Functions of graphemic and phonemic codes in visual word-recognition

Previous investigators have argued that printed words are recognized directly from visual representations and/or phonological representations obtained through phonemic recoding. The present research tested these hypotheses by manipulating graphemic and phonemic relations within various pairs of letter strings. Ss in two experiments classified the pairs as words or nonwords. Reaction times and error rates were relatively small for word pairs (e.g., BRIBE-TRIBE) that were both graphemically, and phonemically similar. Graphemic similarity alone inhibited performance on other word pairs (e.g., COUCH-TOUCH). These and other results suggest that phonological representations play a significant role in visual word recognition and that there is a dependence between successive phonemic-encoding operations. An encoding-bias model is proposed to explain the data.     

Pavlovian theory of dreaming

Pavlovian theory provides a conceptual scheme for the examination of recent empirical data on dreaming. Consistencies are examined between these data and Pavlovian theory of the general properties of the nervous system. An equation is made between Pavlov’s excitation-inhibition continuum, the REM-NREM cycle, and the basic rest-activity cycle. Speculations, based on this equation, are made about the inter-relation between waking and sleeping behaviors. Testable hypotheses are suggested throughout the paper.     

Neutral vs ego-orienting instructions: Effects on judgments of magnitude estimation

Three experiments were performed to examine the relative constancy of the exponent in the psychophysical power law under varying motivating conditions. The method of magnitude estimation was used to obtain judgments of apparent tactual roughness or of apparent area size of squares. Patterns of the qualitative observations of the three Es and of the various exponents for the six groups of Ss indicated that neutral instructions and “ego-orienting” instructions, which were perceived as unbelievable coming from an equal fellow student, both yielded exponents identical to those reported in the literature. Believable ego-orienting instructions given by an E of clearly perceived higher social status produced a statistically significantly lower exponent than neutral. Intermediate conditions, wherein Ss apparently disbelieved both types of instructions, but assumed that the superior-status E was “analyzing” them, yielded exponents of intermediate size. Results and supplementary trend analyses are discussed as possible, highly sensitive indicators of motivational impacts on sensory judgments.     

A behaviour modification technique for the hyperactive child

This paper describes a procedure for the conditioning of attending behaviour in a brain-injured hyperactive boy.

Observations of the behaviour of two hyperactive children were made in the classroom setting. These observations were made from an observation bootn adjoining the classroom and provided data on the frequency of occurrence of the following high rate responses: walking, talking, distraction, “wiggling”. Each child was observed for a minimum of ten minutes a day, four days a week. Following several weeks of baseline observation, the conditioning procedure was begun with the expel imental subject. The conditioning trials took place in the classroom setting. During each time interval in which one of the high rate responses did not occur, S received an auditory stimulus (secondary reinforcer). This auditory stimulus had previously been paired with the delivery of candy and pennies. The stimulus was dispensed by a radio device which activated an earphone worn by the subject. At the end of each conditioning trial, S received whatever candy or pennies he had “earned”.

The data show that the control subject showed no significant change in the frequency of occurrence of the high rate responses during the three month period. The experimental subject showed a significant decrease in non-attending behaviour. This reduction in rate was maintained over a four week extinction period.     

Drive level effects on tasks of narrow and broad attention

Easterbrook (1959) has predicted that (a) performance on tasks involving the use of a wide range of cues will be impaired under high-drive conditions and that (b) performance on tasks requiring the use of only a narrow range of cues will be facilitated under such conditions.

Using the Porteus Maze Test, relatively clear evidence was obtained to support the first prediction. Using the Stroop Colour Word Interference Test some evidence was obtained in support of the second prediction.     

Tactile localization

Clinical studies suggested that errors of tactile localization made by leucotomized subjects were due to a failure of analysis of a conceptual type.

The present experiment examines the normal mechanisms of localizing stimuli to different sites on the hands by measuring the time taken to make a correct response as well as by an analysis of the errors made under conditions of stress (the reaction-time situation). It is demonstrated that healthy subjects of above-average intelligence have appreciable difficulty in determining which of their fingers has been touched. The degree of this difficulty depends on which finger has been stimulated. The results strongly support the hypothesis that normal tactile localization involves the analysis of primary sensory data in terms of a few simple parameters of orientation. It is suggested that some of the errors which occur are due to contamination between different systems of conceptual analysis.     

Conceptual transfer insimple insight problems

Three experiments explored the conditions under which information presented in the first part of an experiment facilitates the subsequent solving of simple insight problems. We argue that previous unsuccessful attempts to obtain such facilitation are attributable to the experimenters’ failure to present this information in a form that induces the conceptual operations needed to solve the problem. Substantial facilitation is obtained if the information is presented in a form that induces a few seconds of puzzlement and then a clue is presented that leads to an appropriate reconception; if identical information is presented without such a period of puzzlement and reconception, no facilitation is observed. The results demonstrate that conceptual processing operations, not merely informational content, must be relevant if conceptual transfer is to occur. One possible mechanism involved in such transfer is the indexing of concepts such that they contain pointers to conceptually anomalous episodes     

The consequences for memory of imagining in another person’s voice

Subjects listened to and imagined words and then attempted to discriminate words they had heard from words they had imagined. Discrimination was better when subjects imagined themselves saying the words (Experiments 1 and 2) than when subjects imagined the words in the speaker’s voice. Subjects also had more difficulty discriminating imagined from perceived words when they imagined in the speaker’s voice than when they imagined words in a voice other than their own or the speaker’s (Experiment 1). The results are consistent with the idea that reality monitoring is affected by the degree of similarity in sensory characteristics of memories derived from perception and from imagination (Johnson & Raye, 1981).     

Application of a Temporal Persistence Model to Community Residents' L]ong-Term Beliefs about the Three Mile island Nuclear Accident1

Little is known about the conditions under which beliefs and attitudes about an issue or event will persist over time. The present research took advantage of a “natural experiment”, namely, the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear accident, in order (a) better to understand the nature of individuals' b]eliefs about a major event to which they were exposed and (b) to evaluate a conceptual formulation developed from laboratory-based experimental literature concerning when beliefs and attitudes are likely to be temporally persistent. Data were collected over a 3-year period following the accident from two samples of community residents: mothers of young children who lived within a 10-mile radius of TMI and TMI nuclear power plant employees. Samples of mothers and workers from a western Pennsylvania comparison site were also included in the study design. Results supported the persistence model in several respects. First, TMI subjects' b]eliefs, although more extreme than comparison subjects' v]iews, showed virtually no change during the study period. Second, the factors that the model suggests should account for the observed persistence were indeed consistently important predictors of TMI subjects' b]eliefs over time. Implications of the results for future applied work on long-term reactions to major events are discussed.