What does naming a picture do? Effects of prior picture naming on recognition of identical and same-name alternatives

Three experiments investigated the effects of naming pictures of objects during study on the subsequent recognition of physically identical, name-match, and new objects. Prior naming improved correct classification of all three item types at recognition. For line drawings and for photographs of functionally distinct objects, prior naming reduced the tendency to confuse identical and same-name alternatives. In Experiment 2, prior naming eliminated the right visual field/left hemisphere advantage for speeded recognition of name-match pictures, suggesting that prior naming reduces the likelihood that pictures are named at recognition. The implications of these results for dual-encoding (Paivio, 1971) and sensory-semantic (Nelson, Reed, & McEvoy, 1977) models of picture and word processing are discussed. The results suggest that the semantic representations of objects that are perceptually distinct but share a common name are not identical, and that the effect of naming such objects is to insure that a distinct semantic representation becomes a part of the resulting memory code.     

Spatial localization under conflict conditions: is there a single explanation?

Visual--auditory (VA) and visual--proprioceptive (VP) localization conflict paradigms were varied to explore the comparability of the conflict situations. In experiment 1 various attempts were made to decrease the dominance of visual information over proprioceptive and auditory target information. Pairing auditory with proprioceptive information against conflicting visual information did not lessen the visual dominance, nor did dimming the visual field. A 'cognitive' manipulation, in which the subject was led to doubt the reliability of the visual information, reduced visual dominance over audition but not visual dominance over proprioception. This difference between the two conflict situations was further explored and corroborated in experiment 2. In experiment 3 no attempt was made to lead the subject to believe that paired discrepant targets were related, and the visual dominance of audition was strong while the visual dominance of proprioception did not occur. The apparent differences between the VA and VP conflict situations are discussed with regard to the feability of generating a unitary explanation of localization conflict results. Several further factors are discussed that must be explored before undertaking such a unitary formulation.     

An illusion of auditory saltation similar to the cutaneous "rabbit"

Trains of brief clicks produced successively at 3 points in a horizontal array were not localized accurately. Observers reported clicks occurring in succession across the spaces between sources as well as at the sources themselves. The illusion is functionally related to interstimulus interval, number of clicks per speaker, and regularity of pulsing. It appears similar to Geldard and Sherrick's cutaneous "rabbit" illusion.     

The community mental health center management game: Teaching administrative skills by means of computer simulation

Clinical training in psychology rarely includes the opportunity for students to exercise managerial responsibility for a functioning human service organization. Nevertheless, many clinicians are called upon to assume such decision-making duties, despite their lack of administrative training. This study examines the feasibility of using a computer model of a typical Community Mental Health Center (CMHC) as a training device, permitting clinical students to “manage” a complex social agency over a course of many months of simulated time. The system provides a valuable and interesting supplement to the usual training materials in psychology programs.     

Auditory contralateral induction: An early stage in binaural processing

Binaural interaction was studied using headphones presenting signals (tones or filtered speech) to one ear and noises of various spectral compositions to the other. Every half-second, the sides receiving the signal and noise were reversed. The noise was always perceived to alternate from side to side, but the signal appeared to be stationary and diffusely localized about the midsaggital plane when the noise contained the spectral components of the signal at appropriate intensity levels. This delateralization of a monaural signal results from a process called “contralateral induction” (CI). Additional observations indicate that CI corresponds to an early stage in binaural interaction which generally escapes notice because of further perceptual processing.     

Two-dimensional reward evaluation in mice

Animal Cognition - When choosing among multi-attribute options, integrating the full information may be computationally costly and time-consuming. So-called non-compensatory decision rules only...     

Intonation does aid serial recall after all

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - A sequence of spoken digits is easier to recall if the digits are grouped into smaller chunks (e.g., through the insertion of pauses). It has been claimed that...