Showing papers in "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General in 1984"

Selective attention and the organization of visual information.

Abstract: Medical Research Council, Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, England Theories of visual attention deal with the limit on our ability to see (and later report) several things at once. These theories fall into three broad classes. Objectbased theories propose a limit on the number of separate objects :that can be perceived simultaneously. Discrimination-based theories propose a limit on the number of separate discriminations that can be made. Space-based theories propose a limit on the spatial area from which information can be taken up. To distinguish these views, the present experiments used small (< 1 °), brief, foveal displays, each consisting of two overlapping objects (a box with a line struck through it). It was found that two judgments that concern the same object can be made simultaneously without loss of accuracy, whereas two judgments that concern different objects cannot. Neither the similarity nor the difficulty of required discriminations, nor the spatial distribution of information, could account for the results. The experiments support a view in which parallel, preattentive processes serve to segment the field into separate objects, followed by a pfocess of focal attention that deals with only one object at a time. This view is also able to account for results taken to support both discrimination-based and space-based theories. Object-Based Theories of Visual Attention Theories of visual attention are concerned with the limit on our ability to see (and later report) several things at once. This article deals with what I call object-based theories (e.g., Neisser, 1967), which propose that this limit concerns the number of separate objects that can be seen. Here some predictions of this view are tested, and object-based theories are contrasted with discrimination-based theories (e.g., Allport, 1971, 1980) and with spaced-based theories (e.g., Hoffman & Nelson, 1981; Posner, Snyder, & Davidson, 1980). The work of Neisser (1967) illustrates the object-based approach. Neisser (1967) proposed that perceptual analysis of the visual world takes place in two successive stages. The first, preattentive, stage segments the field into separate objects on the basis of such Gestalt properties as spatial proximity, continuity of contour, shared color or movement, and so on. The second stage, focal attention, analyzes a particular object in more detail. Neisser (1967) supposed that, whereas preat

Concept of Emotion Viewed From a Prototype Perspective

Abstract: SUMMARY Many have sought but no one has found a commonly acceptable definition for the concept of emotion. Repeated failure raises the question whether a definition is possible, at least a definition in the classical sense of individually necessary and jointly sufficient attributes. A series of seven studies explored an alternative possibility that the concept of emotion is better understood from a prototype perspective than from a classical perspective. Specifically it is argued that membership in the concept of emotion is a matter of degree rather than all-or-none (that the concept has an internal structure) and that no sharp boundary separates members from nonmembers (that the concept has fuzzy boundaries). As hypothesized, the concept of emotion has an internal structure: happiness, love, anger, fear, awe, respect, envy, and other types of emotion can be reliably ordered from better to poorer examples of emotion. In turn, an emotion's goodness of example (prototypicality) ranking was found to predict how readily incomes to mind when one is asked to list emotions, how likely it is to be labeled as an emotion when one is asked what sort of thing it is, how readily it can be substituted for the word emotion in sentences without their sounding unnatural, and the degree to which it resembles other emotion categories in terms of shared features. In response to an argument made by Armstrong, Gleitman and Gleitman (1983), the evidence for internal structure is acknowledged not to imply fuzzy boundaries. Thus, it was further shown that the concept of emotion, and several other of Rosch's prototypically organized concepts, lacks sharp boundaries and thus can be empirically distinguished from classically defined concepts: Peripheral members of classical concepts but not of fuzzy concepts are nonetheless unequivocal members of the concept. Finally, implications of a prototype view for the psychology, of emotion are discussed. Issues raised include extension of the prototype analysis to anger, fear, and other types of emotion; scientific versus everyday folk concepts; and emotion concepts versus emotion events.

Objects, parts, and categories.

Abstract: Concepts may be organized into taxonomies varying in inclusiveness or abstraction, such as furniture, table, card table or animal, bird, robin. For taxonomies of common objects and organisms, the basic level, the level of table and bird, has been determined to be most informative (Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, & Boyes-Braem, 1976). Psychology, linguistics, and anthropology have produced a variety of measures of perception, behavior, and communication that converge on the basic level. Here, we present data showing that the basic level differs qualitatively from other levels in taxonomies of objects and of living things and present an explanation for why so many measures converge at that level. We have found that part terms proliferate in subjects' listings of attributes characterizing category members at the basic level, but are rarely listed at a general level. At a more specific level, fewer parts are listed, though more are judged to be true. Basic level objects are distinguished from one another by parts, but members of subordinate categories share parts and differ from one another on other attributes. Informants agree on the parts of objects, and also on relative "goodness" of the various parts. Perceptual salience and functional significance both appear to contribute to perceived part goodness. Names of parts frequently enjoy a duality not evident in names of other attributes; they refer at once to a particular appearance and to a particular function. We propose that part configuration underlies the various empirical operations of perception, behavior, and communication that converge at the basic level. Part configuration underlies the perceptual measures because it determines the shapes of objects to a large degree. Parts underlie the behavioral tasks because most of our behaviors is indirect toward parts of objects. Labeling appears to follow the natural breaks of perception and behavior; consequently, part configuration also underlies communication measures. Because elements of more abstract taxonomies, such as scenes and events, can also be decomposed into parts, this analysis provides a bridge to organization in other domains of knowledge. Knowledge organization by parts (partonomy) is contrasted to organization by kinds (taxonomy). Taxonomies serve to organize numerous classes of entities and to allow inference from larger sets to sets included in them. Partonomies serve to separate entities into their structural components and to organize knowledge of function by components of structure. The informativeness of the basic level may originate from the availability of inference from structure to function at that level.

Resolving 20 years of inconsistent interactions between lexical familiarity and orthography, concreteness, and polysemy.

Abstract: Numerous word recognition studies conducted over the past 2 decades are examined. These studies manipulated lexical familiarity by presenting words of high versus low printed frequency and most reported an interaction between printed frequency and one of several second variables, namely, orthographic regularity, semantic concreteness, or polysemy. However, the direction of these interactions was inconsistent from study to study. Six new experiments clarify these discordant results. The first two demonstrate that words of the same low printed frequency are not always equally familiar to subjects. Instead, subjects' ratings of "experimental familiarity" suggest that many of the low-printed-frequency words used in prior studies varied along this dimension. Four lexical decision experiments reexamine the prior findings by orthogonally manipulating lexical familiarity, as assessed by experiential familiarity ratings, with bigram frequency, semantic concreteness, and number of meanings. The results suggest that of these variables, only experiential familiarity reliably affects word recognition latencies. This in turn suggests that previous inconsistent findings are due to confounding experiential familiarity with a second variable.

Effects of age and skill in typing.

Abstract: What are the factors responsible for skilled typing performance, and do they change with the age of the typist? These questions were addressed in two studies by examining time and accuracy of keystrokes in a variety of typinglike activities among typists ranging in speed from 17 to 104 net words per minute and ranging in age from 19 to 72 years old. Typing skill was related to the temporal consistency of making the same keystroke, the efficiency of overlapping successive keystrokes, the speed of alternate-hand tapping, and the number of characters of to-be-typed text required to maintain a normal rate of typing. Older typists were slower in tapping rate and in choice reaction time but were not slower in speed of typing, apparently because they were more sensitive to characters farther in advance of the currently typed character than young typists.

A case of syntactical learning and judgment: How conscious and how abstract?

Abstract: This study examined two possible bases for grammatical judgments following syntactical learning: unconscious representations of a formal grammar, as in Reber's (1976) hypothesis of implicit learning, and conscious rules within informal grammars. Experimental subjects inspected strings generated by a finite-state grammar, viewed either one at a time or all at a time, with implicit or explicit learning instructions. In a transfer test, experimental and control subjects judged the grammatically of grammatical and nongrammatical strings, reporting on every trial the bases for their judgments. In replication of others' results, experimental subjects met the critical test for grammatical abstraction: significantly correct classification of novel strings. We found, however, that reported rules predicted those grammatical judgments without significant residual. Subjects evidently acquired correlated grammars, personal sets of conscious rules, each of limited scope and many of imperfect validity. Those rules themselves were shown to embody abstractions, consciously represented novelty that could account for

On the pretense theory of irony

Abstract: We propose a pretense theory of irony based on suggestions by Grice and Fowler. In being ironic, the theory goes, a speaker is pretending to be an injudicious person speaking to an uninitiated audience; the speaker intends the addresses of the irony to discover the pretense and thereby see his or her attitude toward the speaker, the audience, and the utterance. The pretense theory, we argue, is superior to the mention theory of irony proposed by Sperber and Wilson.

Semantic memory content in permastore: Fifty years of memory for Spanish learned in school.

Abstract: Retention of Spanish learned in school was tested over a 50-year period for 733 individuals. Tests of reading comprehension, recall, and recognition vocabulary and grammar were administered together with a questionnaire to determine the level of original training, the grades received, and rehearsals during the retention interval in the form of reading, writing, speaking, or listening to Spanish. Multiple regression analysis shows that retention throughout the 50-year period is predictable on the basis of the level of original training. The great majority of subjects rehearse so little that the data reveal no significant rehearsal effects. The analysis yields memory curves which decline exponentially for the first 3-6 years of the retention interval. After that retention remains unchanged for periods of up to 30 years before showing a final decline. Large portions of the originally acquired information remain accessible for over 50 years in spite of the fact the information is not used or rehearsed. This portion of the information in a "permastore" state is a function of the level of original training, the grades received in Spanish courses, and the method of testing (recall vs. recognition), but it appears to be unaffected by ordinary conditions of interference. The life-span frequency distribution of learned responses is discontinuous; one portion of the response distribution has life spans of 0-6 years, the other portion, life spans in excess of 25 years, and no responses have life spans of 6-25 years. This suggests a discrete transition into a permastore state during the extended period of original training. Analysis of successive relearning processes over extended time periods is deemed essential for an understanding of the acquisition of permanent semantic memory content.

Paired-Associate Learning and Priming Effects in Amnesia: A Neuropsychological Study

Abstract: Despite severe deficits of recall and recognition, amnesic patients can exhibit normal priming effects. Amnesic patients have also been reported to perform well on tests of paired-associate learning that involve related word pairs (e.g., table-chair). The present study investigated the role of priming effects in paired-associate learning. Experiment 1 illustrated the distinction between the memory impairment of amnesic patients and their intact priming ability. Amnesic patients were markedly deficient in learning unrelated word pairs, despite exhibiting normal priming as measured by a word-completion test involving the same words. In Experiment 2A, amnesic patients showed good paired-associate learning for related word pairs, though control subjects still performed significantly better. In addition, the good performance by amnesic patients was short-lived, and performance fell to baseline after a 2-hr delay. Control subjects performed well above baseline at all delay conditions. Experiment 2B showed that the forgetting of related word pairs by amnesic patients followed the same time course as the decay of word priming. Experiment 3 showed that amnesic patients were as good as control subjects at learning related word pairs when incidental learning and test procedures were used (a word-association test). The advantage of control subjects over amnesic patients in Experiments 2A and 2B could therefore be attributed to the explicit learning instructions that are standard in paired-associate tests. Finally, Experiment 4 showed that amnesic patients exhibited normal priming when they were asked to "free associate" to words (e.g., child) that were semantically related to previously presented words (e.g., baby). The results indicate that both priming effects and paired-associate learning of related word pairs depend on activation, a process that is preserved in amnesia. Activation can account for the findings of good performance by amnesic patients on tests of word priming (Experiments 1 and 2B), related paired associates (Experiments 2A and 2B), and word association (Experiments 3 and 4). Activation is a transient phenomenon presumed to operate on and facilitate access to preexisting representations. Control subjects can establish new associations and can strengthen preexisting associations by engaging processes that are impaired in amnesia. As a result, when explicit learning instructions are used to test paired-associate learning of related word pairs, control subjects can learn better and can remember longer than can amnesic patients (Experiments 2A and 2B).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Tonal hierarchies in the music of north India.

Abstract: SUMMARY Cross-culturally, most music is tonal in the sense that one particular tone, called the tonic, provides a focus around which the other tones are organized. The specific orga- nizational structures around the tonic show considerable diversity. Previous studies of the perceptual response to Western tonal music have shown that listeners familiar with this musical tradition have internalized a great deal about its underlying organization. Krumhansl and Shepard (1979) developed a probe tone method for quantifying the perceived hierarchy of stability of tones. When applied to Western tonal contexts, the measured hierarchies were found to be consistent with music-theoretic accounts. In the present study, the probe tone method was used to quantify the perceived hierarchy of tones of North Indian music. Indian music is tonal and has many features in common with Western music. One of the most significant differences is that the primary means of expressing tonality in Indian music is through melody, whereas in Western music it is through harmony (the use of chords). Indian music is based on a standard set of melodic forms (called rags), which are themselves built on a large set of scales (thats). The tones within a rag are thought to be organized in a hierarchy of importance. Probe tone ratings were given by Indian and Western listeners in the context of 10 North Indian rags. These ratings confirmed the predicted hierarchical ordering. Both groups of listeners gave the highest ratings to the tonic and the fifth degree of the scale. These tones are considered by Indian music theorists to be structurally significant, as they are immovable tones around which the scale system is constructed, and they are sounded continuously in the drone. Relatively high ratings were also given to the vadi tone, which is designated for each rag and is given emphasis in the melody. The ratings of both groups of listeners generally reflected the pattern of tone durations in the musical contexts. This result suggests that the distribution of tones in music is a psychologically effective means of conveying the tonal hierarchy to listeners whether they are familiar with the musical tradition. Beyond this, only the Indian listeners were sensitive to the scales (thats) underlying the rags. For Indian listeners, multidimensional scaling of the correlations between the rating profiles recovered the theoretical representation of scales described by theorists of Indian music. Thus, the empirically measured tonal hierarchy induced by the rag contexts generates structure at the level of the underlying scales or thats, but its internalization apparently requires more extensive experience with music based on that scale system than that provided by the experimental context. There was little evidence that Western listeners assimilated the pitch materials to the major and minor diatonic system of Western music.

Integrating pictorial information across eye movements.

Abstract: Six experiments are reported dealing with the types of information integrated across eye movements in picture perception. A line drawing of an object was presented in peripheral vision, and subjects made an eye movement to it. During the saccade, the initially presented picture was replaced by another picture that the subject was instructed to name as quickly as possible. The relation between the stimulus on the first fixation and the stimulus on the second fixation was varied. Across the six experiments, there was about 100-130 ms facilitation when the pictures were identical compared with a control condition in which only the target location was specified on the first fixation. This finding clearly implies that information about the first picture facilitated naming the second picture. Changing the size of the picture from one fixation to the next had little effect on naming time. This result is consistent with work on reading and low-level visual processes in indicating that pictorial information is not integrated in a point-by-point manner in an integrated visual buffer. Moreover, only about 50 ms of the facilitation for identical pictures could be attributed to the pictures having the same name. When the pictures represented the same concept (e.g., two different pictures of a horse), there was a 90-ms facilitation effect that could have been the result of either the visual or conceptual similarity of the pictures. However, when the pictures had different names, only visual similarity produced facilitation. Moreover, when the pictures had different names, there appeared to be inhibition from the competing names. The results of all six experiments are consistent with a model in which the activation of both the visual features and the name of the picture seen on the first fixation survive the saccade and combine with the information extracted on the second fixation to produce identification and naming of the second picture.

Choosing between movement sequences: A hierarchical editor model.

Abstract: SUMMARY Research on the control of action has made it clear that the performance of movement sequences is governed by central plans. This article is concerned with the structure of these plans and the course of events that underlies their construction. We conduct choice reaction-time experiments in which subjects choose between sequences of motor responses; the responses are similar to those used in piano playing. The initial goal of the experiments is to distinguish between two models of sequence choice developed to account for results from preliminary experiments on this topic. One model, the motor-program editor model, assumes that subjects prepare for a choice between two sequences by constructing an ordered set of motor subprograms each of which has a list of the motor features shared by the alternative responses at the corresponding serial position; the subsequent choice time is assumed to depend on the number of features to be supplied to the initially readied feature lists. The alternative, hierarchical decisions model, assumes that choosing between sequences of motor responses is achieved by carrying out a series of choices among competing elements at each of a number of distinct functional levels. Five experiments are reported that require subjects to choose between response sequences consisting of one to four button presses. Among the phenomena found are the following: (a) systematic effects of the serial positions of uncertain responses in the alternative sequences; (b) effects of the structural similarity of the two sequences, both on the time to choose between the sequences and on the time to perform responses within them; and (c) effects of the requirement to cancel some responses depending on the structural relationships between those responses and the other responses in the same sequence and in the other sequence. On the basis of these and other results, we propose a hybrid of the motor-program editor model and the hierarchical decisions model. The new, hierarchical editor (HED) model assumes that motor plans are hierarchically structured and that subjects prepare for forthcoming sequence choices by readying responses shared by the two possible sequences. The essential new ideas in the HED model are that the physical production of planned motor sequences is controlled by the successive "unpacking" of nested subprograms and that before this unpacking process begins, it is gone through once in advance to ensure that all uncertain nesting relations are resolved. An important implication of the model is that the performance of movement sequences is achieved through rapid access to symbolic memory stores rather than through linear readout from low-level command stores. Another important implication is that the control of manual response sequences may be based on the same fundamental mechanisms as the control of language production.

Test of the Mention Theory of Irony

Abstract: The traditional theory of irony, which assumes that an ironist uses a figurative meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the utterance, is shown to be inadequate; an alternative theory is presented, which assumes that the ironist mentions the literal meaning of the utterance and expresses an attitude toward it. Although the implications for understanding irony are difficult to test, the two theories do make testable predictions about the conditions under which irony is perceived: The mention theory requires antecedent material for the ironist to mention, whereas the standard theory does not. A reading comprehension test was conducted involving anecdotes that satisfied the traditional criterion for irony but could include or omit antecedents for echoic mention. Results favored the mention theory of irony. Metaphor and irony, the two most important tropes, have been discussed by rhetoricians and literary scholars for more than 2 millennia. Both are common in everyday speech: It is equally unsurprising, for instance, to hear an objectionable person called "a rat" metaphorically or "a nice guy" ironically. Yet metaphor has become a popular topic in psycholinguistics (Ortony, 1979), whereas irony has been neglected. Two considerations might help to explain this imbalance: It has been easier to conceive experimental approaches to metaphor, and the relevance of metaphor to broader psychological issues has been more apparent. Our aim in this article is to illustrate one way in which irony is amenable to experimental treatment and to test a recent theory of irony put forward by Sperber and Wilson (1981), which, if correct, should increase the psychological pertinence of the study of irony.

Three Gradients and the Perception of Flat and Curved Surfaces

Abstract: SUMMARY Researchers of visual perception have long been interested in surfaces. Most psychologists have been interested in the perceived slant of a surface and in the gradients that purportedly specify it. Slant is the angle between the line of sight and the tangent to the planar surface at any point, also called the surface normal. Gradients are the sources of information that grade, or change, with visual angle as one looks from one's feet upward to the horizon. The present article explores three gradients—perspective, compression, and density— and the phenomenal impression of flat and curved surfaces. The perspective gradient is measured at right angles to the axis of tilt at any point in the optic array; that is, when looking down a hallway at the tiles of a floor receding in the distance, perspective is measured by the x-axis width of each tile projected on the image plane orthogonal to the line of sight. The compression gradient is the ratio of y/x axis measures on the projected plane. The density gradient is measured by the number of tiles per unit solid visual angle. For flat surfaces and many others, perspective and compression gradients decrease with distance, and the density gradient increases. We discuss the manner in which these gradients change for various types of surfaces. Each gradient is founded on a different assumption about textures on the surfaces around us. In Experiment 1, viewers assessed the three-dimensional character of projections of flat and curved surfaces receding in the distance. They made pairwise judgments of preference and of dissimilarity among eight stimuli in each of four sets. The presence of each gradient was manipulated orthogonally such that each stimulus had zero, one, two, or three gradients appropriate for either a flat surface or a curved surface. Judgments were made for surfaces with both regularly shaped and irregularly shaped textures scattered on them. All viewer assessments were then scaled in one dimension. Multiple correlation and regression on the scale values revealed that greater than 98% of the variance in scale values was accounted for by the gradients. For the flat surfaces a mean of 65% of the variance was accounted for by the perspective gradient, 28% by the density gradient, and 6% by the compression gradient. For curved surfaces, on the other hand, a mean of 96% of the variance was accounted for by the compression gradient, and less than 2% by either the perspective gradient or the density gradient. There were no differences between results for surfaces with regularly shaped and irregularly shaped textures, demonstrating remarkable tolerance of the visual system for statistical variation. The differential results for the flat and curved surfaces suggest independent channels of information that are available in the optic array to observers for their use at different times and in different situations. We argue that perspective information seems to be most important for flatness judgments because that information is a component of an invariant available to'viewers about flat surfaces. We also argue that compression is important for curvature judgments because it reveals potential nonmonotonicities in change of slant, the angle between line of sight and a line orthogonal to the local surface plane. In Experiment 2 we show that when the height of a curved surface is diminished enough to create a nearly monotonic compression function, viewers cannot distinguish such a surface from one that is flat. Finally, we suggest two things with regard to the existing literature on surface perception. First, although psychologists have been very interested in the perception of slant for a flat surface, we argue that slant is a largely irrelevant variable for the perception of flatness. That is, slant information is functionally related to compression gradients, and compression

Accuracy of Feeling-of-Knowing Judgments for Predicting Perceptual Identification and Relearning

Abstract: SUMMARY The feeling of knowing refers to predictions about subsequent memory performance on previously nonrecalled items. The most frequently investigated type of subsequent performance has been recognition. The present research explored predictive accuracy with two new feeling-of-knowing criterion tests (in addition to recognition): relearning and perceptual identification. In two experiments, people attempted to recall the answers to general-information questions such as, "What is the capital of Australia?", then made feeling-of-knowing predictions for all nonrecalled answers, and finally had a criterion test to assess the accuracy of the feeling-of-knowing predictions. Experiment 1 demonstrated that perceptual identification can be employed successfully as a criterion test for the feeling of knowing. This opens a new way for metamemory research via perception. Moreover, the feeling-of-knowing accuracy for predicting perceptual identification was not significantly correlated with the feeling-of-knowing accuracy for predicting recognition, in accord with the idea that these two tests assess memory differently. Experiment 2 demonstrated that relearning performance can also be predicted by feeling-of-kn owing judgments. Both experiments showed that there is a positive relationship between the feeling of knowing and the amount of time elapsing before a memory search is terminated during recall. Further analyses showed that this relationship is substantial for nonrecalled items for which the person did not guess an answer (omission errors), but the relationship is null or negative for nonrecalled items that the person guessed incorrectly (commission errors). Several theoretical mechanisms that may underlie the feeling of knowing are proposed.

Representations of perceptions of risks

Abstract: : The perceptions of risks (e.g., diseases, accidents, natural hazards) is investigated using a multi-task, multi-model approach. We studied the proximities among 18 risks induced by three tasks: judgment of similarity, conditional prediction and dimensional evaluation. The comparative judgments (similarity and prediction) were reasonably close but the dimensional evaluation did not correlate highly with either similarity or prediction. Similarity judgments and conditional predictions appear to be represented best by tree models, which are based on discrete features, while the dimensional evaluations are better explained by spatial models, such as multidimensional scaling and factor analysis. We discuss the implications of these results for the study of mental representation and for the analysis of risk perception. (Author)

Holistic and analytic modes of processing: the multiple determinants of perceptual analysis.

Abstract: With the use of the criterion of privileged axes, a set of experimental studies establishes that analytic processing of saturation and brightness, prototypical integral dimensions, does sometimes occur. Still, it is less frequent and less successful than analytic processing of separable dimensions. The studies identify several factors that influence whether or not analytic processing occurs. Among them are the following: (a) stimulus factors, in addition to the choice of dimensions (e.g., the magnitude of dimensional differences); (b) task factors (e.g., the degree to which analytic processing is encouraged by instructions or by implicit task demands, the amount of time available for processing); and (c) subject factors (e.g., the amount of experience that the perceiver has had with the stimuli in tasks that encourage stimulus analysis).

Verbal irony: Pretense or echoic mention?

Abstract: According to the mention theory of irony put forward by Sperber and Wilson and tested by Jprgensen, Miller, and Sperber, verbal ironies are implicit echoic mentions of meaning conveying a derogatory attitude to the meaning mentioned. In their criticisms, Clark and Gerrig misrepresent mention theory. The pretense theory, which they offer as a superior alternative, might provide a plausible description of parody, but it fails to account for many types and many properties of irony proper.

Interpreting Harry Bahrick's discovery: what confers immunity against forgetting?

Abstract: L'interpretation des donnees de Bahrick (1984) sur la retention de l'espagnol appris a l'ecole et sa theorie du stockage permanent («permastore») sont critiquees par reference a une hypothese de reconstruction

Dreams and reality monitoring.

Abstract: Experiment 1 tested the counterintuitive prediction that memories for one's own dreams should not be particularly easy to discriminate from memories for someone else's dreams. Pairs of people reported dreams to each other that they had either dreamed, read, or made up the night before. On a test requiring subjects to discriminate events they had reported from those reported by their partner, subjects had more difficulty with real dreams than with dreams they read or made up. Experiment 2 provided evidence that real dreams do not simply produce overall weaker memories; the deficit for dreams was eliminated with more time to respond and with more detailed cues. In addition, subjects' ratings of various characteristics of their memories (e.g., vividness, personal relevance) indicated that dreams were not generally weaker or impoverished. The results are interpreted within the framework for reality monitoring described by Johnson and Raye (1981): Memories for real dreams are proposed to be deficient in conscious cognitive operations that help identify the origin of information generated in a waking state. At the same time, real dreams are embedded in a network of supporting memories that can be drawn on for reality monitoring decisions under appropriate circumstances. Finally, a comparison of recognition and recall indicated that dreams may leave persisting memories that are difficult to access via free recall.

Individual Differences in Loudness Processing and Loudness Scales

Abstract: Parameters of the psychophysical function for loudness (a 1000-Hz tone) were assessed for individual subjects in three experiments: (a) binaural loudness summation, (b) temporal loudness summation, and (c) judgments of loudness intervals. The loudness scales that underlay the additive binaural summation closely approximated S. S. Stevens's (1956) sone scale but were nonlinearly related to the scales that underlay the subtractive interval judgments, the latter approximating Garner's (1954) lambda scale. Interindividual differences in temporal summation were unrelated to differences in scaling performance or in binaural summation. Although the exponents of magnitude-estimation functions and the exponents underlying interval judgments varied considerably from subject to subject, exponents computed on the basis of underlying binaural summation varied less. The results suggest that interindividual variation in the exponent of magnitude-estimation functions largely reflects differences in the ways that subjects use numbers to describe loudnesses and that the sensory representations of loudness are fairly uniform, though probably not wholly uniform, among people with normal hearing. The magnitude of individual variation in at least one measure of auditory intensity processing, namely, temporal summation, seems at least as great as the magnitude of the variation in the underlying loudness scale.

How normal and retarded individuals monitor and regulate speed and accuracy of responding in serial choice tasks.

Abstract: These experiments investigate whether or not differences in the way that retarded and nonretarded individuals monitor and regulate speed and accuracy of responding contribute to the slower and more variable performance of retarded subjects on choice reaction time (RT) tasks. Rabbitt (1979, 1981) suggested that efficient choice RT performance is mediated by subjects tracking increasingly faster RT bands on successive trials until, by making and recognizing errors, they discover those very fast RT levels that should be avoided and those safe bands, just above typical error levels, that should be tracked. Experiments 1A and 1B established that most retarded subjects detect their errors as efficiently as nonretarded controls, a finding that excludes the possibility that retarded subjects do not monitor accuracy efficiently but achieve comparable levels of accuracy by consistently responding within very slow RT bands that minimize likelihood of errors. Experiment 2 showed that while a qualitatively similar trial-by-trial tracking mechanism mediates the performance of both groups, retarded subjects are less efficient at constraining RTs within very fast, but safe, bands. Increasing error probabilities at longer RTs suggest that momentary fluctuations in stimulus discriminability and/or attention are factors affecting RT variability in retarded subjects. The RT patterns for various sequences of correct responses initiated and terminated by errors suggest that the effective past experience (EPEX) guiding trial-by-trial RT adjustments of retarded subjects is short and inadequate, and it was argued that this can account for much of the remaining RT variability contributing to retarded-nonretarded differences. Not only does a short EPEX increase variability by giving rise to long error-free sequences of slower than average RT but also, when combined with occasional specified random fluctuations, it suggests why retarded subjects can achieve, but not sustain, RT levels maintained by nonretarded subjects.

A theory of criterion setting: an alternative to the attention band and response ratio hypotheses in magnitude estimation and cross-modality matching.

Abstract: The attention band and response ratio hypotheses of Green and Luce (1974) and Luce and Green (1974) are discussed and some difficulties are noted. An alternative hypothesis is put forward. This is based on a Thurstonian model for magnitude estimation in which the presented stimulus intensities are subjected to a logarithmic transformation. Response criteria are then applied to the resulting quantities to select corresponding responses. The setting and maintenance of these response criteria are accounted for by a theory of criterion setting previously developed by the senior author (Treisman & Williams, 1984). A similar model is developed for cross-modality matching, and it is shown that these models can predict the V pattern for the coefficient of variation of response ratios, can predict the inverted V pattern for correlations between successive responses, and can account for some of the difficulties found in the literature.

Two issues concerning tonal hierarchies: Comment on Castellano, Bharucha, and Krumhansl.

Abstract: First, because tonal hierarchies exist in the music of long-established traditions, we may assume that they confer certain processing advantages. Such hierarchies capitalize on certain properties of the pitch memory system that do not require a tonal setting for demonstration. Furthermore, they facilitate the generation of hierarchical representations of sequential patterns of pitches, and such representations enable considerable parsimony of encoding. Second, the listener's establishment of a tonal hierarchy involves a process of key attribution. This process draws not only on the identities of the notes presented but also draws on their orderings. Certain sequential grouping factors are involved here that can also be shown to exist outside a tonal setting. We are therefore dealing with an elaborate bootstrapping operation, through which both a key and a sequential representation are arrived at by the listener. The article by Castellano, Bharucha, and Krumhansl (1984) is one of an elegant and important series by Krumhansl and her colleagues concerning the cognitive representation of pitch in the context of tonal music. Previous work in this series has shown that, for the case of Western tonal music, the establishment of a key for the listener results in his or her invoking a hierarchy of prominence for the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, which is unique to that key. The present article shows further that analogous hierarchies are invoked on listening to Indian music also, indicating that this feature of musical processing occurs cross-culturally. There are two issues arising from this study that I should like to address. First, what is the