Associative activation of stimulus representations restores lost salience: implications for perceptual learning

In 3 experiments, rats received preexposure to presentations of a compound flavor BX. The effective salience of B was then tested by assessing its ability to interfere with the aversion controlled by another flavor or the tendency to drink a saline solution after the induction of a salt need. It was found that the effective salience of B was maintained when during preexposure, presentations of BX alternated with presentations of X alone. This was true both when BX was presented as a simultaneous compound (Experiment 1) and as a serial compound (X-->B; Experiments 2 and 3); salience was not maintained when the serial compound took the form B-->X (Experiments 2 and 3a). It was argued that the salience of B declines during preexposure but is restored when presentations of X are able to activate the representation of B by way of the associative X-B link.     

An examination of learning processes during critical incident training: implications for the development of adaptable trainees

Three experiments are reported that examined the process by which trainees learn decision-making skills during a critical incident training program. Formal theories of category learning were used to identify two processes that may be responsible for the acquisition of decision-making skills: rule learning and exemplar learning. Experiments 1 and 2 used the process dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1998) to evaluate the contribution of these processes to performance. The results suggest that trainees used a mixture of rule and exemplar learning. Furthermore, these learning processes were influenced by different aspects of training structure and design. The goal of Experiment 3 was to develop training techniques that enable trainees to use a rule adaptively. Trainees were tested on cases that represented exceptions to the rule. Unexpectedly, the results suggest that providing general instruction regarding the kinds of conditions in which a decision rule does not apply caused them to fixate on the specific conditions mentioned and impaired their ability to identify other conditions in which the rule might not apply. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Children's printed word database: Continuities and changes over time in children's early reading vocabulary

In this paper we introduce a comprehensive database of the vocabulary in reading materials used by 5 – 9 year old children in the UK. The database is available on‐line http:www.essex.ac.ukpsychologycpwd and allows researchers into early reading development the possibility of rigorous control over critical characteristics of experimental stimuli such as word frequency, regularity and length, frequency of grapheme‐phoneme correspondences, orthographic and phonological neighbourhoods etc. The on‐line database is also a resource that can be used by practitioners with interests in literacy development and literacy instruction. It can be used to obtain characteristics for a user‐generated list of words, or else to generate a list of words according to constraints specified by the user. Here we present an overview of the construction of the database, the materials entered into it, the survey of schools by which we obtained information about the books that were most likely to be used by children in each age group, and the search features available on the database website. We also discuss certain characteristics of the Vocabulary itself and compare these with those reported in an earlier non‐representative database reported in Stuart, Dixon, Masterson and Gray (2003). We then present a detailed analysis of the characteristics of Vocabulary in books used in the Reception year, against the background of recent recommendations for change in the early teaching of reading. Finally, we present data showing that the database is indeed already proving a useful resource for both practitioners and researchers.