Occlusion, symmetry, and object-based attention: Comment on Behrmann, Zemel, and Mozer (1998).

The validity of M. Behrmann, R. Zemel, and A Mozer's (see record 1998-04674-001) finding that object-based attention can be directed toward occluded objects is examined in 3 experiments. In A Behrmann et al.'s original study, participants made speeded judgments of whether the numbers of bumps attached to 2 arms of an X shape were the same or different. The 2 sets of bumps belonged either to a single object, 2 different objects, or 2 separated parts of an occluded object. Unfortunately, this objecthood manipulation was confounded by the symmetry of the stimuli. Experiment 1 replicated M. Behrmann et al.'s main results using identical stimuli. Experiments 2a and 2b dissociated objecthood from symmetry. The results suggest that the effects of object-based attention found by A Behrmann et al. are largely due to symmetry. The stimuli used in M. Behrmann et al. are not appropriate for examining the relation between object-based attention and occlusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Occlusion, symmetry, and object-based attention: Reply to Saiki (2000).

J. Saiki (see record 2000-13210-027) argued that, because the stimuli used by M. Behrmann, R. S. Zemel, and M. C. Mozer (see record 1998-04674-001) were confounded by symmetry, conclusions about whether amodally completed objects can benefit from object-based attention are unwarranted. Here, the authors, examine J. Saiki's claim further and expand on their view of the mechanisms underlying object-based attention, suggesting that perceptual organization is the process whereby features from a single object are selectively attended. In light of this, they claim that heuristics such as symmetry and collinearity play an important role in the facilitation of features from a single object. In support of this claim, they present data from a further experiment using displays that exploit common fate, another grouping heuristic, and show that, under these conditions, the hallmark of object-based attention, a single-object advantage, is obtained for the occluded (amodally completed) shapes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Object-based attentional selection—Grouped arrays or spatially invariant representations?: Comment on Vecera and Farah (1994).

S. P. Vecera and M. J. Farah (see record 1994-32352-001) have addressed the issue of whether visual attention selects objects or locations. They obtained data that they interpreted as evidence for attentional selection of objects from an internal spatially invariant representation. A. F. Kramer, T. A. Weber, and S. E. Watson question this interpretation on both theoretical and empirical grounds. First, the authors suggest that there are other interpretation of the Vecera and Farah data that are consistent with location-mediated selection of objects. Second, they provide data, using the displays employed by Vecera and Farah in conjunction with a postdisplay probe technique, that suggests that attention is directed to the locations of the target objects. The implications of the results for space and object-based attentional selection are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Grouped arrays versus object-based representations: Reply to Kramer et al. (1997).

An important issue in attention research concerns the representational format from which attention selects. S. P. Vecera and M. J. Farah (see record 1994-32352-001) presented results that they argued demonstrated attentional selection from a spatially invariant object representation. In their comment, A. F. Kramer, T. A. Weber, and S. E. Watson (see record 84-18014) questioned the interpretation of these results, and they presented evidence consistent with selection from a grouped location-based representation. In this reply, the author argues that although an absence of spatial, or distance, effects may be ambiguous as to whether attention is selecting from an object-based representation or from a location-based representation, there are computational considerations that favor object-based selection in certain tasks. The author concludes with a discussion of how object-based and location-based representations might interact with one another, thereby providing a possible explanation of Kramer et al.'s results. Such an account may lead to an understanding of how multiple forms of attentional selection may coexist in the visual system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological, orthographic, and lexical codes: Comment on Carello et al. (1994).

In a series of experiments, N. Sebastián-Gallés (1991) showed lexical involvement in reading in Spanish (a language that has a shallow orthography). These results were assumed to be inconsistent with the model of prelexical phonology in reading. C. Carello et al (1994) disagree; they argue that the results of Sebastián-Gallés parallel previous data found in Serbo-Croatian (which also has shallow orthography). However, the results cannot be explained within the prelexical model, nor do the Sebastián-Gallés data parallel previous ones. Finally, some general problems with current models of prelexical reading are identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cluster analysis of alcohol expectancies: Comment on Rather and Goldman (1994).

This commentary discusses B. C. Rather and M. S. Goldman's (see record 1994-29505-001) use of cluster analysis to study the memory organization of alcohol expectancies among light and heavy drinkers. Their study began with direct ratings of adjective pairs that contained no information about chronological order. A cluster analysis extended these pairs into larger logical groups, which added no information about chronological order. Nonetheless, the authors made use of terms that seemed to suggest conclusions about the time sequence in the activation of expectancies from this cluster analysis. A counterexample is provided to illustrate how early cluster combinations alone do not indicate an early chronological order in a chain of events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial negative priming without mismatching: Comment on Park and Kanwisher (1994).

In spatial selective attention tasks, response time to locate a target is often longer when the target appears in a location that was recently occupied by an ignored distractor. It has been assumed that this "negative priming" effect occurs because internal representations associated with the distractor are inhibited during selection of the prime display target. In contrast, J. Park and N. Kanwisher (1994) have argued recently that spatial negative priming arises from mismatches between properties of the ignored distractor and subsequent probe target. In this article, 3 separate experiments demonstrate that negative priming can occur when the prime distractor and probe target are identical. Such effects are contrary to Park and Kanwisher's (1994) mismatching account of negative priming but congenial with an object-based inhibition mechanism of selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Asian-American mental health and help-seeking behavior: Comment on Solberg et al. (1994), Tata and Leong (1994), and Lin (1994).

Research on Asian Americans has traditionally been ignored or has failed to create a realistic understanding of their status in society. There is widespread belief that Asians in the US are a model minority who are somehow immune to the stresses of minority status and in need of no special consideration. The 3 studies in the special section on Asian Americans Seeking Counseling (V. S. Solberg et al, S. P. Tata and F. T. Leong, and J. C. Lin; see PA, Vol 81:39326, 38266, and 38246, respectively) contribute greatly to dispelling false images and stereotypes about the mental health needs of Asian Americans. Despite the importance of these studies, future research would profit from a focus on the diversity of the Asian-American population and the development of theories and practices indigenous to Asian culture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Splitting versus sharing focal attention: Comment on Castiello and Umiltà (1992).

A popular metaphor for visual attention is that of a spotlight that enhances perceptual processing within its beam. Many studies on the orienting of visual attention have addressed whether the beam is a unified structure or whether it can be split between noncontiguous locations in space. Although most of the evidence favors the unified model, U. Castiello and C. Umiltà (see record 1992-41663-001) claimed recently to have results that could most easily be accounted for by a model of visual attention in which resources can be allocated flexibly to independent locations in space. It is argued that Castiello and Umiltà used only indirect empirical evidence to support their position and that their results are not inconsistent with the unified model. Two studies are reported in which important aspects of Castiello and Umiltà's experiments were maintained and a probe procedure was implemented to assess directly if attention was split between 2 spatial locations or if a unified focus of attention was expanded to incorporate the 2 locations. The results clearly supported the latter position. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word frequency effects at brief exposure durations: Comment on Paap and Johansen (1994).

K. R. Paap and L. S. Johansen (1994) proposed that word frequency effects do not occur on a lexical decision task (LDT) when postmasked target exposure duration is sufficiently brief because such a task prevents verification—their hypothesized locus of the word frequency effect. In making this assertion, they proposed that the activation interpretation of A. R. Dobbs, A. Friedman, and J. Lloyd (1985) and of P. A. Allen, M. McNeal, and D. Kvak (1992) was flawed. However, evidence that Paap and Johansen's conclusions were wrong and that their experimental design contained flaws is provided here. In Experiment 1 of the present study, word frequency effects were evident on an LDT at the 75% accuracy level proposed by Paap and Johansen as being sufficiently low to prevent verification. In Experiment 2 the mental lexica of participants from the same population as that used for Experiment 1 contained very-low-frequency words. Thus, the present results are consistent with an activation locus. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Session impact in counseling process research: Comment on Elliott and Wexler (1994) and Stiles et al. (1994).

R. Elliott and M. M. Wexler (see record 1994-27938-001) have introduced the Session Impacts Scale (SIS), and W. B. Stiles et al (see record 1994-27969-001) have undertaken a new factor analysis of the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) with a British sample of clients. These 2 measures of session-level psychotherapy effects have great potential as research tools. In this comment on the 2 articles, issues of retest reliability, the connection of session-level measures to research strategies based on other units of analyses, and suggested uses of the SIS and the SEQ are discussed. The importance of context-sensitive session impact research and of a comprehensive theory relating session impacts to therapy outcome is also stressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial frequencies as a medium for guiding attention: Comment on Lamb, Yund, and Pond (1999).

M. R. Lamb, E. W. Yund, and H. M. Pond (see record 1999-00903-005) question the author's earlier arguments that attention can be guided by spatial frequencies when searching for a target in complex visual patterns (L. C. Robertson; see record 1996-05632-001). The 2 major findings they report that are used to argue against the author's conclusions are discussed and found inadequate for the purposes of abandoning this hypothesis. Instead, findings reported in the accompanying article in combination with previous findings reported by 2 of the same authors (M. R. Lamb & E. W. Yund, 1996) provide converging evidence to support spatial frequency as a medium for guiding attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unsettling questions about semantic ambiguity in connectionist models: Comment on Joordens and Besner (1994).

S. Joordens and D. Besner (see record 1995-07873-001) described an attempt to simulate a semantic ambiguity advantage in lexical decision using a connectionist model (Masson, 1991) that was based on a Hopfield (1982) network. The question of the validity of the ambiguity advantage is briefly considered, and the assumptions behind the simulation results reported by Joordens and Besner are critically examined. The model used by Joordens and Besner is compared with other connectionist models, and alternative methods of simulating lexical decisions with this class of models are discussed. It is concluded that further empirical evidence is required and that a number of modeling alternatives need to be explored before strong conclusions can be made about the validity of the semantic ambiguity advantage and about the best way to model the effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Models of interlimb coordination—Equilibria, local analyses, and spectral patterning: Comment on Fuchs and Kelso (1994).

This article is a comment on A. Fuchs and J. A. S. Kelso's (see record 1995-08247-001) theoretical note on models of interlimb coordination. The generality of the order parameter equation derived by H. Haken, J. A. S. Kelso, and H. Bunz ([HKB] 1985) for correlated limb movements is underscored through the correct and nonintuitive predictions it makes about steady state behavior. Local and global dynamical models are contrasted, and experimental situations in which local models are pragmatic alternatives to global models, like the HKB equation, are described. Questions are raised about the basis for interpreting detuning in HKB as a simple frequency difference and about the ability of the system of coupled nonlinear oscillators proposed by A. Fuchs and J. A. S. Kelso to model fully the experimental findings on the spectrum of relative phase. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Commitment and the role of ability in motivation: Comment on Wright, O'Leary-Kelly, Cortina, Klein, and Hollenbeck (1994).

Wright, O'Leary-Kelly, Cortina, Klein, and Hollenbeck (1994) claim that Tubbs (Tubbs & Dahl, 1991; Tubbs, 1993) has advocated the personal-goal–assigned-goal discrepancy as being the best measure of commitment, whereas they argue that a self-report assessment such as the one they have developed is the superior measure. However, because several conceptually distinct motivational concepts have been confused in the literature on commitment, the idea that any one measure can cover all of the discussed issues is inadequate. Further, although Wright et al. are correct that understanding and modeling the role of ability in motivation is an important concern, the solution they suggest is inappropriate. Future research should more clearly distinguish the several, often confused, concepts in the literature on commitment and more carefully consider both the manner in which motivation and ability influence behavior and the means by which we empirically model these relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ambiguity and connectionist networks: Still settling into a solution: Comment on Joordens and Besner (1994).

Empirical results (e.g., see G. Kellas, F. R. Ferraro, & G. B. Simpson, 1988; M. L. Millis & S. B. Button, see record 1989-31854-001) suggest that readers perform lexical decisions faster for words with many meanings than for words with only one meaning. S. Joordens and D. Besner (see record 1995-07873-001) attempted to simulate this effect with a connectionist model but found that their network only produced an ambiguity advantage when its error rate was unacceptably high. In this commentary 3 issues relevant to an understanding of the implications of Joordens and Besner's findings are discussed: the reliability of the empirical data, the manner in which readers (and networks) make lexical decisions, and the effects of certain algorithmic and architectural factors on network performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective attention and distractor frequency in naming performance: Comment on Dhooge and Hartsuiker (2010).

E. Dhooge and R. J. Hartsuiker (2010) reported experiments showing that picture naming takes longer with low- than high-frequency distractor words, replicating M. Miozzo and A. Caramazza (2003). In addition, they showed that this distractor-frequency effect disappears when distractors are masked or preexposed. These findings were taken to refute models like WEAVER++ (A. Roelofs, 2003) in which words are selected by competition. However, Dhooge and Hartsuiker do not take into account that according to this model, picture-word interference taps not only into word production but also into attentional processes. Here, the authors indicate that WEAVER++ contains an attentional mechanism that accounts for the distractor-frequency effect (A. Roelofs, 2005). Moreover, the authors demonstrate that the model accounts for the influence of masking and preexposure, and does so in a simpler way than the response exclusion through self-monitoring account advanced by Dhooge and Hartsuiker. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Components of the counseling relationship—an evolving model: Comment on Gelso and Carter (1994).

C. J. Gelso and J. A. Carter (see record 1994-38236-001) have revised their earlier model (Gelso and Carter; see record 1986-09708-001) of the relationship in counseling by including 19 propositions about how the components of the model interact and change over time. The heuristic value of including propositions about the dynamics of the working alliance, the transference–countertransference, and the real relationship is underscored. However, the propositions as worded are both vague and ambiguous, which does not make them immediately useful to researchers. Nevertheless, the propositions present many opportunities for researchers, because each of them can be turned into more empirically oriented statements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective attention and the formation of linear decision boundaries: Comment on McKinley and Nosofsky (1996).

S. C. McKinley and R. M. Nosofsky (see record 83-21756) compared a linear decision-bound model with the generalized context model (GCM) in their ability to account for categorization data from experiments that used integral- or separable-dimension stimuli and required selective attention or attention to both dimensions. McKinley and Nosofsky found support for the GCM and concluded that decision-bound theory needs to incorporate assumptions about selective attention. In this commentary it is argued that (a) unlike the GCM, decision-bound theory provides a framework for independently investigating perceptual and decisional forms of selective attention; (b) the effect of stimulus integrality on the form of the optimal decision bound is misinterpreted; (c) averaged data is biased against decision-bound theory and toward the GCM; (d) many a priori predictions of the GCM are violated empirically; and (e) exemplar theory has lost much of its initial theoretical structure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experience-dependent perceptual grouping and object-based attention.

Earlier studies have shown that attention can be directed to objects, defined on the basis of generic grouping principles, highly familiar shapes, or task instructions, rather than to contiguous regions of the visual field. The 4 experiments presented in this article extend these findings, showing that object attention benefits--shorter reaction times to features appearing on a single object--apply to recently viewed novel shapes. One experiment shows that object attention operates even when the visible fragments correspond to objects that violate standard completion heuristics. Other experiments show that experience-dependent object benefits can apply to fragments even without evidence of occlusion. These results attest to the flexible operation of the perceptual system, adapting as a function of experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)