Does auditory streaming require attention? Evidence from attentional selectivity in short-term memory

R. P. Carlyon, R. Cusack, J. M. Foxton, and I. H. Robertson (2001) have argued that attention is crucial for auditory streaming. The authors review R. P. Carlyon et al.'s (2001) arguments and suggest that a pertinent literature, the irrelevant sound paradigm--demonstrating preattentive auditory streaming--has been overlooked. In illustration of this alternative approach, the authors include a novel single experiment demonstrating the impact of preattentive auditory streaming on short-term serial memory. It is concluded that R. P. Carlyon et al.'s (2001) results do not definitively demonstrate that auditory streaming processes are dependent on attention; indeed, they are compatible with alternative accounts of the relationship between perceptual organization and attention.     

Searching by rules: pigeons' (Columba livia) landmark-based search according to constant bearing or constant distance

Pigeons (Columba livia) searched for a goal location defined by a constant relative spatial relationship to 2 landmark. For one group, landmark-to-goal bearings remained constant while distance varied. For another group landmark-to-goal distances remained constant while direction varied. Birds were trained with 4 interlandmark distances and then tested with 5 novel interlandmark distances. Overall error magnitude was similar across groups and was large than previously reported for Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana). During training, error magnitude increased with interlandmark distance for constant-bearing but not constant-distance birds. Both groups searched less accurately along the parallel to landmarks than along the perpendicular axis. Error magnitude increased with novel extrapolated interlandmark distances but not with novel interpolated distances. Results suggest modest geometric rule learning by pigeons.     

Ontogeny of social behavior in the megapode Australian brush-turkey (Alectura lathami)

Megapodes meet conspecifics at an unpredictable age, and it is unknown how their social behavior develops under such conditions. The authors induced encounters between 2-day-old socially naive hatchlings and up to 49-day-old chicks of the Australian brush-turkey (Alectura lathami) in a large outdoor aviary. All social behavior patterns found in older chicks were present in hatchlings and did not change in form or the frequency in which they occurred thereafer; the frequency of calling was the only feature that changed significantly with age. Chicks stayed only 0.3-2.0 m (medians) apart and synchronized their feeding activity from the age of 20 days. These results indicate that megapode chicks show social behavior without social experience and that this requires no postnatal leaning.     

Quantitative analyses of matching-to-sample performance

Six pigeons performed a simultaneous matching-to-sample (MTS) task involving patterns of dots on a liquid-crystal display. Two samples and two comparisons differed in terms of the density of pixels visible through pecking keys mounted in front of the display. Selections of Comparison 1 after Sample 1, and of Comparison 2 after Sample 2, produced intermittent access to food, and errors always produced a time-out. The disparity between the samples and between the comparisons varied across sets of conditions. The ratio of food deliveries for the two correct responses varied over a wide range within each set of conditions, and one condition arranged extinction for correct responses following Sample 1. The quantitative models proposed by Davison and Tustin (1978), Alsop (1991), and Davison (1991) failed to predict performance in some extreme reinforcer-ratio conditions because comparison choice approached indifference (and strong position biases emerged) when the sample clearly signaled a low (or zero) rate of reinforcement. An alternative conceptualization of the reinforcement contingencies operating in MTS tasks is advanced and was supported by further analyses of the data. This model relates the differential responding between the comparisons following each sample to the differential reinforcement for correct responses following that sample.     

Using a new taxonomy to combine the uncombinable: integrating results across diverse interventions

Researchers have examined numerous psychosocial and behavioral interventions intended to alleviate distress among family caregivers of persons with dementia. Many of these interventions are complex, combining numerous treatment components. Although some multicomponent interventions have been successful in reducing caregiver distress, the impact of specific elements of these interventions on outcomes is not known. The article presents results of an analytic approach that allows researchers to describe the individual elements of multicomponent interventions and to examine the relationships between those components and outcomes. This approach is successfully applied to interventions being evaluated in the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health (REACH) program. The results indicate that actively targeting caregiver behavior is effective in achieving positive outcomes with respect to caregiver depression.     

Whose DAM account? Attentional learning explains Booth and Waxman

Booth and Waxman (Cognition 84 (2002) B11) have recently shown that linguistic cues to animacy affect children's novel name extensions. They argue that this demonstration contradicts two central tenets of our attentional learning account of object naming, which Booth and Waxman characterize as the "dumb attentional mechanism" or "DAM" account. In the present article, we show that the first of these tenets has never been a feature of the attentional learning account, and that the second tenet, which is central to our account, is not addressed by Booth and Waxman's findings. We suggest that the debate about the nature of children's language and cognition would profit from an increased awareness of the different levels of analysis at which different researchers are working.     

Between the analytical and the critical: implications for theorizing the self

This article considers some of the implications of the critical standpoint in 'general' psychology in view of Jungian assumptions about the development of the self. The first part introduces the critical standpoint, which encompasses a spectrum of postmodern psychologies sharing a critique of the discipline's 'mainstream' positivist approach, an interest in human lives as existing in culture and historical time, and sensitivity to the dialogical unfolding of the self. Social constructionism and specifically the theory of positioning, which posits the self as a discursive production, are described. The second part illustrates the contrast between the social constructionist and Jungian viewpoints with two possible interpretations of a four-year-old boy's fantasies. Although these viewpoints are diametrically opposed, the possibility of a conceptual 'middle ground' between them is indicated here with particular reference to Bakhtin's understanding of the dialogical act.     

Visual marking: a convergence of goal- and stimulus-driven processes during visual search

Watson and Humphreys (1997) proposed that visual marking is a goal-directed process that enhances visual search through the inhibition of old objects. In addition to the standard marking case with targets at new locations, included in Experiment 1 was a set of trials with targets always at old locations, as well as a set of trials with targets varying between new and old locations. The participants' performance when detecting the target at old locations was equivalent to their performance in the full-baseline condition when they knew the target would be at old locations, and was worse when the target appeared at old locations on 50% of the trials. Marking was observed when the target appeared at new locations. In Experiment 2, an offset paradigm was used to eliminate the influence of the salient abrupt-onset feature of the new objects. No significant benefits were found for targets at new locations in the absence of onsets at new locations. The results suggest that visual marking may be an attentional selection mechanism that significantly benefits visual search when (1) the observer has an appropriate search goal, (2) the goal necessitates inhibition of old objects, and (3) the new objects include a salient perceptual feature.