Temporal restriction in apparent motion of two objects by presenting multipartite subframes

Two experiments tested whether proper perception of motion can be realized with a multipartite subframe stimulus. In order to elucidate the constructive processes of visual motion, two motion stimuli were used which differed according to their hierarchical levels of reference. It was found that: (a) stable motion was perceived so long as the temporal interval between the neighboring frames comprising several subframes was held between 30 and 120 ms; (b) visual unification of subframes was properly achieved independently of the number of subframes insofar as the temporal constraint mentioned above was satisfied; (c) when stimuli consisted of two motions of different hierarchical level of reference, perception of the higher-level motion required the prior perception of the lower-level motion.     

Olfactory discrimination of mouse strains (Mus musculus) and major histocompatibility types by humans (Homo sapiens)

A series of experiments revealed that humans can use olfaction to discriminate closely related strains of mice, differing genetically only at the major histocompatibility gene complex (H-2). In Experiment 1, subjects were asked to distinguish between the whole-body odors of live mice. In Experiments 2 and 3, the odor source was mouse fecal pellets, and in Experiments 4 and 5, the odor source was mouse urine.     

Generation enhances semantic processing? The role of distinctiveness in the generation effect

The goal of the present study was to investigate the locus of the memory advantage for words that are generated according to a nonsemantic rule (letter transposition) over words that are presented intact (read words). In the first two experiments, a category instance generation task was used to test the possibility that the semantic features of generated words are more readily available than those of read words. This possibility was not supported. In Experiment 3, generation effects were found to depend on the level of meaningfulness of words in recall, but not in recognition. In Experiment 4, a between-list design eliminated the generation effect found in recall, but did not affect the generation effect in recognition. Taken together, these findings suggest that generating a target according to a letter transposition rule enhances the distinctiveness of the word along a nonsemantic dimension.     

Hypnotic memory and confident reporting

The effect of hypnosis on the relationship between confidence and accuracy of memory reports is examined. Specifically, the article reviews experimental research that has measured subjects' confidence in their hypnotically influenced memory reports. The findings of this research are discussed in terms of the factors that increase confidence without affecting accuracy, and the factors that decrease accuracy without affecting confidence. The article argues that both the experiential and social factors associated with hypnosis potentially reduce the correspondence between confidence and accuracy of memory. Finally, the article specifies the major implications for further theoretical and empirical work on hypnotic memory and confident reporting.     

Role of selective attention in artificial grammar learning

To investigate the role of selective attention in artificial grammar (AG) learning, participants were presented with “GLOCAL” strings—that is, chains of compound global and local letters. The global and local levels instantiated different grammars. The results of this experiment revealed that participants learned only the grammar for the level to which they attended. The participants were not even able to choose presented but unattended strings themselves. These results show that selective attention plays a critical role in AG learning.     

Priming of abstract letter identities in the letter match task

Previous studies of letter recognition have not found priming for abstract letter identities. We used a task that required participants to decide whether a target is the same or different from a reference letter presented in opposite case, which avoids the shortcomings of tasks used in previous studies. We found robust priming effects in this task, which were the same size for letter pairs that have similar visual features across case (e.g., c/C, x/X) and dissimilar features (e.g., a/A, b/B). Also, the pattern of priming was the same whether the prime was in the same or different case as the reference. We take these findings as evidence that abstract letter identities support priming in this task. We suggest that the same-different match task is a useful tool for studying representations used to support masked priming in letter recognition and with other stimuli with limited set size.     

Masked onset priming effect for high-frequency words: further support for the speech-planning account

Two experiments investigated whether priming due to a match in just the onset between a masked prime and target is found with high-frequency target words. Forster and Davis (1991, Exp. 5) reported that the masked onset priming effect was absent for high-frequency words and used the finding to argue that the effect has its locus in the grapheme-phoneme mapping process that operates serially within the nonlexical route. Experiment 1 used primes that were unrelated to targets and found a masked onset priming effect of equal size for high-frequency and low-frequency target words. Experiment 2 used form-related primes as used by Forster and Davis, and again found that the effect of onset mismatch was not dependent on target word frequency. These results are interpreted in terms of an alternative view that the masked onset priming effect has its origin in the process of preparing a speech response.     

Skin potential activity in rats, cats, and primates (including man): a phylogenetic point of view.

With rats, cats, nonhuman primates, and humans serving as subjects, skin potential activity was measured under waking conditions. In good agreement with the findings of previous workers, skin potential response waveform was always monophasic negative in rats and cats, but in humans it took three forms. By contrast, it was always monophasic positive in simian nonhuman primates, although prosimiae gave monophasic negative waves. A skin potential level-skin potential response relationship could not be observed in any subject except humans. From these results, an attempt was made to relate skin potential activity to the peripheral mechanism involved in these species on the basis of a phylogenetic point of view.     

The left-to-right nature of the masked onset priming effect in naming

Two experiments were performed to investigate the nature of the masked onset priming effect in naming, that is, the facilitation in naming latency that is observed when a target shares the initial grapheme/phoneme with a masked prime. Experiment 1 showed that the effect is not due to position-independent letter priming, since the naming of nonword targets preceded by masked primes was facilitated only if the prime shared the initial letter with the target (e.g., suf-SIB) and not if the prime shared the final letter (e.g., mub-SIB). Experiment 2 showed that the effect reflects the sharing of onsets rather than the initial letter, since facilitation due to an overlap of the initial letter was observed only for the simple onset target (e.g., penny-PASTE) for which the letter corresponded to the onset, and not for complex onset targets (e.g., bingo-BLISS). It is argued that the serial nature of the masked onset priming effect is best interpreted as the planning of articulation, rather than as the computation of phonology from orthography.