Fact retrieval in younger and older adults: The role of mental models.

Using a fan effect paradigm, three experiments tested whether younger and older adults differ in the retrieval of integrated and nonintegrated facts, where integration refers to the development of a mental model. Earlier work by G. A. Radvansky and R. T. Zacks (see record 1992-04153-001) had found that as long as facts can be integrated into a single mental model, young adults show no increase in retrieval time or error rates as the size of the subset of related facts increases (i.e., no fan effect). The present studies show a similar pattern for older adults. By contrast, and in confirmation of our previous findings on age differences and the fan effect (L. D. Gerard et al; see record 1991-32781-001), older adults show an exaggerated fan effect, at least in their error rates, on subsets of related facts not easily integrated into a single mental model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When knowing more means less: The effects of fan on metamemory judgments.

The authors used a "fan" paradigm (J. R. Anderson, 1974) to test the accessibility and competition models of metamemory using judgments of learning (JOLs). JOLs in this study reflect one's confidence level in subsequently recognizing newly learned material. The number of facts, or "fan," associated with JOL-queried concepts varied from 1 to 3 associates. Results of 3 experiments indicated that as the level of fan increased, the magnitude of JOLs decreased. This finding was observed even when the fan effect (i.e., slower recognition as number of facts increase) was attenuated on a verification task in 2 of the experiments by manipulating the organization of the multiple concepts. The results supported the competition hypothesis (T. A. Schreiber, 1998; T. A. Schreiber & D. L. Nelson, 1998) as an important determinant of JOLs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does visual attention select objects or locations?

Much research supports location-based attentional selection, but J. Duncan (see record 1985-29839-001) presented data favoring object-based selection in a shape discrimination task. Does attention select objects or locations? The authors confirmed that Duncan's task elicits selection from spatially invariant object representations rather than from a grouped location-based representation. They next asked whether this finding was due to location-based filtering; the results again supported object-based selection. Finally, it was demonstrated that when Duncan's objects were used in a cued detection task, the results were consistent with location-based selection. These results suggest that there may be a single attention mechanism, consistent with Duncan's original claim that object-based and location-based attentional selection are not mutually exclusive. Rather, attentional limitations may depend on the type of stimulus representation used in performing a given task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mixed reference frames for dynamic inhibition of return.

Reference frames mediating inhibition of return (IOR) in dynamic displays were investigated by comparing the effects of a cue in simple versus extended objects. Experiment 1 replicated S. P. Tipper, B. Weaver, L. M. Jerreat, and A. L. Burak's (1994) finding of location- and object-based IOR for boxes rotating about fixation. In Experiments 2 and 3, the boxes were replaced by two boomerang-shaped objects. Response times were slowed to all target locations across a cued object. They were also slowed to locations vacated by the uncued region of the cued object-evidence for a representation the authors call the "perceptual footprint." Whereas an object served as the medium for location-based IOR for B. S. Gibson and H. Egeth (1994), the environment served as the medium for object- and location-based IOR in Experiments 2 and 3. This suggests that (a) frames of reference may be considered hierarchically and (b) nesting of frames is context dependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fan effects reveal position-specific numerical concepts.

Examined associative interference (i.e., fan) effects to determine if the numerical concepts mediating numerical fact retrieval can be position specific. 21 Ss (aged 17-22 yrs) memorized 15 "diamond arithmetic" facts (J. Whalen, 1997) involving five different operands. Ignoring operand position (i.e., left vs. right), each operand appeared equally often across items (i.e., position-independent fan was constant). In contrast, position-specific fan values varied across items (e.g., 2 appeared five times as the left operand, but once in the right position; 3 appeared four times as the left operand, and twice as the right operand, etc). Thus, a fan effect was expected only if the concepts activated by arithmetic operands are position specific. Results indicated that position-specific fan was an excellent predictor of trials to criterion, error rate, and latency. The concepts mediating number fact retrieval can be position specific. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recognition memory for object form and object location: an event-related potential study

In this study, the processes associated with retrieving object forms and object locations from working memory were examined with the use of simultaneously recorded event-related potential (ERP) activity. Subjects memorized object forms and their spatial locations and made either object-based or location-based recognition judgments. In Experiment 1, recognition performance was higher for object locations than for object forms. Old responses evoked more positive-going ERP activity between 0.3 and 1.8 sec poststimulus than did new responses. The topographic distribution of these old/new effects in the P300 time interval was task specific, with object-based recognition judgments being associated with anteriorly focused effects and location-based judgments with posteriorly focused effects. Late old/new effects were dominant at right frontal recordings. Using an interference paradigm, it was shown in Experiment 2 that visual representations were used to rehearse both object forms and object locations in working memory. The results of Experiment 3 indicated that the observed differential topographic distributions of the old/new effects in the P300 time interval are unlikely to reflect differences between easy and difficult recognition judgments. More specific effects were obtained for a subgroup of subjects for which the processing characteristics during location-based judgments presumably were similar to those in Experiment 1. These data, together with those from Experiment 1, indicate that different brain areas are engaged in retrieving object forms and object locations from working memory. Further analyses support the view that retrieval of object forms relies on conceptual semantic representation, whereas retrieving object locations is based on structural representations of spatial information. The effects in the later time intervals may play a functional role in post-retrieval processing, such as recollecting information from the study episode or other processes operating on the products of the retrieval process, and presumably are mediated by right frontal cortical areas. The results support the view of functionally dissociable object and spatial visual working memory systems.     

Memory retrieval and suppression: The inhibition of situation models.

When people retrieve newly learned facts on a recognition test, they are often increasingly slowed by the number of other newly learned facts that have a concept in common with the probed fact. This is called the fan effect. Assuming that people are using situation models of the learned information, the author considers whether the inhibition of competing representations is one of the processes involved in the fan effect. Evidence was found for negative priming of related but irrelevant situation models, thus supporting the idea that the inhibition of highly related memory traces is used in long-term memory retrieval. As such, this is a form of retrieval-based inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Situation models and abstract ownership relations.

Six experiments used a fan-effect paradigm to test whether people can use the abstract relation of ownership to help integrate information into situation models. People studied sentences of the form The [person] owns/is buying the [object] for a later recognition test. The integration of sentences into a situation model (as evidenced by an attenuated or absent fan effect) was observed when the verb phrase referred to a specific event (is buying) and the objects could all be bought in the same place (e.g., a drugstore). This organization did not occur either when the verb phrase referred to general ownership (owns) or when the items were unlikely to be purchased in a single location (e.g., television and car). It was concluded that although abstract relations can be used to segregate information into sets that can be integrated into situation models, this integration is more likely when it can be embedded within a spatial-temporal framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychology: The unity of human behavior.

Reviews the book "Psychology: The unity of human behavior," by Timothy J. Gannon (see record 1954-06735-000). This volume is an introductory textbook of psychology for college students. In addition to a somewhat different organization of the material and a different emphasis accorded to various topics Gannon's book introduces certain theoretical considerations which are not ordinarily found in most textbooks. The book is divided into four parts: The first part, the shortest, is a general introduction. The second, entitled "Reception," deals with sensation and perception. The author, in discussing perception, particularly stresses the neural correlates of perception and the localization of functions in the brain. The third, "Response," contains the discussion of reflexes, drives, and emotions. The fourth and last part, "Integration," is the longest, constituting almost half of the book. The principal concern of the author is to present all experiences, and all behavior, as integrated manifestations of a single living person. The entire book is characterized by an effort to present to the student not merely a survey of psychological problems and known facts about man but to provide him at the same time with a concept of man's nature which would serve as a key to the understanding of man as such. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The place of facts in a world of values: Subject and object in a postmodern world": Errata.

Reports an error in the original article by R. J. Smith (Journal of Philosophical and Theoretical Psychology, 2001[Fall], 21[2], 153-172). On pages 160, 161, 166, and 167 the subject to object relationship was reported at "S/O". The corrected representation is "S?O". (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 2002-10964-004.) The value-fact or subject-object split (S-O) recently defended by H. H. Kendler (1999) as necessary for a scientific psychology to establish facts, was rejected by Gestalt psychology as reducing the person to object status. The Gestalt solution correlating principles of perceptual organization with corresponding features of the object world (S/O) has however answered poorly to the vast cultural differences found in values. Communal/dialectical psychology in agreement with a postmodern worldview, treats facts as intrinsically value-laden social constructions mediated by a society's particular social relations (S?O) Examples of fact ambiguity are illustrated, and S?O is recommended as ontologically preferable for psychology as social science and for turn-of-the-millenium psycho-ecology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eliminating inhibition of return by changing salient nonspatial attributes in a complex environment.

Inhibition of return (IOR) occurs when a target is preceded by an irrelevant stimulus (cue) at the same location: Target detection is slowed, relative to uncued locations. In the present study, we used relatively complex displays to examine the effect of repetition of nonspatial attributes. For both color and shape, attribute repetition produced a robust inhibitory effect that followed a time course similar to that for location-based IOR. However, the effect only occurred when the target shared both the feature (i.e., color or shape) and location with the cue; this constraint implicates a primary role for location. The data are consistent with the idea that the system integrates consecutive stimuli into a single object file when attributes repeat, hindering detection of the second stimulus. The results are also consistent with an interpretation of IOR as a form of habituation, with greater habituation occurring with increasing featural overlap of a repeated stimulus. Critically, both of these interpretations bring the IOR effect within more general approaches to attention and perception, rather than requiring a specialized process with a limited function. In this view, there is no process specifically designed to inhibit return, suggesting that IOR may be the wrong framing of inhibitory repetition effects. Instead, we suggest that repetition of stimulus properties can interfere with the ability to focus attention on the aspects of a complex display that are needed to detect the occurrence of the target stimulus; this is a failure of activation, not an inhibition of processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding developmental changes in the stability and flexibility of spatial categories based on object relatedness.

Two experiments examined the flexibility and stability with which children and adults organize locations into categories on the basis of object relatedness. Seven-, 9-, and 11-year-olds and adults learned the locations of 20 objects belonging to 4 categories. Displacement patterns revealed that children and adults used object cues to organize the locations into groups. The organization remained the same following a 7-day delay for all 4 ages, demonstrating stability. Moreover, for 11-year-olds and adults, this organization shifted after a new pattern of object-location pairings was introduced. The pattern was less clear for the younger children, suggesting that flexibility increases across childhood. Discussion focuses on the dynamics of organization processes, particularly stability and flexibility, and the integration of objects and locations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The fan effect: A tale of two theories.

This article addresses J. R. Anderson and L. M. Reder's (see record 1999-05245-004) account of the differential fan effect reported by G. A. Radvansky, D. H. Spieler, and R. T. Zacks (see record 1993-16287-001). The differential fan effect is the finding of greater interference with an increased number of associations under some conditions, but not others, in a within-subjects mixed-list recognition test. Anderson and Reder concluded that the differential fan effects can be adequately explained by assuming differences in the weights given to concepts in long-term memory. When a broader range of data is considered, this account is less well supported. Instead, it is better to assume that the organization of information into referential representations, such as situation models, has a meaningful influence on long-term memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The fan effect: New results and new theories.

The fan effect (J. R. Anderson, see record 1975-06644-001) has been attributed to interference among competing associations to a concept. Recently, it has been suggested that such effects might be due to multiple mental models (G. A. Radvansky, D. H. Spieler, & R. T. Zacks, see record 1993-16287-001) or suppression of concepts (M. C. Anderson & B. A. Spellman, see record 1995-16174-001); A. R. A. Conway & R. W. Engle, see record 1994-08314-001). It was found that the Adaptive Control of Thought—Rational (ACT-R) theory, which embodies associative interference, is consistent with the results of G. A. Radvansky et-al. and that there is no evidence for concept suppression in a new fan experiment. The ACT-R model provides good quantitative fits to the results, as shown in a variety of experiments. The 3 key concepts in these fits are (a) the associative strength between 2 concepts reflects the degree to which one concept predicts the other, (b) foils are rejected by retrieving mismatching facts; and (c) participants can adjust the relative weights they give to various cues in retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Object-centered not scene-based visual neglect.

Whether visuospatial attention accesses object-centered representations, in addition to location-based coordinates, was investigated in patients with hemispatial neglect who detected a target on the left or right of a single object (2 connected circles or barbell) or of 2 objects (2 unconnected circles). The object or objects either remained static (left circle in left space) or rotated by 180° (left circle now in right space). Relative to the static condition, in the rotating condition, detection times are facilitated on the left (contralateral) and inhibited on the right (ipsilateral) of space even when eye movements are controlled. This modulation of neglect was only observed for the single object, but not for the 2-object displays. The findings suggest that attention operates on object-centered as well as on location-based representations, and thus accesses multiple reference frames. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of number of facts studied on recognition versus sensibility judgments.

The effect of memory representation on the ease of cognitive judgments can vary depending on the nature of the judgment required. In three experiments, subjects studied sets of sentences and in later phases made recognition judgments or sensibility judgments on these sentences and others constructed from the words in the sentences they had studied. In Experiments 1 and 2, the studied sentences were sensible, whereas in Experiment 3 the studied sentences were nonsensical. Judgment times varied with the fan of the concepts in the sentence (i.e., the number of facts known about each concept). Subjects were slowed by fan in retrieving a specific fact but speeded by fan in making a sensibility judgment. In all experiments, subjects were faster at making a judgment in conditions where judgments could be made either by a memory retrieval process or a semantic sensibility process. This implies that subjects can sometimes recognize that they have studied a sentence before they can judge its sensibility. This result calls into question the view that language processing is a faculty that occupies a place separate from memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The "Swedish" mutation of the amyloid precursor protein (APPswe) dissociates components of object-location memory in aged Tg2576 mice.

Aged Tg2576 mice show abnormalities in hippocampal morphology and physiology and display behavioral deficits in spatial navigation tasks consonant with a deficit in the functional properties of the hippocampus. However, the nature of the spatial representations disrupted by the "Swedish" mutation of the amyloid precursor protein (APPswe) is unclear. In an effort to characterize the memory deficits in Tg2576 mice, the spontaneous object exploration paradigm was used to interrogate spatial and object memory in mice. With object arrays of comparable size, 16-month-old Tg2576 mice showed a normal object familiarity/novelty effect but impaired memory for the location of objects when 2 objects exchanged locations (topological transformation; Experiment 1). In contrast, Tg2576 mice showed preferential exploration of familiar objects when they were moved to previously unoccupied locations (Experiment 2), irrespective of whether the transformation altered the metric properties of the object array (Experiments 3). These results suggest that Tg2576 mice are able to form representations of the identity of objects and a memory of the spatial organization of objects in an arena. In contrast, conjunctive memory for specific object-location associations is severely impaired in aged Tg2576 mice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Piecemeal organization and cognitive components in object perception: Perceptually coupled responses to moving objects.

In three experiments, observers who were instructed to perceive one of two alternative depth arrangements of a three-dimensional wire cube fixated near one of two intersections that differed in the degree to which they specified the cube's veridical depth organization. In order to separate perceptual effects from experimenter effects, we measured indirect reports about variables perceptually coupled to perceived depth rather than direct reports about perceived depth. In all three experiments, reversal durations at the two intersections differed, even though the two were parts of a single object. In addition, reversals varied with viewers' intentions. Thus, the unit of perceptual organization may be smaller than the entire object, and viewers' intentions can influence the perception of real moving objects. In additional analyses, reversal durations were separated into two components: nonelective instability and malleability; the question of whether these two components of ambiguity are functionally distinct could not be decided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval from temporally organized situation models

Time is an important part of establishing situations in the world. As such, temporal information should be reflected in the organization of information into situation models. This article reports 3 experiments that explore whether people will integrate sets of related facts into situation models in a time-based fashion. People memorized lists of facts and then took a speeded recognition test. A retrieval interference methodology was used to assess whether they had integrated the facts into situation models. The presence of interference indicated a lack of integration. In contrast, a marked reduction or an absence in interference indicated integration. In 2 experiments, time-based integration was observed when common time periods were referred to by either events (e.g., "when the camera flashed") or verb tense (i.e., past, present, and future). A 3rd experiment demonstrated that common time periods alone are not sufficient; the information must be allowed to occur potentially within the same situation.     

Review of The integration of behavior.

Reviews the book, The integration of behavior by Thomas M. French (1952). In this fundamental contribution to Ego psychology French undertakes to elucidate the workings of integrative mechanisms, using as illustrative material the record of the analysis of an asthmatic patient. The first volume--Basic Postulates (see record 1952-05902-000) presnts, in a first approximation, the conceptual framework evolved by French, exemplifying the "basic postulates" by instances taken from everyday normal behavior and from some of the patient's dreams. In the second volume--The Integrative Process in Dreams (see record 1954-05671-000) the author brings detailed analyses of several sequences of the patient's dreams, elaborating the integrative processes and the system of personal patterns reflected in these dreams. French's undertaking can be considered as one of the most valuable among the current attempts to evolve a systematic "ego psychology," centering it on the successfully integrated behavior, on constructive, rather than defensive, functions of the psychic organization. Through a judicious selection of concepts and theories that have both a high explanatory power and a close fit to facts, he tries to "bring into resonance" not only the rational and irrational behavior, but also many other dichotomous areas and approaches of the personality study. Personality psychologists will certainly welcome this attempt at overcoming the segregation of various approaches to the study of human behavior, even if one may disagree with the specific selections French makes, and regret the fact that the inclusion of so many theories and speculations tends to obliterate the main outlines of the work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)