Locus of inhibition effects in the priming of lexical decisions: pre- or postlexical access?

The lexical decision task has been employed to investigate the effects of semantic context on word recognition. A frequent finding from the task is that “word” responses are slower when the target is preceded by an unrelated word than when it is preceded by a neutral stimulus. This inhibition effect has been interpreted as indicating that the unrelated prime interferes with word-recognition processes operating on the target. In three experiments, the effects of unrelated primes were compared for a lexical decision and word naming task. Although large inhibition effects were found for the lexical decision task in all experiments, no inhibition effects were observed for the naming task. The results are interpreted as demonstrating that inhibition effects in the lexical decision task are not on recognition processes; rather they are located at processes operating after recognition of the target has occurred.     

From page to program: Some typographical and temporal variables in radio homilies

Punctuation in 20 radio homilies by four speakers accounted for 76% of pause time and 64% of pause number. Pause duration varied systematically according to punctuation type. Commas accounted for 82% of punctuated positionsnot used for pausing.RRelevance for theories of text unitization is discussed. Both typographical and temporal measures are compared with a similar corpus of German homilies.     

Sentential constants in R and R⌝

In this paper, we shall confine ourselves to the study of sentential constants in the system R of relevant implication.In dealing with the behaviour of the sentential constants in R, we shall think of R itself as presented in three stages, depending on the level of truth-functional involvement.     

A note on the computation of the second-order derivatives of the elementary symmetric functions in the rasch model

Jansen (1984) gave explicit formulas for the computation of the second-order derivatives of the elementary symmetric functions. But they are only applicable to those pairs of items which have unequal parameters. It is shown here that for equal parameters similar explicit formulas do exist, too, facilitating the application of the Newton-Raphson procedure to estimate the parameters in the Rasch model and related models according to the conditional maximum likelihood principle.The author wishes to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Interparent agreement on the Personality Inventory for Children: Are substantial correlations sufficient?

Mothers' and fathers' responses on the Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) were compared for 360 clinic-referred children and adolescents. Interparent agreement was measured by several different indices. Correlations between parental pairs of scale T-scores derived from each parent averaged .66 for 13 of the profile scales; 9 of the scales exceeded this value. In contrast, mothers and fathers agreed in the classification of the presence of clinical significance an average of 77% of the time across these 13 scales, and pairs of parental PIC profiles contained an average of 3 scales in disagreement. The type of index used to measure interparent agreement was found to affect the results. The discussion examines the nature of interparent disagreement and addresses the implications regarding the use of fathers as informants on this instrument.This article is based on Thomas A. Hulbert's master's thesis. The authors extend their appreciation to James Orisell and Dena Mussaff for their assistance in data preparation and analysis.     

Decision processes in visual discrimination of line orientation

The contribution of decision factors to the meridional variations in line orientation discrimination was determined for two-alternative forced-choice experimental designs. Using Johnson's (1980) formalization of decision processes in discrimination tasks, we identified three decision factors: the decision rule, memory variance, and criterial noise. In a first experiment, we showed the effect of experimental design on orientation discrimination to be similar at horizontal and oblique standard orientations, indicating that the meridional variations in orientation discrimination were not due to a decision rule anisotropy. In a second experiment, the effect of the interstimulus interval was also found to be similar at both standard orientations, suggesting that the memory variance is isotropic in the orientation domain. The results of two other experiments supported the hypothesis that the meridional variations in orientation discrimination are not due to a criterial noise anisotropy. These different results strongly suggested that the oblique effect in line orientation discrimination is due to sensorial factors rather than to decision factors. Therefore, they further support the hypothesis linking the anisotropy of the preferred orientation distribution of Area 17-S cells (a single physiologically defined class of cells in the primary visual cortex) and the meridional variations in line orientation discrimination.     

Intermittent versus continuous visual control: a reply to Elliott

Recently, Elliott (1986) has reported data that he claims are inconsistent with my hypothesis that a short-term motor memory system exists for guiding locomotion and other actions in space (Thomson, 1983). In fact, methodological flaws in Elliott's design make such conclusions unjustified and inappropriate. Moreover, insofar as comparisons can be made at all, the results are completely consistent with my own data.