recognition memory. If an item is readily perceived so that it seems to "jump out" from the page, a person is likely to judge that he or she has previously seen the item in the experimental situation. Variables that influence ease of perceptual recognition, then, can also have an effect on recognition memory, so parallel effects are found. The second basis for recognition memory involves elaboration of a word's study context and depends on such factors as level of processing during study--factors that are not important for perceptual recognition of isolated words. Comparisons of perceptual recognition and recognition memory are shown to be useful for determining how a variable has its effect. Effects of study on perceptual recognition appear to be totally due to memory for physical or graphemic information. Results reported are also relevant to theories of perceptual learning. A single presentation of an item is shown to have large and long-lasting effects on its later perceptual recognition. At least partially, effects of study on perceptual recognition depend on the same variables as do effects on more standard memory tests.