Semantic integration in children's reconstruction of narrative sequences

Preschool to fourth grade subjects were required to reconstruct a previously seen logical sequence by selecting old items from a set containing actually seen events and two types of new items, those consistent or inconsistent with the ordered sequence of the story. Older children were more efficient at adopting a consistent choice strategy, at rejecting inconsistent items and at retaining the end-anchor items of the story. When performance on the old anchor items was excluded, however, all grades had difficulty distinguishing the new-consistent items from the actually experienced old items. It is suggested that memory for logical narrative sequences involves the retention of the gist or theme in an integrated unified representation of the meaning rather than a series of discrete events. Further, the underlying processes of integration and inference are stable across ages.     

Transfer of training: Effects of successive pretraining of components in a dimension-abstracted oddity task

An experiment was conducted investigating the effects of training two components of a dimension-abstracted oddity problem, oddity responding and attention. All Ss were given a series of three problems. Type of oddity training was manipulated on Problem 1, and Ss learned (1) an oddity response in a problem whose format was the same as the final transfer problem, (2) an oddity response in a problem whose format was different from the final problem, or (3) no oddity response. Attention training was manipulated on Problem 2. The results indicated that Ss given same format oddity training and appropriate attention training were able to integrate that information on the final problem, that the probability of transferring the oddity response learned on Problem 1 to Problem 3 depended upon the similarity of the task formats, and that the two trained components tended to combine in an interactive fashion.     

Habituation,memory, and the evaluative dimension of meaning

Two groups of subjects were exposed to a series of 20 either positively evaluated words (E⁺ group) or negatively evaluated words (E^? group). On the twenty-first trial, half the subjects in E⁺ group (the E^+? group) received a negatively evaluated word while the other half of the subjects received a further positively evaluated word (E⁺⁺ group). A similar subdivision was made with the E^? group to yield E^?+ and E^?? groups. Skin conductance responses to all stimulus words were measured. The responses of the E^+? and E^?+ groups were compared to those of their control groups (E⁺⁺ and E^??) for stimulus words 21 and 22. The results of these analyses, and the data concerning responses prior to stimulus word 21, indicated that subjects habituated to semantic stimuli of the same evaluative meaning. Memory for the words was assessed postexperimentally and its relationship to the orienting response in discussed.     

Task-hemispheric integrity in dual task performance

A condition of task hemispheric integrity is predicted to result in a dual task situation when the central processing and response components of each task are associated exclusively with a given cerebral hemisphere. The prediction that this condition will generate more efficient time-sharing is tested in a series of four experiments. In experiment 1 the prediction is confirmed when a spatial (tracking) and verbal (letter memory search) task are time-shared, and the hand assignment to task responses is manipulated. In experiment 2 a spatial variant of the memory search is used instead of the verbal letter search, and hand assignment effects are not obtained, since when two spatial tasks are time-shared an integrity assignment is impossible. Experiment 3 validates the hemispheric lateralization of the two single task variants of the memory search task, while experiment 4 establishes the separate “spatial’ and “verbal” resource demands of the two variants by observing their differential interference with concurrent spatial and verbal tasks.     

On construct validity: A critique of Miniard and Cohen's paper

Miniard and Cohen's conclusion that our measures of attitudes and subjective norms lack construct validity is rejected. It is shown that the data from their study are entirely consistent with data from previous investigations and that the data provide additional evidence for the predictive validity of our theory and for the construct validity of our operations.     

Disfluent speech associated with brain damage

The frequency and type of disfluencies in the spontaneous speech of 15 people with Broca's aphasia and right hemiplegia was studied. Two aged-matched control groups (15 nonaphasic stroke patients with left hemiplegia and 15 normals) were also studied. The frequency of disfluencies in the speech of aphasics was three times greater than that in the speech of either control group. However, most of the disfluencies uttered by aphasics were of the types commonly found in speech of normals.     

The role of control processes and structural constraints in models of memory and social judgment

Six experiments examining a recent model of memory and social judgment are reported. In particular, the theoretical concept of a Work Space is examined in terms of both its structural properties and a variety of control processes that govern its operation. In Experiment 1, subjects were given information about a stimulus person and told that they would later be asked to recall it as well as possible. The length of the actual delay before recall and the length of the anticipated delay were factorially varied. Under short delay conditions, subjects anticipating a short delay recalled more of the information than those anticipating a long delay. The reverse was true under actual long delay conditions. Other results suggest that the anticipated length of the delay has an effect on processes related to both encoding and storage/retrieval. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate that, relative to no delay conditions, a long actual delay or a long anticipated delay produces polarization in social judgments. Both of these results are predicted by the model. Experiments 4–6 examine the effect of interpolated cognitive activity on memory and social judgment. As predicted by the model, relatively complicated cognitive activity leads to lower levels of recall and a greater polarization of judgments than less complicated intervening cognitive activity. It is argued that all of these results can be accounted for by the concept of a Work Space as a temporary repository devoted to the current information processing activities of the subject. It is thought that such a concept must be kept theoretically distinct from long-term memory. Implications of the results for models of memory and social judgment are discussed.     

The effects of feedback about self and others on the recall and judgments of feedback-relevant information

After people have received feedback about the outcome of their behavior, their responses to information bearing on the validity of this feedback may be influenced by their desire to maintain a favorable self-image. This experiment investigated the cognitive mediators of these responses. Subjects who received negative feedback about their performance on an intelligence test disparaged intelligence tests in general and judged a report they had read to be unfavorable to intelligence tests. Nevertheless, they recalled more arguments in the report that were favorable to intelligence tests than did positive feedback recipients. These results contradicted the hypothesis that subjects selectively attend to information that helps them to maintain a positive self-concept in light of negative information about themselves. Rather, they may attempt to refute arguments that support the validity of the negative feedback they receive, and this relatively greater processing may facilitate the recall of these arguments later on. In contrast, there was no evidence that subjects try to refute information that calls the validity of positive feedback into question. Results had implications for two additional issues: first, whether the effect of performance feedback depends on whether it is received before or after information bearing on its validity; second, whether feedback has similar effects on recall and judgments by persons to whom it does not directly pertain.