Showing papers in "Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1969"

Looking at Upside-down Faces

Abstract: Compared memory for faces with memory for other classes of familar and complex objects which, like faces, are also customarily seen only in 1 orientation (mono-oriented). Performance of 4 students was tested when the inspection and test series were presented in the same orientation, either both upri

Perceptual recognition as a function of meaningfulness of stimulus material

Abstract: The present study evaluates a class of models of human information processing made popular by Broadbent. A brief tachistoscopic display of one or two single letters, four-letter common words, or four-letter nonwords was immediately followed by a masking field along with two single-letter response alternatives chosen so as to minimize informational differences among the tasks. Giving 5s response alternatives before the stimulus display as well as after it caused an impairment of performance. Performance on single words was clearly better than performance on single letters. The data suggest that the first stages of information processing are done in parallel, but scanning of the resultant highly processed information is done serially.

Reactions toward the source of stimulation.

Abstract: Sixty-four 5s used their right hand to move a control handle to the right or left from the midline of the body depending on the ear in which they heard a 1,000cps tone. The 5s moved the handle toward the side of the ear stimulated for one block of SO trials (25 to each ear in a random sequence) and away from the side of the ear stimulated for another block. Reactions toward the stimulus source were significantly faster than reactions away. Reaction time was faster for reactions to the right, while movement time was faster for movements to the left.

Concrete image and verbal memory codes

Abstract: Hypothesized (1) that concrete (visual) imagery functions primarily as a parallel processing system, whereas the verbal symbolic system is specialized for sequential processing; and (2) that performance in nonsequential memory tasks would accordingly vary directly with the availability of both memor

Comprehension and recall of sentences

Abstract: Preliminary experiments showed that 5"s better recall a noun pair if they generate their own linking sentence for the pair than if they merely read an equivalent linking sentence Initial attempts to explain this effect in terms of memory search activities or idiosyncratic ally high-associative mediators proved unproductive in later experiments reported here The hypothesis was then offered that the generate vs read conditions differ in comprehension of the sentences and that comprehension aids retention Subsequent experiments on incidental learning showed that recall is excellent when S is set to process a sentence in different ways designed to promote comprehension of its meaning, whereas equivalent exposure to or mouthing of the words in control sentences without comprehension produces relatively little recall The following experiments are concerned with the facilitation of paired-associate learning produced by embedding each word pair in a sentence Rohwer (1966) found that an 5" who hears a linking sentence such as "The COW chased the BALL" will recall the COW-BALL pair better than a control 5" who simply studied the pair without a sentence context In repeating some of Rohwer's paradigms, another phenomenon was uncovered which led into the present experimental series The phenomenon is that 5"s better remembered noun pairs embedded in sentences they generated than they did pairs embedded in sentences E gave them At the time of study or input, 5"s in the read condition read aloud a presented sentence (eg, The COW chased the BALL), whereas those in the generation condition saw the pair COW-BALL and had to make up and say aloud a linking sentence Although input times were controlled, later recall (of BALL when cued with COW) was about 25-30% higher in the generation condition This result is quite reliable, having been replicated several times in the experiments reported subsequently Why does generating a linking sentence

Group structure, coding, and memory for digit series

Abstract: Recognition and recall of digit series were studied as a function of segmental groupings imposed on the series either by the location of pauses or in the naming of successive numerical groups, e.g., 1735 was read to S as \"seventeen, thirty-five.\" Experiments show that alteration of group structure of the same underlying digit string severely degraded memorial recognition of its repetition and that the normal improvement in immediate recall with repetition was annihilated by changing groupings at each presentation. Although a second presentation of a string with altered groupings is not recognized as a repetition of its earlier occurrence, this event is equivalent to an exact repetition when they are assessed by 5\"'s later ability to. recognize an ungrouped version of the underlying string. Repetition with the same groupings establishes one strong trace, whereas repetition with changed groupings establishes two weak traces either of which may mediate recognition of the uncoded version of the string. The \"reallocation\" hypothesis was proposed as a summary of these results, whereby group structure affects perceptual coding, which determines \"where\" the trace of the event is stored. This was contrasted to a \"bin\" hypothesis for serial recall. Experiments to differentiate these involved recall of strings in which only a subsequence or portion recurred. As predicted by the reallocation hypothesis, recall of the recurrent constant chunk improved only when it was located at the beginning of the string.

Is selective attention selective perception or selective response? A further test

Abstract: Ss repeated back 1 of 2 lists of synchronized digits presented dichotically. Ss were also asked to listen for occasional letters in either ear and to stop shadowing at once and tap with a ruler if they detected one of these letters. They detected significantly more letters in the ear whose digits th

Basis of the horizontal-vertical illusion

Abstract: Three experiments were designed to determine the basis of the horizontalvertical (HV) illusion using an L figure. Experiment I showed that there were no differences in the size of the effect in darkness, semidarkness, and in the light, a result contrary to the visual field explanation. In Exp. II the figure was viewed in the dark with 5s upright and recumbent, and in Exp. Ill the L figure was oriented between 0° (vertical) and 90° (horizontal) in 15° steps. Data from Exp. II and III showed that apparent length is a function of the retinal meridians with which the lines correspond irrespective of their physical or apparent orientation to an external reference.

Incentive effects and pupillary changes in association learning.

Abstract: Obtained pupillary measurements for 10 undergraduate Ss during a learning task. On a trial, 8 digit-noun pairs were presented aurally for immediate recall. The digit, even or odd, determined the monetary incentive for retaining the pair. The same nouns were paired to the Digits 2-9 for 8 trials, with a different pairing on every trial. High-reward (HR) items were learned more often than low-reward (LR) items, and occasioned larger pupillary dilations following the presentation of the response noun. Within an incentive class, pupil responses at study did not predict recall. The differential pupil response of Ss to HR and LR items corresponded closely to a behavioral index of preference for HR items. (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

On the transfer from iconic to short-term memory

Abstract: : Pairs of eight-letter sequences, zero-order or second-order approximations to English, were presented for 50, 125, or 200 msec. The materials were masked 0, 75, or 125 msec. after the offset of the initial presentation. By adding exposure duration to the delay of the masking stimulus, it was possible to compute the total time material was available for processing in iconic memory. Accuracy of report increased monotonically as a function of processing time, and the rate of increase (to an asymptote at about 200 msec) was greater for second-order sequences. In a second experiment, single zero-order and fourth-order approximations to English were presented for 40 msec. and were masked on either the left side (Letters 1-4) or the right side (Letters 5-8) after a delay of 0, 20, 40, 60, or 80 msec. In general, masking the left side reduced accuracy more than masking the right side, but as the delay of mask was increased, accuracy of identification increased and the difference between masking on the left and on the right decreased. Taken together, the results suggest that familiar letter sequences are input to memory more rapidly than are random letter strings and that the input mechanism proceeds sequentially from left to right. (Author)