Reinforcement of conversation "operants" in psychiatric patients.

Investigated the hypothesis that opinion statements and information statements could be conditioned to greater frequency in hospitalized psychiatric patients (N = 24) under natural conversation conditions. After a 10-min base-line period, each S's opinion and information statements were positively reinforced for a 20-min conditioning period by means of verbal agreement, enthusiasm, or paraphrase by E. Conditioning effects were achieved for both opinion and information statements. Results are interpreted as demonstrating that verbal "operants" can be conditioned in the verbal behavior of psychiatric patients under natural conversation conditions similar to those in psychotherapy. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generation effects in frequency judgment.

The generation effect is the advantage in memory for information that is self-produced, rather than read. Seven experiments studied this effect on tasks requiring memory for frequency of occurrence. Generation effects were found on both relative and absolute frequency judgment and for both rhyming and letter-switching generation tasks. No generation effect was found on items at the lowest true frequency, when repetitions were massed, when nonwords were used as stimuli, or when subjects were given accurate frequency information during list presentation. These results are discussed in terms of a multiple-trace account of frequency information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgments of frequency and recognition memory in a multiple-trace memory model.

The multiple-trace simulation model, {minerva} 2, was applied to a number of phenomena found in experiments on relative and absolute judgments of frequency, and forced-choice and yes–no recognition memory. How the basic model deals with effects of repetition, forgetting, list length, orientation task, selective retrieval, and similarity and how a slightly modified version accounts for effects of contextual variability on frequency judgments were shown. Two new experiments on similarity and recognition memory were presented, together with appropriate simulations; attempts to modify the model to deal with additional phenomena were also described. Questions related to the representation of frequency are addressed, and the model is evaluated and compared with related models of frequency judgments and recognition memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organization of public events in long-term memory.

A model of "historical memory" is proposed. This model identifies three primary levels of organization (the news event, the public narrative, the historical period) and allows public events to be associated with personal information. Three experiments were conducted to evaluate this model: a verbal protocol study, a response time study, and a free-association study. In accordance with the model, these studies demonstrated that (a) associations between same-narrative events tend to be stronger than other interevent associations, (b) political events are more likely to be related to accessible historical periods than are nonpolitical events, and (c) public events are often stored with accessible personal information. These studies also indicated that (d) political events are more likely than nonpolitical events to be embedded in public narratives and (e) nonpolitical events are more likely than political events to be associated with personal information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quantitative estimation: From the real world to the psychology lab.

Banaji and Crowder (see record 1990-00387-001) contend "that the movement to develop an ecologically valid psychology of memory has proven itself largely bankrupt" (p. 1185). The authors have two primary concerns. First, they believe that it is rare for studies of real-world cognition to support conclusions that generalize broadly. Second, they are concerned that such studies may be inherently incapable of making significant theoretical or methodological contributions. The research program outlined here can be viewed as a response (in the form of a case study) to the Banaji and Crowder position. Specifically, this project has adopted both theoretical and methodology perspectives from the study of real-world memory to address a long-standing issue in the mainstream memory literature. The project itself was designed to characterize the strategies used to estimate event frequency and the conditions that foster the use of these strategies. A valid model of the estimation process is necessary in order to understand the encoding and representation of event frequency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individuation, counting, and statistical inference: The role of frequency and whole-object representations in judgment under uncertainty.

Evolutionary approaches to judgment under uncertainty have led to new data showing that untutored subjects reliably produce judgments that conform to many principles of probability theory when (a) they are asked to compute a frequency instead of the probability of a single event and (b) the relevant information is expressed as frequencies. But are the frequency-computation systems implicated in these experiments better at operating over some kinds of input than others? Principles of object perception and principles of adaptive design led us to propose the individuation hypothesis: that these systems are designed to produce well-calibrated statistical inferences when they operate over representations of "whole" objects, events, and locations. In a series of experiments on Bayesian reasoning, we show that human performance can be systematically improved or degraded by varying whether a correct solution requires one to compute hit and false-alarm rates over "natural" units, such as whole objects, as opposed to inseparable aspects, views, and other parsings that violate evolved principles of object construal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misleading postevent information and memory for events: Arguments and evidence against memory impairment hypotheses.

The claim that a person's memory for an event may be altered by information encountered after the event has been based on studies showing that Ss who are given false or misleading information about a previously witnessed event perform more poorly on tests of memory for the event than Ss who are not misled. It is argued that the available evidence does not imply that misleading postevent information impairs memory for the original event because the procedure used in previous studies is inappropriate for assessing effects of misleading information on memory. A more appropriate procedure is presented that involves a change in the recognition test phase. This procedure was used in 6 experiments with 792 undergraduates. Findings indicate that misleading postevent information had no effect on memory for the original event. Several recent studies that seem to contradict this conclusion are reviewed, and it is shown that the studies do not pose problems for the present authors' position. Findings are also considered in relation to the more general claim that information about an event from various sources are integrated into a single representation of the event. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation of the opioid and nonopioid analgesic systems: Evidence for a memory hypothesis and against the coulometric hypothesis.

It has been suggested that the magnitude and form of hypoalgesia elicited by an aversive event can be predicted from its coulometric product (Intensity?×?Duration). According to this hypothesis, small products elicit opioid hypoalgesia, and large products elicit nonopioid hypoalgesia. This suggests that increasing the duration of an aversive event should heighten the nonopioid hypoalgesia. Contrary to this prediction, in Experiment 1 I found that increasing the duration of a mild shock attenuated the nonopioid hypoalgesia. In Experiment 2 I tested another implication of the coulometric hypothesis, namely, that mild shocks that have the same coulometric product should elicit equivalent hypoalgesia. The results did not support this prediction. We discuss how these findings are consistent with an alternative theory, the "working memory hypothesis." According to this theory, the representation of an aversive event in working memory elicits hypoalgesia. In Experiment 3 a novel prediction of this theory was tested, namely, that displacing the representation of intense shock from working memory, by following the intense shock with a weak shock "distractor," should attenuate hypoalgesia. The results support this prediction. I conclude by discussing the relation of this work to other findings in the analgesia literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal discrimination learning: A review of the acquisition, transfer, and retention literature through 1972.

This review of the literature pertaining to verbal discrimination acquisition, transfer, and retention includes discussions of frequency theory, extensions to the frequency theory, and hypotheses independent of the frequency theory. It is generally concluded that the frequency theory is suitable for the explanation and prediction of data in experiments which require only recognition memory, and that other theoretical accounts or extensions are needed to predict and explain verbal discrimination problems which require processes other than simple recognition memory. (118 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deduction as verbal reasoning.

Most theories of deduction have assumed that linguistic processes transduce from language into an internal representation and back again, and that non-linguistic processes are central to deduction itself. In this article it is proposed that for deduction tasks for which the necessary information is provided verbally, the heart of deduction for untrained participants involves repeatedly reencoding the problem, a type of behavior referred to here as verbal reasoning. It is shown that model theory accounts of behavior on most deduction tasks are consistent with verbal reasoning and that verbal reasoning can account for detailed behavior in a single task; a computational model of syllogistic reasoning—VR—based on linguistic mechanisms is presented. VR models all of the standard phenomena, makes a number of accurate novel predictions, and fits the behavior of individual participants with an accuracy that rivals their own test–retest reliability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Supportive or suggestive: Do human figure drawings help 5- to 7-year-old children to report touch?

The authors examined the accuracy of information elicited from seventy-nine 5- to 7-year-old children about a staged event that included physical contact-touching. Four to six weeks later, children's recall for the event was assessed using an interview protocol analogous to those used in forensic investigations with children. Following the verbal interview, children were asked about touch when provided with human figure drawings (drawings only), following practice using the human figure drawings (drawings with instruction), or without drawings (verbal questions only). In this touch-inquiry phase of the interview, most children provided new information. Children in the drawings conditions reported more incorrect information than those in the verbal questions condition. Forensically relevant errors were infrequent and were rarely elaborated on. Although asking children to talk about innocuous touch may lead them to report unreliable information, especially when human figure drawings are used as aids, errors are reduced when open-ended prompts are used to elicit further information about reported touches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Human figure drawings and children’s recall of touching.

In 2 studies, children ages 3 to 7 years were asked to recall a series of touches that occurred during a previous staged event. The recall interview took place 1 week after the event in Study 1 and immediately after the event in Study 2. Each recall interview had 2 sections: In 1 section, children were given human figure drawings (HFDs) and were asked to show where the touching took place; in the other section, the same questions were asked without the HFDs (verbal condition). Children were randomly assigned to 2 different conditions: HFD 1st/verbal 2nd or verbal 1st/HFD 2nd. There were 2 major findings. First, HFDs elicited more errors than the verbal condition when used to probe for information that the child had already been asked. Second, regardless of interview method, children had poor recall of the touches even when these occurred minutes before the interview. It is suggested that cognitive mechanisms involving memory and semantics underlie children’s poor recall of touching in both verbal and HFD conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Language and spatial reorientation: Evidence from severe aphasia.

Investigating spatial cognition in individuals with acquired language impairments can inform our understanding of how components of language are involved in spatial representation. Using the reorientation paradigm of Hermer-Vazquez, Spelke, and Katsnelson (1999), we examined spatial cue integration (landmark–geometry conjunctions) in individuals with severe agrammatic or global aphasia and in a group of healthy older adults. Participants with aphasia performed similarly to healthy controls in the reorientation task, demonstrating the ability to integrate landmark and geometric cues, even during a concurrent verbal task designed to block access to any residual lexical resources. These results extend previous findings with healthy adults by suggesting that neither syntax nor lexicon is essential for spatial cue representation in a mature cognitive system, and provide further evidence that language deficits in aphasia can be independent from other domains of reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contextual effects in the interpretations of probability words: Perceived base rate and severity of events.

Previous research has demonstrated substantial effects of context on the numerical interpretation of verbal probability statements and has attributed these effects to the perceived base-rate probability of the predicted events. These context effects are shown to be attributable to the perceived severity of the predicted event as well as to the perceived base rate. Furthermore, there is evidence for strong context effects that are not explained by either of these 2 variables. The implications of these results for the use of probability statements in the communication of verbal probability information are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distributed memory and the representation of general and specific information.

Describes a distributed model of information processing and memory and applies it to the representation of general and specific information. The model consists of a large number of simple processing elements that send excitatory and inhibitory signals to each other via modifiable connections. Information processing is thought of as the process whereby patterns of activation are formed over the units in the model through their excitatory and inhibitory interactions. The memory trace of a processing event is the change or increment to the strengths of the interconnections that results from the processing event. The traces of separate events are superimposed on each other in the values of the connection strengths that result from the entire set of traces stored in the memory. The model is applied to a number of findings related to the question of whether abstract representations or an enumeration of specific experiences are stored in memory. The model simulates the results of a number of experiments that have been taken as evidence for the enumeration of specific experiences. At the same time, it shows how the functional equivalent of abstract representations—prototypes, logogens, and even rules—can emerge from the superposition of traces of specific experiences, when the conditions are right for this to happen. (50 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of sentence form on the construction of mental plans from procedural discourse.

Examined memory for procedural discourse in 2 experiments with college students. In Exp 1, memory was assessed using recall; in Exp 2, a recognition test was used. In both experiments, the memorability of 3 types of action statements were compared: a transitive verb form, a verbal adjective form, and an implicit action form. Information associated with transitive verbs and verbal adjectives was more likely to be recalled than information associated with implicit actions. It is proposed that transitive verbs and verbal adjectives generate a semantic representation that includes features of the action, whereas implicit actions do not. This difference in semantic representation leads to structural differences in a mental plan for the task. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frequency of occurrence and the criteria for automatic processing.

Three experiments were conducted to assess the automaticity of event frequency processing. Using a modified concept-learning task, Experiment 1 showed that intentional frequency processing led to more accurate frequency judgments than incidental processing. Experiment 2 demonstrated that nonspecific (general memory) instructions in incidental processing conditions can actually lead to subjects' intentional processing of frequency information, which undermines the effectiveness of an intentionality manipulation. And, in Experiment 3, frequency processing accuracy was found to be interfered with by concurrent cover task capacity requirements, even though frequency processing occurred incidentally. The findings that frequency judgment is influenced by intentionality and by concurrent task factors clearly violate two of Hasher and Zacks' (1979, 1984) empirical criteria used to define automatic processing; they also challenge the assumption that automatic processing is always optimal. In light of our and others' data, either event frequency, the prototypical automatic process, is not automatic, or the assumption that a process must be optimal if it is to be considered automatic must be dropped. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)