The Weibull distribution, the power law, and the instance theory of automaticity.

H. Colonius (1995) agreed with the fundamental tenets of the instance theory of automaticity. His article addressed the mathematical development of the theory, pointing out an error in one of two arguments that G. D. Logan (1988, 1992) used to justify the choice of the Weibull as the distribution of retrieval times and suggesting an alternative argument that places different emphasis on the power function speedup and the Weibull distribution. This article attempts to clarify the problematic argument, point out some practical limitations on H. Colonius's (1995) alternative argument, and suggest important future directions for the mathematical development of the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic assumptions of automaticity.

Comments on J. A. Bargh and T. L. Chartrand's (see record 1999-05760-002) treatise on the pervasiveness of automaticity and its relation to self-regulation. Although Bargh and Chartrand pointed to the philosophy underlying current psychological theories about human activity, according to the present author they confused many important philosophical issues in presenting their argument. A specific point of contention is Bargh and Chartrand's misinterpretation of humanistic psychology as proposing a "causal self" as a mediator between the environment and one's responses to it. Such stimulus–organism–response formulations propose that aspects of the organism such as intention or will are shaped by and caused from without or from within by environmental or biological determinants. Thus, humanists cannot be endorsing a mediational model of activity. This misunderstanding by Bargh and Chartrand is important because such a misunderstanding of the debate between humanists and behaviorists allowed Bargh and Chartrand to erroneously subsume the humanists under the conceptual umbrella of mediational behaviorism. According to the present author, Bargh and Chartrand offered a narrow, and in some cases inaccurate, picture of the theoretical underpinnings of automaticity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention in the acquisition and expression of automaticity.

The instance theory of automaticity claims that people learn what they attend to and express what they learned in transfer if they attend to the same things in the same was. These hypotheses were tested in 8 category search experiments in which target position was cued by color (red or green). The main question was whether target color would be encoded in training and retrieved in transfer. After training, recognition memory for target color was above chance, which suggests that color was encoded. However, category search performance was not affected by changing target color unless color was reported explicitly during training and transfer, which suggests that color was not always retrieved. The results are consistent with the instance theory. The distinction between encoding and retrieval is important in understanding the acquisition and expression of automaticity. Automatic performance emphasized speed and so may not be sensitive to things that are retrieved slowly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preface: A new model for the practice of law.

In this Preface, the guest editors of this special theme issue describe the new therapeutic jurisprudence–preventive law model that the issue illustrates and analyzes. They also discuss the organization of the special issue and summarize its contents. Finally, they discuss the significance of the special issue to lawyers, legal educators, and psychologists and other social scientists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The unbearable automaticity of being.

What was noted by E. J. Langer (1978) remains true today: that much of contemporary psychological research is based on the assumption that people are consciously and systematically processing incoming information in order to construe and interpret their world and to plan and engage in courses of action. As did Langer, the authors question this assumption. First, they review evidence that the ability to exercise such conscious, intentional control is actually quite limited, so that most of moment-to-moment psychological life must occur through nonconscious means if it is to occur at all. The authors then describe the different possible mechanisms that produce automatic, environmental control over these various phenomena and review evidence establishing both the existence of these mechanisms as well as their consequences for judgments, emotions, and behavior. Three major forms of automatic self-regulation are identified: an automatic effect of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one's experience. From the accumulating evidence, the authors conclude that these various nonconscious mental systems perform the lion's share of the self-regulatory burden, beneficently keeping the individual grounded in his or her current environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The automaticity of emotion recognition.

Evolutionary accounts of emotion typically assume that humans evolved to quickly and efficiently recognize emotion expressions because these expressions convey fitness-enhancing messages. The present research tested this assumption in 2 studies. Specifically, the authors examined (a) how quickly perceivers could recognize expressions of anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, fear, happiness, pride, sadness, shame, and surprise; (b) whether accuracy is improved when perceivers deliberate about each expression's meaning (vs. respond as quickly as possible); and (c) whether accurate recognition can occur under cognitive load. Across both studies, perceivers quickly and efficiently (i.e., under cognitive load) recognized most emotion expressions, including the self-conscious emotions of pride, embarrassment, and shame. Deliberation improved accuracy in some cases, but these improvements were relatively small. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for the cognitive processes underlying emotion recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Letter from North America. Medical practice and criminal law

Aboriginal communities and their health services should prepare together and in advance for caring for an HIV-infected person. Good social support will be the keystone to successful clinical management. Health care workers must look to Aboriginal people for the lead in developing appropriate responses.     

Aging and the development of automaticity in visual search.

The rate of short-term memory search has previously been reported to be slower for older individuals than for college-age Ss (F. I. Craik, 1977). Current research has suggested that after extensive practice with the same population of stimuli, performance in memory-search and visual-search tasks can become "automatic," or independent of memory load. The present experiment examined age differences in the development of automatic processing in a hybrid memory-search/visual-search paradigm; 8 young (18–25 yrs old) and 8 older (61–74 yrs old) Ss participated. Although older Ss demonstrated a significantly slower rate of search, the 2 age groups shifted toward automatic processing, over practice, at equivalent rates. The slower rate of search thus represents an age-related increase in the time required to compare the memory-set items against those in a visual array, rather than a change in the mode of processing available. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention and automaticity in the processing of self-relevant information.

Studied the neglected aspect of social cognition: the way people select information for further processing from the vast amount available in social environments. A dichotic listening task was used in which 141 undergraduate Ss attended to or ignored self-relevant stimuli. It was found that self-relevant information required fewer attentional resources when presented to the attended channel, but more when presented to the rejected channel, relative to neutral words. This differential capacity allocation occurred despite Ss' lack of awareness of the contents of the rejected channel. Results support the existence and interaction of the 2 processes of attention in social information processing: a control process that regulates the contents of conscious awareness and an automatic process that attracts attention to stimuli without conscious intent. (70 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory-based automaticity in the discrimination of visual numerosity.

In the development of memory-based models of automaticity, it is crucial to specify the nature of the memory representation. Seven experiments with 94 students use a counting task to determine whether a feature (i.e., identity, color, or orientation) is explicitly represented in memory. It is assumed that the degree of transfer to a pattern differing on one feature is determined by that feature's importance in supporting skilled performance. Exp 1 determined the practice necessary to obtain automaticity. In Exps 2a, 3a, and 4a, which investigated the nature of the representation after extended practice, changing neither the identity nor color of elements had strong effects on transfer, but changing pattern orientation did impair memory retrieval, thus suggesting that for the counting task, pattern orientation is more important than element identity or color. Exps 2b, 3b, and 4b replicated these results after limited practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relapse prevention planning principles for criminal law practice.

Recent research in rehabilitation indicates the relative success of cognitive–behavioral models geared to relapse prevention planning. Thus far, most of the successful programs involve persons who are already in prison or on probation. The basic approach to relapse prevention planning is to encourage the offender to analyze the chain of events and behaviors that lead to law-violating behavior and to come up with a plan both to avoid high-risk situations and to deal satisfactorily with such situations if they occur. The author proposes that criminal defense lawyers should become familiar with techniques of relapse prevention planning and use such techniques to work with a client and to propose a probationary plan with relevant, responsive, and workable conditions of probation. This enhances the chance for a probationary disposition, and the very process of attorney–client interaction may begin the rehabilitative process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The law, standards of practice, and ethics in the practice of psychology.

Reviews the book, The law, standards of practice, and ethics in the practice of psychology by David R. Evans (see record 1997-36222-000). The strength of this book, as the title suggests, is its focus on Canadian law, legal precedent, and ethical standards. The book covers, among other things, informed consent, confidentiality, assessment and treatment of children and adults, custody and access assessments, assessment of young offenders and treatment of correctional clients, the practitioner as expert witness, and malpractice. This text is destined to become a standard, and because the law is constantly changing as cases set new precedents, it will have to be revised on a regular basis. In that context, I offer some minor criticisms that are intended to be possibilities for making the text stronger in future revisions: I would suggest that an index of names be added to the present subject index, and an index of the Canadian legal cases cited. At present these cases are merely referenced after each chapter without the page numbers that one would get in an index. There are appendices after most chapters (I counted 14 separate appendices). Next time around, Evans might consider adding a list of appendices, with hints about their contents, after the table of contents. These criticisms aside, laudatory reviewers sometimes say "all psychologists (lawyers, doctors, etc.) should have this book on their shelves." In the case of this new book on legal and ethical rules concerning the practice of psychology in Canada, I can make that claim without hyperbole. For Canadian psychologists, particularly those who transact business with the public, this book is essential. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention, automaticity, and developmental dyscalculia.

People suffering from developmental dyscalculia (DD) show an abnormal pattern of the size congruity effect. They do not display a facilitation component in a numerical Stroop task. In this task, participants are presented with 2 digits that differ both in physical size and numerical value, and they have to compare the digits while ignoring one of the dimensions. The present study examined performance of those with DD and control participants in the numerical Stroop task under cognitive load. The no-load condition replicated previous findings (i.e., lack of facilitation in the physical task for the DD group). Load had opposite effects on interference and facilitation. Load eliminated facilitation and increased interference in the control group. Load increased interference only in the physical task in the DD group. The opposite effect of load on facilitation and interference suggests that these components are related to different cognitive mechanisms. The fact that load produced a DD-like pattern in the control group could suggest that individuals with DD suffer from difficulty in recruiting attention in addition to the deficits in numerical processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exemplar similarity and the development of automaticity

Effects of exemplar similarity on the development of automaticity were investigated with a task in which participants judged the numerosity of random patterns of between 6 and 11 dots. After several days of training, response times were the same at all levels of numerosity, signaling the development of automaticity. In Experiment 1, response times to new patterns were a function of their similarity to old patterns. In Experiment 2, responses to patterns with high within-category similarity became automatized more quickly than responses to patterns with low within-category similarity. In Experiment 3, responses to patterns with high between-category similarity became automatized more slowly than responses to patterns with low between-category similarity. A new theory, the exemplar-based random walk (EBRW) model, was used to explain the results. Combining elements of G. D. Logan's (1988) instance theory of automaticity and R. M. Nosofsky's (1986) generalized context model of categorization, the theory embeds a dynamic similarity-based memory retrieval mechanism within a competitive random walk decision process.     

An analysis of memory-based theories of automaticity.

Memory-based theories of automaticity predict that performance in a memory search task which is automatic will not require a representation of the memory set in working memory. The information contained in working memory was manipulated by inserting an interference task between the presentation of a memory set and a probe stimulus in a memory search task. The interference task prevented rehearsal, necessitating the retrieval of the memory set from long-term memory in variably mapped (VM) conditions. Performance in consistently mapped (CM) conditions provided strong support for memory-based theories of automaticity. With CM practice, both the effects of memory load and the effect of the interference task were eliminated. Furthermore, there was a temporal coupling in the reduction of these two effects with consistent practice. Monte Carlo simulations of memory-based automaticity predict such a temporal coupling. Automaticity is viewed as a continuum reflecting the relative contribution of the direct memory access of past solutions from long-term memory on performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

黄金资源开发投资及融资理论与实践

结合矿业开发投资与融资理论,论述了我国黄金资源开发投资与融资的现状,对中金黄金股份有限公司上市融资的实践予以介绍。     

The automaticity of interpreting Automaticity.

Comments on J. A. Bargh and T. L. Chartrand's (see record 1999-05760-002) treatise on the pervasiveness of automaticity and its relation to self-regulation. While agreeing with Bargh and Chartrand that people do seem to evidence an automaticity of sorts in many behaviors, the present authors disagree with Bargh and Chartrand's interpretation of that automaticity as an empiricist "mechanism." Bargh and Chartrand failed to note that other interpretations are possible for automaticity. Other interpretations of automaticity, founded on philosophical traditions other than empiricism, do exist, and they lead to radically different conclusions. The present authors look at several of the competing interpretations of automaticity, including rationalist and ontological hermeneutics. The conclusions that scientists reach about data are driven as much by the philosophies they implicitly affirm as the data themselves. Before a particular interpretation of automaticity is adopted, psychologists ought to be aware of the different theoretical possibilities that exist and inform such a concept, as well as the conclusions and implications they suggest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inevitability and automaticity: A response to Fisk.

Responds to the comments of A. D. Fisk (see record 1986-16289-001) on the present authors' (see record 1985-27168-001) work on automatic processing of fundamental information. The present authors use the term automaticity as a process by which some attributes of an attended to stimulus are encoded into memory. It is suggested that Fisk's view of automaticity is derived from the study of automatic search mechanisms, particularly as they slowly develop in multiple frame visual search tasks; therefore, several methodological problems that Fisk addresses do not fit the concerns of the present authors or are irrelevant to them. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategies and automaticity: II. Dynamic aspects of strategy adjustment.

Examined the temporal dynamics of strategic adjustment of response criteria by comparing performance in blocked conditions, in which all stimulus-response mappings were either consistent (CM) or varied (VM), to performance in mixed conditions, in which CM and VM items were presented in the same block of trials. The degree of flexibility that Ss exhibit in deploying differential response strategies was examined. Surprisingly, Ss were unable to use a variety of informative pre-cues to rapidly shift between response strategies associated with automatic (CM) and nonautomatic (VM) processing. However, an analysis of sequential dependencies indicated that repetition of stimuli from the same class (CM vs VM) gradually led to shifts in response strategies. These results are interpreted within the framework of an extension of M. Treisman and T. C. Williams's (see record 1984-08523-001) 2-stage criteria adjustment model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategies and automaticity: I. Basic findings and conceptual framework.

Evaluated the contributions of strategic and data-driven factors to skilled performance by manipulating the predictability of the class of stimuli used in a memory search task. In Exp 1, when consistent mapping (CM) and varied mapping (VM) conditions were blocked, large performance differences were observed; however, when CM and VM trials were mixed, performance differences were reduced. In Exp 2, mixed training led to a less skilled performance than blocked training. Moreover, transfer conditions revealed a critical interval for learning to adopt and deploy differential response strategies. Exp 3 demonstrated that the differential response strategies were not stimulus specific. Analysis suggests that skilled performance can be conceptualized as an interaction between enhanced evidence accumulation and strategic setting of response criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)