Satisficing in hypothesis generation

Research in hypothesis generation suggests that people might act as satisficers and be less likely to generate plausible alternative hypotheses when they already have a hypothesis that accounts for the data in hand. Three experiments simulated scientific hypothesis development. In all 3, participants who had been given a hypothesis consistent with available data generated proportionally fewer of the simplest alternative hypotheses than participants given no such satisficing hypothesis. Furthermore, participant satisficing occurred regardless of whether the provided hypothesis was generated a priori or post hoc and despite high incentives for completeness. Limitations and implications of these findings are discussed for hypothesis development and the practice of taking post hoc hypotheses suggested by one's results and presenting them as a priori hypotheses.     

Judgments of speech intelligibility and speech annoyance by mothers of children who are deaf or hard of hearing

14 mothers of children who were deaf or hard of hearing provided magnitude estimation scaling responses for the speech intelligibility and speech annoyance of narrative speech samples produced by children who were deaf or hard of hearing. Analysis indicated that listeners scaled intelligibility and annoyance the same. As samples became more difficult to understand, they also became more annoying to these listeners. Implications for further research are discussed.     

Semantics and semantic errors: implicit access to semantic information from words and nonwords in deep dyslexia

In this paper we describe dissociations of implicit versus explicit access to semantic information in a patient with deep dyslexia. This acquired reading disorder is characterized by the production of morphological (e.g., SLEEP read as SLEEPING) and semantic errors (e.g., HEART read as BLOOD) and consequently provides a potential window into the operation of both aspects of the language system. The deep dyslexic patient in this study (JO) demonstrated implicit semantic access to items in a number of tasks despite the fact that she was unable to correctly read these items aloud. The findings from this study are consistent with a model of lexical deficits that distinguishes between explicit and implicit access to lexical representations on the basis of inhibitory processes.     

Using genetic programming to discover nonlinear variable interactions

Psychology has to deal with many interacting variables. The analyses usually used to uncover such relationships have many constraints that limit their utility. We briefly discuss these and describe recent work that uses genetic programming to evolve equations to combine variables in nonlinear ways in a number of different domains. We focus on four studies of interactions from lexical access experiments and psychometric problems. In all cases, genetic programming described nonlinear combinations of items in a manner that was subsequently independently verified. We discuss the general implications of genetic programming and related computational methods for multivariate problems in psychology.     

Estimating the frequency of nonevents: The role of recollection failure in false recognition

Participants studied lists of multiply presented converging associates (e.g.,bed, dream, pillow, etc.) and were timed as they estimated how often they saw list items, related foils (e.g.,blanket), and non-presented critical items (SLEEP). Average number of repetitions (few [3] vs. many [6]) and repetition variability (fixed vs. variable) were manipulated between subjects. Participants responded more slowly to critical items (3.18 sec) than to list items (2.45 sec) or foils (2.22 sec). In addition, critical-item judgments of frequency (JOFs) were about as large as list-item JOFs, and false recognition (i.e., nonzero JOFs) of critical items was most likely in the few-fixed condition (96%) and least likely in the many-fixed condition (74%). These findings suggest that people can userecollection failure—the absence of an anticipated recollective experience, coupled with strong familiarity—to distinguish critical items from list items and that recollection failure is weighted most heavily when people expect familiar probes to access episodic information.     

Intention and Analogy in Children's Naming of Pictorial Representations

What underlies children's naming of representations, such as when they call a statue of a clothespin "a clothespin"? One possibility is that they focus exclusively on shape, extending the name "clothespin" only to entities that are shaped like typical clothespins. An alternative possibility is that they extend a word that refers to an object to any representation of that object, and that shape is relevant because it is a reliable indicator of representational intent. We explored these possibilities by asking 3- and 4-year-olds to describe pictures that represented objects through intention and analogy. The results suggest that it is children's appreciation of representation that underlies their naming; sameness of shape is neither necessary nor sufficient. We conclude by considering whether this account might apply more generally to artifacts other than pictorial representations.     

Premature termination: A risk in eating disorder groups

This study examines the influence of combined vs. conjoint psychotherapy on the phenomenon of premature termination in eating disorder groups. Thirty-eight women with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa or bulimia enrolled in group psychotherapy were designated as group completers or premature terminators using individually defined treatment objectives. Those eating disorder patients in combined group and individual psychotherapy showed a lower frequency of premature termination than patients in conjoint group and individual psychotherapy.