Perceptual prioritization of self-associated voices

Information associated with the self is prioritized relative to information associated with others and is therefore processed more quickly and accurately. Across three experiments, we examined whether a new externally-generated voice could become associated with the self and thus be prioritized in perception. In the first experiment, participants learned associations between three unfamiliar voices and three identities (self, friend, stranger). Participants then made speeded judgements of whether voice-identity pairs were correctly matched, or not. A clear self-prioritization effect was found, with participants showing quicker and more accurate responses to the newly self-associated voice relative to either the friend- or stranger- voice. In two further experiments, we tested whether this prioritization effect increased if the self-voice was gender-matched to the identity of the participant (Experiment 2) or if the self-voice was chosen by the participant (Experiment 3). Gender-matching did not significantly influence prioritization; the self-voice was similarly prioritized when it matched the gender identity of the listener as when it did not. However, we observed that choosing the self-voice did interact with prioritization (Experiment 3); the self-voice became more prominent, via lesser prioritization of the other identities, when the self-voice was chosen relative to when it was not. Our findings have implications for the design and selection of individuated synthetic voices used for assistive communication devices, suggesting that agency in choosing a new vocal identity may modulate the distinctiveness of that voice relative to others.     

Instruction and Practice in Learning to use a Device

We explore the extent to which Anderson's (1987) theory of knowledge compilation can account for the relationship between instructions and practice in learning to use a simple device. Bibby and Payne (1993) reported experimental support for knowledge compilation in this domain. This article replicates the finding of a performance cross-over between instruction type and task type that disappears with practice on the tasks. The research is extended by using verbal protocols to model the strategies of novice and more experienced individuals. Production system models of these strategies suggest that knowledge compilation only provides an adequate account of practice for one of two Instruction groups. To model the strategy shifts for the second group, we employ a “procedure modification heuristic” (after Neches, 1987), which relies on access to a declarative model of the configuration of the device. This suggests that instructionally derived declarative knowledge may have a subtle ongoing effect on the changes in procedural knowledge with practice.     

A five-year study of older adults’ health incongruence: Consistency,functional changes and subsequent survival

In later life, optimistic health appraisals promote well-being and survival, whereas pessimistic appraisals can be harmful. This study contrasted subjective health (SH) appraisals with objective health (OH) to identify realists, whose ratings were congruent (SH?=?OH), distinguishing them from health pessimists (SH?<?OH) and health optimists (SH?>?OH) with incongruent ratings. Health congruence and functional well-being of 757 older adults were assessed via two interviews conducted 5 years apart. We examined consistency in health congruence, and among those with persistent OH, we examined 5-year functional well-being changes that corresponded with SH shifts and determined whether SH shifts predicted 30-month survival. Most realists remained realists; health optimists and pessimists tended to become realists. Increased health optimism corresponded with enhanced functioning; increased pessimism corresponded with decreased functioning. Among realists, increasingly positive SH predicted survival. Findings have implications for quality and length of life among older adults with chronic health conditions.     

Effect of Thermal Need on Responses to Pictorial Stimuli

In order to provide more rigorous experimental evidence on the question of need projection in thematic materials, 72 U. S. Army enlistee volunteers were subjected to systematically varying degrees of body cooling and confronted with pictorial stimuli, varying in relevance, to which they could make quantifiable vicarious heat-seeking responses. Thermal need was independently assessed as a negatively accelerated inverse function of ambient temperature, and responses to the most relevant stimuli provided conclusive evidence of need projection as a similarly accelerated function. Scenes which differentiated significantly between thermal conditions were those which suggested the more immediate and thorough reduction of thermal discomfort. The relevance of results to studies of motivated perception was discussed.     

Investigating the mechanisms fuelling reduced false recall of emotional material

Addictive behaviour has qualities that make it ideal for study using implicit techniques. Addictive behaviours are mediated in part by automatic responses to drug cues, and there is sometimes social pressure to distort self-reports. However, relationships between implicit attitudes and addictive behaviours have been inconsistent. Using a new implicit measure, the affect misattribution procedure (AMP), we found consistent evidence that drinking-related behaviours are systematically related to implicit attitudes. The procedure predicted a behavioural choice to drink beer and self-reported typical drinking tendencies, including hazardous drinking and alcohol-related problems. The AMP showed larger relationships with drinking behaviour than other implicit measures, and explained unique variance in drinking beyond those measures and beyond explicit measures. Though self-presentation distorted self-reports, it did not affect AMP scores. These studies highlight the importance of automatic affective responses in addictive behaviour and suggest a useful means for measuring those responses.     

Memory and comprehension for health information among older adults: Distinguishing the effects of domain-general and domain-specific knowledge

While there is evidence that knowledge influences understanding of health information, less is known about the processing mechanisms underlying this effect and its impact on memory. We used the moving window paradigm to examine how older adults varying in domain-general crystallised ability (verbal ability) and health knowledge allocate attention to understand health and domain-general texts. Participants (n = 107, age: 60–88 years) read and recalled single sentences about hypertension and about non-health topics. Mixed-effects modelling of word-by-word reading times suggested that domain-general crystallised ability increased conceptual integration regardless of text domain, while health knowledge selectively increased resource allocation to conceptual integration at clause boundaries in health texts. These patterns of attentional allocation were related to subsequent recall performance. Although older adults with lower levels of crystallised ability were less likely to engage in integrative processing, when they did, this strategy had a compensatory effect in improving recall. These findings suggest that semantic integration during reading is an important comprehension process that supports the construction of the memory representation and is engendered by knowledge. Implications of the findings for theories of text processing and memory as well as for designing patient education materials are discussed.     

Comparison selection: An approach to the study of consumer judgment and choice

We introduce an alternative perspective on the study of consumer judgment and decision making, which is based on the notion that judgment and choice problems consist of comparisons that decision makers might select. Our new perspective proposes that if we can predict the likelihood that particular comparisons will become focal in a judgment or choice task, we will be able to gain a better understanding of and anticipate the resulting effect. Building on related literatures, we propose that comparison selection is driven by the task's latitude of acceptance (LOA) and comparison fluency (i.e., the overall ease of making that comparison). The task's LOA curve represents the range and concentration of potentially acceptable comparisons, whereas comparison fluency refers to the salience and ease of making the comparison. We illustrate our approach using previously studied problems (e.g., choice, variety seeking, the “jacket and calculator” problem, and contingent valuation) as well as new empirical tests.     

Communal schools and teacher victimization

Despite data showing that teacher victimization is at least as great a problem as student victimization, far less research exists regarding teacher victimization than student victimization and overall school crime, particularly with regard to the application of criminological theory to explain the victimization of teachers. We address this gap by examining the hierarchical relationship between communal school organization and teacher victimization in a nationally representative sample of 37,497 teachers from 7,488 public schools in the United States. Results showed that teacher experienced less victimization in schools that were more communally organized. We discuss these findings and present implications for school-based delinquency prevention.