Corpus d'extraits musicaux: indices relatifs à la familiarité, à l'age d'acquisition et aux évocations verbales.

Studied the degree of familiarity, the age of acquisition, and verbal associations with regard to 144 musical excerpts drawn from the repertory of tunes that is expected to be shared by all French-speaking Quebec university students. Human Ss: 60 normal male and female Canadian adults (aged 21–45 yrs) (university students) (Group 1). 60 normal male and female Canadian adults (aged 19–43 yrs) (university students) (Group 2). The excerpts were presented to all Ss in synthesized, monophonic recordings. Ss in Group 1 were asked to indicate their degree of familiarity with each excerpt and the age at which they learned the excerpt. Ss in Group 2 were asked to indicate whether the original tune was vocal or instrumental and to provide verbal associations for the excerpts. The degree of familiarity, developmental period of acquisition, frequency of verbal associations, and dominant verbal association were determined for each excerpt. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual behavior in pigeons: Categories, subcategories, and pseudocategories.

In 3 experiments with a total of 16 Ss, we explored how pigeons learn to classify diverse pictures of cats, flowers, cars, and chairs and later how they accurately categorize brand-new pictures from these classes. Using a 4-key forced-choice procedure, Ss in Exp 1 discriminated individual examples within each of the categories from one another (subcategory training); nevertheless, errors were disproportionately conceptual in nature, with Ss more likely to confuse examples within a given category than between different categories. Ss in Exp 2 trained to classify pictures into human language categories (category training) learned far faster and more completely than Ss trained to sort the same pictures into totally arbitrary groupings (pseudocategory training). Finally, in Exp 3, category-trained and subcategory-trained Ss were tested on normally oriented pictures, on left–right reversals, and on top–bottom reversals. Subcategory-trained Ss responded less accurately on both kinds of reversed pictures and less accurately on top–bottom than on left–right reversals; category-trained Ss were less affected by both types of picture reversals, only top–bottom reversals decrementing their performance. Results suggest that many words in our language denote clusters of related visual stimuli, which pigeons also see as highly similar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term retention of a complex operant in pigeons.

Examined the effects of a 60-day retention interval on sequence performance when White Carneaux pigeons were required to peck each of 2 keys 4 times in any order for reinforcement. In Exp I, with 20 Ss, it was shown that if the retention interval contained no interpolated experimental experience, it had no effect on sequence performance. If Ss pecked a key for food on a VI schedule during the retention interval, sequence disruption occurred. In Exp II, with 10 Ss, it was found that variations in the location and color of a key pecked during VI had no effect on disruption. In Exp III, with 20 Ss, it was found that disruption did not occur when Ss were simply placed in the experimental chamber during the retention interval, or given response-independent food, or given VI reinforcement for hopping on a foot treadle. In Exp IV, with 15 Ss, disruption was found even when interpolated keypeck training demanded a temporal pattern different from what had occurred on the sequence task. In Exp V, with 5 Ss, it was demonstrated that disruption could be prevented if Ss were exposed to an alternation of the sequence and VI procedures during initial acquisition. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit learning of color-word associations using a Stroop paradigm.

Asked whether implicit learning occurs for novel nonverbal associations by presenting Ss with color names printed in incongruent colors; Ss were asked to name the color in which the word was printed. In Exp 1, each of 7 color words were associated with the same incongruent color across 6 blocks of trials, and then the color–word associations were abruptly changed. Both control Ss and patients with amnesia reduced their color-naming times across the 1st 6 trial blocks, and naming times increased when the color–word associations were changed. In Exp 2, similar results were obtained when neutral words were associated with colors. In Exp 3, it was found that naming times were not disrupted when an irrelevant dimension (typecase) was changed. Finally, in Exp 4, it was found that the effect persisted across a 5-min delay. These studies provide evidence that implicit learning occurs for nonverbal associations and is independent of the brain structures damaged in amnesia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misery loves company: Mood-congruent emotional responding to music.

We examined emotional responding to music after mood induction. On each trial, listeners heard a 30-s music excerpt and rated how much they liked it, whether it sounded happy or sad, and how familiar it was. When the excerpts sounded unambiguously happy or sad (Experiment 1), the typical preference for happy-sounding music was eliminated after inducing a sad mood. When the excerpts sounded ambiguous with respect to happiness and sadness (Experiment 2), listeners perceived more sadness after inducing a sad mood. Sad moods had no influence on familiarity ratings (Experiments 1 and 2). These findings imply that “misery loves company.” Listeners in a sad mood fail to show the typical preference for happy-sounding music, and they perceive more sadness in music that is ambiguous with respect to mood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social anxiety, self-presentation, and the self-serving bias in causal attribution.

Two experiments with 160 undergraduates studied the contribution of self-presentation concerns to the self-serving bias in causal attribution (individuals' tendency to assume more personal responsibility for a success than for a failure) and its occasional, but systematic, reversal. In Exp I, high- but not low-social-anxiety Ss (selected by scores on the Social Anxiety subscale of the Self-Consciousness Scale) presented themselves in a far more modest light when a committee of high prestige others was to join the experimenter in evaluating their behavior than when the committee evaluation was canceled. In Exp II, this reversal of the self-serving bias among high-social-anxiety Ss was replicated, and it was also found that both high- and low-social-anxiety Ss portrayed the causes of their behavior in a more modest fashion when they responded via the "bogus pipeline," a measurement technique designed to reduce distortion and dissimulation in verbal responses, than when they responded in the traditional paper-and-pencil format. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Passionate love and the misattribution of arousal.

Two studies provide evidence that misattribution of arousal facilitates romantic attraction. In Exp I, arousal of 54 male undergraduates was manipulated through exercise. Arousal Ss liked an attractive female confederate more and an unattractive female less than did controls. In Exp II, arousal of 66 Ss was manipulated in a positive (comedy tape) or negative (mutilation tape) way; other Ss heard a nonarousing tape (textbook excerpt). Results replicate the interaction found in Exp I: Valence of initial arousal did not affect attraction to the confederate. Salience of plausible labels for arousal is hypothesized to mediate the misattribution effect. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Increased attention to the irrelevant dimension increases interference in a spatial Stroop task.

In a spatial Stroop task, it is argued that interference (ITF) results because selective attention is only partially successful. If so, increasing attention to the word should increase ITF. Three experiments, with 88 undergraduates, used the position words above, below, left, and right in incompatible positions to the left, right, or below a fixation point. Exp 1 showed increased ITF with position naming when Ss must be prepared to attend to either the word or its position. Exp 2 required Ss to first name the position of the word and then recall which word had been presented. This resulted in increased ITF with position naming when the word was followed at a short stimulus onset asynchrony by a pattern mask. Exp 3 employed both word reading and position naming and showed that a large reverse Stroop effect occurred with both vocal and manual responses when Ss were prepared to attend to either dimension of the stimulus. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speeded tests of implicit knowledge.

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that implicit and explicit tasks involve distinct modes of processing. Ss observed rule-ordered letter strings and were asked either to memorize the strings or to try to discover the underlying rules. In Exp 1, they then made well-formedness judgments of novel strings under long-deadline and short-deadline conditions. Rule-discovery Ss, but not memory Ss, were impaired by the short deadline. In Exp 2, all Ss made "similarity" judgments of the novel strings instead of the traditional "rule-based" judgments; there were now no differences between the rule-discovery and memory groups. In Exp 3, Ss explicitly instructed in the rules were significantly more impaired under short deadlines than were memory Ss. An analysis of decision times to individual strings for the rule-trained vs memory groups also showed qualitative differences consistent with the implicit–explicit distinction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgments of relative motion in tactical displays.

Two experiments examined the speed with which the direction of relative motion could be inferred from static tactical displays. In Exp I, 12 25–40 yr old experienced right-handed male naval officers responded more rapidly to displays depicting target motion to the right than to the left, but 12 inexperienced officers did not. For both groups, 1 of the 3 tactical geometries yielded significantly longer response times than the others (a "tactic" effect). In Exp II, the influence of decision strategy on the tactic effect was evaluated in 18 22–52 yr old naive Ss. Control of strategy through instruction and order of problem presentation did not reduce the tactic effect but did interact with the directional bias related to target motion. The tactic effect is discussed in terms of directional incongruity among displayed and inferred stimulus elements. Implications for training are discussed. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of intertrial reinstatement of training stimuli on complex maze learning in rats: Evidence that "acquisition" curves reflect more than acquisition.

In Exps I–III (224 male Sprague-Dawley rats), Ss were run in a complex maze to escape weak footshock or to approach an appetitive reinforcer. Extramaze intertrial reinstatement of the same reinforcer as that used in training was found to enhance subsequent maze performance. Exp IV (80 Ss) determined that appetitively and aversively motivated performance benefitted from brief intertrial exposures to the start box of the maze. In Exp V (64 Ss), a facilitatory effect indicated that memory trace activity need not be maintained between training and reinstatement or between reinstatement and subsequent training. Exp VI (80 Ss) examined the effects of reinstatement at the beginning, middle, or end of 5-min intertrial intervals and found enhanced performance in the last 2 conditions. Exp VII (24 Ss) established that 4 successive reinstatement treatments without interpolated training trials were no more beneficial than a single reinstatement. Exp VIII (16 Ss) determined that forgetting had occurred over the standard 5-min interval between training trials. Exp IX (32 Ss) found that reinstatement alleviated forgetting that had already transpired. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An investigation of responding on schedules of electrical brain-stimulation reinforcement.

In Exp I, the leverpressing responses of rats (8 male hooded Long-Evans) were maintained by reinforcement consisting of single trains of electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) presented on random-interval (RI) schedules ranging in value from RI 3-min to RI 10-min. Both the cumulative response patterns and the relationship of response rates to reinforcement density were similar to those observed for Ss reinforced conventionally. In Exp II with 19 male hooded Long-Evans rats, leverpressing was reinforced with single trains of signalled ESB, unsignalled response-contiguous ESB, or sweetened condensed milk presented on random-ratio schedules. Most of the ESB-reinforced Ss and half of the milk-reinforced Ss stopped responding at ratio values exceeding 50:1, while the remaining Ss responded at higher ratios. Response rates were higher at lower ratio values for the ESB groups than for the milk group, but as ratio values increased, all groups showed similar decreases in rate. All Ss were observed to initiate responding faster than inexperienced controls, and priming was not required. (French summary) (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioned aversion to distinct environmental stimuli resulting from gastrointestinal distress.

In Exp I, 40 male Sprague-Dawley-derived rats subjected to apomorphine-induced malaise following a 2-min placement in a black compartment avoided this black compartment significantly more than 10 controls in a choice situation. The degree of aversion, however, was substantially reduced when Ss were provided water (or saccharin) in the black compartment during conditioning and testing. Ss learned to suppress consumption of fluid in the black compartment. In Exp II, 10 Ss were made ill in the black compartment. Later, when drinking saccharin (or saline) preceded placement in the black compartment, Ss learned to suppress consumption of that fluid. The black compartment had become a conditioned reinforcer for taste aversion. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Orienting attention within visual fields: How efficient is interhemispheric transfer?

Five experiments, with 54 undergraduates, examined the effect of attentional orienting on lexical decisions within visual half-fields. In Exp I, following assessment of baseline performance, Ss were instructed to improve performance to the right or left of the fixation point. In Exp II, trials were run in blocks with all items to 1 side of the fixation point. In Exp III, completely valid position indicators as to the location of the next item to be shown were presented prior to the stimulus item. In Exp IV, to examine practice effects, no instructions or cuing were given to Ss. In Exp V, Ss were urged to improve performance, but with no instructions as to location. Findings show that consistent visual field differences in lexical decision performance were present even when Ss were informed of the spatial location of the next stimulus item and that lexical decision information initially input to 1 cerebral hemisphere was primarily processed in that hemisphere. Interhemispheric transfer of this type of language information seems to be done primarily as the end product of a cognitive process. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual hemifield differences in the perception of letters and contour orientation.

In Exp. I, 10 students were required to recognize capital English letters presented 3– to the left or to the right of a fixation point. In Exp. II, 8 Ss were required to discriminate the orientation of a line presented in either the left or the right visual hemifield. In both experiments Ss displayed a significant right visual hemifield superiority, and a marked positive correlation was observed in the hemifield differences between the 2 recognition tasks. Results suggest that for certain classes of stimuli visual laterality differences may be subserved by a selective contour-tuning mechanism. (French summary) (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do the same stimulus-response relations influence choice reactions initially and after practice?

A 2-choice reaction task was used to evaluate changes in stimulus–response translation with practice. In Exp 1, 4 groups of Ss practiced with either a direct or indirect mapping of left–right stimuli to left–right responses and either a crossed or uncrossed hand placement and transferred to 1 of the 4 Mapping?×?Placement conditions. Stimulus–response location and response location effector relations affected performance initially and after practice. In Exps 2 and 3, Ss switched every 42 trials between conditions for which only the stimulus location–effector (Exp 2) or stimulus–response location relation (Exp 3) remained constant. Switching produced interference in Exp 2 but not in Exp 3, corroborating the influence of the stimulus–response location relation on performance. Mediation based on spatial codes continues to be a factor in the performance of practiced Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pigeons' spatial memory: IV. Effects of intertrial interval manipulations on delayed matching of key location.

In Exp I, the effect of intertrial interval (ITI) duration on 3 Silver King pigeons' delayed matching of key location was investigated. Trials began with a ready stimulus (brief operation of the grain feeder); then one randomly chosen key from a 3?×?3 matrix was lit briefly as the sample. After a delay (retention interval) of 1, 4 or 8 sec, the sample key was lit again, along with another key. A peck at the key that had served as the sample (correct comparison) produced food reinforcement, whereas an incorrect peck led directly to the ITI. The ITI was 2.5 or 25 sec. Matching accuracy was lower at the shorter ITI and was linearly related to the log of the ratio of the ITI to the delay interval. In Exp II, noncontingent food reinforcement presented during the 25-sec ITI lowered matching accuracy of 5 Ss. In Exp III, reinforcement was given for pecking a key (correct, incorrect, or irrelevant) presented during the ITI. Reinforcement for pecking any key had a facilitative effect on matching accuracy. Results are discussed in relation to models of spatial memory, the apparent parallels between processes in delayed matching and classical conditioning, and the notion that expectancy of reinforcement during the matching trial facilitates accurate choice of the correct key. (French abstract) (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing models of delayed sequence discrimination in pigeons: The advance key procedure.

In 2-event delayed sequence discrimination (DSD) training, one arrangement (temporal order) of 2 sample stimuli is the positive sequence and the remaining are the negative sequences for keypecking during a subsequent test stimulus. Three models of the DSD task were tested in 2 experiments with 8 White Carneaux pigeons. In Exp I Ss were allowed to terminate a trial by pecking the "advance key" during the sample stimuli or to let the test stimulus progress to the next trial. In the absence of a peck to the advance key, the trial continued to the completion of the test stimulus. In Exp II, Ss were forced to choose actively between advancing to the next trial and continuing through the current trial. Choice between the advance and continue keys was required with the occurrence of each of the successive sample stimuli and the test stimulus. Although the addition of forced choice resulted in more uniform effects, Ss were able to identify negative sample sequences with the occurrence of the 1st negative sample event in both experiments. Results support the prospective memory model but not the retrospective and hybrid models of temporal sequence recognition in the 2-event DSD task. (French abstract) (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responsiveness to affective stimuli by obese and normal individuals.

Conducted 2 experiments to test the hypothesis that the obese are more responsive than normals to both positive and negative affective stimuli. In Exp I, obese and normal high school males (N = 46) gave ratings of positively and negatively arousing slides. In Exp II, the behavior of obese and normal children 1 mo-6 yrs old (N = 79) in a positively and a negatively arousing situation was observed. Obese Ss in both experiments responded more strongly than normals to the positive affective stimuli; obese Ss in Exp I responded more strongly than normals to the negative emotional stimulus. A possible reason for the failure of obese Ss in Exp II to respond more strongly than normals to the negative affective stimulus is discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of concurrent auditory input on tactual processing in very young children: Developmental changes.

Investigated right-hemispheric specialization for tactual processing in 96 2–5 yr old right-handed children. Cross-modal transfer from touch to vision was assessed under conditions where Ss palpated shapes with either their left or right hand while music was simultaneously played to the left ear, right ear, or neither ear. This task pitted music against palpation such that both tasks involved the same or different cerebral hemispheres (if music and haptic perception are both lateralized in the right hemisphere as is thought). Results show that in the absence of music, Ss at each age showed a left-hand (right-hemisphere) advantage. The adultlike patterns of ipsilateral interference from music were evident among 4- and 5-yr-olds, in that music to the left ear selectively disrupted left-hand performance. The adultlike pattern was absent at ages 2 and 3 yrs, and music to the right ear disrupted left-hand performance at these ages. Music had an overall, nonselective interference on right-hand performance at all ages. The early appearing left-hand advantage and the lateralized nature of the interference observed among older Ss support the idea of a right-hemispheric specialization for tactual processing of form in young children. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)