False memories—either remembering events that never happened, or remembering them quite differently from the way they happened—have recently captured the attention of both psychologists and the public at large. The primary impetus for this recent surge of interest is the increase in the number of cases in which memories of previously unrecognized abuse are reported during the course of therapy. Some researchers have argued that certain therapeutic practices can cause the creation of false memories, and therefore, the apparent "recovery" of memories during the course of therapy may actually represent the creation of memories (Lindsay & Read, 1994; Loftus, 1993). Although the concept of false memories is currently enjoying an increase in publicity, it is not new; psychologists have been studying false memories in several laboratory paradigms for years. Schacter (in press) provides an historical overview of the study of memory distortions. Bartlett (1932) is usually credited with conducting the first experimental investigation of false memories; he had subjects read an Indian folktale, "The War of the Ghosts," and recall it repeatedly. Although he reported no aggregate data, but only sample protocols, his results seemed to show distortions in subjects' memories over repeated attempts to recall the story. Interestingly, Bartlett's repeated reproduction results never have been successfully replicated by later researchers (see Gauld & Stephenson, 1967; Roediger, Wheeler, & Rajaram, 1993); indeed, Wheeler and Roediger (1992) showed that recall of prose passages (including "The War of the Ghosts")

/pdf/creating-false-memories-remembering-words-not-presented-in-1us89ye2ey.pdf

Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists.

Priming is a nonconscious form of human memory, which is concerned with perceptual identification of words and objects and which has only recently been recognized as separate from other forms of memory or memory systems. It is currently under intense experimental scrutiny. Evidence is converging for the proposition that priming is an expression of a perceptual representation system that operates at a pre-semantic level; it emerges early in development, and access to it lacks the kind of flexibility characteristic of other cognitive memory systems. Conceptual priming, however, seems to be based on the operations of semantic memory.

http://miwalab.cog.human.nagoya-u.ac.jp/database/resume/2008-07-07.pdf

Priming and human memory systems

Preexisting word knowledge is accessed in many cognitive tasks, and this article offers a means for indexing this knowledge so that it can be manipulated or controlled. We offer free association data for 72,000 word pairs, along with over a million entries of related data, such as forward and backward strength, number of competing associates, and printed frequency. A separate file contains the 5,019 normed words, their statistics, and thousands of independently normed rhyme, stem, and fragment cues. Other files provide n x n associative networks for more than 4,000 words and a list of idiosyncratic responses for each normed word. The database will be useful for investigators interested in cuing, priming, recognition, network theory, linguistics, and implicit testing applications. They also will be useful for evaluating the predictive value of free association probabilities as compared with other measures, such as similarity ratings and co-occurrence norms. Of several procedures for measuring preexisting strength between two words, the best remains to be determined. The norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/BF03195588.pdf

The University of South Florida free association, rhyme, and word fragment norms.

Introduction PART ONE: COGNITION Ideas and Beliefs Social Beliefs Structures and Strategies Structures of Ideologies Values Mental Models Consistency Consciousness Common Sense Knowledge and Truth Identity Social Cognition PART TWO: SOCIETY Ideology and Society Groups Group Relations Elites Dominant Ideologies? Institutions PART THREE: DISCOURSE The Relevance of Discourse Discourse Structures Context Reproduction From Cognition to Discourse Persuasion Legitimation Ideological Discourse Structures The Ideology and Discourse of Modern Racism Conclusions

Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach

It has been claimed that bilingualism enhances inhibitory control, but the available evidence is equivocal. The authors evaluated several possible versions of the inhibition hypothesis by comparing monolinguals and bilinguals with regard to stop signal performance, inhibition of return, and the attentional blink. These three phenomena, it can be argued, tap into different aspects of inhibition. Monolinguals and bilinguals did not differ in stop signal reaction time and thus were comparable in terms of active-inhibitory efficiency. However, bilinguals showed no facilitation from spatial cues, showed a strong inhibition of return effect, and exhibited a more pronounced attentional blink. These results suggest that bilinguals do not differ from monolinguals in terms of active inhibition but have acquired a better ability to maintain action goals and to use them to bias goal-related information. Under some circumstances, this ability may indirectly lead to more pronounced reactive inhibition of irrelevant information.

/pdf/how-does-bilingualism-improve-executive-control-a-comparison-1qjldf6gye.pdf

How does bilingualism improve executive control? A comparison of active and reactive inhibition mechanisms

The present experiments explored the role of processing level and strategic factors in cross-form (word-picture and picture-word) and within-form (picture-picture and word-word) semantic facilitation. Previous studies have produced mixed results. The findings presented in this article indicate that semantic facilitation depends on the task and on the subjects' strategies. When the task required semantic processing of both picture and word targets (e.g., category verification), equivalent facilitation was obtained across all modality combinations. When the task required name processing (e.g., name verification, naming), facilitation was obtained for the picture targets. In contrast, with word targets, facilitation was obtained only when the situation emphasized semantic processing. The results are consistent with models that propose a common semantic representation for both picture and words but that also include assumptions regarding differential order of access to semantic and phonemic features for these stimulus modalities.

Semantic facilitation with pictures and words.

Programming is a cognitive activity that requires the learning of new reasoning skills and the understanding of new technical information. Since novices lack domain-specific knowledge, many instructional techniques attempt to provide them with a framework or mental model that can be used for incorporating new information. A major research question concerns how to encourage the acquisition of good mental models and how these models influence the learning process. One possible technique for providing an effective mental model is to use dynamic cues that make transparent to the user all the changes in the variable values, source codes, output, etc., as the program runs. Two groups of novice programmers were used in the experiment. All subjects learned some programming notions in the C language (MIXC). The MIXC version of the programming language provides a debugging facility (C trace) designed to show through a system window all the program components. Subjects were either allowed to use this facility or not allowed to do so. Performance measures of programming and debugging were taken as well as measures directed to assess subjects' mental models. Results showed differences in the way in which the two groups represented and organized programming concepts, although the performance tasks did not show parallel effects.

Mental models and computer programming

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and Pathfinder techniques for assessing changes in the structural representation (RP) of a knowledge (KN) domain as a function of learning were compared and evaluated. Relatedness ratings, collected from university students before and after they studied a textbook, were analyzed with both MDS and Pathfinder procedures. Relatedness ratings were collected from the students'instructors, and the similarity between the instructors' structural RPs and those of their students provided evidence of learning

Maria Teresa Bajo

Papers

How does bilingualism improve executive control? A comparison of active and reactive inhibition mechanisms

Semantic facilitation with pictures and words.

Mental models and computer programming

Structural Representations in Knowledge Acquisition.

Comprehension processes in simultaneous interpreting