Object-array structure, frames of reference, and retrieval of spatial knowledge.

Experiments are reported that assessed the ability of people, without vision, to locate the positions of objects from imagined points of observation that are related to their actual position by rotational or translational components. Theoretical issues addressed were whether spatial relations stored in an object-to-object system are directly retrieved or whether retrieval is mediated by a body-centered coordinate system, and whether body-centered access involves a process of imaging updating of self-position. The results, with those of Rieser (see record 1990-03517-001), indicate that in the case of regularly structured object arrays, interobject relations are directly retrieved for the translation task, but for the rotation task, retrieval occurs by means of a body-centered coordinate system, requiring imagined body rotation. For irregularly structured arrays, access of interobject spatial structure occurs by means of a body-centered coordinate system for both translation and rotation tasks, requiring imagined body translation or rotation. Array regularity affected retrieval of spatial structure in terms of global shape of interobject relations and local object position within global shape. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-sensitive cognitive abilities related to children's acquisition of spatial knowledge.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the extent to which developmental improvement in children's performance on tasks requiring the acquisition of spatial knowledge was related to age-sensitive cognitive abilities. The results of path analyses in Exp 1 indicated that the relationship between age and the acquisition of landmark knowledge was, in fact, mediated by recognition-in-context memory, whereas relationships between age and route knowledge and between age and landmark judgment were unmediated. Similar analyses in Exp 2 indicated that perceptual-motor speed mediated the relationships between age and route knowledge and between age and landmark knowledge. Again, the relationship between age and landmark judgment was unmediated. Overall, the results suggest that the approach used in these experiments can provide new insight into the relationship between spatial cognitive development as a specialized research area and cognitive development in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Body- and environmental-stabilized processing of spatial knowledge.

In 5 experiments, the authors examined the perceptual and cognitive processes used to track the locations of objects during locomotion. Participants learned locations of 9 objects on the outer part of a turntable from a single viewpoint while standing in the middle of the turntable. They subsequently pointed to objects while facing the learning heading and a new heading, using imagined headings that corresponded to their current actual body heading and the other actual heading. Participants in 4 experiments were asked to imagine that the objects moved with them as they turned and were shown or only told that the objects would move with them; in Experiment 5, participants were shown that objects could move with them but were asked to ignore this as they turned. Results showed that participants tracked object locations as though the objects moved with them when shown but not when told about the consequences of their locomotion. Once activated, this processing mode could not be suppressed by instructions. Results indicated that people process object locations in a body- or an environment-stabilized manner during locomotion, depending on the perceptual consequences of locomotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's spatial knowledge of their school campus.

72 4th-, 6th-, and 8th-grade boys were tested with different methodologies for deriving measures of their knowledge of interlandmark distances and directions on their school campus. Results show that age group differences were not large and appeared comparable for most measures. However, other results indicated that measures derived from direction vs distance information were independent. First, the accuracy with which Ss made distance and direction estimates varied across specific combinations of reference sites and targets; this pattern of differential accuracy was quite different for distance vs direction estimates. Second, correlations among the dependent measures indicated that Ss who were accurate at direction estimates were not necessarily accurate for distance estimates. It is emphasized that measures derived from Ss' estimates of direction information were not comparable with measures derived from their estimates of distance information. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial and temporal contributions to the structure of spatial memory.

Three experiments investigated the effects of spatial and temporal contiguity in item recognition, location judgment, and distance estimation tasks. Ss learned the locations of object names in spatial arrays, which were divided into 2 regions. The names of locations were presented during map learning so that critical pairs appeared close in space and close in time, close in space but far in time, far in space but close in time, and far in space and far in time. Names primed each other in recognition only when they were neighbors in both space and time. In contrast, the effects of spatial and temporal contiguity in priming in location judgments were additive. Finally, temporal contiguity affected estimates of Euclidean distance when locations were close together, but not when they were far apart. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Access to engrams.

Results of several experiments with rats by the authors indicate that access to memory-storing networks (engrams) was suppressed but not destroyed by various treatment variables. Initially-lost pretrained responses in Ss with cerebral ablations were reinstated by amphetamine treatment. However, the drug did not change learning rates in Ss without preoperative experiment. ECS impaired recall of well-established discrimination responses when Ss' pre- and posttreatment motivational states were identical. This finding suggests that ECS treatment helps psychiatric patients by impairing recall of motivational states related to their illness. It is concluded that impairment of access to engrams is almost entirely caused by difficulties of retrieval. The unsolved problem of the loci of engrams is discussed. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

武汉地区男男性接触者获得艾滋病知识及干预服务状况调查

自1981年在美国同性恋人群中首次发现HIV感染者以来,男男性接触者(MSM)一直是艾滋病的高危人群之一[1].有资料报道,2007年新发现的5万艾滋病病毒(HIV)感染者中,男男性传播占到12.2%[2],2004年中国艾滋病性病预防控制中心首次大规模同性恋人群基数及其艾滋病感染率调查数据揭示,我国处于性活跃期的MSM人群,约占性活跃期男性人群的2～4%,其HIV感染率约达1.35%[3],因此关注MSM人群的健康状况已成为当今公共卫生领域的主要任务之一.     

Spatial and semantic priming effects in tests of spatial knowledge.

In eight experiments we investigated spatial and semantic priming effects. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects made judgments about the locations of buildings on their campus and locations of states in the United States. We found that location judgments were faster when preceded by judgments about geographically near locations than by judgments about relatively far locations. In Experiments 3a, 3b, and 3c, subjects judged words as names of states of the United States or as nonstate words. No spatial priming effect was found in any experiment, nor was a priming effect found for nonstate words preceded by semantically related words. Experiment 4 compared spatial priming in a state–nonstate classification with a state-plus-location classification task. Spatial priming was found in the latter but not the former. These results are interpreted with an account that treats spatial and nonspatial knowledge as separate structures. Using the nonstate words of Experiment 3c, Experiments 5a and 5b together demonstrated semantic priming in a lexical decision task. The semantic priming results are interpreted with a postlexical checking-strategy account of semantic priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of aptitudes to learning at different points in time during instruction.

Examined one possible reason for the lack of consistent findings in aptitude–treatment interaction research, namely, the instability of aptitude–learning relations over time. Four classes with 101 10th–12th graders were taught an imaginary science over a 4-day period. Achievement measures devised by the experimenter were obtained each day. Ss completed 14 aptitude measures prior to instruction, and 5 additional aptitude scores were obtained from student records; these 19 tests included parts or all of the Kit of Factor-Referenced Cognitive Tests, the Culture Fair Intelligence Test, and the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. Component scores from a derived principal-components solution to the intercorrelations of the aptitude scores were then correlated with each of the achievement scores. Results indicate that some aptitude–achievement relations were not stable over time and that this instability was exhibited in different aptitudes being required at different times during instruction. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Minimum points and views for the recovery of three-dimensional structure.

Mathematical analyses of motion perception have established minimum combinations of points and distinct views that are sufficient to recover three-dimensional (3D) structure from two-dimensional (2D) images, using such regularities as rigid motion, fixed axis of rotation, and constant angular velocity. To determine whether human subjects could recover 3D information at these theoretical levels, we presented subjects with pairs of displays and asked them to determine whether they represented the same or different 3D structures. Number of points was varied between two and five; number of views was varied between two and six; and the motion was fixed axis with constant angular velocity, fixed axis with variable velocity, or variable axis with variable velocity. Accuracy increased with views, decreased with points, and was greater with fixed-axis motion. Subjects performed above chance levels even when motion was eliminated, indicating that they exploited regularities in addition to those in the theoretical analyses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral and psychoanalytic perspectives at therapeutic choice points.

Suggests that recent trends in behavior therapy and psychoanalytic therapy indicate some confluence of attitudes even though each type of therapy retains its own distinctive form. Differences and emerging similarities in the conception and practice of these 2 therapies were clarified during the author's supervision of a behavior therapist conducting psychoanalytic therapy with a male college student concerned about homosexual feelings. Possible behavioral and psychoanalytic interventions at choice points in therapy are compared, and the rationale for each is discussed, along with proposed intersecting directions, in the following areas: (a) goal setting (Are goals determined by the client or therapist?); (b) promoting action vs exploring mental content; (c) challenging vs understanding irrational cognitions; (d) modifying cognitive schemata vs elaborating unconscious fantasies; (e) dissipating vs releasing emotions; and (f) the therapeutic relationship (Is it actual or projected?). Suggestions are made for the psychoanalytic therapist and the behavior therapist who is inclined to incorporate perspectives or attitudes of the other. (107 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prior knowledge and correlational structure in unsupervised learning.

Prior knowledge has been shown to facilitate both supervised and unsupervised category learning, but questions remain about how this facilitation occurs. This article describes two experiments that investigate the effects of prior knowledge on unsupervised learning, using the exemplar-memory task of Clapper and Bower (2002). Experiment 1 demonstrates that prior knowledge facilitates learning in this task, as expected, and that this facilitation extends to both knowledge-relevant and knowledge-irrelevant features of the new categories. Experiment 2 shows that knowledge facilitates learning not only by increasing the probability that people will discover separate categories, but also by making the features of different categories seem less interchangeable, thereby reducing interference and confusion among them. Taken together, these experiments demonstrate that prior knowledge has multiple effects on unsupervised learning and suggests that the exemplar-memory task may provide a useful procedure for disentangling and investigating these effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The discrimination of structure: III. Representation of spatial relationships.

Pigeons received a discrimination in which the spatial relationship between 2 adjacent rectangles filled with different colors signaled the trial outcome. Test trials then involved the same rectangles separated horizontally by a gap. The tests in Experiment 1 disrupted the discrimination more when the rectangles were tall and thin than when they were short and wide. Experiment 2 revealed that the width of the rectangles rather than their height determined the extent to which separating them would disrupt the original discrimination. The results are explained in terms of a template-matching account of pattern recognition with the additional assumption, supported by Experiment 3, that the size of a template can be altered to improve its match with a test pattern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of the reader's schema at different points in time.

In 2 experiments, 215 high school sophomores and juniors and 71 undergraduates were instructed to take a distinctive point of view while reading and recalling a story. Perspectives assigned before reading, shortly after reading, and long after reading all had substantial effects on recall. Results are interpreted to mean that the schema brought into play by the perspective instructions selectively enhanced encoding when operative during reading and selectively enhanced retrieval when operative during attempts at recall. The schema operative during reading appeared to influence not only the likelihood that certain text elements would be learned but also their longevity in memory. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's ascriptions of knowledge to others.

Piaget believed that young children were egocentric and would ascribe their own knowledge to another. In contrast, Wimmer, Hogrefe, and Perner (1988) found that children did not perform egocentrically when assessing another's knowledge. The present study was carried out to determine which claim was right. A familiar object was secretly placed in a box, and a child and others either looked in the box or did not look. Two of the main findings were that (a) 6-year-olds were significantly better than 3- to 4-year-olds at assessing the other's knowledge, even though both assessed the other's perception correctly (p?p?     

Comparison of two rule-assessment methodologies for studying cognitive development and knowledge structure.

Compares N. H. Anderson's (1974, 1981) functional measurement methodology and R. S. Siegler's (see record 1977-05568-001) decision tree methodology. Detailed analyses, illustrated with the balance scale paradigm, show that the decision tree methodology is unable to assess algebraic integration rules; instead, it concludes that they are nonintegration, binary decision rules. In contrast, functional measurement proved able to detect both integration and nonintegration rules. It also showed promise for measuring developmental parameters at the individual level. Similar integration–nonintegration issues appear in the choice tasks popular in Piagetian theory and in general decision theory and are discussed in similar terms. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning resistance to temptation through observation.

An adult model and 48 4–5 yr olds were tempted to deviate by a "talking table." On both an immediate and a delayed test, Ss who had seen the model yield deviated more quickly and for a longer period of time than control Ss who had not seen a model. Ss who had seen the model resist deviated less quickly and worked longer at a boring task. In a 2nd study with 80 5–8 yr olds, the tempting was done by a young woman. On several measures, only resisting models who rationalized their behavior were effective, and sometimes only with girls. Ss in the yielding model condition were less generous. It is argued that the procedures employed to study the effects of resisting and yielding models are important in determining their relative effectiveness. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)