A nontransformational test of intellectual competence.

Scores on the Perceptual Acuity Test (PAT), assessing accuracy in the perception of geometric forms and optical illusions, have previously revealed an age–developmental gradient among grade school children. However, information on test and nontest criteria of validity for adult samples has not been available. Evidence from 52 males and 38 females of mean ages 36.2 and 34.4 yrs, respectively, is reported, showing PTA scores to correlate significantly with performance on the Hidden Figures Test, the WAIS, and a personality scale for intellectual efficiency and with education and observers' ratings of variables such as range of interests, level of aspiration, intellectual competence, and the valuation placed on intellectual and cognitive matters. Factor analysis of 10 of these variables identified 3 major dimensions: Perceptual Ability, Rated Intelligence, and Academic Intelligence. As anticipated, the PTA had its highest loading on the nontransformational perceptual facet. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compression in visual working memory: Using statistical regularities to form more efficient memory representations.

The information that individuals can hold in working memory is quite limited, but researchers have typically studied this capacity using simple objects or letter strings with no associations between them. However, in the real world there are strong associations and regularities in the input. In an information theoretic sense, regularities introduce redundancies that make the input more compressible. The current study shows that observers can take advantage of these redundancies, enabling them to remember more items in working memory. In 2 experiments, covariance was introduced between colors in a display so that over trials some color pairs were more likely to appear than other color pairs. Observers remembered more items from these displays than from displays where the colors were paired randomly. The improved memory performance cannot be explained by simply guessing the high-probability color pair, suggesting that observers formed more efficient representations to remember more items. Further, as observers learned the regularities, their working memory performance improved in a way that is quantitatively predicted by a Bayesian learning model and optimal encoding scheme. These results suggest that the underlying capacity of the individuals’ working memory is unchanged, but the information they have to remember can be encoded in a more compressed fashion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The regularities of recognition memory.

Describes 3 regularities in recognition memory with supporting data: the mirror effect, the order of receiver operating characteristic slopes, and the symmetry of movement of underlying distributions. The derivation of these regularities from attention/likelihood theory is demonstrated. The theory's central concept, which distinguishes it from other theories, is the following: Ss make recognition decisions by combining information about new and old items, the combination made in the form of likelihood ratios. The central role of the likelihood ratios extends the implications of signal detection theory for recognition memory. Attention/likelihood theory is fitted to data of 2 series of experiments. It is argued that the regularities require a revision of most current theories of recognition memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive regularities in creative activity.

Theories of creativity have not traditionally considered whether novel ideas or inventive behaviors can result from regularities in the cognitive processes responsible for such activities. Most of these traditional theories are based on the evaluation of products as meeting (or not) some abstract metric of creative output. However, cognitive theories of creativity can be proposed in which creative activity is a function of more traditional cognitive processes that are not unique to inventive behaviors. The purpose of this article is to review the cognitive regularities of creative activity and organize the research on this topic into a framework that might be useful in understanding and extending investigations directed at studying creativity. To these ends, cognitive processes underlying generation, synthesis, and selection of information in creative activities are delineated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of cola beverages: V. A visual check.

"A group of 210 [college] Ss was asked to identify 45 tachistoscopic slides presented at 1/400 sec. exposure." Slides of bottles, bottle caps, and type-written brand names of 3 leading colas were presented singly, in pairs, or as triples. Ss showed a greater accuracy in responding to the brand names Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, and R. C. Cola in that order. Identification varied with respect to slide category. The findings are related to previous studies, supporting the hypothesis "that identification… is more related to the extent and specific nature of advertising than to taste." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Direct visual perception: A reply to Gyr.

Notes that in J. Gyr's (see PA. Vol. 48:4093) criticism of J. J. Gibson's theory of perception, Gyr did not take into account the basic issue of the availability of stimulus information nor consider the radically new conception of proprioception and self-awareness that is an essential part of the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A theory of visual attention.

A unified theory of visual recognition and attentional selection is developed by integrating the biased-choice model for single-stimulus recognition (R. D. Luce, 1963; R. N. Shepard, 1957) with a choice model for selection from multielement displays (C. Bundesen et al; see record 1985-05669-001) in a race model framework. Mathematically, the theory is tractable, and it specifies the computations necessary for selection. The theory is applied to extant findings from a broad range of experimental paradigms. The findings include effects of object integrality in selective report, number and spatial position of targets in divided-attention paradigms, selection criterion and number of distracters in focused-attention paradigms, delay of selection cue in partial report, and consistent practice in search. On the whole, the quantitative fits are encouraging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Model fitting: A better approach.

Comments on the article by R. L. Hagen (see record 1997-02239-002) defending the logic and practice of null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST). It is argued that model fitting provides an approach to data analysis that is more appropriate to the cognitive needs of the researcher than is NHST. Model fitting combines the NHST ability to falsify hypotheses with the parameter-estimation characteristic of confidence intervals in an approach that is simpler to learn, understand, and use. Effect size estimation is central to the approach, and power calculations are vastly simplified relative to NHST. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illness representations: A prototype approach.

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that lay people cognitively organize and recall information about physical symptoms according to prototyped conceptions they have of physical diseases. Based on pilot studies that identified the extent to which Ss associated specified symptoms with specific diseases, symptom sets were assembled to vary in the extent to which the symptoms were perceived to be associated with a given disease. Exp I asked 37 undergraduates to indicate whether a given set of symptoms indicated a disease and, if so, which one. Exp II tested 72 undergraduates' recall for symptom sets varying in prototypicality for given diseases and also tested the effects on recall of giving Ss a diagnosis. Results support the prototype hypothesis. Implications for illness behavior and help seeking are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological education: A skill-oriented approach.

Tested the hypothesis that a 3-wk program based on a microcounseling paradigm would facilitate the acquisition of 3 specific problem-solving skills: (a) problem definition, (b) generation of alternatives, and (c) goal selection. 30 6th graders were randomly assigned either to a training group, to a group exposed to films and discussions related to each problem-solving skill, or to a no-treatment control group. Each group was tested immediately after training and 2 wks later. Results indicate that the microtraining group generated more alternatives than the other groups. Over time, all groups improved their problem-definition skills, while their ability to select appropriate goals decreased. Questions concerning the measures, issues in psychological education, and implications for program development are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Philosophy-based education: A transactional approach.

Maintains that the unthinking activism that too often characterizes professional psychology be avoided, and philosophy be used as an important aid in doing so. Philosophy can also help counteract the tendency to overemphasize method to the detriment of meaningful thought. Discussion of the need for philosophy-based education in psychology is augmented here through reference to a training program committed to such an approach—the Peabody-Vanderbilt Transactional-Ecological Psychology program. J. Dewey and A. Bentley's (1949) transactional epistemology provides a unified program framework and is seen as important for psychology, since it emphasizes the organic nature of an objective–subjective reality and the unity of the observer and the observed. This perspective also helps avoid reductionism and place intervention in perspective. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit learning out of the lab: The case of orthographic regularities.

Children's (Grades 1 to 5) implicit learning of French orthographic regularities was investigated through nonword judgment (Experiments 1 and 2) and completion (Experiments 3a and 3b) tasks. Children were increasingly sensitive to (a) the frequency of double consonants (Experiments 1, 2, and 3a), (b) the fact that vowels can never be doubled (Experiment 2), and (c) the legal position of double consonants (Experiments 2 and 3b). The latter effect transferred to never doubled consonants but with a decrement in performance. Moreover, this decrement persisted without any trend toward fading, even after the massive amounts of experience provided by yews of practice. This result runs against the idea that transfer to novel material is indicative of abstract rule-based knowledge and suggests instead the action of mechanisms sensitive to the statistical properties of the material. A connectionist model is proposed as an instantiation of such mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Peer evaluation. A visual picture

To meet the criteria of role accountability, nursing competence and ongoing staff development, an improved peer-evaluation system was designed to continuously monitor these new roles. This peer-evaluation process converts evaluation input into data, giving staff a visual picture of how their performance compares within their peer group. This peer-evaluation process was designed as a tool to assist in staff growth and development, not as a punitive system.     

A lively approach to vividness: A review of McKelvie, S. J. (1995). Vividness of visual imagery: Measurement, nature, function and dynamics.

Reviews the book, Vividness of visual imagery: Measurement, nature, function and dynamics by S. J. McKelvie (1995). This book consists of a target article by Stuart J. McKelvie followed by several reviews of that article, and finally followed by an author's response. The topic of the book is representative of an important strand in the history of Canadian psychology. "Vividness" is the aspect of imagery that McKelvie is concerned to elaborate, and he begins by considering the benchmark work of David F. Marks who invented the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (WIQ) in 1972. McKelvie's review of studies of the reliability of the VVIQ shows that it is adequate but not overwhelmingly impressive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit learning of semantic category sequences: Response-independent acquisition of abstract sequential regularities.

Through the use of a new serial naming task, the authors investigated implicit learning of repeating sequences of abstract semantic categories. Participants named objects (e.g., table, shirt) appearing in random order. Unbeknownst to them, the semantic categories of the objects (e.g., furniture, clothing) followed a repeating sequence. Irrespective of whether participants were instructed to attend to the categories (Experiment 1) or whether no mention was made of the categories (Experiments 2 and 3), naming latencies reliably increased when the repeating category sequence was switched to a random sequence. This was the case even for participants showing no explicit knowledge in reproduction and recognition tests. Results indicate that abstract sequential structures are learned implicitly, even if neither the surface stimuli nor the responses follow a sequence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Latent inhibition: A neural network approach.

A formal theory of latent inhibition (LI) is offered in the context of a real-time, neural network model of classical conditioning. The network assumes that the effectiveness of a CS in establishing associations with the unconditioned stimulus/stimuli (UCS) is proportional to total novelty, defined as the sum of the absolute value of the difference between the predicted and observed amplitudes of all environmental events. CS effectiveness controls both the rate of storage (formation, or read-in) and the retrieval (activation, or read-out) of CS-CS and CS-UCS associations. The model describes LI because total novelty and, therefore, CS effectiveness decrease during CS preexposure. Computer simulations demonstrate that the neural network correctly describes, and sometimes predicts, the effects on LI of experimental manipulations before and during CS preexposure and during and after conditioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Combined therapy: A cognitive psychoanalytic approach.

Contends that cognitive-psychoanalytic clinical and theoretical considerations support a rationale for combined therapy. The interpenetrative transactions of the individual and group sessions delineate irrational beliefs and belief systems based on unrealistic expectations of threat and injury. The reconstructive aim is to resolve the members' idiosyncratically evolved psychopathology to whatever extent is possible. Detailed probings and introspection are more characteristic of the individual sessions, while outer-directed behavior and defensive engagements are more typical of the group. The complementarity of each modality provides a unified, integrated, therapeutic experience. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)