Learning Painting Styles: Spacing is Advantageous when it Promotes Discriminative Contrast

Repetitions that are distributed over time benefit long‐term retention more than when massed. Recent research has suggested that the advantage of spacing may extend to induction learning‐‐learners were better able to identify the artists of previously unseen paintings when, during training, artists' paintings were spaced (paintings by different artists were interleaved) rather than massed (a given artist's paintings were blocked and presented consecutively). Increasing temporal spacing between paintings while maintaining a presentation sequence that was blocked by artist produced test performance no better than massed presentation (both worse than interleaved presentation) (Experiment 1). Displaying paintings by different artists simultaneously produced test performance as good as interleaved presentation and better than massed presentation (Experiment 2). Our findings argue that spacing benefits perceptual induction learning not because of increased temporal spacing per se but rather because interleaving paintings by different artists enhances discriminative contrast between the artists' styles. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-Esteem and In-Group Bias Among Members of a Religious Social Category

Abstract

In a sample of New Zealand university students, the author extended earlier research into the relationship between self-esteem and intergroup discrimination. He found no support for the hypothesis that social-category members (i.e., Christians) experience an elevation in the domain of self-esteem (i.e., religious self-esteem) judged as more relevant to the in-group after evaluations favoring the in-group. Regardless of whether the evaluation targets behaved positively or negatively, the respondents in the experimental condition evaluated in-group (Christian) targets more highly than out-group (Atheist) targets. After evaluations favoring the in-group, the respondents did not experience an elevation of religious self-esteem, global self-esteem, or mathematical self-esteem (judged as less relevant to the in-group).     

反馈时间、反馈类型和掩蔽类型对概率类别学习的影响

通过操纵反馈时间(即时,延迟)、反馈类型(简单,丰富)和掩蔽类型(塔罗牌,空白矩形),考察概率类别学习的学习机制。结果发现:(1)被试的学习成绩在即时反馈条件下显著优于在延迟反馈条件下;(2)在即时反馈条件下,仅给予简单反馈,被试虽能出色地完成天气预报任务,但是不能正确地判断卡片预测晴天的概率,倾向内隐学习;(3)在其他条件下,被试能正确地判断卡片预测晴天的概率以及各卡片在天气预报任务中预测天气的重要程度,表明被试能外显地意识到这些线索的作用。综上,概率类别学习采用的是双系统学习机制,既依赖内隐学习,又依赖外显学习。     

Making Probabilistic Relational Categories Learnable

Theories of relational concept acquisition (e.g., schema induction) based on structured intersection discovery predict that relational concepts with a probabilistic (i.e., family resemblance) structure ought to be extremely difficult to learn. We report four experiments testing this prediction by investigating conditions hypothesized to facilitate the learning of such categories. Experiment 1 showed that changing the task from a category‐learning task to choosing the “winning” object in each stimulus greatly facilitated participants' ability to learn probabilistic relational categories. Experiments 2 and 3 further investigated the mechanisms underlying this “who's winning” effect. Experiment 4 replicated and generalized the “who's winning” effect with more natural stimuli. Together, our findings suggest that people learn relational concepts by a process of intersection discovery akin to schema induction, and that any task that encourages people to discover a higher order relation that remains invariant over members of a category will facilitate the learning of putatively probabilistic relational concepts.     

Incidental memory for colour word associates processed in colour naming and reading aloud tasks: is a blue ocean more memorable than a yellow one?

ABSTRACT

Congruency effects for colour word associates (e.g., ocean) have been reported in Stroop colour naming tasks. However, incidental memory for such words after word reading and colour naming tasks has not been examined. In the current study, participants incidentally recalled colour word associates (e.g., ocean) and neutral words (e.g., lawyer) immediately after naming their font colour (Experiment 1a) or reading them aloud (Experiment 1b). In both tasks, recall was better for congruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in blue) than incongruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in green) or neutral items (lawyer appearing in blue).

This outcome is consistent with the idea that co-activation of a semantic colour code and a lexical representation strengthens the episodic memory representation and makes it more accessible.     

Effects of survival processing and retention interval on true and false recognition in the DRM and category repetition paradigms

ABSTRACT

Two experiments examined the effects of survival processing and delay on true and related false recognition. Experiment 1 used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm and found survival processing to increase true and related false recognition. Extending the delay from 5-mins to 1-day reduced true, but not false memory. Measures of the characteristics of true and false memories showed survival processing increased “remember” and “know” responses for related false memory, “know” responses for true memory and gist processing. Experiment 2 made use of the category repetition procedure and found a broadly similar pattern of results for true memory. However, related false memory was decreased by survival processing. Except for one result, no interactions were found between encoding task and delay. Overall, survival processing produced similar or different effects on true/false memory depending on the nature of the list. The mechanisms that might underpin these are evaluated and considered in relation to future work.     

How semantic category modulates preschool children’s visual memory

The dynamic interplay between perception and memory has been explored in preschool children by presenting filtered stimuli regarding animals and artifacts. The identification of filtered images was markedly influenced by both prior exposure and the semantic nature of the stimuli. The identification of animals required less physical information than artifacts did. Our results corroborate the notion that the human attention system evolves to reliably develop definite category-specific selection criteria by which living entities are monitored in different ways.     

Looking at anything that is green when hearing “frog”: How object surface colour and stored object colour knowledge influence language-mediated overt attention

Three eye-tracking experiments investigated the influence of stored colour knowledge, perceived surface colour, and conceptual category of visual objects on language-mediated overt attention. Participants heard spoken target words whose concepts are associated with a diagnostic colour (e.g., “spinach”; spinach is typically green) while their eye movements were monitored to (a) objects associated with a diagnostic colour but presented in black and white (e.g., a black-and-white line drawing of a frog), (b) objects associated with a diagnostic colour but presented in an appropriate but atypical colour (e.g., a colour photograph of a yellow frog), and (c) objects not associated with a diagnostic colour but presented in the diagnostic colour of the target concept (e.g., a green blouse; blouses are not typically green). We observed that colour-mediated shifts in overt attention are primarily due to the perceived surface attributes of the visual objects rather than stored knowledge about the typical colour of the object. In addition our data reveal that conceptual category information is the primary determinant of overt attention if both conceptual category and surface colour competitors are copresent in the visual environment.     

儿童图式特征的认知发展研究

采用三角验证法对长春180名10.1-15.3岁儿童进行研究,以自然范畴的事物、家庭内外事件和熟悉的文本为测验材料,探测了儿童对图式特征的认知特点。结果发现:(1)儿童对自然范畴、事件、文本图式特征的认知存在三级水平:①成分水平,②成分与整体水平,③整体水平。这三级水平与儿童思维特点相一致并受生活经验或事件的制约。(2)儿童对三类图式特征认知是随年龄的升高而不断提升的,其标志是对图式本质的理解、概括与把握不断加深,到13岁以后儿童对三类图式特征的认知发展迅速。