Working-memory capacity as long-term memory activation: An individual-differences approach.

One explanation of the correlation often observed between working-memory span scores and reading comprehension is that individuals differ in level of activation available for long-term memory units. Two experiments used the fan manipulation to test this idea. In Exp 1, high- and low-working-memory Ss learned a set of unrelated sentences varying in the number of shared concepts (fans) and then performed speeded recognition for those sentences. Low-working-memory Ss showed a larger increase in recognition time as fan increased. When the slope of the fan effect was partialled out of the relationship between working-memory span and verbal abilities, the relationship was reduced to nonsignificance. In Exp 2, Ss learned thematically related sentences that varied in fan. Low-span Ss showed the positive fan effect typically found with thematically unrelated sentences, whereas high-span Ss showed a negative fan effect. The results are discussed in terms of a general capacity theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical access during eye fixations in reading: Effects of word-initial letter sequence.

Tested the constraint hypothesis, which states that lexical access in reading is initiated on the basis of word-initial letter information obtainable in the parafoveal region, in 2 experiments. Ss were 36 college students with normal vision. Eye movements were monitored while Ss read sentences containing target words whose initial trigram (Exp I) or bigram (Exp II) imposed either a high or a low degree of constraint in the lexicon. In contradiction to the hypothesis, high-constraint words (e.g., dwarf) received longer fixations than did low-constraint words (e.g., clown), despite the fact that high-constraint words have an initial letter sequence shared by few other words in the lexicon. A comparison of fixation times in viewing conditions with and without parafoveal letter information showed that the amount of decrease in target fixation time due to prior parafoveal availability was the same for high- and low-constraint targets. It is concluded that increased familiarity of word-initial letter sequence is beneficial to lexical access and that familiarity affects the efficiency of foveal but not parafoveal processing. A list of the sentences used in the 2 experiments is appended. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinctiveness of encoding and recall of text materials.

Four text-recall experiments, involving 243 undergraduates, examined the distinctiveness-of-encoding hypothesis. Exp I investigated the comparative recall of distinctively (DE) vs nondistinctively (NDE) encoded summary sentences and revealed a significantly higher rate of recall for DE summary sentences and associated text material. Exp II combined an activity that required Ss to interact with the semantic base of the text with the DE operations employed in Exp I. Data indicate that each approach resulted in a greater level of recall than a control condition and that the combination of the 2 produced the highest overall recall. Exp III examined possible mechanisms by which semantic content associated with the summary sentences was encoded and recalled. The most facilitative arrangement of activities involved the physical presence of text materials at the time at which the operations on summary sentences took place. Exp IV investigated the role of inspection time and rereading on DE processes. Although controlled inspection time reduced the amount recalled compared with uncontrolled conditions, DE summary sentences still led to a significantly higher rate of recall than NDE sentences. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consistency and restructuring in learning cognitive procedural sequences.

Ss practiced mental arithmetic tasks that were consistent or varied at 2 levels: the sequence of operations and the data for those operations. Exp 1 demonstrated separable benefits of sequence- and data-level consistency. In Exp 2, sequence and data consistency varied within Ss, and the sequence of operations did not match the goal structure. Final performance benefited from consistent data but not from consistent sequence. In Exp 3, sequence consistency varied between Ss. Sequence and data consistency had separable benefits. The results indicate that Ss learn by restructuring given consistent data, but performing operations in consistent sequence improves performance without restructuring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Putting the keyword method in context.

Compared the keyword method of learning new vocabulary with a context method in which the meaning of the new vocabulary items had to be inferred from a meaningful context. In Exp I, with 69 undergraduates, the keyword method produced greater definition recall than the context method, even when such recall was conditionalized on context Ss' correct discovery of the word's meaning. Combining the keyword method with the context method significantly improved recall over that of context alone but produced recall below that displayed by the keyword method alone. For Ss high in verbal ability, as assessed by the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the keyword method did not promote significantly better recall than a no-strategy control condition. In Exp II, with 42 Ss, the keyword and context methods were evaluated in terms of how adequately the vocabulary could be used in sentences. Both methods led to highly adequate use of vocabulary in sentences, given that the word's meaning could be recalled. As in Exp I, the keyword method produced significantly greater definition recall than the context method. Implications for vocabulary learning theories and discovery learning approaches are discussed. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physiological arousal, dissonance, and attitude change: Evidence for a dissonance-arousal link and a "Don't remind me" effect.

Two experiments, with 80 undergraduates, replicated and extended research by R. T. Croyle and J. Cooper (see record 1984-11595-001) indicating that cognitive dissonance involves physiological arousal. In Exp I, Ss wrote counterattitudinal essays under conditions of high or low choice and, to assess arousal effects owing to effort, with or without a list of arguments provided by the experimenter. In high-choice conditions only and regardless of effort, Ss showed both arousal (heightened galvanic skin response) and attitude change. Arousal, however, did not decline following attitude change. The more effortful task (no arguments provided) produced increased arousal but not greater attitude change. In Exp II, the opportunity to change one's attitude following a freely chosen counterattitudinal essay was manipulated. As in Exp I, arousal increased following the essay but did not decline following a postessay attitude change opportunity. When Ss were not given an attitude change opportunity, however, arousal did decline. It is suggested that if dissonance is a drive state, drive reduction typically may be accomplished through gradual cognitive change or forgetting. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood effects on attitude judgments: Independent effects of mood before and after message elaboration.

Investigated the independent effects of induced mood on the encoding of persuasive messages and on the assessment of attitude judgments. In Exp 1, positive or negative mood was induced either before the encoding of a counterattitudinal message or before the assessment of attitude judgments. When mood was induced before message presentation, Ss in a bad mood were more persuaded by strong than by weak arguments, whereas Ss in a good mood were equally persuaded by strong and by weak arguments. When Ss encoded the message in a neutral mood, however, the advantage of strong over weak arguments was more pronounced when Ss were in a good rather than in a bad mood at the time of attitude assessment. In Exp 2, Ss exposed to a counterattitudinal message composed of either strong or weak arguments formed either a global evaluation or a detailed representation of the message. Positive, negative, or neutral mood was then induced. Ss in a good mood were most likely and Ss in a negative mood least likely to base their reported attitudes on global evaluations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of performance attributions on others' perceptions of the attributor.

Two studies investigated the effects that performers' attributions actually have on others' impressions. 441 undergraduates served as Ss. "Self-serving" internal attributions for success and external attributions for failure produced slightly higher ability evaluations than did the opposite pattern in 1 of the 2 experiments. However, in both experiments, these self-serving attributions produced lower ratings on a modesty dimension. External attributions were also perceived as relatively dishonest for all Ss in Exp I and for unsuccessful Ss in Exp II. Publicity (Exp I) and task variables (Exp II) did not affect ability, modesty, or honesty judgments made from performance attributions but did strongly affect the influence these dimensions had on overall likability evaluations. In general, Ss who made internal attributions tended to be better liked than those who made external attributions. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed relative to self-presentational considerations. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reasoning and secondary reinforcement in 6–7-year-olds and 10–11-year-olds.

Conducted 2 experiments to investigate the 1st author's cognitive theory of secondary reinforcement effects, which predicts that Ss of a preoperational age (i.e., younger than 7 yrs) should not necessarily learn responses followed by a stimulus object previously instrumental in obtaining a reward, while Ss of a postoperational age should do so. Using 24 1st and 24 5th graders in 2 learning tasks, the prediction was confirmed. Furthermore, verbal responses indicated that the logical operations that presumably influenced the behavior of the older children actually did occur. In Exp II, using 28 2nd and 15 6th graders, the training task was simplified in order to try to facilitate logical reasoning, but the behavior of the younger Ss was not affected. It is concluded that secondary reinforcement of a stimulus–response associative type has yet to be demonstrated, and that secondary reinforcement of a cognitive type is heavily dependent on reasoning ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sequential attributional feedback and children's achievement behaviors.

Determined how the sequence of ability and effort attributional feedback influenced task motivation, attributions for success, self-efficacy, and skillful performance in 80 elementary school Ss (aged 8 yrs 2 mo to 10 yrs 5 mo) in 2 experiments. In Exp I, 40 Ss lacking subtraction skills received training and problem-solved over 4 sessions. During the problem solving, Group 1 (ability-ability) periodically received ability feedback; Group 2 (effort-effort) received little effort feedback; Group 3 (ability-effort) was given ability feedback during the 1st 2 sessions and effort feedback during the last 2; Group 4 (effort-ability) had this sequence reversed. In Exp II, 40 Ss (chosen with the same criteria as in Exp I) followed the same procedures except they were asked about their perceptions of success or failure following training. Results for both experiments show that Ss in Groups 1 and 3 developed higher ability attributions, self-efficacy, and subtraction skills compared with Ss in Groups 2 and 4. The sequence of attributional feedback did not differentially affect motivation, effort attributions, or perceptions of training successes. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Positive mood and persuasion: Different roles for affect under high- and low-elaboration conditions.

Two experiments examined the processes by which positive mood influences attitude change under high and low message elaboration conditions. To examine elaboration, Exp 1 included individuals who differed in their need for cognition, and Exp 2 manipulated the relevance of the message. In each study, Ss were exposed to a persuasive communication following a positive or neutral mood induction. In both studies, positive mood produced more positive attitudes toward the advocacy, but positive mood influenced the positivity of Ss' thoughts only under high-elaboration conditions. Path analyses showed that positive mood had a direct effect on attitudes in the low-elaboration conditions but influenced attitudes indirectly by modifying the positivity of thoughts in the high-elaboration conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of source magnification of cognitive effort on attitudes: An information-processing view.

In Exp I 120 undergraduates viewed a videotape of 1 or 3 speakers presenting 1 or 3 arguments in favor of a counterattitudinal position. The 3-source/3-argument message produced significantly more persuasion than any of the other conditions, which did not differ from each other. It is suggested that each time a speaker appears, the recipient "gears up" to process the message and that if either speaker or argument is repeated, further thinking about the arguments is minimal. Exp II (30 Ss) excluded an alternative to this processing interpretation by showing that Ss exposed to the multiple-source/multiple-argument message did not infer that the pool of proproposal arguments was larger than that inferred by other Ss. In Exp III (100 Ss), Ss exposed to 3 compelling arguments purportedly produced by 3 different persons generated more positive thoughts and were more persuaded than Ss who read the same high quality arguments presumably generated by 1 person. However, Ss exposed to 3 weak arguments purportedly produced by 3 different persons generated more negative thoughts and were less persuaded than Ss who read the same low quality arguments attributed to 1 source. Overall, results indicate that increasing the number of sources of a message increases thinking about the message content. This increased thinking can result in either increased or decreased persuasion, depending on the cogency of the message arguments. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of need for cognition on message evaluation, recall, and persuasion.

Studied the relation among need for cognition (NFC), message processing, and persuasion. 57 pairs of undergraduates holding approximately the same attitude toward instituting senior comprehensive exams but differing widely in their scores on a NFC scale participated in Exp I. Ss read a set of either strong or weak arguments supporting the recommendation that senior comprehensive exams be instituted. Results reveal that argument quality had a greater impact on the message evaluations and source impressions provided by Ss high than by those low in NFC and that Ss high in NFC reported expending more cognitive effort and recalled more message arguments regardless of argument quality. The findings from Exp I were replicated in Exp II (110 female undergraduates) with a different topic (i.e., raising student tuition) and cover story. The inclusion of a postcommunication attitude measure revealed that the attitudes of Ss high in NFC were more affected by argument quality than those of Ss low in NFC. These studies document a reliable difference among individuals in their tendency to derive information from and elaborate on externally provided message arguments. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Central and peripheral routes to persuasion: An individual difference perspective.

Examined individual differences in intrinsic motivation to engage in effortful cognitive endeavors in 2 experiments involving 293 undergraduates. Results of Exp I indicate that Ss high in need for cognition were more likely to think about and elaborate cognitively on issue-relevant information when forming attitudes than were Ss low in need for cognition. Analyses further indicated that Ss low in need for cognition acted as cognitive misers rather than as verbal dolts. In Exp II, individual differences in need for cognition were used to test the prediction from the elaboration likelihood model that Ss who tend to engage in extensive issue-relevant thinking when formulating their position on an issue tend to exhibit stronger attitude–behavior correspondence. Results confirm this hypothesis: The attitudes of Ss high in need for cognition, which were obtained in a survey completed approximately 8 wks before the 1984 presidential election, were more predictive of behavioral intentions and reported voting behavior than were the attitudes of Ss low in need for cognition. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reorganization and the recall of prose.

The hypothesis that reorganizing written material while taking notes would aid free recall was evaluated in 2 experiments with high school juniors. 82 Ss read a passage on anthropology organized either by society or by topic. They were then instructed to take notes either (a) in the same order as the material was presented or (b) by reorganizing the information according to specified categories. Free recall was higher for Ss who reorganized the material. In Exp II, with 146 Ss, the effect persisted when the categories were given to Ss in all conditions. Ss of average verbal aptitude benefited from reorganizing to a greater extent than did Ss of higher verbal aptitude. Results are discussed in terms of the encoding variability hypothesis. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion.

In Exp I, 183 undergraduates read a persuasive message from a likable or unlikable communicator who presented 6 or 2 arguments on 1 of 2 topics. High involvement (HI) Ss anticipated discussing the message topic at a future experimental session, whereas low-involvement (LI) Ss anticipated discussing a different topic. For HI Ss, opinion change was significantly greater given 6 arguments but was unaffected by communicator likability. For LI Ss, opinion change was significantly greater given a likable communicator but was unaffected by the argument's manipulation. In Exp II with 80 similar Ss, HI Ss showed slightly greater opinion change when exposed to 5 arguments from an unlikable (vs 1 argument from a likable) communicator, whereas LI Ss exhibited significantly greater persuasion in response to 1 argument from a likable (vs 5 arguments from an unlikable) communicator. Findings support the idea that HI leads message recipients to employ a systematic information processing strategy in which message-based cognitions mediate persuasion, whereas LI leads recipients to use a heuristic processing strategy in which simple decision rules mediate persuasion. Support was also obtained for the hypothesis that content- vs source-mediated opinion change would result in greater persistence. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Grammatical awareness in the spoken and written language of language-disabled children.

Two experiments examined judgment, revision, and error-identification deficits in relation to expressive language skills and morphemic errors in writing. 12 language-disabled (LND) children (aged 8 yrs 2 mo to 12 yrs 4 mo) and 11 controls (aged 6 yrs 3 mo to 6 yrs 11 mo) matched for language ability participated in Exp 1. 11 LND children (aged 9 yrs 1 mo to 12 yrs 2 mo), 11 age-matched children with no language disability, and 11 children (aged 6 yrs 2 mo to 8 yrs 0 mo) matched to LND Ss for language ability participated in Exp 2. LND Ss who did not lack expressive use of target morphemes also did not differ from language-matched Ss in their ability to (1) judge the grammaticality of spoken sentences, (2) revise them, and (3) identify errors. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal adjustment and the free recall of materials with affectively positive or negative meaningfulness.

Conducted 2 experiments on the role of affective assessment in human verbal learning. In Exp I, 40 high school students grouped according to Tennessee Self-Concept Scale scores were given consonant-vowel-consonant trigrams as learnable items. Ss with high self-concepts learned the trigrams they liked more rapidly than disliked trigrams. Ss with low self-concepts reversed this customary pattern and learned disliked trigrams more rapidly than liked trigrams. In Exp II, 64 undergraduates who had completed the Barron Ego-Strength scale were given real words as learnable materials. Results showed that it was possible for the same S to learn certain words along a negative and other words along a positive reinforcement-value sequence. This depended upon whether the word meanings involved reflected a problem area or an area of competence for the Ss being studied. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pictures in sentences: Understanding without words.

In 5 experiments with a total of 120 Ss of college age, sentences were presented in which a pictured object replaced a word (rebus sentences). Sentences were shown using rapid serial visual presentation at a rate of 10 or 12 words/second. With one set of materials (Exp I and II), Ss took longer to judge the plausibility of rebus sentences than all-word sentences, although the accuracy of judgment and of recall were similar for the 2 formats. With 2 new sets of materials (Exps III and V), rebus and all-word sentences were virtually equivalent except in 1 circumstance: when a picture replaced the noun in a familiar phrase such as seedless grapes. In contrast, when the task required overt naming of the rebus picture in a sentence context, latency to name the picture was markedly longer than to name the corresponding word, and the appropriateness of the sentence context affected picture naming but not word naming (Exp IV). It is concluded that the results fail to support theories that place word meanings in a specialized lexical entry. Instead, the results suggest that the lexical representation of a noun or familiar noun phrase provides a pointer to a nonlinguistic conceptual system, and it is in that system that the meaning of a sentence is constructed. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)