Showing papers in "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General in 1992"

Optimizing the use of information: strategic control of activation of responses.

Abstract: Recent studies indicate that subjects may respond to visual information during either an early parallel phase or a later focused phase and that the selection of the relevant phase is data driven. Using the noise-compatibility paradigm, we tested the hypothesis that this selection may also be strategic and context driven. At least part of the interference effect observed in this paradigm is due to response activation during the parallel-processing phase. We manipulated subjects' expectancies for compatible and incompatible noise in 4 experiments and effectively modulated the interference effect. The results suggest that expectancies about the relative utility of the information extracted during the parallel and focused phases determine which phase is used to activate responses.

Dissociation of processes in belief: Source recollection, statement familiarity, and the illusion of truth

Abstract: This article reports 4 experiments concerning the effect of repetition on rated truth (the illusory truth effect). Statements were paired with differentially credible sources (true vs. false). Old trues would be rated true on 2 bases, source recollection and statement familiarity. Old falses, however, would be rated false if sources were recollected, leaving the unintentional influence of familiarity as their only basis for being rated true. Even so, falses were rated truer than new statements unless sources were especially memorable. Estimates showed the contributions of the 2 influences to be independent; the intentional influence of recollection was reduced if control was impaired, but the unintentional influence of familiarity remained constant

Measuring recognition memory.

Abstract: Recent years have seen an expanded interest in recognition memory tasks. This resurgence of interest has also renewed concerns with measurement problems. Comparing 4 models of recognition memory, Snodgrass and Corwin (1988) found that measures of bias from the distribution-free (nonparametric) model were inadequate. However, their analysis was based on bias measures that can be shown a priori to be nonindependent of discrimination. This article traces the history of the nonparametric model and develops a better measure of bias. The consequence of developing this better measure is that the nonparametric model deserves serious consideration.

Predictive and diagnostic learning within causal models: Asymmetries in cue competition.

Abstract: Several researchers have recently claimed that higher order types of learning, such as categorization and causal induction, can be reduced to lower order associative learning. These claims are based in part on reports of cue competition in higher order learning, apparently analogous to blocking in classical conditioning. Three experiments are reported in which subjects had to learn to respond on the basis of cues that were defined either as possible causes of a common effect (predictive learning) or as possible effects of a common cause (diagnostic learning). The results indicate that diagnostic and predictive reasoning, far from being identical as predicted by associationistic models, are not even symmetrical. Although cue competition occurs among multiple possible causes during predictive learning, multiple possible effects need not compete during diagnostic learning. The results favor a causal-model theory.

Perception of partly occluded objects: A microgenetic analysis.

Abstract: The sensory information specifying objects is often optically incomplete : Objects occlude parts of themselves and other objects. However, people rarely experience difficulty in perceiving complete 3-dimensional forms. This report describes a paradigm for the objective study of completion effects and their microgenesis. A well-known priming method was extended to determine whether a partly occluded object produces priming effects more like one of its possible interpretations than like another. For prime durations > 200 ms, a partly occluded object produces priming effects equivalent to its complete interpretation. The results provide objective evidence for the perceptual completion of partly occluded objects and imply that the complete interpretation develops over time, possibly proceeding through a preliminary mosaic interpretation

Electrophysiological evidence for temporal overlap among contingent mental processes.

Abstract: A series of studies assessed perceptual-motor transmission of stimulus information by measuring lateralization of movement-related brain potentials in a choice reaction task with no-go trials. When stimuli varied in shape and size, lateralized potentials on no-go trials suggested that easily recognized shape information was used to initiate motor preparation and that this preparation was aborted when size analysis signified that the response should be withheld. This indicates that movement preparation can begin once partial perceptual information about a stimulus becomes available, contrary to an assumption of fully discrete models of information processing. By contrast, when stimuli varied only in size, no evidence for preliminary response preparation was obtained, contrary to an assumption of fully continuous models but consistent with asynchronous discrete coding models (Miller, 1982, 1988).

Studies in space orientation. II. Perception of the upright with displaced visual fields and with body tilted.

Abstract: To overcome certain disadvantages of the tilted-mirror situation as a technique for separating visual and postural determinants of the perceived upright, a new procedure was developed. The S was presented with a small tilted room, on the back wall of which was a rod which he had to adjust to the true upright. In a first test, judgments of the rod were obtained with body upright, and under three different conditions of the field: (a) The S, standing at a distance from the tilted scene, viewed it through a tube which restricted his view to the interior of the scene. (b) The S stood directly in front of the scene without a tube. (c) The S stood at a distance from the scene, without a tube, so that he saw not only the tilted scene but the outer upright room as well. Under all three conditions the perceived vertical and horizontal were displaced significantly in the direction of the axes of the tilted scene. When an outer upright field was present, as in the third condition, the effect of the tilted scene upon the perceived upright diminished. In another experiment, judgments of the rod were obtained with body tilted, both to the same side as the field and to the opposite side. It was found that tilting the body resulted in an increased tendency to accept the tilted field as a basis for judging the upright. Not only were the perceived vertical and horizontal displaced further in the direction of the tilted scene, but a number of Ss perceived the tilted scene as fully upright. In another experiment there was found a tendency for the tilted scene to right itself with prolonged observation. In some cases the righting was complete, so that at the end of the observation period, the tilted scene was perceived to be fully upright. Under all conditions, striking individual differences were found in the extent to which the perceived upright was affected by the surrounding tilted field. There is evidence of considerably consistency in a person's performance under the different conditions employed.

Generation of random series in two-person strictly competitive games

Abstract: A general conclusion, widely and uniformly supported by a variety of experiments, is that humans are unable to produce a random series of discrete responses, even when instructed to do so. Several arguments are advanced to show that the experimental evidence in support of this claim is plagued with logical and methodological difficulties. Using a new research paradigm, this article reports experimental results showing that people can generate binary sequences that satisfy standard tests of randomness more successfully when they participate in 2-person strictly competitive games inducing them to conceal their choices and protect themselves from their own frailty to maximize gain

Wayfinding on foot from information in retinal, not optical, flow.

Abstract: People find their way through cluttered environments with ease and without injury. How do they do it? Two approaches to wayfmding are considered: Differential motion parallax (DMP) is a retinal motion invariant of near and far objects moving against fixation; the information in optical flow (IOF) is a radial pattern of vectors, relying on decomposition of retinal flow. Evidence is presented that DMP guides wayfinding during natural gait, accounting for errors as well as correct responses. Evidence against IOF is also presented, and a space-time aliasing artifact that can contaminate IOF displays is explored. Finally, DMP and IOF are separated, showing they can yield different results in different environments. Thus, it is concluded that (a) DMP and IOF are different, (b) DMP and not IOF is used for wayfinding, (c) moving observers do not usually decompose retinal flow, and (d) optical flow may be a mathematical fiction with no psychological reality. One of the most compelling of all visual phenomena occurs when one hurtles through the environment. The resulting radial streams of motion by surrounding objects, sometimes called optical flow, have captured the imagination of writers, artists, and cinematographers, as well as psychologists , neuroscientists, and computer scientists. This global motion was probably first noticed by the general populace in the mid19th century, but then only in industrializi ng nations and with the widespread use of railroads. The reasons for the relatively recent focus on optical flow are probably threefold: On a train one could, for the first time, travel (a) at velocities greater than about 4 eye heights/ s for a sustained period of time;1 (b) on a relatively smooth roadbed that eliminated the bouncing caused by one's own footfall or that of a horse, or by the jostling of a coach; and (c) with free time to look about, unfettered by the demands of guiding one's course through the environment. Naturally, railway travel offered much more than noticeable optical flow. Not all of it was good. Indeed, around 1860 The Lancet published a series of articles on putative ill effects of rail travel

An adaptive approach to human decision making: Learning theory, decision theory, and human performance.

Abstract: This article describes a general model of decision rule learning, the rule competition model, composed of 2 parts: an adaptive network model that describes how individuals learn to predict the payoffs produced by applying each decision rule for any given situation and a hill-climbing model that describes how individuals learn to fine tune each rule by adjusting its parameters. The model was tested and compared with other models in 3 experiments on probabilistic categorization. The first experiment was designed to test the adaptive network model using a probability learning task, the second was designed to test the parameter search process using a criterion learning task, and the third was designed to test both parts of the model simultaneously by using a task that required learning both category rules and cutoff criteria. Probabilistic categorization is an important class of decision problems in which stimuli are sampled from a number of categories and the decision maker must decide the category from which each stimulus was sampled. Payoffs depend on both the true category membership and the decision maker's response for each stimulus. Examples are found in all areas of psychology: In perception, auditory or visual stimuli are categorized as signal or noise, and in memory recognition, verbal items are categorized as old or new. In cognition, exemplar patterns are assigned to conceptual categories, and in industrial psychology, job applicants are categorized as acceptable or unacceptable. Finally, in clinical psychology, patient symptom patterns are assigned to disease categories. For the past 35 years, the general theory of signal detection (Peterson, Birdsall, & Fox, 1954) has served as the most prominent model of probabilistic categorization. It has been successfully applied to all of the areas of psychology mentioned (see Green & Swets, 1966; for perception; Bernbach, 1967, and Wickelgren & Norman, 1966, for memory recognition; Ashby & Gott, 1988, for conceptual categorization; Cronbach & Gleser, 1965, for industrial psychology; and Swets & Pickett, 1982, for medical diagnosis). The core idea is that (a) each stimulus is represented as a point within a multidimensional stimulus space, (b) this multidimensional space is partitioned into response regions, and (c) a stimulus is categorized according to the region within which it lies. Simple decision rules are normally used to describe how the stimulus space is partitioned.' For example, unidimensional stimuli can be divided into two categories by either a cutoff rule (all points above a cutoff go into one category) or by an interval rule (all points inside an interval go into one category). Two-dimensional stimuli can be partitioned into

Similarity-scaling studies of dot-pattern classification and recognition.

Abstract: Classification performance in the dot-pattern, prototype-distortion paradigm (e.g., Posner & Keele, 1968) was modeled within a multidimensional scaling (MDS) framework. MDS solutions were derived for sets of dot patterns that were generated from prototypes. These MDS solutions were then used in conjunction with exemplar, prototype, and combined models to predict classification and recognition performance. Across 3 experiments, an MDS-based exemplar model accounted for the effects of several fundamental learning variables, including level of distortion of the patterns, category size, delay of transfer phase, and item frequency. Most important, the model quantitatively predicted classification probabilities for individual dot patterns in the sets, not simply general trends of performance. There was little evidence for the existence of a prototype-abstraction process that operated above and beyond pure exemplar-based generalization.

An expectancy model of laboratory preparedness effects

Abstract: Experiments investigating differential unconditioned stimulus (UCS) expectancy during fear-relevant (prepared) and fear-irrelevant (unprepared) stimuli revealed that (a) a UCS expectancy bias is apparent before conditioning, (b) initial differential UCS expectancy appears in spite of instructions informing the Ss of no UCS presentations, (c) differential UCS expectancies to fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant stimuli dissipate with continued nonreinforcement, (d) differential UCS expectancies may be translated into differential skin conductance responses (SCRs) under certain conditions, (e) both UCS expectancy and SCR measures show similar patterns of behavior in the traditional preparedness paradigm, and (f) experiencing CS-UCS pairings appears to reinstate a UCS expectancy bias after it has extinguished

Structure and process in semantic memory: evidence from event-related brain potentials and reaction times.

Abstract: Through scalp measurements of the electrical activity of the brain (event-related potentials, or ERPs) recorded while subjects verified the truth of sentences relating exemplars and categories (e.g., ALL DOGS ARE ANIMALS), inferences were made about aspects of semantic processing that were not directly reflected by overt responses. In particular, it is suggested that a negative ERP component that peaks about 400 ms after the onset of the sentence predicate (i.e., N400) is sensitive to structural aspects of semantic memory. The amplitude of this component was modulated by the relatedness of the subject and predicate terms, as well as the hierarchical level of both these terms, but was not sensitive to the truth value of a sentence.

Reenacting the route to interpretation: Enhanced perceptual identification without prior perception.

Abstract: Memory for processing a stimulus event may be expressed indirectly through more fluent processing of that stimulus on a later occasion. In 11 experiments, enhanced identification of words presented under visual masking was measured following events that involved reading target words or generating them from semantic cues. Amount of enhancement was related not to whether a word was actually seen on its first presentation, but to the degree to which it was integrated with its encoding context—integration led to less enhancement. It is proposed that 2 sets of operations are carried out during encoding. Interpretive encoding operations construct a context-sensitive interpretation of the stimulus and are optionally followed by elaborative encoding operations. Enhanced word identification due to memory for a prior episode is determined by the fluent reenactment of interpretive encoding operations applied during that episode. In their everyday use of the word, people usually think of remembering as a single act. This is evident in the frequent analogy to locating a book on a library shelf: The routine is done essentially the same way every time. But cognitive psychologists have shown over and over that, as appealing as the library analogy may be, it is not appropriate for describing memory. Remembering is not a single routine; it is a family of skills that we learn to use alone or in combination to meet the demands placed on us by our contexts. To understand memory, then, a key step will involve categorizing different types of remembering, finding commonalities among superficially different acts of remembering. In the past decade, this enterprise has focused particularly on a distinction between two ways of remembering—the deliberate recollection of specific episodes and the fluent application of memory for past experience to current task performance. Situations in which we deliberately attempt to remember have been called direct or explicit tests of memory (Richardson

Selectivity, scope, and simplicity of models: a lesson from fitting judgments of perceived depth.

Abstract: When comparing psychological models a researcher should assess their relative selectivity, scope, and simplicity. The third of these considerations can be measured by the models' parameter counts or equation length, the second by their ability to fit random data, and the first by their differential ability to fit patterned data over random data. These conclusions are based on exploration of integration models reflecting depth judgments. Replication of Massaro's (1988a) results revealed an additive model (Bruno & Cutting, 1988), and Massaro's fuzzy-logical model of perception (FLMP) fit data equally well, but further exploration showed that the FLMP fit random data better. The FLMP's successes may reflect not its sensitivity in capturing psychological process but its scope in fitting any data and its complexity as measured by equation length.

Visual experience, visual field size, and the development of nonvisual sensitivity to the spatial structure of outdoor neighborhoods explored by walking.

Abstract: When places are explored without vision, observers go from temporally sequenced, circuitous inputs available along walks to knowledge of spatial structure (i.e., straight-line distances and directions characterizing the simultaneous arrangement of the objects passed along the way). Studies show that a life history of vision helps develop nonvisual sensitivity, but they are unspecific on the formative experiences or the underlying processes. This study compared judgments of straight-line distances and directions among landmarks in a familiar area of town by partially sighted persons who varied in types and ages of visual impairment. Those with early childhood loss of broad-field vision and those blind from birth performed significantly worse than those with early or late acuity loss and those with late field loss. Broad-field visual experience facilitates perceptual development by providing a basis for proprioceptive and efferent information from locomotion against distances and directions relative to the surrounding environment. Differences in the perception of walking, in turn, cause the observed differences in sensitivity to spatial structure.

General slowing alone cannot explain age-related search effects: reply to Cerella (1991)

Abstract: Cerella (1991) has argued that the performance of older adults in the Fisk and Rogers (1991) study is a linear function of the performance of younger adults that is independent of task-specific cognitive requirements. We demonstrate that this is not the case. First, we show that the scatter plot analyses used by Cerella can hide the very task-specific age-related slowing they were designed to reveal. Second, we demonstrate that the percentage of variance explained by such analyses can be misleading. Third, we show that there are reliable differences across tasks in the parameters relating younger and older adults' performance. Finally, we argue that the general, task-independent proportionate slowing that Cerella suggested explains so much of the variance in age-related performance is actually an average slowing that is a function of a relatively small task-independent and a relatively large task-dependent factor.

Textons, visual pop-out effects, and object recognition in infancy.

Abstract: Five experiments were conducted to determine whether primitive perceptual features, or textons, which Julesz (1984) identified in studies of texture segregation with adults, also affect object recognition early in development Three-month-old infants discriminated Ts and Ls composed of overlapping line segments from +s but not from each other in a delayed-recognition test after 24 hr; however, Ts and Ls were discriminated from each other after only 1 hr In a priming paradigm, Ts, Ls, and +s were discriminated from one another after 2 weeks In succeeding experiments, infants exhibited adultlike visual pop-out effects in both delayed recognition and priming paradigms, detecting an L in the midst of 6 +s and vice versa; these effects were symmetrical The pop-out effects apparently resulted from parallel search: Infants failed to detect 3 Ls among 4 +s Clearly, some of the same primitive units that have been identified as the building blocks of adult visual perception underlie object recognition early in infancy

Memory for Day of the Week: A 5 + 2 Day Cycle

Abstract: People use a variety of schemes to keep track of time. One such scheme is the week, with its 7 distinctly named days. This article examines memory for day of the week and its relation to memory for time of day and for elapsed time (number of days). Data are presented from a study in which people answered a set of interview questions about the time of occurrence of a particular event. Two issues are addressed. The first issue concerns the way different temporal schemes are organized in relation to each other in memory. Memory for day of the week is independent of other aspects of temporal memory. The second issue concerns whether the week is organized hierarchically into either weekday periods or weekend periods or both. The weekday period forms a distinct 5-day unit within the 7-day weekly cycle. The present data, together with those from the authors' earlier work, suggest that the time an event occurred is encoded in relation to a set of separate temporal scripts (e.g., daily and weekly) and that such scripts may be hierarchically organized.

Stabilized memory of unrehearsed knowledge

Abstract: The findings of Conway, Cohen, and Stanhope (1991) confirm that stabilized retention functions for unrehearsed academic knowledge are not an artifact of grade inflation as Hintzman (in press) has alleged. The Conway et al. data confirm that retention of unrehearsed knowledge may stabilize at the terminal level achieved during acquisition and that metacognitive confidence may decline during periods of stable retention. Low predictive power of grades for retention reported by Conway et al. is attributed to the nonhierarchival knowledge structures used in their investigation

The associative basis of contingent color aftereffects.

Abstract: According to a conditioning analysis of the orientation-contingent color aftereffect (McCollough effect, ME), orientation stimulus (grids) become associated with color. Contrary to this interpretation are reports that simple forms cannot be used to elicit illusory color and that the ME is not degraded by decreasing the grid-color correlation. The present results indicate : (a) Form stimuli can contingently elicit color aftereffects; (b) even a nonpatterned stimulus − the lightness of a frame surrounding a colored ares − can contingently elicit color aftereffects; (c) this frame lightness-contingent aftereffect, like the ME, persists for at least 24 hr; and (d) the frame lightness-contingent aftereffect can be used to demonstrate that correlational manipulations affect the ME, as they affect other types of conditional responses

On the relationship among identification, similarity, and categorization: Reply to Nosofsky and Smith (1992).

Abstract: Nosofsky and Smith (1992) challenged the theoretical, methodological, and empirical results of Ashby and Lee (1991). This reply (a) shows that models derived from general recognition theory (GRT) can predict categorization from identification without incorporating selective attention―at least, in the data sets suggested by Nosofsky and Smith; (b) argues that the categorization processes postulated by GRT are extremely dissimilar to the exemplar-based similarity model proposed by Nosofsky (1986); (c) criticizes Nosofsky and Smith's post hoc reanalysis of Ashby and Lee's identification-confusion data; (d) answers questions raised by Nofosky and Smith about the identification and similarity models tested by Ashby and Lee; and (e) argues that with the excellent fits reported by Ashby and Lee (i.e., 99.7% of variance accounted for), least sqaures and maximum likelihood model fitting procedures lead to similar conclusions

Why is it that university grades do not predict very-long-term retention?

Abstract: Bahrick (1992) argued that Conway, Cohen, and Stanhope's (1991) failure to find a strong relation between grade and very-long-term retention may, in part, be due to the learning schedules underlying knowledge acquisition in different types of knowledge domains. As an alternative it is proposed that grade is a multicomponent measure that is sensitive to both the amount of knowledge acquired and a learner's ability to use that knowledge-the learner's understanding of the acquired knowledge. A new analysis shows that the course-work component of grade reliably predicts very-long-term retention of knowledge, whereas the final examination component does not

Comparative assessment of psychomotor performance: target prediction by humans and macaques (Macaca mulatta).

Abstract: Although nonhuman primates such as rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) have been useful models of many aspects of cognition and performance, it has been argued that, unlike humans, they may lack the capacity to respond as predictor-operators. Data from the present series of experiments undermine this claim, suggesting instead a continuity of predictive competency between humans and nonhuman primates. A prediction coefficient was devised to examine the degree to which each subject's response path approximated the optimal predictive strategy. Whereas human subjects (N = 30) generally predicted more accurately, rhesus monkeys (N = 10) also significantly anticipated the movements of the target in all conditions. It appears that humans and rhesus monkeys both exhibit the capacity to respond to where a stimulus is going.