Blocking of a taste aversion by prior pairings of exteroceptive stimuli with illness

Although rats preferentially associate gustatory stimuli with illness, this does not imply that other types of stimuli cannot be associated with illness. In Experiment 1, rats consuming tap water in a distinctive environment prior to illness subsequently suppressed ingestion in that environment, whereas rats poisoned or injected with saline 10 hr later did not. It was also found that rats poisoned after drinking saccharin in the environment paired with illness developed weaker saccharin aversions than identically trained rats which drank saccharin in a different location. In Experiment 2, degrading the correlation between injection-related cues and illness by interpolating saline injections between LiCl preexposures attenuated the decremental effects of illness preexposure. The strength of the exteroceptive cue-illness associations observed in these studies suggests that theories based on evolutionary arguments are not the most appropriate frame of reference for analyzing stimulus selection in poison-induced avoidance.     

Optimal scaling of paired comparison and rank order data: An alternative to guttman's formulation

A formulation, which is different from Guttman's is presented. The two formulations are both called the optimal scaling approach, and are proven to provide identical scale values. The proposed formulation has at least two advantages over Guttman's. Namely, (i) the former serves to clarify close relations of the optimal scaling approach to those of Slater and the vector model of preferential choice, and (ii) in addition to the stimulus scale values, it provides scores for the subjects, which indicate the degrees of response consistency (transitivity), relative to the optimum solution. The method is assumption-free and capable of multidimensional analysis.This study was partly supported by the National Research Council Grant (No. A4581) to S. Nishisato. The author is indebted to Dr. Bert F. Green, Jr., Mr. Tomoichi Ishizuka, and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier draft.     

Modeling spatial knowledge

A person's cognitive map, or knowledge of large-scale space, is built up from observations gathered as he travels through the environment. It acts as a problem solver to find routes and relative positions, as well as describing the current location. The TOUR model captures the multiple representations that make up the cognitive map, the problem-solving strategies it uses, and the mechanisms for assimilating new information. The representations have rich collections of states of partial knowledge, which support many of the performance characteristics of common-sense knowledge.     

Some relations of general intelligence and selective attention

General intelligence may set structural feature limitations on three aspects of selective attention: direction, adjustability, and breadth. Amiable hypotheses considered are that subjects of varying intelligence may (1) have some partially fixed tendencies to look at different dimensions of stimuli, (2) have varying rates of adjusting their direction of attention, and (3) have varying upper limits on breadth of attention for tasks demanding it. Data, theory, and methods bearing on these hypotheses were reviewed from the domain of visual discrimination learning.     

The naive perception of masculinity-femininity on the basis of expressive cues

Groups of naive judges rated 18 videotaped stimulus persons on masculinity, femininity, “dominance, assertiveness,” and “compassion, sensitivity to others.” Stimulus persons were broken down by sex and sex-typing—half were male, half female—and within sexes one third were classified as masculine, feminine, and androgynous on the basis of their scores on the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Two experiments are reported in which groups of judges rate stimulus persons on the basis of such different expressive information as videotaped pictures and recorded voices, videotaped pictures alone, videotaped bodies, videotaped heads, recorded voices, and still photos. The results showed: (1) Judges reliably rated masculinity-femininity from largely expressive cues: (2) judgments of masculinity-femininity were not predominantly determined by judgments of sex role-related traits: (3) the naive judgment of masculinity-femininity significantly corresponded to stimulus subjects' assessed sex roles; (4) stimulus subjects (particulary males) showed a consistent display of masculinity-femininity across expressive channels; and (5) judges used different expressive cues in judging masculinity-femininity in males and females. These results are related to broader questions concerning the relation between expressive behavior and personality.     

Career indecision in adult women: A comparative and descriptive study

This study compared 66 high-school women, 66 first-year college women, and 66 adult women on four measures of career indecision, the Satisfaction with Career Scale, the Occupational Alternatives Question, the Vocational Decision Making Difficulty Scale, and the Career Decision Scale. The results consistently suggested that the adult women were experiencing more career indecision than the high-school and college women. Intercorrelations among the scales were generally moderate to somewhat low and raised some questions about the use of the Career Decision Scale with adult women. Additional data were gathered on the adult women in an attempt to delineate the sample. Variables included were: marital status, present work experience, the career-related goals and the reasons for pursuing these goals, and possible impediments to reaching the goals. These results are presented and the implications for future research and counseling with adult women are examined.     

The effects of delay and interference: A speed-accuracy study

This paper examines the effect of (1) delay between learning and test and (2) associative interference on memory retrieval speed. The speed-accuracy tradeoff methodology, which interrupts the retrieval process at various times (0.3, 0.7, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 3.0 sec) after presentation of the test item, provides a means of separating retrieval speed effects from effects on overall memory strength. Performance at short processing times is an index of retrieval speed. Performance given ample processing time is a measure of asymptotic accuracy, or memory strength. Increasing the delay between learning and test or introduction of interference relations lowered memory trace strength, as reflected in asymptotic accuracy. Items tested shortly (about 3 sec) after learning showed a significant speedup in retrieval relative to items tested at a longer (several minute) delay. Further analysis suggested that the delay effect on retrieval was primarily the result of immediate repetition, or testing of the last-learned item. The interference manipulation showed a slight and nonsignificant tendency toward slowing of memory retrieval. The implications of these results for various models of retrieval are explored via simulations. The results of all the simulations suggested a direct-access retrieval process where associations are processed largely in parallel. Contradiction or mismatch information in recognizing new items was important because it provided an explanation for a slight slowing in retrieval due to interference even with a parallel-processing assumption. Faster retrieval for the last-learned item may be the result of residual activation following active processing.     

Young children's storage behavior in a memory-for-location task

Two experiments concerned with children's intentional preparation for future retrieval in a memory-for-location task are presented. In the first experiment, 3-, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds were instructed to store and subsequently retrieve an object on a large spatial display. All age groups, except the 3-year-olds, tended to store the object at distinctive locations and their retrieval performance was facilitated accordingly. The four age groups did not differ in the types of selections made in a nonmemory control task. The second experiment dealt with the effects of feedback and informational factors on strategy acquisition. Preschoolers were given experience at retrieving the object from distinctive and nondistinctive positions on the stimulus display. Later, when instructed to store the object by themselves, older preschoolers produced the distinctive-position storage strategy following a feedback procedure in which they directly observed the consequences of their retrieval selections. The strategy was adopted by younger preschoolers, but only when additional strategy and task information accompanied visual feedback. The use of external memory tasks with young children and factors affecting strategy acquisition and utilization are discussed.     

When is a question not answered? The understanding of young children of utterances violating or conforming to the rules of conversational sequencing

Knowledge of the conventional rules of conversational sequencing enables a speaker or listener to evaluate the pragmatic use of an utterance. This study explored young children's ability to discriminate among utterances that violated or conformed to these rules (Experiment 1), and ability to explain rule violations (Experiment 2). In both experiments children were read short episodes containing utterances that conformed to the rules in that the utterances were used appropriately in the episodic context of utterance, or utterances that violated the conversational rules of contingency, relevance, or informativeness. In Experiment 1, kindergarten, and first- and second-grade children (5, 6, and 7 years of age) were asked to discriminate among the conforming and rule violating utterances by assigning each utterance to one of two female conventional and unconventional speakers. The results showed that the first and second graders, but not the kindergarten children, generally discriminated among the utterances. In Experiment 2, first and third graders (6 and 8 years of age) were asked to explain the rule violations. The results showed that only the third graders consistently generated correct explanations. These results suggest that children can use the rules of conversational sequencing to evaluate the need for an inference to the speaker's intent in deliberately violating a rule by 6 or 7 years of age, but do not correctly infer that intent until they are 8 or 9 years old.     

Encoding specificity in the recall of pictures and words in children and adults

In this study, the modality of the retrieval cues (pictures or words) was varied in a cued recall task to determine how second and fourth grade children and college adults encode words (Experiment 1) and pictures (Experiment 2). According to the assumptions of the encoding specificity principle, cue modality should affect recall only to the degree to which subjects focus on modality specific (sensory) rather than nonmodality specific (semantic) information in stimuli. In both experiments, the results showed progressively smaller encoding specificity effects with increasing age. To ensure that differences in encoding activity were responsible for these effects, comparisons were made of recall patterns under intentional learn conditions, and under incidental conceptual and sensory orienting conditions. The recall patterns of the children in the conceptual orienting condition were similar to the adult patterns in the learn condition, and the adult recall patterns in the sensory orienting conditions were similar to those of the children in the learn conditions. These results suggest that there are developmental differences in encoding the sensory and semantic information in stimuli that may result from differences in the efficiency with which the semantic information in stimuli is processed. The results suggest that young children typically encode stimuli in a fashion that stresses the sensory aspects of the stimuli, and that recall suffers as a result.