Modeling semantic memory: Effects of presenting semantic information in different modalities

How is semantic information from different modalities integrated and stored? If related ideas are encountered in French and English, or in pictures and sentences, is the result a single representation in memory, or two modality-dependent ones? Subjects were presented with items in different modalities, then were asked whether or not subsequently presented items were identical with the former ones. Subjects frequently accepted translations and items semantically consistent with those presented earlier as identical, although not as often as they accepted items actually seen previously. The same pattern of results was found when the items were French and English sentences, and when they were pictures and sentences. The results can be explained by the hypothesis that subjects integrate information across modalities into a single underlying semantic representation. A computer model, embodying this hypothesis, made predictions in close agreement with the data.     

RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHER ATTENTION AND THE “GOOD BEHAVIOR GAME” IN MODIFYING DISRUPTIVE CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR1

A variety of behavioral procedures have been employed in recent years to modify disruptive classroom behavior. Such methods have been developed with the belief that curtailing disruptive behavior would strengthen positive classroom performance. In this study, two procedures, the good behavior game and the teacher-attention method, were compared to determine short-run effectiveness. Four teachers (two fourth-grade and two fifth-grade) implemented both methods in their classrooms over a five-week period. Presentation of methods was alternated in a counterbalanced design to control for order effects. Each of the four classrooms consisted of 25 students. A time-sampling procedure was used to record the presence or absence of disruptive behavior within 15-second intervals. Disruptive behavior was defined as any talking-out or out-of-seat behavior without permission. The results indicated that both procedures were effective in modifying disruptive classroom behavior, but that the good behavior game reduced disruptive behavior significantly better than the teacher-attention method. In addition, all teachers preferred the game to the teacher-attention procedure. This reaction seemed related to the effort involved in initiating the two activities. The good behavior game required less effort on the teacher's part. However, use of the game alone raises certain ethical considerations. One such issue involves abuse of peer pressure. Also, there is a possibility that negative rules may tend to promote resentment. Positively stated rules would ameliorate that problem. Another relates to the possibility that some teachers might be carried away by the ease of the game's implementation to the extent that behavior control becomes the primary objective in the classroom. As a result, one might consider use of the game to maximize short-term change, but then phase out this procedure in favor of another method (e.g., teacher attention) for long-run effects.     

Is the discrimination of motion-path length unique?

Discrimination of the extent of a motion path may present a special problem since the discrimination calls on memory for changing position and involves pursuit movements of the eye. To determine how these factors affect judgment, discrimination of extents represented by motion paths, successively appearing endpoints, and simultaneously present endpoints was compared under a variety of eye-movement conditions: fixation, pursuit, and saccadic. Discrimination was assessed by the method of adjustment and also by the method of magnitude estimation. Discrimination of motion path extent was found to be as accurate as discrimination of an interspace demarcated by simultaneously presented points or by successively presented points. This was true for brief single presentations of the extents as well as for repeated exposures to the extents. The findings were applied to the analysis of the perception of velocity and the perception of extent.     

Capacity limitations in human information processing

The nature of processing demands during a letter-match task was investigated in an extension of the Posner and Boies (1971) paradigm. In Experiment I, a visual probe was employed in addition to an auditory probe in two different experimental conditions. The shape of the auditory probe reaction time (RT) function was similar to that found by Posner and Boies. However, in contrast to their findings, RT was greatly increased shortly after presentation of the first letter for the visual probe function. It was concluded that perceptual as well as postperceptual limitations on processing capacity exist. A second experiment provided further support for this hypothesis.     

Physical distance and attraction: An intensification effect

This study was designed to test the effects of both interaction distance and the quality of the interaction upon attraction. It was found that close interaction distances amplified the quality of the interaction so that for a positive interaction there was more liking for a close rather than a far partner, while for a negative interaction a close partner was liked less. The implications of this finding for research concerning crowding is discussed, as are possible explanatory mechanisms.     

Auditory evoked potentials during selective listening to dichotic speech messages

The sensitivity of the scalp-recorded, auditory evoked potential to selective attention was examined while subjects monitored one of two dichotically presented speech passages for content. Evoked potentials were elicited to irrelevant probe stimuli (vowel sounds) embedded in both the right- and the leftear’s message. The amplitude of the evoked potential was larger to probe stimuli embedded in the attended message than to probe stimuli in the unattended message. Recall performance was unaffected by the presence of the probes. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that this evoked potential sensitivity reflects an initial “input selection” stage of attention.     

Deceit as a function of sex of subject and target person

Thirty male and female undergraduates were run in same- and opposite-sex pairs to determine if the extent of experimentally sanctioned deceit would be influenced by sex pairings and potential for harm to another's self-esteem. Ss, who all believed they were playing the role of a teacher in a learning experiment, were instructed to provide false feedback (lie) at least three times during 30 trials to a learner, the other S. Consistent with hypotheses derived from a consideration of the potential harm to another's self-esteem and a suggested norm of white lying, perceived relative importance of male and female sex roles, and greater female concern for the social welfare of others, it was found that white lies occurred significantly more often than lies, that males were significantly more likely to give false feedback than females, that females were the target of false feedback significantly more often than males, and that the interaction between sex of S and sex of target person was also significant in that males lied to females more than any other sex pairing.This research was partially supported by the New Mexico Highlands University Institute of Scientific Research. A brief version of this report was presented at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association meeting, Denver, May, 1974.