Sentence encoding and implicitly activated memories

Some words have fewer direct associates than others, and, when words varying in set size are studied in a list-learning task, those with smaller sets are more likely to be recalled. This set-size effect is found in cued recall when the words are studied in the absence of related words, but not when studied in the presence of related words. Related words provide context and theoretically inhibit irrelevant associates. The present research determined that set-size effects are found when words are encoded in sentence contexts. In contrast to list-learning experiments, the results of three experiments found such effects even when lexically related words were present in the sentences. Other findings indicated that target-set-size effects were determined by the proximity of related words in the sentence and the nature of the test cue. The results are discussed in relation to a model for explaining set-size effects and to selective findings from the sentence-comprehension literature.     

The representation and integration in memory of spatial and nonspatial information

A series of experiments investigated whether people could integrate nonspatial information about an object with their knowledge of the object's location in space. In Experiments 1 and 3, subjects learned the locations of cities on a fictitious road map; in Experiments 2, 4, and 5, subjects were already familiar with the locations of buildings on a campus. The subjects then learned facts about the cities on the maps or the buildings on the campus. The question of interest was whether or not these nonspatial facts would be integrated in memory with the spatial knowledge. After learning the facts, subjects were given a location-judgment test in which they had to decide whether an object was in one region of the space or another. Knowledge integration was assessed by comparing levels of performance in two conditions: (a) when a city or a building name was primed by a fact about a neighboring city or building, and (b) when a city or a building name was primed by a fact about a distant city or building. Results showed that responses in Condition a were faster or more accurate, or both faster and more accurate, than responses in Condition b. These results indicate that the spatial and nonspatial information were encoded in a common memory representation.     

Cuing effects and associative information in recognition memory

Item recognition requires discrimination of studied words from nonstudied words. Associative recognition requires subjects to discriminate studied word groups from recombinations of words from different groups. Cued recognition requires the same old-new discrimination as item recognition, but list items are presented as cues along with the test item. The results from three experiments show (1) little or no effect of cuing for low-frequency words, but (2) positive cuing effects for high-frequency words; (3) increasing levels of overall performance with increases in study time, but (4) unchanging effects of cuing with study time; and (5) stronger positive cuing effects for two cues than for one cue. Five models (Independent Cue Model, Matrix model, MINERVA 2, SAM, and TODAM) were fit to the data of Experiment 1. Each model has trouble with at least one aspect of the results. Theoretical implications and modifications are discussed at length.     

Acoustic analysis in the differentiation of Parkinson's disease and major depression

In its early stages, Parkinson's disease (P.D.) may be difficult to distinguish from major depression (M.D.) leading to inappropriate management. Both illnesses are characterized by psychomotor retardation. The neurovegetative symptoms used to diagnose M.D. are not specific and in P.D. may be due to the physical illness itself. Currently, differentiation of the two disorders relies on subjective clinical observation. Improved diagnostic accuracy based on more objective data is needed. To this end, this study used computerized acoustic analysis to contrast speech patterns in P.D. and M.D. The sample consisted of 30 P.D. patients without depression or dementia, 30 patients with uncomplicated M.D., and 31 normal controls, each 60 years of age or over. Of the acoustic variables studied, M.D. patients had significantly reduced rates of speech compared with P.D. patients. The data suggest that this temporal measure of speech may be useful in the differentiation of P.D. and M.D.     

Word-finding abilities of three types of aphasic subjects

Word-finding difficulties are often observed among different types of aphasic patients. This investigation analyzed the word-finding abilities of 30 aphasic subjects (10 Broca's, 10 Wernicke's, and 10 anomic). Forty nouns counterbalanced according to word length and frequency of occurrence in English language usage were used as stimuli and presented through four modalities (oral expression, writing, auditory comprehension, and reading comprehension). It was expected that patterns of word finding abilities would help in the classification of the different types of aphasia. In addition, long words and less frequently occurring words in English language usage should prove more difficult in word-finding ability, regardless of modality. The results of this study found long words and less frequent words were more difficult for aphasic subjects. Among the modalities, long words were significantly harder than short words for the writing modality only. It was also found that semantic errors were the most common errors for all types of aphasic subjects. Broca's subjects produced significantly moreno response errors in oral expression; Wernicke's subjects produced significantly more semantic and phonemic errors in reading comprehension; and, Wernicke's subjects produced significantly more unrelated errors in both oral expression and reading comprehension. Clinical implications were also discussed.The present study was based on a doctoral dissertation completed at the City University of New York in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences by the first author under the direction of the second author. The authors wish to thank Dr. Louis J. Gerstman for his assistance with the statistical analysis of this research and Dr. Robert Goldfarb for all his helpful suggestions and editorial comments.     

Effects of communication apprehension,familiarity of partner,and topic on selected “women's language” features

In keeping with Lakoff's (1975) notion that the use of women's language (WL) conveys uncertainty on the part of the speaker, the influence of communication apprehension, familiarity of partner, and topic on the use of selected WL forms was investigated. In dyadic conversation with a female friend or stranger, 71 female university students, who had completed the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension—Long, discussed a familiar or an unfamiliar topic. Multiple-regression analyses revealed that (1) communication apprehension was positively related to the use of question intonation, (2) familiarity of topic and partner were negatively related to the use of hedges, and (3) familiarity of topic was positively related to the use of intensifiers. There were no intercorrelations of the linguistic forms. These results challenge the notion that WL forms actually cohere to form a kind of language and suggest that the influence of social and psychological variables on the use of WL is much more complex and multifaceted than Lakoff believed.This article is based on portions of an Honour's thesis completed by the second author, and was presented at the Annual Convention of the Canadian Psychological Association held in Ottawa, Ontario, June 1990.     

The diplomatic career of Mircea Eliade: A response to Adriana Berger

Adriana Berger has attacked Mircea Eliade's connection with the Romanian right-wing movement, the Iron Guard, or Legion of the Archangel Michael. Her article ‘Fascism and religion in Romania’, makes much of certain British Foreign Office documents which I have inspected in detail. Not only do these documents fail to corroborate Berger's conclusions but they cast real doubt on Berger's critical detachment. Her claim that Eliade was detained in England because of his political activities on behalf of the Iron Guard, and also of Nazi Germany, is without foundation. Other insinuations which she has made about Eliade's political motivations are subject to alternative interpretations. Eliade undoubtedly was vehemently nationalist in his youth and gave some support to the Legion of the Archangel Michael. However, we must constantly guard against permitting our pre-existent judgements of nationalism and fascism to dictate our reading of historical event. Even if justified, prejudice is still prejudice and is not acceptable scholarship.     

Context-dependent variation in social stereotyping 1: The effects of intergroup relations as mediated by social change and frame of reference

During the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf conflict an experiment was conducted with Australian university students (N = 200) to investigate whether the social stereotyping of Americans varied with social contextual manipulations related to the hostilities. The study, conducted in two phases at the start and end of the conflict, examined how the assignment of standard stereotypical traits to Americans was affected (a) by the large-scale social change constituted by the war and (b) by variation in the frame of reference provided by relevant comparison groups. The elicited stereotypes were sensitive to both of these contextual variables, demonstrating significant variation and fluidity. Overall, stereotypes of Americans were relatively negative. They were significantly more negative (a) at the end of the war than at the beginning in the restricted frame (when Australia and Britain were comparison groups) and (b) in the first phase of the conflict when the frame was extended to include Iraq as a comparison group. The findings were in line with expectations derived from self-categorization theory (Turner, 1985) that the social categorization of self and other into ingroup and outgroup is inherently variable, comparative and context-dependent. They question the long-held view of stereotypes as fixed, rigid and resistant to change.     

Context-dependent variation in social stereotyping 2: The relationship between frame of reference,self-categorization and accentuation

This paper examines the hypothesis that patterns of stereotypic accentuation reflect the degree to which judged stimuli share the same social category membership as the stereotyper, Following self-categorization theory, the degree of this shared identity is operationalized in terms of the meta-contrast ratio as a function of the positions of (a) stereotyper and (b) stereotyped target relative to (c) the stereotyper's frame of reference. Three experiments are reported which sought to manipulate shared category membership either by extension of subjects' frame of reference or by extremitization of target and subject with respect to that frame. As predicted, greater shared identity was associated with stronger assimilation of the target to subjects' own position and with change in stereotype content. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of personality, social judgement and social cognition. Like the accentuation processes which underpin them, it is proposed that stereotypes are sensitive to comparative context and that they reflect veridically the social self-categorical properties of stimuli.