EFFECT OF A SPECIFIC NOISE ON VISUAL AND AUDITORY MEMORY SPAN

Messages of visual and aural stimuli (digits) were presented together with a specific noise consisting of different auditory and visual stimuli. The auditory memory span, measured by the amount of digits recalled immediately after presentation, was not at all affected by the interfering visual noise, whereas the visual memory span was found to be significantly reduced by the acoustic noise. The results are interpreted as giving support to the hypothesis on the acoustic nature of information storage in immediate memory. Possible differences in the properties of the visual and auditory peripheral filter are discussed.     

Implicit Theories of Creativity of Secondary School Students from Estonia and Russia: Effects of Collectivism,Individualism, and A Bilingual Educational Environment

Implicit theories of creativity provide an understanding of attitude towards among different populations, including students. Insights on how students see and define creativity might help to adjust educational settings and thus make it possible to provide students with better conditions to support their creativity. Although many studies have been conducted on creativity in different cultural settings, little is known on individualism or collectivism is connected to implicit theories of creativity. This study was carried out among secondary school students in Estonia and Russia to identify possible differences in how students from different cultural backgrounds (and varying in individualism and collectivism) define creativity. The results indicated that there were differences in how students from Estonia and Russia defined creativity: Although students from Russia tend to identify creativity more with novel ideas, students from Estonia defined creativity more in terms of self-expression (students from schools with Estonian as the language of instruction) and uniqueness (students from schools with Russian as the language of instruction). Implications and further research suggestions are discussed.