Showing papers in "Psychological Science in 1995"

Who Is Happy

Abstract: A flood of new studies explores people's subjective well-being (SWB) Frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and a global sense of satisfaction with life define high SWB These studies reveal that happiness and life satisfaction are similarly available to the young and the old, women and men, blacks and whites, the rich and the working-class Better clues to well-being come from knowing about a person's traits, close relationships, work experiences, culture, and religiosity We present the elements of an appraisal-based theory of happiness that recognizes the importance of adaptation, cultural world-view, and personal goals

The Construction of Situation Models in Narrative Comprehension: An Event-Indexing Model

Abstract: In this article, we propose and test a model of how readers construct representations of the situations described in simple narratives the event-indexing model According to the event-indexing model, events are the focal points of situations conveyed in narratives and are connected in memory along five dimensions time, space, protagonist, causality, and intentionality The results of a verb-clustering task provide strong support for the event-indexing model

Response Style and Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Rating Scales Among East Asian and North American Students

Abstract: This report examines cross-cultural differences in response style regarding the use of rating scales Subjects were high school students 944 from Sendai (Japan), 1,357 from Taipei (Taiwan), 687 from Edmonton and Calgary (Canada), and 2,174 from the Minneapolis metropolitan area and Fairfax County, Virginia Responses to fifty-seven 7-point Likert-type scales were analyzed The Japanese and Chinese students were more likely than the two North American groups to use the midpoint on the scales, the U S subjects were more likely than the other three groups to use the extreme values Within each cultural group, endorsement of individualism was positively related to the use of extreme values and negatively related to the use of the midpoint These small, albeit statistically significant, differences in response styles generally did not alter cross-cultural comparisons of item means

Preference Reversals Due to Myopic Discounting of Delayed Reward

Abstract: A basic stationarity axiom of economic theory assumes stable preference between two deferred goods separated by a fixed time To test this assumption, we offered subjects choices between delayed rewards, while manipulating the delays to those rewards Preferences typically reversed with changes in delay, as predicted by hyperbolic discounting models of impulsiveness Of 36 subjects, 34 reversed preference from a larger, later reward to a smaller, earlier reward as the delays to both rewards decreased We conclude that the stationarity axiom is not appropriate in models of human choice

Prevention of Depressive Symptoms in Schoolchildren: Two-Year Follow-Up

Abstract: After teaching cognitive and social-problem-solving techniques designed to prevent depressive symptoms, we followed 69 fifth- and sixth-grade children at risk for depression for 2 years We compared these children with 49 children in a matched no-treatment control group The prevention group reported fewer depressive symptoms through the 2-year followup, and moderate to severe symptoms were reduced by half Surprisingly, the effects of the prevention program grew larger after the program was over We suggest that psychological immunization against depression can occur by teaching cognitive and social skills to children as they enter puberty

Cognitive Profiles of Reading-Disabled Children: Comparison of Language Skills in Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax

Abstract: A comprehensive cognitive appraisal of elementary school children with learning disabilities showed that within the language sphere, deficits associated with reading disability are selective Phonological deficits consistently accompany reading problems whether they occur in relatively pure form or in the presence of coexisting attention deficit or arithmetic disability Although reading-disabled children were also deficient in production of morphologically related forms, this difficulty stemmed in large part from the same weakness in the phonological component that underlies reading disability In contrast, tests of syntactic knowledge did not distinguish reading-disabled children from those with other cognitive disabilities, nor from normal children after covarying for intelligence

Double Dissociation Between Memory Systems Underlying Explicit and Implicit Memory in the Human Brain

Abstract: Amnesic patients have impaired explicit memory that is evident in poor recall and recognition of words, yet can have intact implicit memory for words as measured by repetition priming, the enhanced efficiency for reprocessing those words The dissociation between explicit and implicit memory for words is a fundamental characteristic of normal cognition that could reflect two different functional architectures of the human brain two separate processing systems or two levels of operation of a single system with implicit memory less demanding of that system We present a patient who has a lesion in the right occipital lobe and who showed intact explicit and impaired implicit memory for words The deficit was specific to visual priming The double dissociation between explicit and implicit visual memory for words indicates that separate processing systems mediate these two forms of memory, and that a memory system in right occipital cortex mediates implicit visual memory for words

Infants' Recognition of the Sound Patterns of Their Own Names

Abstract: Among the earliest and most frequent words that infants hear are their names. Yet little is known about when infants begin to recognize their own names. Using a modified version of the head-turn preference procedure, we tested whether 4.5-month-olds preferred to listen to their own names over foils that were either matched or mismatched for stress pattern. Our findings provide the first evidence that even these young infants recognize the sound patterns of their own names. Infants demonstrated significant preferences for their own names compared with foils that shared the same stress patterns, as well as foils with opposite patterns. The results indicate when infants begin to recognize sound patterns of items frequently uttered in the infants' environments.

Chronic Noise and Psychological Stress

Abstract: This article illustrates the value of incorporating psychological principles into the environmental sciences. Psycho-physiological, cognitive, motivational, and affective indices of stress were mon ...

Preschool Origins of Cross-National Differences in Mathematical Competence: The Role of Number-Naming Systems

Abstract: Differences in mathematical competence between U S and Chinese children first emerge during the preschool years, favor Chinese children, and are limited to specific aspects of mathematical competence The base-10 structure of number names is less obvious in English than in Chinese, differences between these languages are reflected in children's difficulties learning to count Language differences do not affect other aspects of early mathematics, including counting small sets and solving simple numerical problems Because later mathematics increasingly involves manipulation of symbols, this early deficit in apprehending the base-10 structure of number names may provide a basis for previously reported differences in mathematical competence favoring Chinese schoolchildren

A Resource Account of Inhibition

Abstract: In a letter-naming task, a letter will be named more slowly if it was a distractor on the previous trial This negative priming effect has been instrumental in renewed interest in inhibition The present research explored whether inhibition is a result of controlled attention When the naming task was performed under a mental work load, negative priming was diminished as work load increased This finding suggests that inhibition is a product of controlled resources and that group differences in inhibition may result from differences in controlled attentional resources, not from inefficient inhibitory mechanisms

Evidence for Superior Orthographic Skills in Dyslexics

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to assess the development of both phonological and orthographic skills in normally achieving and dyslexic readers The subjects were 257 dyslexic and 342 normally achieving readers, matched at eight reading levels They were administered the Woodcock (1987) Word Attack Subtest, a measure of phonological skills requiring the reading of pseudowords, and an orthographic awareness task designed to measure awareness of the properties of English words and the probable sequences and positions of letters within words The dyslexics had significantly higher scores than the normally achieving readers on the orthographic awareness task However, the normally achieving readers had significantly higher scores on the Word Attack Subtest Therefore, the difficulties with phonological processing and the increased orthographic awareness of the dyslexics may indicate a reading strategy that relies more on the visual than the phonological features of words

Vocal Expression of Emotion: Acoustic Properties of Speech Are Associated With Emotional Intensity and Context

Abstract: Acoustic properties of speech likely provide external cues about internal emotional processes, a phenomenon called vocal expression of emotion Testing this supposition, we examined fundamental frequency (F0) and two perturbation measures, jitter and shimmer, in short speech samples recorded from subjects performing a lexical decision task Statistically significant differences were found between baseline and on-task values and as interaction effects involving differences in trait levels of emotional intensity and the proportion of success versus failure feedback received These results indicate that acoustic properties of speech can be used to index emotional processes and that characteristic differences in emotional intensity may mediate vocal expression of emotion

Microgenetic Study of Change: What Has It Told Us?:

Abstract: The microgenetic method has been advocated by developmentalists as a promising tool in the study of change Despite convergence of findings across investigators and diverse domains, however, several fundamental questions need to be answered (a) Is the potential for change specific to periods of developmental transition? (b) Is change domain-general or domain-specific? (c) Why and how does change occur? Answers to these questions bear on the extent to which microgenetic study of change can be interpreted as providing insight into the natural change process

Searching for Mood Dependent Memory

Abstract: Though it has sometimes been shown that events encoded in a certain state of affect or mood are most retrievable in that state, neither the circumstances under which mood dependent memory (MDM) occurs nor the mechanisms that enable its emergence are as yet well understood The purpose of the research reviewed here is to clarify these circumstances and mechanisms To this end, the research focuses on four factors that appear to play pivotal roles in the occurrence of MDM These factors are (a) the nature of the target events or the manner in which they are encoded (i e, are events generated through internal mental processes such as reasoning, imagination, or thought more apt to be forgotten following a shift in mood state than are events that emanate mainly from external sources?), (b) the nature of the retrieval task (is it possible to demonstrate mood dependence using implicit rather than explicit measures of memory?), (c) efficacy of mood modification (do strong, stable, and authentic affective states prom...

Monitoring Conscious Recollection via the Electrical Activity of the Brain

Abstract: Although another person's experience of recollection cannot be observed directly, we have found that the underlying operations can be monitored using noninvasive electrophysiological techniques Results from two experiments showed that brain potentials elicited 500 to 900 ms after the onset of visually presented words vary systematically in amplitude with manipulations that influence the extent to which subjects engage in recollective processing These brain potentials can thus be construed as correlates of the subjective experience of recollection

“Some Things You Learn Aren't So”: Cohen's Paradox, Asch's Paradigm, and the Interpretation of Interaction

Abstract: When interpreting an interaction in the analysis of variance (ANOVA), many active researchers (and, in turn, students) often ignore the residuals defining the interaction Although this problem has been noted previously, it appears that many users of ANOVA remain uncertain about the proper understanding of interaction effects To clear up this problem, we review the way in which the ANOVA model enables us to take apart a table of group means or the individual measurements contributing to the means to reveal the underlying components We also show how (using only published data) to compute a contrast on the question that may be of primary interest and illustrate strategies for interpreting tables of residuals We conclude with an exercise to check on students' understanding of ANOVA and to encourage increased precision in the specification of research results

Splitting the Beam: Distribution of Attention Over Noncontiguous Regions of the Visual Field

Abstract: In an effort to examine the flexibility with which attention can be allocated in visual space, we investigated whether subjects could selectively attend to multiple noncontiguous locations in the visual field We examined this issue by precuing two separate areas of the visual field and requiring subjects to decide whether the letters that appeared in these locations matched or mismatched while distractors that primed either the match or mismatch response were presented between the cued locations If the distractors had no effect on performance, it would provide evidence that subjects can divide attention over noncontiguous areas of space Subjects were able to ignore the distractors when the targets and distractors were presented as nononset stimuli (i e, when premasks were changed into the targets and distractors) In contrast, when the targets and distractors were presented as sudden-onset stimuli, subjects were unable to ignore the distractors These results begin to define the conditions under which atten...

Effects of Categorization on Color Perception

Abstract: Subjects were shown simple objects and were asked to reproduce the colors of the objects Even though the objects remained on the screen while subjects reproduced the colors and the objects' shapes were irrelevant to the subjects' task, subjects' color perceptions were influenced by the shape category of an object For example, objects that belonged to categories with redder objects were judged to be more red than identically colored objects belonging to another category Further experiments showed that the object categories that subjects use, rather than being fixed, depend on the objects to which subjects are exposed

Choices from Identical Options

Abstract: Many of the decisions that people must make involve selections from arrays of identical options The six studies presented explored people's preferences in two contexts choosing one item from rows of identical items and choosing a route from a series of identical routes The first three studies examined preferences for items in particular positions Whether people were choosing a product from a grocery shelf, deciding which bathroom stall to use, or marking a box on a questionnaire, they avoided the ends and tended to make their selection from the middle For example, when there were four rows of a product in the supermarket, only 29% of the purchases were from the first and last rows, and 71% were from the middle two The last three studies examined whether a similar preference exists in picking a route when all of the available routes are the same length and require the same number of turns In solving mazes, planning routes on maps, and walking around campus, people showed the pattern opposite to that found ...

Spatial Attention in Visual Search for Features and Feature Conjunctions

Abstract: Spatial attention was measured in visual search tasks using a spatial probe Both speed and accuracy measures showed that in a conjunction task, spatial attention was allocated to locations according to the presence of target features Also, contrary to some predictions, spatial attention was used when a clearly distinguishable feature defined the target The results raise questions about any account that assumes separate mechanisms for feature and conjunction search The probe method demonstrated here allows a very direct measurement of attentional allocation, and may uncover aspects of selection not revealed by visual search

Transfer Between Picture Naming and Translation: A Test of Asymmetries in Bilingual Memory

Abstract: A transfer paradigm was used to investigate the relationship between picture naming and translation English-Spanish bilniguals first named pictures and subsequently translated words in both their first (LI) and second (L2) languages Some words in the translation task were repetitions of concepts that had previously been named as pictures Whereas picture naming produced reliable transfer to translation from L1 to L2, it produced no transfer to translation from L2 to L1 The results support the claim that connections in bilingual memory are asymmetric Translation is conceptually mediated from L1 to L2 but lexically mediated from L2 to L1

Chronometric Evidence for two Types of Attention

Abstract: Parallel processing in the human brain is subject to severe attentional limits, but it is unclear whether such limits arise from a single attentional process or multiple distinct attentional processes We provide new evidence that two candidates, input attention and central attention, operate at different temporal stages of processing This conclusion is supported by chronometric analyses showing that the same reference stage (letter identification) operates after the stage at which input attention operates, but prior to the stage at which central attention operates The finding that attention operates at different temporal loci provides new support for the existence of distinct attentional processes

Good and Bad Humors: Biochemical Bases of Personality and Its Disorders

Abstract: Personality and its disorders may be studied at many levels, from the broad trait to the basic genetic level This article addresses primarily two of these levels, the trait and the biochemical, and the relations between them, with some treatment of the genetic and neuropsychological levels Five current trait models are described Neurotransmitter systems in the brain and hormones have been shown to be important sources of individual differences in traits and behaviors in humans and other species, but simple one-to-one relationships between traits and biochemicals are rare, and interactions are likely at all levels

Grouping by Proximity and Multistability in Dot Lattices: A Quantitative Gestalt Theory

Abstract: Gestalt phenomena have long resisted quantification In the spirit of Gestalt field theory, we propose a theory that predicts the probability of grouping by proximity in the six kinds of dot lattices (hexagonal, rhombic, square, rectangular, centered rectangular, and oblique) We claim that the unstable perceptual organization of dot lattices is caused by competing forces that attract each dot to other dots in its neighborhood We model the decline of these forces as a function of distance with an exponential decay function This attraction function has one parameter, the attraction constant Simple assumptions allow us to predict the entropy of the perceptual organization of different dot lattices We showed dot lattices tachistoscopically to 7 subjects, and from the probabilities of the perceived organizations, we calculated the entropy of each lattice for each subject The model fit the data exceedingly well The attraction constant did not vary much over subjects

Are Children's False Memories More Persistent than their True Memories?

Abstract: Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that children's false-memory responses will be well preserved over time, and that under specific conditions, they will be less likely to be forgotten than true-memory responses The reason is that initial true-memory responses are supported by unstable verbatim traces, whereas initial false-memory responses are supported by stable gist Data consistent with these predictions were obtained in three experiments with 5- and 8-year-olds

Phonological Codes Are Automatically Activated During Reading: Evidence From an Eye Movement Priming Paradigm

Abstract: Subjects read sentences containing target words that were homophones (words with a single pronunciation but different spellings) while their eye movements were recorded A prime word was presented briefly at the onset of fixation on the target region The prime for a given target (e g, beach) was either identical to the target (beach), a phonologically similar word (the homophone beech), a visually similar nonhomophone (bench), or a dissimilar word (noise) Phonological priming effects were assessed by comparing fixation times on the target when it was preceded by the homophone versus the visually similar word Results suggest that phonological codes are automatically activated during eye fixations in reading

Memory and Cognitive Abilities in University Professors: Evidence for Successful Aging

Abstract: Professors from the University of California at Berkeley were administered a 90-min test battery of cognitive performance that included measures of reaction time, paired-associate learning, working memory, and prose recall Age effects among the professors were observed on tests of reaction time, paired-associate memory, and some aspects of working memory Age effects were not observed on measures of proactive interference and prose recall, though age-related declines are generally observed in standard groups of elderly individuals The findings suggest that age-related decrements in certain cognitive functions may be mitigated in intelligent, cognitively active individuals

Reporting Recollective Experiences: Direct Access to Memory Systems?

Abstract: It has been suggested that the use of different memory systems can be identified by asking subjects whether they remember or know a recognized stimulus (e g, Gardiner & Java, 1990, Tulving, 1985) In this view, remember responses indicate the use of episodic memory, and know responses the use of implicit memory (e g, Gardiner & Java, in press) or semantic memory (Tulving, 1993) We criticize this position on both conceptual and empirical grounds We argue that the concept of knowing and the instructions of the studies confound declarative knowledge (knowledge by description) and familiarity-based knowledge (knowledge by acquaintance) The two types of knowledge, however, seem to be associated with different psychological processes To test this notion, we conducted two recognition experiments in which the response criteria were either explicitly or implicitly manipulated The results clearly suggest that know responses are more likely than remember responses to be influenced by judgmental strategies that do not...

Right-Hemisphere Memory Superiority: Studies of a Split-Brain Patient

Abstract: Six experiments explored hemispheric memory dif- ferences in a patient who had undergone complete corpus cal- losum resection. The right hemisphere was better able than the left to reject new events similar to originally presented materi- als of several types, including abstract visual forms, faces, and categorized lists of words. Although the left hemisphere is ca- pable of mental manipulation, imagination, semantic priming, and complex language production, these functions are appar- ently linked to memory confusions—confusions less apparent in the more literal right hemisphere. Differences between the left and right hemispheres in memory for new schematically con- sistent or categorically related events may provide a source of information allowing people to distinguish between what they actually witnessed and what they only inferred.