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Showing papers in "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General in 1979"


Journal Article•DOI•

2,819 citations


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this article, the learned helplessness theory of depression was used to predict the degree of contingency between responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingencies, and the predicted subjective judgments of contingency were surprisingly accurate in all four experiments.
Abstract: SUMMARY How are humans' subjective judgments of contingencies related to objective contingencies? Work in social psychology and human contingency learning predicts that the greater the frequency of desired outcomes, the greater people's judgments of contingency will be. Second, the learned helplessness theory of depression provides both a strong and a weak prediction concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies. According to the strong prediction, depressed individuals should underestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. According to the weak prediction, depressed individuals merely should judge that there is a smaller degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes than nondepressed individuals should. In addition, the present investigation deduced a new strong prediction from the helplessness theory: Nondepressed individuals should overestimate the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes relative to the objective degree of contingency. In the experiments, depressed and nondepressed students were presented with one of a series of problems varying in the actual degree of contingency. In each problem, subjects estimated the degree of contingency between their responses (pressing or not pressing a button) and an environmental outcome (onset of a green light). Performance on a behavioral task and estimates of the conditional probability of green light onset associated with the two response alternatives provided additional measures for assessing beliefs about contingencies. Depressed students' judgments of contingency were surprisingly accurate in all four experiments. Nondepressed students, on the other hand, overestimated the degree of contingency between their responses and outcomes when noncontingent outcomes were frequent and/or desired and underestimated the degree of contingency when contingent outcomes were undesired. Thus, predictions derived from social psychology concerning the linkage between subjective and objective contingencies were confirmed for nondepressed students but not for depressed students. Further, the predictions of helplessness theory received, at best, minimal support. The learned helplessness and self-serving motivational bias hypotheses are evaluated as explanations of the results. In addition, parallels are drawn between the present results and phenomena in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and animal learning. Finally, implications for cognitive illusions in normal people, appetitive helplessness, judgment of contingency between stimuli, and learning theory are discussed.

1,302 citations



Journal Article•DOI•
Alinda Friedman1•
TL;DR: In this paper, an experiment is presented which tests whether this approach yields viable predictions about the manner in which people comprehend and remember pictures of real-world scenes, and the results show that subjects generally notice only the changes that had been made to the unexpected objects, despite the fact that the proportions of correct rejections were made conditional on whether the target objects had been fixated.
Abstract: In general, frame theories are theories about the representation and use of knowledge for pattern recognition. In the present article, the general properties of frame theories are discussed with regard to their implications for psychological processes, and an experiment is presented which tests whether this approach yields viable predictions about the manner in which people comprehend and remember pictures of real-world scenes. Normative ratings were used to construct six target pictures, each of which contained both expected and unexpected objects. Eye movements were then recorded as subjects who anticipated a difficult recognition test viewed the targets for 30 sec each. Then, the subjects were asked to discriminate the target pictures from distractors in which either expected or unexpected objects had been changed. One consequence of the embeddedness of frame systems is that global frames may function as "semantic pattern detectors," so that the perceptual knowledge in them could be used for relatively automatic pattern recognition and comprehension. Thus, subjects might be able to identify expected objects by using automatized encoding procedures that operate on global physical features. In contrast, identification of unexpected objects (i.e., objects not represented in the currently active frame) should generally require more analysis of local visual details. These hypotheses were confirmed with the fixation duration data: First fixations to the unexpected objects were approximately twice as long as first fixations to the expected objects. On the recognition test, subjects generally noticed only the changes that had been made to the unexpected objects, despite the fact that the proportions of correct rejections were made conditional on whether the target objects had been fixated. These data are again consistent with the idea that local visual details of objects represented in the frame are not neccesary for identification and are thus not generally encoded. Further, since subjects usually did not notice when expected objects were deleted or replaced with different expected objects, it was concluded that if two events instantiate the same frame, they may often be indistinguishable, as long as any differences between them are represented as arguments in the frame. Thus, for the most part, the only information about an event that is episodically "tagged" is information which distinguishes that particular event from others of the same general class. The data reinforce the utility of a frame theory approach to perception and memory.

609 citations


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: The results supported the conclusion that one skill allowing fast readers to capture more information from each reading fixation is faster access to letter codes from print, and this represented two important independent correlates of reading ability in a sample of subjects.
Abstract: Two groups of university undergraduates differing in reading ability were tested on a number of reaction-time tasks designed to determine the speed of encoding visual information at several different levels. In addition, the subjects were given tests of sensory functions, verbal and quantitative reasoning ability, short-term auditory memory span, and ability to comprehend spoken text. The groups did not differ on the sensory tests. However, the faster reader group had faster reaction times on all of the reaction-time tasks, and the size of the fast-reader advantage increased with the mean reaction time. Faster readers also performed more accurately in verbal and quantitative reasoning, short-term auditory memory, and speech comprehension. Regression analyses suggested that the ability to comprehend spoken material and speed of accessing overlearned memory codes for visually presented letters represented two important independent correlates of reading ability in our sample of subjects. Two variables reflecting these abilities--the percentage of correct answers to a listening comprehension test and the reaction time for correct responses in a letter-matching task--accounted for nearly all of the variance in reading ability tapped by both of our reading tests. In a second experiment, no reaction-time difference was found between fast and average readers in a matching task requiring no long-term memory code access but considerable visual information processing as indexed by overall mean reaction time. The results supported the conclusion that one skill allowing fast readers to capture more information from each reading fixation is faster access to letter codes from print.

338 citations


Journal Article•DOI•
John Staddon1•

337 citations



Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: The results suggest that the left hemisphere functions as a typical limited-capacity information processing system that can be influenced somewhat separately from the right hemisphere system and indicates that concurrent verbal memory influences processing stages beyond those that are common to the form-pair and letter-pair tasks.
Abstract: Several previous experiments have found that concurrently maintaining verbal information in memory influences visual laterality patterns (e.g., Hellige & Cox, 1976; Kinsbourne, 1975). The present article critically reviews existing experiments and reports five additional experiments designed to identify the mechanisms responsible for such effects. Experiment 1 demonstrates that laterality patterns are not influenced by a concurrent memory task that does not require verbal processing. (The verbal nature of the concurrent task was an important aspect of previous experiments.) Experiments 2 and 3 were designed to determined whether concurrent verbal memory primarily influences very early visuospatial processes or later processes such as those involved in visuospatial memory. In Experiment 2, observers indicated whether two simulteneously presented nonsense forms had the same shape. Observers held 0, 2, 4, or 6 words in memory during each shape judgment trial. Responses were faster when the forms were presented to the left visual field--right hemisphere (LVF-RH) than to the right visual field--left hemisphere (RVF-LH). This effect did not interact with memory set size. In Experiment 3, observers indicated whether either of two simultaneously presented forms was identical to a target form held in memory. Observers held 0, 2, or 6 words in memory on each trial. On same-as-target trials, responses were faster on LVF-RH trials than on RVF-LH trials in the no-word memory condition; this difference was reversed in the two-word and six-word conditions. The combined results of Experiments 2 and 3 suggest that concurrent verbal memory influences stages of processing beyond the initial registration of visuospatial information. Experiments 4 and 5 examined the influence of concurrent verbal memory on verbal laterality tasks. Observers indicated whether two simultaneously presented letters of different cases had the same name. In Experiment 4, different groups of observers held 0, 2, 4, or 6 words in memory on each letter-pair trial. In Experiment 5, memory set size was manipulated within subjects. On the same-pair trials of Experiment 4 and the first session of Experiment 5, responses in the no-memory condition were faster on RVF-LH trials than on LVF-RH trials; this difference was reversed in all of the work memory conditions. This shift is opposite to that found when the laterality task does not require verbal processing and further indicates that concurrent verbal memory influences processing stages beyond those that are common to the form-pair and letter-pair tasks. Neither directness-of-pathway nor attention-gradient laterality models can explain the entire pattern of results from the present experiments. Rather, the results suggest that the left hemisphere functions as a typical limited-capacity information processing system that can be influenced somewhat separately from the right hemisphere system.

204 citations


Journal Article•DOI•

183 citations


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors tested the ability of people to recall the locations of buildings in a familiar campus setting by using pairwise distance judgments on a 100-point scale and by direct mapping of locations on a Tektronix cathode ray terminal.
Abstract: This experiment tested the ability of people to recall the locations of buildings in a familiar campus setting. Ten graduate students represented the relative locations of buildings by pairwise distance judgments (on a 100-point scale) and by direct mapping of locations on a Tektronix cathode ray terminal. As evaluated by Stevens's power law, both methods led to accurate judgments of relative distance (the average exponent was close to 1). In addition, the pairwise judgments were analyzed by multidimensional scaling (MDS) and the buildings were located in a two-dimensional map. When asked to choose between the MDS representation and the map created directly on the Tektronix, all 10 subjects chose the latter as the more accurate. Moreover, 6 out of 10 subjects thought the direct map was more accurate than the actual map of the building locations. These results suggest that either pairwise judgment or direct mapping yield accurative representations of spatial relations in a familial environment, but that subjects favor the direct map.

97 citations


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: A series of studies investigated how stimulus integrality and separability impact the cognitive accessibility of similarity and dimensional relations concluded that dimensionally based rules are more accessible from separable than from integral stimuli and that subjects have a bias to access dimensional relations in this type of task.
Abstract: A series of studies investigated how stimulus integrality and separability impact the cognitive accessibility of similarity and dimensional relations. A good deal of previous work has established that stimulus integrality and separability differentially determine perception; here, the question is whether they also have differential effects on conception. Are the principles that govern perception also principles that can be readily discovered in concept learning tasks? Is a similarity-based rule especially easy to abstract from integral stimuli and a dimensionally-based rule especially easy to abstract from separable stimuli? In Experiments 1 and 2, we measured the relative ease with which the two types of rules (similarity and dimensional) are discovered by adults with the two types of stimuli (integral and separable). In experiment 1, the two rules were made redundant and we asked which rule the subjects learned. In Experiment 2, one rule was made relevant and the other irrelevant, and we compared relative speeds of learning. The results from the studies led us to conclude (a) that dimensionally based rules are more accessible from separable than from integral stimuli; (b) that similarity-based rules are more accessible from integral than from separable stimul; and (c) that, in general, subjects have a bias to access dimensional relations in this type of task. Experiment 3 pursued an additional suggestion from Experiments 1 and 2 that the dimensional relations within integral stimuli are sometimes accessible, more so when larger interstimulus differences are encountered. In confirmation, Experiment 3 demonstrated that adult subjects are more successful in applying a dimensional rule to pairs of integral stimuli that differ by a small amount if they also have exposure to pairs of integral stimuli that differ by a large amount. In a later discussion, it was argued that such a finding is consistent with the notion that the "dimensions" of integral stimuli are merely arbitrary directions in the integral stimulus space, and some relevant pilot data to that effect were presented. Finally, Experiment 4 took up a developmental issue. Young children have sometimes produced perceptual responses governed by similarity relations when presented with stimuli that are separable for adults. Will they more readily access similarity-based or dimensionally-based relations from such stimuli in the concept learning tasks here? The results showed that both kindergarteners and fifth graders more readily access the dimensional relations. A final discussion integrated the findings from the several experiments, taking up the following issues: (a) the relation between the perception and the conception of stimulus relations and (b) the nonprimacy of the dimensional axes in the integral stimulus space.

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: For instance, this paper found that familiarity with the orthographic structure within a letter string can facilitate the processing of the component letters and that the psychologically relevant properties of this structure can be discovered.
Abstract: Previous research has demonstrated that familiarity with the orthographic structure within a letter string can facilitate the processing of the component letters. The current research was directed at discovering the psychologically relevant properties of this structure. Two fundamental descriptions were independently varied in the construction of six-letter nonword strings. A probabilistic description based on the frequency of occurrence of letters in each position was factorially combined with a rule-governed description defined in terms of graphemic and phonological constraints. College sophomores and sixth-grade readers were asked to indicate whether or not a predesignated target letter was present in these strings. For both groups of readers, orthographic regularity and summed positional frequency were found to have only a small facilitative effect on reaction time (RT). In contrast, RTs to say "no" increased dramatically with increases in the number of letters in the catch string that were physically similar to the target letter. In another experiment, the letter string was presented for a short duration, followed immediately by masking stimulus and then the target letter. College students indicated whether or not the target was present in the test string. Accuracy of performance was critically dependent on the orthographic regularity and summed positional frequencies of the letters in the test string. No effect of letter similarity was observed. The large differences that were observed between these two tasks were accounted for in terms of the stages of processing that are critical for performance in the tasks.

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: It is shown that speeded decisions based on visual codes are most strongly influenced by rule-governed processing mechanisms sensitive to orthographic structure, whereas decisionsbased on phonetic and semantic codes are affected about equally by rule -governed mechanisms and by stimulus-specific mechanismssensitive to familiarity.
Abstract: Both orthographic regularity and visual familiarity have been implicated as contributors to the efficiency of processing visually presented words. Our studies sought to determine which of the internal codes representing words in the nervous system are facilitated by these two variables. To do this, sets of letter strings in which orthography and familiarity were factorially combined were used as the basis for physical, phonetic, semantic, and lexical judgments. The data indicated consistent effects of orthography on the activation of all codes. These effects were seen in same-different matching and in judgments of stimulus orientation, which are based on visual codes; in judgments of pronounceability based on phonetic codes; in judgments of meaningfulness based on semantic codes; and in lexical decisions, which are based on phonetic and semantic codes together. Familiarity, on the other hand, had a clear influence on the activation of semantic codes and to a lesser extent affected phonetic codes. Despite previous positive results found in matching letter strings, however, no influence of familiarity occurred in judgments based on visual codes once evidence for criterion shifting was eliminated. Our negative results included direct tests of facilitation in matching acronyms (e.g., FBI) and in matching both regular and irregular strings familiarized by specific training. It now appears that earlier findings of visual familiarity effects may be attributed to response biases resulting from the activation of higher level codes sensitive to familiarity, and to the use of small sets of training stimuli that allowed subjects to induce orthographic-like rules. The results obtained so far with our methods seem to reconcile an inconsistent literature by showing that speeded decisions based on visual codes are most strongly influenced by rule-governed processing mechanisms sensitive to orthographic structure, whereas decisions based on phonetic and semantic codes are affected about equally by rule-governed mechanisms and by stimulus-specific mechanisms sensitive to familiarity. This conclusion may lead to changes in notions of how effective various kinds of visual training are likely to be at different stages in the acquisition of reading skill.

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: Both the pair and direct technique seem appropriate for studying cognitive representations of a hypothetical environment and subjects generally preferred their direct plan over the one created by MDS (based on pair estimates).
Abstract: This experiment investigated people's preferences for the location of facilities in an ideal town. Ten graduate students represented the relative locations of facilities (such as home, school, factory) by two methods: (a) pairwise ideal distances on a 100-point scale and (b) direct planning of locations on a Tektronix cathode ray screen. The pairwise distances were analyzed by multidimensional scaling (MDS) and the facilities were thus situated in a two-dimensional space. Subjects then expressed a preference between the direct plan and the one created by MDS. In addition, the rank order priorities of the facilities were determined for each subject. The entire procedure was repeated after 4 mo. A common central plan was evident in all cases (and rank order priorities were stable), but there was within-subject variability in the plans for different methods and test occasions. Despite such variability, subjects generally preferred their direct plan over the one created by MDS (based on pair estimates). A second group of subjects showed equal preference (on the average) for both types of town representations created by the first group. Both the pair and direct technique seem appropriate for studying cognitive representations of a hypothetical environment.

Journal Article•DOI•
John C. Baird1•
TL;DR: The present article reviews the major results and conclusions of two experiments on the mapping and planning of actual (campus buildings) and hypothetical (ideal town facilities) items in a two-dimensional space.
Abstract: The present article reviews the major results and conclusions of two experiments on the mapping and planning of actual (campus buildings) and hypothetical (ideal town facilities) items in a two-dimensional space. Direct mapping (planning) techniques are preferred over the method of pair comparisons, especially in the case of the actual environment.


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: The results indicated that both low perceivability and high solvability increase the likelihood of response delays specifically in the presence of anxiety-linked stimuli.
Abstract: The term selective inattention as used here subsumes those phenomena whose primary function is the active blocking or attenuation of partially processed contents en route to conscious expression. Examples are anxiety-motivated forgetting or perceptual distortion and hypnotically induced negative hallucinations. Studies in the field of selective attention have typically been designed to explain what takes place in a task in which the subject is first instructed to attend to a particular stimulus and then to consciously execute that instruction as well as he can. The rejection of content in process is examined only sceondarily as a consequence of the acceptance of relevant information. In the present experiments and theorizing, the emphasis instead is on inhibitory operations that take place automatically, without conscious intent, in response to a potential anxiety reaction. Experiment 1 explored the interaction of anxiety-linked inattention with strength of a target stimulus. Three female subjects were programmed under hypnosis to respond posthypnotically in the On condition with prescribed degrees of anxiety when certain Blacky pictures popped into mind later ,t the end of experimental trials; in the Off conditionall pictures were to become neutral. With the three female subjects still under hypnosis, each of the loaded pictures was then paired with a four-letter work relevant to the individual's own version of what was happening in the picture. The waking recognition task, carried out with amnesia for the prior hypnotic programming, consisted of tachistoscopic exposure of loaded words and physically similar filler words at four durations within a baseline range of recognition accuracy from 50%--75% correct. The data yielded a curvilinear relationship in which the recognition of only the loaded words was significnatly lower in the On condition at the 60%--70% range of recognition accuracy but not at shorter or longer stimulus durations. Experiment 2, for which the prior hypnotic programming of the same three subjects was similar to Experiment 1, used an anagram approach to comparable four-letter words, except that pleasure-loaded words were introduced as a control along with filler words. Four durations of tachistoscopic exposure of the anagrams were used with each individual, and the major dependent variable was response latency measured in milliseconds. An independent measure of perceptual discriminability of the scrambled stimulus letters was obtained to isolate perceptual from cognitive aspects of the task. The results indicated that both low perceivability and high solvability increase the likelihood of response delays specifically in the presence of anxiety-linked stimuli. Experiment 3 was a nonhypnotic replication of Experiment 2, using 12 male and 13 female subjects. The potential affective loading of key anxiety and pleasure words was accomplished by structured scenarios for the Blacky pictures in which subjects were asked to place themselves as vividly as possible...



Journal Article•DOI•
David C. Rubin1•
TL;DR: Hersh and Caramazza's application of fuzzy set theory to vagueness in natural language is criticized for including in their measures of fuzziness response variability due to experimental and statistical procedures.
Abstract: Hersh and Caramazza's application of fuzzy set theory to vagueness in natural language is criticized for including in their measures of fuzziness response variability due to experimental and statistical procedures.

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: Although Hellige, Cox, and Litvac attempted to clarify several aspects of Kinsbourne's theory, the overall outcome of concurrent memory loading is still difficult to predict.
Abstract: The attentional model of hemisphere differences proposed by Kinsbourne is reviewed, and some of the difficulties inherent in this model are pointed out. In particular, the difficulty of distinguishing shifts in the allocation of attention from changes of strategy is underlined, and the fact that the effect of imposing a concurrent memory load is uncertain, sometimes priming and sometimes depressing the performance of the loaded hemisphere, is seen as seriously limiting the predictive power of the model. Hellige, Cox, and Litvac attempted to clarify several aspects of Kinsbourne's theory. In their studies concurrent verbal loads produced complex and variable changes in the performance of both hemispheres. To explain these, they postulate a dual mechanism whereby general activation primes the performance of both hemispheres while selective activation acts to prime or to depress the performance of the left hemisphere. Although they succeeded in identifying some of the factors that govern the effects of selective activation, the effects of general activation are uncertain, so the overall outcome of concurrent memory loading is still difficult to predict.


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: It is demonstrated in the single papilla, that suppression of the acid taste when in mixture with sucrose can occur without sweet system activity and it is concluded that sugars, through their capacity to bind protons, act to reduce the availability of protons to the acid receptors.
Abstract: The subjective intensity of one taste quality can be increased by prior exposure of the tongue to a different taste quality stimulus. This phenomenon, called cross-enhancement, may be the result of interactions among the physiological mechanisms that code taste quality. Another possible explanation is that the water solvent of the second stimulus acquires a taste after exposure of the tongue to the first stimulus. This water taste could add to the taste of the solute in the second stimulus and result in an increase of its subjective intensity. A third possibility is that taste receptors on the tongue may be sensitized by exposure to a taste stimulus. Using a small number of highly trained subjects, we have demonstrated that sucrose can enhance the intensity of an acid taste on the single papilla. Neither water taste nor sweet taste system activation played any role in the mediation of this enhancement. Through a series of experimentally derived inferential steps, we conclude that this phenomenon depends on the removal of protons from the acid receptors. In addition, we have demonstrated in the single papilla, that suppression of the acid taste when in mixture with sucrose can occur without sweet system activity. We conclude that sugars, through their capacity to bind protons, act to reduce the availability of protons to the acid receptors.

Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: Data from Massaro et al. and from Krueger decisively demonstrate that there is a familiarity effect based on sequential redundancy over and above any effectbased on spatial redundancy (Mason 1975).
Abstract: Massaro, Venezky, and Taylor (1979) found only a modest effect of familiarity on letter search, apparently because they pitted pseudowords (rather than real words) against nonwords and used lowercase rather than uppercase letters. Precuing the target letter seemed to reduce the familiarity effect they found yet further, but this conclusion is clouded by the fact that reaction time data were compared with accuracy data. Because similarity between target and nontarget letters tended to have more of an effect when familiarity had less of an effect. Massaro et al. proposed a successive model, with features being detected in the first stage and orthographic structure being used in a second stage. However, a concurrent model, with a self-terminating race between lower and higher level processes, can account for the data just as well. Data from Massaro et al. and from Krueger decisively demonstrate that there is a familiarity effect based on sequential redundancy over and above any effect based on spatial redundancy (Mason 1975). The Massaro et al. data also indicate that the relative familiarity effect is constant across various age groups (Krueger, Keen & Rublevich, 1974).


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In reply to Krueger, the issues of lowercase versus uppercase letter strings, words versus pseudowords, repeated letters in the test string, descriptions of orthographic structure, similarity effects, apples and oranges, and interactions of age with other variables are addressed.
Abstract: In reply to Krueger, we address the issues of lowercase versus uppercase letter strings, words versus pseudowords, repeated letters in the test string, descriptions of orthographic structure, similarity effects, apples and oranges, and interactions of age with other variables.


Journal Article•DOI•
TL;DR: In this paper, three experiments observed differential electrodermal responding to signal stimuli (CSs) by contrasting positive, random, and negative contingencies between the signals and strong stimuli (UCSs).
Abstract: Three experiments observed differential electrodermal responding to signal stimuli (CSs) by contrasting positive, random, and negative contingencies between the signals and strong stimuli (UCSs). Experimentation began as a test of the proposition that electrodermal response to a random signal (or CSR) would lie between the response to a reinforced or excitatory stimulus (CS+) and that to a nonreinforced or inhibitory stimulus (CS- or CSI). A clear intermediate position for CSR did not result. Instead it appeared that CSR was operating as a mildly excitatory signal. This led to a second experiment where response to pairs of stimuli with different contingent relations could be compared in independent samples. The pairs were CS+ and CS-, CS+ and CSR, and CSR and CS-. Differential responding was observed in all pairs and response to CSR was significantly larger in the group receiving CSR with CS- than it was in the group receiving CSR with CS+. A contingency contrast effect was suggested. A third experiment explored the implications of a contingency contrast effect by varying overall UCS density, the duration of "safety intervals," and the presence or absence of instructions about contingencies. The UCS density and instruction variables influenced the differential performance to CSR and CS-, a result that was interpreted as further evidence for a perceptual contingency-contrast effect. Some theoretical implications of such a contrast phenomenon are examined, as they apply to autonomic learning. The CS is interpreted as a signal supplying contingency information that is dependent upon a complex of factors in the stimulation environment.