Developmental differences in short-lived auditory memory for various classes of speech sounds

Spoken serial recall by second-grade children of aurally presented lists of digits, synthetic stop consonants, and synthetic vowels showed a significant suffix effect (selective debilitation of recall at the final position under the stimulus suffix condition) only for the lists of digits and not for either consonants or vowels. Making the synthetic syllables more distinctive by simultaneously covarying the consonant and vowel failed to produce a suffix effect under a strict scoring criterion which required both consonant and vowel to be recalled correctly; however, when subjects were given credit for partially correct answers the suffix effect emerged. Adults given the redundant consonant-vowel syllables showed a significant suffix effect with the strict scoring criterion. However, when consonants and vowels varied orthogonally, the adults' performance showed the suffix effect only under the lenient scoring criterion. An argument is made for equivalence of basic memorial processing between children and adults, the difference being in the number of features needed to disambiguate the target items and in the ability to integrate these features to exploit interstimulus redundancy.     

Role played self-disclosure as a function of liking and knowing

Subjects identified persons from their own lives whom they liked and knew to varying degrees. At a later session, subjects role-played a self-disclosing conversation with each identified person. Verbal behavior was recorded and analyzed with respect to the personalness of disclosure. Analysis of variance results for both self-report and observational measures show significant effects for liking and knowing on personal, but not impersonal, self-disclosure. The pattern of results over all dependent measures indicates that liking has a more specific effect on personal disclosure than does knowing, but that liking and knowing do not differ in relative control over impersonal disclosure. A correlational analysis involving subjects' perceptions of the experimental situation and the dependent disclosure measures supported this interpretation.     

Effects of stuttering on fundamental frequency

The purpose of this study was to systematically investigate quantitative fundamental frequency measures prior to moments of stuttering, and relate these measures to the severity and type of stuttering. A repeated readings adaptation procedure was employed to acquire samples of the stuttered and identical fluent speech of stutterers. Thirty-six utterance pairs were classified by type of stuttering (absence of phonation, prolongation, or repetition). A fundamental frequency meter was sampled by a microprocessor computer system at a rate of 256 samples/1.024 sec. Four temporal periods (each 256 msec) preceding the stuttering block were compared with the same periods in a fluently produced sample of similar speech. The analyses revealed differences relative to mean fundamental frequency, variation around the mean fundamental frequency, and the number of voiced data points contained within each temporal segment. The results of this study confirm the existence of acoustic changes in the vocal production of stutterers prior to overt blocks. These changes relate to the type of block that follows. Individual variations that emphasize the need for analyses of within subject differences were found.     

Motivated remembering efforts during tip-of-the-tongue states

Hart (1965) argues that the feeling of knowing in tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states monitors memory content and motivates retreival efforts. Although a number of studies have examined the memory-monitoring accuracy of feelings of knowing and not-knowing, no studies have focused directly on the hypothesized motivational function of these feeling states. This second function of memory feeling states is investigated in this study by assessing the degree to which TOT and Don't Know (DK) states interfere with a subject's ability to perform well on a concurrent task. Subjects studied a list of arbitrary word pairs for 3, 5, or 7 seconds and then provided Recall, TOT, or DK reports in an immediate recall test. Performance on the simple number-probe task that followed each memory report was poorer on TOT trials than on DK trials. This effect did not vary as a function of encoding time. Since covert memory searches were possible on both TOT and DK trials, it is concluded that the performance decrement observed on TOT trials is due to the fact that covert TOT target searches command processing capacity that might otherwise go to the concurrent number-probe task. The absence of an encoding time effect suggests that TOT states do not monitor the associative strength of target traces as Hart (1967) has proposed. The findings in this study are interpreted as providing support for the proposition that the feeling of knowing in the TOT state influences the setting of capacity-allocation priorities in the memory system.     

Experiences that motivate moral development: The role of cognitive dissonance

It has been found in previous research concerning Kohlberg's stages of moral development that engagement in a “real-life” moral dilemma sometimes leads to an advance in an individual's level of moral thought. It is argued in this study that such moral growth is often motivated by the need to reduce cognitive dissonance, which, it is suggested, frequently accompanies choice and commitment in moral contexts. Subjects in the present study delivered counterattitudinal messages that contained arguments that were either 1 stage higher or 1 stage lower than their characteristic level of moral reasoning. Half of the subjects freely chose to deliver these messages, and half did not. Afterwards, subjects' attitudes toward the issues discussed in their messages and their tendency to conceptualize moral issues in terms of the higher or lower levels of reasoning contained in their messages were assessed. The subjects who (a) had freely chosen to deliver the message, and (b) had delivered the message containing higher level arguments used significantly more advanced moral reasoning after their counterattitudinal advocacy than they had before it. These subjects showed greater change in their attitudes regarding the topic discussed in their message than other subject groups. These results suggest that moral behavior will be likely to promote moral growth (a) if it occurs under circumstances that promote cognitive dissonance (e.g., free choice) and (b) if advanced moral ideas are made salient during the dissonance reduction process.     

Effects of right hemisphere damage in an adult stutterer

One thesis on stuttering states that stuttering results from hemispheric imbalance of language. Some authors have reported stutterers who ceased stuttering following unilateral neurosurgical procedures, thereby correcting this imbalance. The first case of a stutterer in whom a right hemisphere stroke subsequently developed is reported here. The effects of the stroke on his speech production are discussed.     

The effects of uncontrollable failure and depression on memorial processes

Many investigators have argued that exposure to uncontrollable failure and depressed mood affect learning processes. However, little has been done to explore how information processing is affected by such events. Two experiments revealed that prior failure (Experiment 1) and depressed mood (Experiment 2) have similar effects on a simple free-recall task. These data are interpreted to suggest that the experience of uncontrollable failure and depression disrupt the transfer or retrieval of new information from a transient to a more permanent storage format. The implications of these data are discussed.