Retrieval of names in face and object naming in an interference study

Two experiments using the interference paradigm are reported. In the first experiment, the participants spoke aloud the names of celebrities and the names of objects when presented with pictures while hearing distractors. In the case of proper names, we replicated the data obtained by Izaute and Bonin (2001) using the interference paradigm with a proper name written naming task. In the case of common names, the results replicated those obtained by Shriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990). In the second experiment, the participants produced the names of celebrities when presented with their faces while hearing distractors that were either proper names associated with the celebrities (associate condition), that belonged to a different professional category (different condition), or that corresponded to the proper names of the celebrities (identical condition). For negative SOAs, “associate” distractors were found to increase latencies compared to the “different category” condition. The implications of the findings for proper name retrieval are briefly discussed.     

Implicit volition and stereotype control

Goals are mental representations that vary in accessibility and operate within goal systems. The implicit nature of goal activation and pursuit is shown here to make goals effective not merely at overturning the influence of an activated stereotype on how people respond to members of stereotyped groups, but effective at implicitly controlling the activation of stereotypes in the first place. In a set of experiments examining chronic egalitarian goals, faces and names of members of stereotyped groups presented as target stimuli led to the inhibition of stereotypes, as well as to the heightened accessibility of egalitarian goals. A separate set of experiments illustrate a similar ability of individuals to control stereotype activation when egalitarian goals are temporarily triggered within a context, rather than being chronically held. Goals that require one to inhibit stereotypic associations to a target can lead to the intended, yet implicit, control of stereotype activation, even when one is not aware the goal is active or being pursued or being regulated.     

Unconscious and out of control: Subliminal priming is insensitive to observer expectations

We asked whether the influence of an invisible prime on movement is dependent on conscious movement expectations. Participants reached to a central target, which triggered a directional prime–mask arrow sequence. Participants were instructed that the visible arrows (masks) would most often signal a movement modification in a specific (biased) direction. Kinematic analyses revealed that responses to the visible mask were influenced by participants’ intentional bias, as movements were fastest when the more probable mask was displayed. In addition, responses were influenced by the invisible prime without regard to its relationship to the more probable mask. Analysis of the time of initial trajectory modifications revealed that both primes influenced responses in a similar manner after accounting for participants’ bias. These results imply that invisible stimuli automatically activate their associated responses and that unconscious priming of the motor system is insensitive to the conscious expectations of the participant making the pointing movements.     

Encoding Processes and Release from Proactive Interference in Short-Term Memory of Preschool Children

A modified proactive interference paradigm was developed to investigate encoding and memory processes in preschool-age children. The buildup and release from proactive interference in preschool-age children parallels that of adults and of mentally retarded persons, indicating that very young children and older people may use many of the same encoding dimensions.     

Estructura morfológica y recuperación léxica

Resumen

El objetivo principal de esta investigación es el de contribuir a un mayor conocimiento del papel que desempeña la estructura morfológica de las palabras en la organización del léxico interno y, por consiguiente, en las estrategias que emplean los sujetos para acceder a la representación mental de las palabras. Más en concreto, se trata de ver cuál es la relación existente entre la representación de la forma base de una palabra (por ej., flor) y la de formas derivadas de la misma (por ej., florero, florecer, florido) de cara a una posible simplificación del inventario mental de entradas léxicas.

Se han realizado tres experimentos, basados en una tarea de decisión léxica y en la utilización de la técnica de «priming» o presentación previa de un supuesto elemento facilitador del reconocimiento de cada estímulo. Se midió la latencia de respuesta para clasificar los estímulos como palabras o no-palabras del idioma. Los dos primeros experimentos se efectuaron bajo la modalidad visual de reconocimiento y el tercero, bajo la modalidad auditiva. En todos los casos, las comparaciones relevantes se establecen entre los TRs correspondientes a una misma palabra en condiciones experimentales diferentes: según vaya precedida por sí misma, o por una relacionada morfológicamente, o cuando no vaya precedida ni por sí misma ni por otra relacionada (condición de control).

Los resultados obtenidos bajo las dos modalidades perceptivas son coincidentes y ponen de manifiesto que: 1) se da un efecto de facilitación en el reconocimiento, tanto al presentar una palabra precedida por sí misma (repetición) como al presentarla precedida por otra relacionada morfológicamente; 2) el efecto de facilitación por repetición es significativamente superior al de facilitación por relación morfológica; y 3) dentro de este último no aparecen diferencias significativas entre la facilitación de la forma base por la derivada y la de ésta por aquélla.

Estos resultados se interpretan a la luz de los distintos modelos propuestos acerca de la representación léxica. Sin que sean cruciales para decidirse por uno de ellos en contra de los otros, sí que parecen apoyar la existencia de un código de representación abstracto que aglutina familias de palabras relacionadas morfológicamente en torno a una misma entrada léxica. En cualquier caso, y aun suponiendo que hubiera entradas léxicas distintas para cada forma particular, sería preciso postular algún mecanismo adicional que diera cuenta del papel que desempeña la información morfológica en la organización general del léxico interno.     

‘Be careful,or you'll act corruptly and make a carved image for yourselves,in the form of a figure,the likeness male or female’ (Deut. 4:16): A commentary on Norenzayan's Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (2013)

Norenzayan's book is an ambitious attempt to integrate recent research from behavioral economics and social psychology, particularly priming studies, into a book about religion. If the account is meant as an explanation of religion or big religion, it does not succeed. If it has more modest aims, namely to describe how surveillance institutions, of which big religion is one important class, can sometimes lead to cooperation and conflict, then it is quite successful in doing so.     

PSYKOANALYTISKT ORIENTERAD PSYKOTERAPI

The increasing discourse of the concept of intersubjectivity in modern psychoanalysis has pushed the interest in the intrapsychic and its emphasis on drive and object into the background. Authors who wish to avoid a one-sided focus on intersubjectivity usually subscribe to a dual dimensional approach, taking both perspectives into account. In this article, the analytic situation is described not in two, but in three dimensions, the analytic function constituting a third dimension necessary for the interplay between the other two dimensions. Focusing on the analyst's position, the author presents a model that consists of (1) the-analyst-as-subject, (2) the-analyst-as-function, and (3) the-analyst-as-object. The analytic function is understood to be invested with a particular form of desire and it is argued that the asymmetry between this desire of the analyst and the desire of the analysand is a central characteristic of the analytic situation.     

Evidence for Implicit Learning in Syntactic Comprehension

This study provides evidence for implicit learning in syntactic comprehension. By reanalyzing data from a syntactic priming experiment (Thothathiri & Snedeker, 2008), we find that the error signal associated with a syntactic prime influences comprehenders' subsequent syntactic expectations. This follows directly from error‐based implicit learning accounts of syntactic priming, but it is unexpected under accounts that consider syntactic priming a consequence of temporary increases in base‐level activation. More generally, the results raise questions about the principles underlying the maintenance of implicit statistical knowledge relevant to language processing, and about possible functional motivations for syntactic priming.     

Cognitive consequences of individual differences in arousal asymmetry

Prior research has demonstrated that semantic organization in the right hemisphere (RH) is more diffuse and specialized for distant semantic associates than is semantic organization in the left hemisphere (LH). The present research explored individual differences in this regard. If the RH is more specialized for distant semantic associates, then individuals with a more active RH should display greater activation of distant semantic associations. Two experiments were conducted to examine this issue. In both studies a line bisection task was used to assess arousal asymmetry. In Experiment 1, greater RH activation was associated with the ability to generate remote associates to three word stimuli. In Experiment 2, relatively greater RH activation was associated with enhanced priming of distant semantic associates. Taken together, these experiments demonstrate that arousal asymmetry is an individual difference variable that is related to variability in semantic organization and retrieval.     

Dynamic Simulation and Static Matching for Action Prediction: Evidence From Body Part Priming

Accurately predicting other people's actions may involve two processes: internal real‐time simulation (dynamic updating) and matching recently perceived action images (static matching). Using a priming of body parts, this study aimed to differentiate the two processes. Specifically, participants played a motion‐controlled video game with either their arms or legs. They then observed arm movements of a point‐light actor, which were briefly occluded from view, followed by a static test pose. Participants judged whether this test pose depicted a coherent continuation of the previously seen action (i.e., “action prediction task”). Evidence of dynamic updating was obtained after compatible effector priming (i.e., arms), whereas incompatible effector priming (i.e., legs) indicated static matching. Together, the results support action prediction as engaging two distinct processes, dynamic simulation and static matching, and indicate that their relative contributions depend on contextual factors like compatibility of body parts involved in performed and observed action.