Additional "post mortem" tests of experimental comparisons.

Scheffe's technique for assessing all possible combinations of mean comparisons after the analysis of variance is judged to be overly conservative for most comparisons of interest to psychologists. Techniques yielding more sensitive tests of comparisons are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-hypnosis versus heterohypnosis: Experiential and behavioral comparisons.

In a study of experiential and behavioral differences between autohypnosis and heterohypnosis, standard group autohypnotic and heterohypnotic experiences were administered to 48 college students in counter-balanced order. Self-report measures of behavioral and subjective responses were obtained for each experience, and the total scores were compared. The experiential scores were also factor analyzed for each type of hypnosis. Behavioral total scores were comparable. Inexperienced Ss were as able to hypnotize themselves as to be hypnotized by another. Scores on "challenge" items were also comparable, whereas items suggesting positive actions showed greater variability. Factor analyses showed that the subjective experiences were generally similar. Heterohypnosis evoked more feelings of unawareness, passivity, and loss of control. Self-hypnosis elicited more feelings of time distortion, disorientation, active direction and trance variability. Conclusions are drawn that the procedures labeled self-hypnosis and heterohypnosis are indeed similar in most behavioral and phenomenological effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Making interpretable forgetting comparisons: Explicit versus hidden assumptions.

G. R. Loftus (see record 1986-05498-001), R. S. Bogartz (see record 1990-09037-001), and others have questioned forgetting comparisons based on tests of interaction between retention and a second variable. A method for comparing forgetting between conditions on the basis of an article by N. H. Anderson (1963) is presented here. The shape method compares the underlying "shapes" of the performance curves. Anderson's shape method is outlined for memory studies, and its inherent assumptions are stated. A statistical test is developed to apply the shape method to realistic situations in which zero retention interval or asymptotic performance data are not available. A power analysis varied the memory curve shape, sample size, and standard deviation and demonstrated the method's ability to detect shape differences. Application to a recent study claiming a forgetting difference yielded the opposite conclusion. Theoretical and practical limitations of Loftus's and Bogartz's methods are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Item versus associative information: Further comparisons of forgetting rates.

Four experiments are reported that extend previous research and firmly demonstrate that item information is more susceptible to decay or interference than is associative information. The forgetting rate for single words is shown to be greater than the forgetting rate for associations between random pairs of words in a continuous recognition paradigm using both yes–no (Exp 1) and forced-choice (Exps 2 and 3) test procedures. Item recognition is also shown to decline more than associative discrimination between an immediate and an end-of-session delayed test in the study–test paradigm. The findings provide further empirical support for a process-oriented distinction between item and associative information and pose a challenge for global matching models of recognition memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mnemonic theories of hippocampal function.

Although mnemonic interpretations of hippocampal function in people have been readily accepted for many years, similar interpretations of hippocampal function in animals have received a number of challenges. This article reviews two of these challenges, shows how they were resolved in favor of some kind of mnemonic interpretation, and then suggests ways in which these types of interpretations must change in order to encompass new data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit versus explicit frequency comparisons: Two mechanisms of auditory change detection.

Listeners had to compare, with respect to pitch (frequency), a pure tone (T) to a combination of pure tones presented subsequently (C). The elements of C were either synchronous, and therefore difficult to hear out individually, or asynchronous and therefore easier to hear out individually. In the “present/absent” condition, listeners had to judge if T reappeared in C or not. In the “up/down” condition, the task was to judge if the element of C most similar to T was higher or lower than T. When the elements of C were synchronous, the up/down task was found to be easier than the present/absent task; the converse result was obtained when the elements of C were asynchronous. This provides evidence for a duality of auditory comparisons between tone frequencies: (1) implicit comparisons made by automatic and direction-sensitive “frequency-shift detectors”; (2) explicit comparisons more sensitive to the magnitude of a frequency change than to its direction. Another experiment suggests that although the frequency-shift detectors cannot compare effectively two tones separated by an interfering tone, they are largely insensitive to interfering noise bursts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mnemonic techniques in second-language learning.

Reviews methods, results, and various issues associated with the use of mnemonic techniques in 2nd-language learning. The historical background of mnemonic techniques in 2nd-language learning is reviewed. Two specific imagery-based mnemonics, the keyword and the hook techniques are described with a review of empirical evidence for their effectiveness. Various theoretical interpretations of the effects of the 2 mnemonic techniques on 2nd-language learning are discussed. Practical implications of such research for the problem of transfer of learning to naturalistic situations, the generalizability of current empirical findings and procedures to other types of verbal materials, and extensions to settings other than the experimental laboratory, (e.g., the classrooms) are discussed. (64 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning by doing versus learning by viewing: Three experimental comparisons of learner-generated versus author-provided graphic organizers.

Do students learn more deeply from a passage when they attempt to construct their own graphic organizers (i.e., learning by doing) than when graphic organizers are provided (i.e., learning by viewing)? In 3 experiments, learners were tested on retention and transfer after reading a passage with author-provided graphic organizers or when asked to construct graphic organizers. In Experiment 1 (highest complexity), there were 27 author-provided graphic organizers or margin space for constructing graphic organizers. In Experiment 2 (intermediate complexity), there were 18 author-provided graphic organizers or 18 corresponding graphic organizer templates. In Experiment 3 (lowest complexity), there were 10 author-provided graphic organizers or 10 corresponding graphic organizer templates. On transfer, the effect size favored the author-provided group (Experiment 1: d = 0.24, ns; Experiment 2: d = 0.43, p     

Mnemonic organization in young nonpsychotic schizophrenics.

Describes 2 experiments with 18-27 yr old nonpsychotic schizophrenics (n = 32), nonschizophrenic psychiatric patients (n = 112), and nonhospitalized normals (n = 32). In Exp. I, Ss were given repeated free-recall trials of 20 "unrelated" words and of 20 categorized words. The schizophrenics' recall and mnemonic organization, as indexed by measures of subjective organization, categorical clustering, and hierarchical clustering schemes, were both inferior to those of the normals and, to some extent, to those of the nonschizophrenics. While the normals and nonschizophrenics tended to build up higher-order mnemonic units with trials, this trend was weak in the schizophrenics. In Exp. II, nonpsychotic schizophrenics and normals engaged in repeated recognition tasks of 40 words and 40 consonant-vowel-consonant trigrams. The recognition memory of the schizophrenics was the same as that of the normals, in spite of contextual variations of the study and test lists. Results are interpreted on the basis of the 2-process theory of recall as supporting the view that the basic deficit of schizophrenia in mnemonic processing is a difficulty in unitizing the material. (36 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mnemonic organization and free recall in schizophrenia.

Investigated word-storage structure and processes of organization and retrieval in 17 young schizophrenics (mean age 26.5 yrs) and 13 normal Ss (mean age 25.7 yrs). Ss were required to establish a stable organization of 25 unrelated words through repeated, self-paced sortings into self-determined categories. Subsequently, they were asked for free recall of the words. The schizophrenics required significantly more trials to complete the sorting task, but once this was achieved they recalled as many words in equally regular order as the normals did. The groups did not differ in regard to organizational structure in the sortings as assessed by hierarchical structure analysis. It is concluded that a schizophrenic deficit of mnemonic organization is indicated, possibly due to difficulties in maintaining a stable system of categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outpatient commitment: Additional concerns.

The E. P. Mulvey et al (see record 1987-32366-001) evaluation of involuntary commitment to outpatient treatment of the chronic mentally ill gave inadequate attention to the social systems of clients in the community and underestimated the complexity of implementing a policy of involuntary outpatient commitment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Mnemonic Method for Learning a Second-Language Vocabulary.

Four experiments evaluate the effectiveness of a two-stage mnemonic procedure, the keyword method, for learning foreign language vocabulary. Stage 1, the acoustic link stage, involves associating the spoken foreign word to an English "keyword" that sounds like some part of the foreign word. Stage 2, the imagery link stage, requires the formation of a mental image of the keyword interacting with the English translation. The experiments compare the keyword method with various control procedures for learning a Spanish vocabulary. In all cases, the keyword method proved to be highly effective, yielding in one experiment a final test score of 88% correct for the keyword group compared to 28% for the control group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mnemonic instruction, with a focus on transfer.

The authors conducted 4 experiments to examine mnemonic transfer in the form of knowledge generalization, in the context of an artwork-learning task. In each experiment, college students first studied a set of painting–artist name pairs using an adaptation of the face–name mnemonic technique. Immediate and 2-day delayed performance measures consisted of (a) tests over the studied paintings (memory) and (b) new tests over sets of nonstudied, yet thematically or stylistically similar, paintings by the same artists (transfer). In all 4 experiments mnemonic instruction produced memory benefits on a direct test over the studied paintings. Moreover, Experiments 1–3 indicated that on the transfer task mnemonic students who were directed to focus on the general theme or style of the artist outperformed both nonmnemonic control students and mnemonic students who focused on details of the paintings. Finally, the results of Experiment 4 further suggested that even when mnemonic-detail students are specifically informed about the nature of the forthcoming near-transfer task, their transfer performance is not facilitated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychological comparisons of Spanish-speaking participants from the U.S.-Mexico border region versus Spain

Two samples of participants from the U.S.-Mexico Borderland (N = 185) versus Spain (N = 205) were compared on 16 Spanish-language neuropsychological measures. In most measures the two samples obtained similar results. There were some significant main effects of place of birth and some significant interactions between education and place of birth. Differences between the samples diminished with increasing levels of education. Within the Borderland sample, percent of life span spent in the U.S. and bilingual status were correlated with performance in some tests. Increased percent of life span spent in the U.S. was negatively correlated with performance on a Spanish word-generation task, and positively correlated with performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Bilingual Borderland participants performed significantly better than monolingual speakers in learning a list of words. We suggest that the most likely causes for the observed interaction effects are documented regional differences in early SES-related nutrition, medical care, quality of educational experiences, and general socioeconomic conditions.     

Understanding metaphorical comparisons: Beyond similarity.

Traditionally, metaphors such as "my job is a jail" have been treated as implicit similes (i.e., this metaphor would be treated as if it were a comparison statement, "my job is like a jail"). A. Tversky's (1977) account of similarity is applied to such nonliteral similarity expressions, and is shown to apply as readily to nonliteral comparisons as to literal comparisons. But treating metaphors as comparison statements fails to account for certain important phenomena, including metaphoricity itself (the judgment that a comparison statement is nonliteral). We argue that metaphors are exactly what they appear to be: class-inclusion assertions, in which the topic of the metaphor (e.g., "my job") is assigned to a diagnostic category (e.g., entities that confine one against one's will, are unpleasant, are difficult to escape from). In such assertions, the metaphor vehicle (e.g., "jail") refers to that category, and at the same time is a prototypical exemplar of that category. This account of metaphor provides a basis for a theory of metaphor comprehension, and also clarifies why people use metaphors instead of similes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading skill: Some adult comparisons.

Three groups of college readers were compared on several information-processing and language comprehension tasks that tap the cognitive components of reading. The groups were skilled readers with high verbal and nonverbal abilities, low-skilled readers with a disparity between verbal and nonverbal abilities, and low-skilled readers who were low in both verbal and nonverbal ability. Results confirm the importance of word processing and general language comprehension in distinguishing skilled from less skilled readers. Results also support the view that reading ability is best described as a continuous function and provide evidence of the reemergence of lower level processing skills in adults as a function of text difficulty. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unfair comparisons.

Suggests that when organizational researchers competitively test 2 or more theories, or compare the predictive or relational strength of 2 or more factors or variables, the results can lead them to conclude that one theory or variable is stronger than the other(s). It is argued that such conclusions can be insensitive to a potential alternative explanation of the results: The stronger theory, factor, or variable was favored by being more strongly operationalized, manipulated, or measured. This can render the comparative study into a test of a poorly framed empirical question, the results of which are at least partial artifacts of the procedures, manipulations, or measures used. Four illustrations of this alternative explanation of comparative results are drawn from recent manipulation-based (disadvantaged theories due to procedural nonequivalence and unclear comparisons of factors due to unassessed distributional equivalence) and measurement-based (disadvantaged variables due to procedural nonequivalence and to procedural and distributional nonequivalence) studies of organizational behavior. Generic procedures are described than can make for fairer comparisons. Some possible points of misunderstanding regarding the authors' arguments (e.g., all differential support is artifactual) are addressed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A is for apple: Mnemonic symbols hinder the interpretation of algebraic expressions.

This study examined how literal symbols affect students' understanding of algebraic expressions. Middle school students (N = 322) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions in which they were asked to interpret an expression (e.g., 4c + 3b) in a story problem. Each literal symbol represented the price of an item. In the c-and-b condition, the symbols used were the 1st letters of the items (e.g., price of a cake in dollars = c; price of a brownie in dollars = b). In the other 2 conditions, c and b were replaced with nonmnemonic English letters (x and y) or Greek letters (Φ and Ψ). Incorrect interpretations of the expression were most common among students in the c-and-b condition. Moreover, students in this condition were more likely than students in the other conditions to misinterpret the symbols as labels for objects (e.g., c stands for cake). An analysis of participating students' textbooks revealed that mnemonic symbols were used correctly and were not uncommon. Results suggest that the use of mnemonic symbols may hinder students' interpretation of algebraic expressions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)