Age-related differences in the use of background layout in visual search

The effect of background layout on visual search performance, and more specifically on the tendency to refixate previously inspected locations and objects, was investigated. Older and younger adults performed a search task in which a background layout or landmark was present or absent in a gaze contingent visual search paradigm. Regardless of age, participants demonstrated fewer refixations when landmarks were present, with older adults showing a larger landmark advantage. This visual search advantage did not come at the cost of saccadic latency. Furthermore, the visual search performance advantage obtained in the presence of a background layout or landmark was observed both for individuals with small and large memory spans.     

When people are more logical under cognitive load: dual task impact on scalar implicature

The present study introduces dual task methodology to test opposing psychological processing predictions concerning the nature of implicatures in pragmatic theories. Implicatures routinely arise in human communication when hearers interpret utterances pragmatically and go beyond the logical meaning of the terms. The neo-Gricean view (e.g., Levinson, 2000) assumes that implicatures are generated automatically whereas relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995) assumes that implicatures are effortful and not automatic. Participants were presented a sentence verification task with underinformative sentences that have the potential to produce scalar implicatures like Some oaks are trees. Depending on the nature of the interpretation of Some (logical or pragmatic) the sentence is judged true or false. Executive cognitive resources were experimentally burdened by the concurrent memorization of complex dot patterns during the interpretation process. Results showed that participants made more logical and fewer pragmatic interpretations under load. Findings provide direct support for the relevance theory view.     

Cognitive mechanisms of visuomotor transformation in movement imitation: Examining predictions based on models of apraxia and motor control

When we observe a movement and then reproduce it, how is this visual input transformed into motor output? Studies on stroke patients with apraxia suggest that there may be two distinct routes used for gesture imitation; an indirect route that recruits stored movement memories (motor programs) and a direct route that bypasses them. The present study examined 30 healthy adults ages 18–80 (mean age = 44.0 years, SD = 19.5) to learn how motor programs are recruited or bypassed in movement imitation depending upon task conditions (whether familiar letters or novel shapes are imitated) and perceptual factors (whether shapes or letters are perceived). Subjects were asked to imitate the movements of a model who formed shapes and letters on a sheer mesh screen, and to report whether they perceived the task as a shape or a letter. Movements were recorded using a Vicon motion analysis system, and subsequently analyzed to determine the degree of difference between the demonstrated and produced movements. As predicted, letter perception on the letter tasks resulted in increased temporal error when the demonstrated stroke order conflicted with subjects’ habitual pattern of letter formation. No such interference effects were observed when the letter tasks were perceived as shapes. These findings are discussed in the context of current theories on imitation, and implications for rehabilitation and motor re-learning are presented.     

Who is dominating the Dutch neighbourhood? On the role of subsyllabic units in Dutch nonword reading

To assess the role of the subsyllabic units onset-nucleus (ON; spark) and rime (spark) in Dutch visual word recognition, we compared lexical decisions to four groups of nonwords in which the existence of ONs and rimes was orthogonally manipulated. Nonwords with existent ONs and/or rimes were rejected more slowly and less accurately. ON and rime neighbours thus influence Dutch nonword reading to the same extent. Simulations with the interactive activation model (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981) revealed that this model with left-to-right coded representations could not replicate the effects found in the lexical decision data whereas an adapted version with representations of onset, nucleus, and coda could. Effects of the larger units ON and rime emerged from activation patterns created by the smaller units onset, nucleus, and coda.     

THE EFFECTS OF VIDEO MODELING ON STAFF IMPLEMENTATION OF A PROBLEM‐SOLVING INTERVENTION WITH ADULTS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

We investigated the effects of video modeling on the percentage of correctly implemented problem‐solving steps by staff in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities, using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants. The treatment consisted of staff watching a video model demonstrating the correct implementation of a problem‐solving intervention (i.e., teaching clients to identify problems, possible solutions, and consequences to each solution, and to choose the best solution). The percentage of correctly implemented problem‐solving steps increased for all participants, and the effect was maintained over time, generalized to novel problems, and generalized from role play with a researcher to actual clients.     

Toward an Integrative CAPS Approach to Racial/Ethnic Relations

ABSTRACT The original CAPS formulation focused on the role of the individual's CAPS system in relation to situations, formalizing a person–situation framework. Subsequent research and theorizing on the culturally embedded CAPS system (C-CAPS) began to spell out how culture, context, and group-level processes intersect with both persons and situations. The contributions in this special section provide insights into the enormous complexity and the multiple layers through which context and persons "make each other up" in racial/ethnic relations. The challenge for personality psychologists is to examine and illuminate this interpenetration of context and person concretely and with increasing depth and precision. The CAPS framework provides a meta-level guide for this mission, and the present contributions illustrate the framework's heuristic value.     

Projectible predicates in analogue and simulated systems

We investigate the relationship between two approaches to modeling physical systems. On the first approach, simplifying assumptions are made about the level of detail we choose to represent in a computational simulation with an eye toward tractability. On the second approach simpler, analogue physical systems are considered that have more or less well-defined connections to systems of interest that are themselves too difficult to probe experimentally. Our interest here is in the connections between the artifacts of modeling that appear in these two approaches. We begin by outlining an important respect in which the two are essentially dissimilar and then propose a method whereby overcoming that dissimilarity by hand results in usefully analogous behavior. We claim that progress can be made if we think of artifacts as clues to the projectible predicates proper to the models themselves. Our degree of control over the connection between interesting analogue physical systems and their targets arises from determining the projectible predicates in the analogue system through a combination of theory and experiment. To obtain a similar degree of control over the connection between large-scale, distributed simulations of complex systems and their targets we must similarly determine the projectible predicates of the simulations themselves. In general theory will be too intractable to be of use, and so we advocate an experimental program for determining these predicates.

the object of the natural history which I propose is...to give light to the discovery of causes and supply a suckling philosophy with its first food. Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration

     

A LABORATORY MODEL FOR STUDYING RESPONSE‐CLASS HIERARCHIES

If the members of a functional response class occur in a predictable order, a response‐class hierarchy is said to exist. Although this topic has received some attention in the applied literature, it remains relatively understudied. The purpose of the current investigation was to develop an analogue model of a response‐class hierarchy. Children with and without developmental disabilities were first taught three responses in an attempt to develop a functional response class ordered along the dimension of response effort (Experiment 1). Following response‐class development, an extinction analysis was used to determine whether the responses were hierarchically related (Experiment 2). Results of Experiment 1 indicated that a functional response class was developed, and that there was a relation between response rate and effort for the established response class. Results of Experiment 2 indicated that a response‐class hierarchy existed within the previously developed response classes for 3 of 4 participants.     

Immediate and prolonged effects of cortisol, but not propranolol, on memory retrieval in healthy young men

BackgroundWhile acute cortisol administration has been found to impair retrieval of emotional memories in healthy subjects, the duration of this memory impairment is still unknown. Propranolol, on the other hand, may impair the reconsolidation of emotional memories during reactivation, although human studies examining such effects are scarce. The present investigation was therefore undertaken to examine the immediate and prolonged effects of a single administered dose of cortisol or propranolol on memory retrieval in a double-blind placebo controlled design.MethodsEighty-five healthy male participants were asked to retrieve previously learned emotional and neutral information after ingestion of 35 mg cortisol, 80 mg propranolol or placebo. After a washout period of 1 week, recall was again tested.ResultsMemory retrieval of neutral and emotional information was impaired by a single dose of cortisol compared to placebo. The memory impairment due to cortisol remained, even after a washout period of 1 week. No immediate or prolonged effects of propranolol on memory retrieval were found, despite significant reductions in sympathetic arousal.ConclusionsThese results lend support to the hypothesis that cortisol is able to attenuate (emotional) memory recall in men over longer time spans and may therefore augment the treatment of disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias, but do not clarify the mechanism(s) through which propranolol exerts its therapeutic effects.