Antecedent retrieval processes.

In three experiments we examined the nature of the search for antecedents during reading. Subjects read passages that contained two possible antecedents: one appearing early in the passages and the other appearing late. The degree of elaboration was varied, with one antecedent receiving additional elaboration for half the passages and the other antecedent receiving additional elaboration for the remaining half. Reading time differences from the first two experiments demonstrated that late antecedents are reinstated more quickly than early antecedents and elaborated antecedents are reinstated more quickly than nonelaborated antecedents. Experiment 1 showed that concepts that fall in the path of an antecedent search can be activated by the search. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that this activation is restricted to concepts that are from the same general category as the target antecedent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation and suppression of antecedents during reinstatement.

In 3 experiments, the nature of the search for antecedents during reading was investigated by examination of the effects of reinstatement on long-term memory for potential antecedents. Participants read passages that contained 2 possible antecedents; one appearing early in the passages and the other appearing late. Experiment 1 showed that reinstated antecedents were strengthened in long-term memory whereas potential but nonselected antecedents that fell in the path of an antecedent search were suppressed. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that this suppression was restricted to concepts that shared a high degree of featural overlap with the target antecedent and with the anaphoric phrase prompting the search. Results are discussed in terms of antecedent search as a resonance process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedent search processes and the structure of text.

Kintsch and van Dijk (1978) assumed that when a reader encounters a reference to a concept no longer available in short-term memory, a search through long-term memory for the original concept is necessary. In the present study, subjects read passages that contained two possible antecedents: one appearing early in the passages and the other appearing relatively late. Reading time differences demonstrated that late antecedents are reinstated more quickly than early antecedents, which is in disagreement with predictions from several search models within the Kintsch and van Dijk framework. The best account of the reinstatement time differences assumes that text is represented as an integrated network accessed by a backward parallel search. Experiment 3 demonstrated that naming time, as used in the current studies, measures only current activation and is not sensitive to differences in long-term memory strength. Experiment 4 provided further support for the assumptions of a backward parallel-search model by showing that concepts appearing between an antecedent and the end of a passage are often accessed during the search for the antecedent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Representations as mediators of adolescent deductive reasoning

In Experiment 1, preadolescents, middle adolescents, and late adolescents were presented 3 deductive reasoning tasks. With some important exceptions, conditional reasoning improved with age on problems containing permission conditional relations, and reasoning fallacies increased with age on problems containing causal conditional relations. The results of Experiments 2a and 2b indicated that problem type (i.e., permission or causal) does not mediate the activation of conditional reasoning skills. Rather, valid conditional inferences are more common on problems for which plausible alternative antecedents can be generated than on problems for which alternative antecedent generation is difficult. Conditional rules for which alternative antecedent generation is difficult may be misrepresented as biconditionals, resulting in biconditional rather than conditional reasoning.     

Causal inferences in reading: From immediate activation to long-term memory.

Three different tasks were used to investigate the time course of drawing causal inferences. Participants read passages that contained a causal coherence break that could be resolved by reactivating a concept presented earlier in the passage. In Experiment 1, participants named a probe word that represented the earlier mentioned cause more quickly after encountering the causal coherence break, suggesting that the causal concept had quickly been reactivated. In Experiment 2, participants were slow to read a sentence after the causal coherence break that contradicted the intended inference indicating that the inference had been encoded and retained in working memory. In Experiment 3, the results of a recall task indicated that the causal link was also included in the long-term memory representation of the text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causality and the allocation of attention during comprehension.

Recent research has suggested that each statement in a narrative text is understood by relating it to its causal antecedents and consequences and that the text as a whole is understood by finding a causal path linking its opening to its final outcome. C. R. Fletcher and C. P. Bloom (see record 1989-10829-001) have proposed that in order to accomplish this goal, while minimizing the number of times long-term memory has to be searched, readers focus their attention on the last clause of a narrative that has causal antecedents but no consequences in the preceding text. As a result, a statement that is followed by a causal antecedent should remain the focus of attention, while the same statement followed by a consequence should not. This prediction was tested and confirmed in three experiments which show that when a target statement is followed by a sentence that includes only causal antecedents (a) continuation sentences related to it are read more quickly, (b) target words drawn from it are easier to recognize, and (c) subject-generated continuations are more likely to be causally related to it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of performance antecedents and consequences in work motivation: Correction to Komaki, Collins, and Penn.

Reports an error in the original article by Judith L. Komaki, Robert L. Collins, and Pat Penn (Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 334-340). An incorrect version of Figure 1 was printed. The correct version is provided. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1982-26864-001.) Assessed the effects of both antecedents and consequences while keeping supervisory involvement and stimulus changes constant. The safety performance of 200 employees in 4 departments of a processing plant was monitored 3 times/wk over 46 wks. A multiple baseline design was used in which the phases were introduced in steps. Following baseline, the antecedent condition was presented, in which safety rules were explained and safety meetings held, along with frequent supervisor interaction and stimulus changes. Then the performance consequence, feedback, in which a feedback graph was maintained and feedback meetings held, was added. The antecedent condition, even when bolstered by fairly extensive supervisor involvement, resulted in improvements in only 2 out of 4 departments. Only during the consequent condition did performance significantly improve in all departments over baseline and antecedent conditions. Furthermore, employees reported that they preferred obtaining information following their performance. The results confirm that performance consequences such as feedback play a critical role in work motivation and that antecedents alone may not be effective in all cases, even with fairly extensive supervisor involvement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of performance antecedents and consequences in work motivation.

Assessed the effects of both antecedents and consequences while keeping supervisory involvement and stimulus changes constant. The safety performance of 200 employees in 4 departments of a processing plant was monitored 3 times/wk over 46 wks. A multiple baseline design was used in which the phases were introduced in steps. Following baseline, the antecedent condition was presented, in which safety rules were explained and safety meetings held, along with frequent supervisor interaction and stimulus changes. Then the performance consequence, feedback, in which a feedback graph was maintained and feedback meetings held, was added. The antecedent condition, even when bolstered by fairly extensive supervisor involvement, resulted in improvements in only 2 out of 4 departments. Only during the consequent condition did performance significantly improve in all departments over baseline and antecedent conditions. Furthermore, employees reported that they preferred obtaining information following their performance. The results confirm that performance consequences such as feedback play a critical role in work motivation and that antecedents alone may not be effective in all cases, even with fairly extensive supervisor involvement. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquired equivalence between cues trained with a common antecedent.

In Exp 1, rats experienced 2 stimuli (A and N) each preceded by the same event (food) or by different events (food preceded 1 but not the other). N was then paired with shock, and the generalization of conditioned suppression to A was assessed. Generalization was more marked when A and N had been experienced along with a common antecedent. In Exp 2, 3 stimuli (A, B, and N) were presented in initial training. For 1 group, A and N were preceded by food and B was not; for a 2nd group A alone was preceded by food. In each group, suppression generalized more readily from N to the stimulus that had received the same initial training as had been given to N. Exp 3 found that generalization was not enhanced between stimuli when 1 had preceded food in initial training and 1 had followed it. These results demonstrate that stimuli that have shared a common antecedent will come to be treated as equivalent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectations and interpretations during causal learning.

In existing models of causal induction, 4 types of covariation information (i.e., presence/absence of an event followed by presence/absence of another event) always exert identical influences on causal strength judgments (e.g., joint presence of events always suggests a generative causal relationship). In contrast, we suggest that, due to expectations developed during causal learning, learners give varied interpretations to covariation information as it is encountered and that these interpretations influence the resulting causal beliefs. In Experiments 1A–1C, participants' interpretations of observations during a causal learning task were dynamic, expectation based, and, furthermore, strongly tied to subsequent causal judgments. Experiment 2 demonstrated that adding trials of joint absence or joint presence of events, whose roles have been traditionally interpreted as increasing causal strengths, could result in decreased overall causal judgments and that adding trials where one event occurs in the absence of another, whose roles have been traditionally interpreted as decreasing causal strengths, could result in increased overall causal judgments. We discuss implications for traditional models of causal learning and how a more top-down approach (e.g., Bayesian) would be more compatible with the current findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hindsight bias doesn't always come easy: Causal models, cognitive effort, and creeping determinism.

Creeping determinism, a form of hindsight bias, refers to people's hindsight perceptions of events as being determined or inevitable. This article proposes, on the basis of a causal-model theory of creeping determinism, that the underlying processes are effortful, and hence creeping determinism should disappear when individuals lack the cognitive resources to make sense of an outcome. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked to read a scenario while they were under either low or high processing load. Participants who had the cognitive resources to make sense of the outcome perceived it as more probable and necessary than did participants under high processing load or participants who did not receive outcome information. Experiment 3 was designed to separate 2 postulated subprocesses and showed that the attenuating effect of processing load on hindsight bias is not due to a disruption of the retrieval of potential causal antecedents but to a disruption of their evaluation. Together the 3 experiments show that the processes underlying creeping determinism are effortful, and they highlight the crucial role of causal reasoning in the perception of past events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Doing research the hard way: Substituting analysis of variance for a problem in correlational analysis.

In a recent publication, J. R. Kirby and J. P. Das (see PA, 62:5150) dichotomized 2 measures of individual differences at medians and thereafter treated these measures as if they were independent variables in an ANOVA. If instead they had analyzed their various measures by means of traditional correlational analysis, they would have had much more powerful tests of their hypotheses. They would also, in all probability, have been less inclined to interpret their results as if the dichotomized variables represented independent, causal antecedents of their various measures of intelligence. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How people interpret conditionals: Shifts toward the conditional event.

We investigated how people interpret conditionals and how stable their interpretation is over a long series of trials. Participants were shown the colored patterns on each side of a 6-sided die and were asked how sure they were that a conditional holds of the side landing upward when the die is randomly thrown. Participants were presented with 71 trials consisting of all combinations of binary dimensions of shape (e.g., circles and squares) and color (e.g., blue and red) painted onto the sides of each die. In 2 experiments (N? = 66, N? = 65), the conditional event was the dominant interpretation, followed by conjunction, and material conditional responses were negligible. In both experiments, the percentage of participants giving a conditional event response increased from around 40% at the beginning of the task to nearly 80% at the end, with most participants shifting from a conjunction interpretation. The shift was moderated by the order of shape and color in each conditional's antecedent and consequent: Participants were more likely to shift if the antecedent referred to a color. In Experiment 2 we collected response times: Conditional event interpretations took longer to process than conjunction interpretations (mean difference = 500 ms). We discuss implications of our results for mental models theory and probabilistic theories of reasoning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Backward updating of mental models during continuous reading of narratives.

Participants' ability to track the protagonist's position and surroundings, during continuous reading, was investigated. In Experiment 1, participants read passages involving either inside–outside or top–down topological relations. A typical story described the protagonist interacting with 1 object, which was either consistent or inconsistent with his or her location. The results show that it took longer to read the sentence in the inconsistent condition. Experiments 2–5 used recognition probe words to test the accessibility of both consistent and inconsistent objects. The results show that participants did not update the situation model when the last sentences did not mention again any target object (Experiments 2 and 3). However, the mention of an object by means of an ambiguous pronoun triggers the updating of the situation to resolve the antecedent. The updating starts immediately after reading the pronoun, and the target still remains activated at the end of the sentence (Experiments 4 and 5). The overall results establish boundary conditions for mental model updating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategic processing during comprehension.

This study addresses 3 questions: How flexible are readers when reading strategically? How is strategic processing affected by properties of the text? and Do some strategies lead to better text retention than others? Participants read short narratives and thought aloud with an instruction to either explain, predict, associate, or understand. The think-aloud protocols were used to predict sentence reading times for other participants who read silently with the same strategies. The results indicated that readers are capable of strategically controlling the inferences that they generate. However, strategic control comes at some cost in that it limits the resources devoted to other inferences. Furthermore, strategic processing is heavily constrained by a text. Text-based explanations occurred when there was an identifiable causal antecedent in the prior text. Knowledge-based inferences occurred when there were no antecedents and when new characters and objects were introduced. These effects occurred across reading strategies. Reading to explain led to better memory, but only when reading silently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguishing among antecedents, concomitants, and consequences of problem-solving appraisal and depressive symptoms.

In the present study, a prospective design was used and data were collected from 277 introductory psychology students to distinguish among the antecedents, concomitants, and consequences of problem-solving appraisal and depression. The results of structural equation path analyses provide preliminary evidence that self-appraised ineffective problem-solving ability is an antecedent that may play a causal role in predicting future depressive symptoms. However, the results also suggest that problem-solving appraisal is a concomitant of depressive symptoms such that the experience of depressive symptoms may cause temporary deficits in self-appraisal of problem-solving ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal order relations in language comprehension.

The role of temporal orientation (chronological or reverse) and chronological distance (close, intermediate, or distant) in general event knowledge on language comprehension was examined. Experiment 1 used a relation-recognition paradigm in which the comprehension of a target event could be facilitated or disrupted by the temporal orientation implied by the prior information. Experiments 2 and 3 used a sentence-probe-recognition paradigm in which the temporal orientation, the stimulus onset asynchrony, and the chronological distance between the sentence event and the probe event were manipulated, The results demonstrated that readers used temporal information conveyed by their knowledge to construct situation models while comprehending sentences. The internal temporal dimension appeared to be directional and reflected the chronological distance between everyday events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sources of the continued influence effect: When misinformation in memory affects later inferences.

Several lines of research have found that information previously encoded into memory can influence inferences and judgments, even when more recent information discredits it. Previous theories have attributed this to difficulties in editing memory: failing to successfully trace out and alter inferences or explanations generated before a correction. However, in Exps 1A and 1B, Ss who had received an immediate correction made as many inferences based on misinformation as Ss who had received the correction later in the account (despite presumably having made more inferences requiring editing). In a 2nd experiment, the availability of the misinformation within the comprehension context was tested. Results showed that Ss continued to make inferences involving discredited information when it afforded causal structure, but not when only incidentally mentioned or primed during an intervening task. Exps 3A and 3B found that providing a plausible causal alternative, rather than simply negating misinformation, mitigated 1 effect. The findings suggest that misinformation can still influence inferences one generates after a correction has occurred; however, providing an alternative that replaces the causal structure it affords can reduce the effects of misinformation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedents and consequences of satisfaction and commitment in turnover models: A reanalysis using latent variable structural equation methods.

A review of recent models of organizational commitment (e.g., J. H. Morris and J. D. Sherman; see record 1981-33773-001) and turnover (e.g., W. H. Mobley et al; see record 1979-29973-001) indicates that the causal relation between job satisfaction and organizational commitment had been overlooked and that attempts to identify the antecedents of these variables had suffered from conceptual and methodological limitations. To examine these 2 issues, structural equation methodology was used to reanalyze path analysis data from C. E. Michaels and P. E. Spector (see record 1982-10938-001) and A. C. Bluedorn (see record 1982-22265-001). Four causal models were examined. Across both samples, support was obtained for relations between personal/organizational characteristics and job satisfaction and between satisfaction and commitment. Commitment was also an important determinant of turnover intentions. Results suggest that the path analysis technique does not allow for the simultaneous examination of the effects of exogenous variables on 2 or more endogenous variables. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blocking of subsequent and antecedent events.

Stimulus competition (e.g., blocking) has been observed between antecedent events (i.e., conditioned stimuli or potential causes), but recent evidence within the human causal learning literature suggests that it could also be obtained between subsequent events (i.e., unconditioned stimuli or potential effects). The present research tested this hypothesis with rat subjects. to avoid confounding the antecedent versus subsequent variable with the affective value of the events involved (i.e., unconditioned stimuli are ordinarily of greater affective value than conditioned stimuli), a preparation was used in which antecedent and subsequent events all lacked affective value during the blocking phases of the study. This was achieved through the use of sensory preconditioning. Blocking of subsequent events as well as antecedent events were observed. The challenge to most associative theories that is provided by blocking of subsequent events is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)