The lexicon and sentence generation in aphasia

The experiment tested a prediction, derived from the lexicalist model of grammar (J. Bresnan 1978, in M. Halle, J. Bresnan, & G. A. Miller (Eds.), Linguistic theory and psychological reality, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 1–59), that difficulty in accessing a verb from the lexicon should impair the generation of the associated to-complement clause while not significantly affecting the generation of word-independent constructions such as questions. Four aphasic subjects with word-finding difficulties but relatively high BDAE ratings on grammatical ability were examined. A modified story completion paradigm was used to elicit the favored constructions. Consistent with the hypothesis, all subjects showed greater difficulty in generating to-complements.     

How a thing is called—A study of mothers' and children's naming

Mothers' selections of category names in object-naming tasks were examined using the levels of categorization defined by Eleanor Rosch (E. Rosch. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, New York: Academic Press, 1973. E. Rosch. In E. Rosch & B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1978. E. Rosch, C. Mervis, W. Gray, D. Johnson, & P. Boyes-Braem. Cognitive Psychology, 1976, 8, 382–439). The effect of three variables—Presentation Context, Taxonomy, and Age (of person for whom mother was naming the items)—on mothers' choice of category names, was also investigated. The stimuli were 36 photographs of common concrete objects representative of four taxonomies. Forty mothers named the stimulus items for their 2-year-olds (N = 20), for their 4-year-olds (N = 20), and for the Experimenter. The category labels that children of both ages used when naming the same items, and mothers' independent predictions of the names their children would use in the naming task, were recorded. Contextual factors were found to have a primary role in determining mothers' selections of category names and the three independent variables had a complex and dynamic effect on mothers' naming practices.     

A factorization procedure for finite algebras

A procedure is developed for decomposing any finite algebra into a minimal set of maximally independent simple homomorphic images, or factors, of the algebra. The definition of admissible sets of factors is made in relation to the congruence lattice of the algebra, and generalises the notion of an irredundant reduction in a modular lattice. An algorithm for determining all possible sets of factors of a given finite algebra is derived and an index for measuring the degree of independence of factors is defined. Applications of the technique to finite algebraic models within the social psychological domain are presented and include factorizations for certain semigroups of binary relations and for a class of finite semilattices.     

Syntactic presupposition in sentence comprehension

Two experiments investigated the role of syntactic presupposition in sentence comprehension. In Experiment I subjects verified cleft, pseudocleft and factive complement sentences with respect to preceding context paragraphs, which contradicted either the assertion or the presupposition of the target sentence. Subjects took significantly longer to verify sentences with false presuppositions than sentences with false assertions. In Experiment II subjects verified cleft and pseudocleft sentences with respect to subsequently presented pictures. Once again, verification times for sentences with false presuppositions were significantly longer than verification times for sentences with false assertions. It was argued that these findings are more adequately explained by a “structural” hypothesis, than in terms of strategies designed to locate given and new information.     

Concepts of present self,expected self,and ideal self in vocational preferences and expectations

This study investigated the hypotheses that similarity of ideal self and occupational stereotypes are important in determining the vocational preferences of adolescents, while similarity between expected self and occupational stereotypes is important in determining their occupational expectations. Subjects were 97 male and 88 female high school students. Findings were consistent with the view that ideal self played an important role in determining vocational preferences for males and females. However, contrary to expectations, ideal self was more strongly associated than expected self with vocational expectations for females, though not for males.     

Planning units and syntax in sentence production

The study was conducted to determine, first, whether it is the deep or the surface clause that is more important as a speech planning unit, and second, whether syntactic decisions are made during sentence production. Subjects, while talking, heard tones to which they had to respond by pressing a button; reaction times to these tones were taken as an index of processing load during production. It was found that there were increased RTs at the ends compared with the beginnings of deep structure clauses. No difference was found between RTs at the beginnings and ends of surface clauses not corresponding to a deep clause. The results were interpreted as showing that deep clauses are major planning units and that some planning for clauses occurs at the end of the preceding clause. Differences were found between RTs during clauses of different syntactic structure. These results were interpreted as indicating that syntax influences production and were discussed in relation to previous studies of pausing and speech disruption.     

A revision of the psychological refractory period

A brief review of the major psychological refractory period (PRP) theories reveals that they have lost their original objective, i.e., to explain human information processing under rapid sequential stimulation. Conventional data interpretation has restricted attention to delay of reaction times as a result of interstimulus interval (ISI) variation. This form of data interpretation fails to capture important performance aspects under double-stimulation, e.g., the phenomenon that stimulus complexity affects the processing rate. Effects of stimulus rate and complexity are better analyzed in terms of reaction times as well as interresponse intervals (IRI). If this is done, behavioral phenomena emerge that cannot be explained within the frame of any of the existing PRP theories. To account for these newly revealed phenomena a processing interrupt model is introduced which is based on three major hypotheses: single-channel processor, additive stages, and perceptual interrupt facility.     

Clocking g: Relating intelligence and measures of timed performance

The relationships between intelligence test scores and measures derived from reaction time (RT) and perceptual speed procedures were investigated in 137 twelve-year-old students with IQs ranging from 59 to 142. A range of intelligence tests were used and the scores factor analyzed to produce general, spatial and verbal factors. Test and factor scores were correlated with perceptual speed and with measures taken from 2, 4, and 8 choice RT tasks using a response keyboard upon which the subject's fingers directly rested, thus avoiding interpretive problems associated with a “home key.” Inspection time correlated poorly with intelligence. Only three of the RT measures produced correlations greater than .25 with the general factor. These were the slope of Hick's law, B, (correlation −.28), the 8 choice mean RT, RT8, (−.33) and the 8 choice standard deviation, SD8 (−.41), compared with the average intercorrelation between the intelligence measures of .40. Test-retest correlations of the RT measures, taken over a year for half the subjects, were low as reliability measures, with .35 for B, .52 for RT8, and .48 for SD8. Correlations of RT measures with spatial scores were not significantly greater than with verbal scores, suggesting that whatever relationship exists is with a general factor rather than only a spatial one.