Salience of item knowledge in learning artificial grammars.

Both the specific similarity of test items to study items and the grammaticality of test items were found to be major determinants of performance under task conditions common in the literature. Results bearing on the issue of how item-specific effects are coordinated with knowledge pooled across items are: (1) Better item memory resulted in smaller rather than larger effects of specific similarity on judgments of grammaticality, suggesting that items can be too well differentiated to support transfer to new items. (2) Variation in the effect of specific similarity did not result in compensatory variation in grammaticality, suggesting that any scheme that tightly links the effects of the 2 variables is insufficient. (3) Differential reliance on the 2 knowledge resources was not under good instructional control, which poses a problem for accounts that use functional task analyses to coordinate functionally different memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Artificial grammar learning depends on implicit acquisition of both abstract and exemplar-specific information.

The contributions of exemplar-specific and abstract knowledge to artificial grammar learning were examined in amnesic patients and controls. In Experiment 1, grammatical rule adherence and chunk strength exerted separate effects on grammaticality judgments. Amnesic patients exhibited intact classification performance, demonstrating the same pattern of results as controls. In Experiment 2, amnesic patients exhibited impaired declarative memory for chunks. In Experiment 3, both amnesic patients and controls exhibited transfer when tested with a letter set different than the one used for training, although performance was better when the same letter sets were used at training and test. The results suggest that individuals learn both abstract information about training items and exemplar-specific information about chunk strength and that both types of learning occur independently of declarative memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Artificial grammar learning depends on implicit acquisition of both abstract and exemplar-specific information": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by B. J. Knowlton and L. R. Squire (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol 22[1], 169–181). The Appendix on page 181 contains several errors. The corrected Appendix is provided. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1996-02680-010). The contributions of exemplar-specific and abstract knowledge to artificial grammar learning were examined in amnesic patients and controls. In Experiment 1, grammatical rule adherence and chunk strength exerted separate effects in grammaticality judgments. Amnesic patients exhibited intact classification performance, demonstrating the same pattern of results as controls. In Experiment 2, amnesic patients exhibited impaired declarative memory for chunks. In Experiment 3, both amnesic patients and controls exhibited transfer when tested with a letter set different than the one used for training, although performance was better when the same letter sets were used at the training and test. The results suggest that individuals learn both abstract information about training items and exemplar-specific information about chunk strength and that both types of learning occur independently of declarative memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociations of grammaticality and specific similarity effects in artificial grammar learning.

Three artificial grammar learning experiments investigated the memory processes underlying classification judgments. In Experiment 1, effects of grammaticality, specific item similarity, and chunk frequency were analogous between classification and recognition tasks. In Experiments 2A and 2B, instructions to exclude "old" and "similar" test items, under conditions that limited the role of conscious recollection, dissociated grammaticality and similarity effects in classification. Dividing attention at test also produced a dissociation in Experiment 3. It is concluded that a dual-process model of classification, whereby the grammaticality and specific similarity effects are based mostly on automatic and intentional memory processes, respectively, is consistent with the results, whereas a unitary mechanism account is not. This conclusion is further supported by evidence indicating that chunk frequency had both implicit and explicit influences on classification judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract Analogies and Positive Transfer in Artificial Grammar Learning.

Following Brooks and Vokey (1991), we show that positive transfer to new items generated from an artificial grammar in which the vocabulary has been changed from training to test can be based on "abstract analogy" to specific training items (specific similarity) rather than abstraction of a grammar and symbol remapping rules, even with remapping unique to each test item. The results confirm that transcendence over symbols provides no support for the implicit learning of abstract structure. Ironically, they also show that the effect of specific similarity does not depend on surface characteristics of the items, but the residual effect of grammaticality does. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defining the knowledge units of a synthetic language: Comment on Vokey and Brooks (1992).

J. R. Vokey and L. R. Brooks (see record 1992-18658-001) reported a set of experiments intended to demonstrate that judgments of grammaticality are determined by 2 characteristics of the test items: their similarity with a specific study item and their conformity with an abstract representation of the generative grammar. The author argues that both effects may be encompassed within a unified account, which requires neither a specific-item retrieval process nor an abstractive capacity. The basic assumption is that the primary knowledge units are not whole strings of letters, as postulated in models relying on specific similarity or abstraction, but rather fragments of 2 or 3 letters. Partial memorization of these small units provides a convenient account of the whole pattern of Vokey and Brooks's findings because study items have more units in common with similar than with dissimilar test items, and likewise with grammatical than with ungrammatical ones. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attribute information and the feeling-of-knowing.

Demonstrated with 24 undergraduates that feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments about unrecalled items predict subsequent recognition performance with accuracy. The purpose of the experiment was to examine the relation between access to partial attribute information and the tendency to make positive or negative FOK judgments about an unrecalled item from a recent study episode. 52 words with extreme connotations of good or bad were paired with semantically neutral words, and 28 buffer pairs also were included to minimize the target words. Results indicate that when Ss made positive FOK judgments, attribute identification was more accurate than when Ss made negative FOK judgments. However, positive guesses were also made even when Ss did not have access to accurate attribute information. The results suggest that FOK judgments depend on access to an attribute of an unrecalled item, but they do not exclude other variables and referents as sources for the same phenomenon. (French abstract) (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A case of syntactical learning and judgment: How conscious and how abstract?

Examined 2 possible bases for grammatical judgments following syntactical learning: unconscious representations of a formal grammar, as in A. S. Reber's (see record 1976-21811-001) hypothesis of implicit learning, and conscious rules within information grammars. 50 undergraduates inspected strings generated by a finite-state grammar, viewed either one at a time or all at a time, with implicit or explicit learning instructions. 15 undergraduates served as controls. In a transfer test, Ss and controls judged the grammaticality of grammatical and nongrammatical strings and reported the bases for their judgments. Concurrent with previous results, Ss correctly classified a significant number of novel strings, indicating the operation of grammatical abstraction. However, reported rules predicted those grammatical judgments without significant residual. Ss acquired correlated grammars—personal sets of conscious rules, each of limited scope and many of imperfect validity. The rules embodied abstractions, consciously represented novelty that could account for abstraction embodied in judgments. It is argued that a better explanation of these results credits grammatical judgments to conscious rules within informal grammars rather than to unconscious representations of a formal grammar. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Synthetic grammar learning: Implicit rule abstraction or explicit fragmentary knowledge?

3 experiments were designed to demonstrate that classifying new letter strings as grammatical (i.e., conforming to a set of rules called a synthetic grammar) or ungrammatical may proceed from fragmentary conscious knowledge of the bigrams constituting the grammatical strings displayed in the study phase, rather than from an unconscious structured representation of the grammar, as A. S. Reber (see record 1989-38920-001) contended. In Experiment 1, grammaticality judgments of subjects initially studying grammatical letter strings did not differ from judgments by subjects learning from a list of the bigrams making up these strings. In Experiment 2, judgments about nongrammatical strings composed of valid bigrams placed in invalid locations were extremely poor, although better than chance. In Experiment 3 the explicit knowledge of bigrams as assessed by a recognition procedure appeared sufficient to account for observed performance on a standard test of grammaticality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive penetrability of syntactic priming in Broca's aphasia.

Agrammatic Broca's aphasia has been explained as an impairment of automatic syntactic processes. The present study investigated whether controlled processes play a role in agrammatics' handling of syntactic information. Agrammatic patients and normal controls performed a cross-modal priming task with sentence fragments and visual targets forming either grammatical or ungrammatical pairs. In Exp 1, Ss of both groups were instructed to ignore the auditory prime. The grammaticality effect observed in a previous study disappeared for the aphasic Ss but not for normal controls. Exp 2 demonstrated that for normal controls, the grammaticality effect was present even with a larger prime-target interval. These findings indicate that although automatic parsing routines in normal Ss are impervious to strategic effects, agrammatic Broca patients appear to use syntactic information in a controlled fashion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning artificial grammars with competitive chunking.

When exposed to a regular stimulus field, for instance, that generated by an artificial grammar, subjects unintentionally learn to respond efficiently to the underlying structure (G. A. Miller [1958]; A. S. Reber [see PA, Vol 42:8911]). We explored the hypothesis that the learning process is chunking and that grammatical knowledge is implicitly encoded in a hierarchical network of chunks. We trained subjects on exemplar sentences while inducing them to form specific chunks. Their knowledge was then assessed through judgments of grammaticality. We found that subjects were less sensitive to violations that preserved their chunks than to violations that did not. We derived the theory of competitive chunking (CC) and found that it successfully reproduces, via computer simulations, both Miller's experimental results and our own. In CC, chunks are hierarchical structures strengthened with use by a bottom-up perception process. Strength-mediated competitions determine which chunks are created and which are used by the perception process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethnic bias in counseling: An information processing approach.

Used an illusory correlation paradigm to measure the impact of counselor trainee stereotyping on the processing of information about ethnic groups. 13 Anglo-American and 7 ethnic-minority graduate students in counseling psychology were presented the following information relative to hypothetical persons: stereotypic characteristics, ethnicity, and blood type (a neutral stimulus). Ss were subsequently asked to make judgments about the relationship between ethnicity and stereotypic characteristics as well as between blood type and stereotypic characteristics. Both populations made nearly the same number of errors on the ethnicity items as on blood type items. However, the Anglo-American group made fewer errors on those items for which a stereotypic response was correct than on those items for which the stereotypic response was incorrect, indicating that stereotyping did affect the processing of information relative to ethnicity. This phenomenon was not present for the ethnic-minority group. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual preference biases in counseling: An information processing approach.

Used an illusory correlation paradigm to measure the effect of stereotyping by mental health professionals on processing information about individuals identified according to sex and sexual preference (SP). 34 23–58 yr old mental health professionals (17 males and 17 females) rated themselves on an SP scale, were presented a series of cards that identified hypothetical persons according to sex and SP, and ascribed to these persons 2 randomly selected stereotypic characteristics associated with 1 of the SP groups. After studying the cards, Ss were asked to make judgments about the relationship between SP and sex and the stereotypic characteristics. Fewer errors were made on those items for which a stereotypic response was congruent with prevailing stereotypes than on those items for which the stereotypic response was incongruent, indicating that stereotyping did affect the processing of information relative to the sex and SP group. Ss had more difficulty correctly processing information attributed to gay men and lesbian women than information attributed to heterosexual men and women. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Face recall: An examination of some factors limiting composite production accuracy.

Contemporary face composite systems require scrutiny of many alternative features during the construction phase and judgments of similarity based on viewing features divorced from a facial context. The present study assessed the role of these factors in limiting composite production accuracy. In Exp I, 60 students observed a target face and made similarity judgments on sample eyes or mouths drawn from a Photo-fit Kit before attempting to identify the same features of the target. Exp II with 60 Ss was a replication, except that the interpolated judgments were made on the features in the context of a complete Photo-fit face resembling the target. In neither experiment did the Photo-fit components significantly interfere with recognition of the corresponding features of the target. In Exp III, the similarity ratings from memory provided by Ss in the previous experiments were compared with parallel sets of ratings furnished by 30 Ss in the presence of the target. Mean judgments of similarity made from memory on isolated features were discrepant from all other ratings. Results are interpreted as suggesting that whereas interference is not a major problem, judging resemblance from features seen in isolation may be a serious source of distortion in composite production. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of similarity in artificial grammar learning.

The authors examine the role of similarity in artificial grammar learning (AGL; A. S. Reber, 1989). A standard finite-state language was used to create stimuli that were arrangements of embedded geometric shapes (Experiment 1), connected lines (Experiment 2), and sequences of shapes (Experiment 3). Main effects for well-known predictors from the literature (grammaticality, associative global and anchor chunk strength, novel global and anchor chunk strength, length of items, and edit distance) were observed, thus replicating previous work. However, the authors extend previous research by using a widely known similarity-based exemplar model of categorization (the generalized context model; R. M. Nosofsky, 1989) to fit grammaticality judgments, by nested regression analyses. The results suggest that any explanation of AGL that is based on the existing theories is incomplete without a similarity process as well. Also, the results provide a foundation for further interpreting AGL in the wider context of categorization research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recency judgments in children: A production deficiency in the use of redundant background cues.

Presented 8 20-picture lists to 40 2nd and 40 4th graders, and each list followed by 3 test pairs, each pair repeating 2 list items. Ss were required to pick the item they had seen more recently on the list. Background color cues were provided, and half the Ss were instructed in using the cues to simplify the task. Difficulty of the recency judgments was also varied by increasing the separation between the 1st presentation of the tested items from 3 to 9 items. The wider the separation, the better the judgment of relative recency. On cue problems, training improved the performance of 2nd graders but not 4th graders. The developmental implications of the study are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explanations for visual cue primacy in judgments of honesty and deceit.

Examined the validity of the distraction hypothesis (Maier & Thurber, 1968). Ss were undergraduate students who watched a videotaped interview and rated the veracity of an actress who played the role of a college student. Study 1 disconfirmed the distraction hypothesis. Ss relied on nonverbal cues to make judgments of veracity, but the presence of nonverbal cues did not distract Ss from processing verbal content. Study 2 tested an alternate explanation, the situational familiarity hypothesis. Study 2 found that judgments in familiar situations were influenced primarily by verbal content cues, whereas those in unfamiliar situations were influenced by both verbal and nonverbal cues. Findings indicate that situational factors influence information processing and affect the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal cues in judgments of veracity. Generalizability of prior deception research is questioned. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness through modeling: The role of perceived similarity in competence.

Tested the hypothesis that learned helplessness can be induced through modeling and that the effects are mediated by perceived similarity in competence. 40 male college students observed a model fail at anagram tasks under variations in perceived similarity. Ss who perceived the unsuccessful model to be of comparable ability and those given no competence feedback persisted less throughout the tasks than Ss who perceived the model as less competent than themselves and control Ss who did not observe a model. The latter 2 groups did not differ in their initial level of persistence, but their performances diverged on succeeding trials, with Ss who perceived themselves as more competent than the model showing higher persistence. A similar pattern of results was obtained for the effects of perceived similarity on Ss' expectations of self-efficacy. A microanalysis revealed that regardless of treatment condition, the higher the Ss' expected efficacy, the longer they persisted. The strength of this relationship increased over trials, suggesting that Ss came to rely more heavily on their judgments of self-efficacy in regulating their expenditure of effort as the experiment progressed. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reliability of the Raven Colored Progressive Matrices Test: Age and ethnic group comparisons.

Reports reliabilities for the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM) for 3 age groups (5?–6?, 6?–7?, and 7?–8? yrs) and 3 ethnic groups. The Ss were 783 Anglo, Black, and Hispanic children. Reliability estimates were calculated using all CPM items and only those with p values between .20 and .80. Results indicate that the CPM did not appear to be equally reliable for all age groups, with the lowest reliability found for the youngest. The test appeared to be equally reliable for the 3 ethnic groups. Eliminating items with extremely low or high p values did little to affect the reliability of the test. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)