Intrapair imagery effects in verbal discrimination and incidental associative learning.

Administered 4 study-test trials to 80 17-38 yr. Old students on a verbal discrimination learning (vdl) task where the items varied in imagery (i) value. Ss were then tested for incidental associative learning. The 32-pair mixed list consisted of 8 pairs of high-i and 8 pairs of low-i nouns, and 16 pairs in which 1 item was high-i and the other low-i. For 1/2 of the latter pairs the high-i word was correct. Significantly more errors occurred during vdl with homogeneous low-i pairs than with the other 3 pair types, which did not differ reliably from each other. Incidental associative learning was highest for homogeneous high-i pairs, and stimulus i was more effective than response i when the stimuli had been wrong but not when they had been right during prior vdl. The latter condition was characterized particularly by sharply depressed performance on high-i-low-i pairs. The vdl results are discussed in terms of imagery and frequency hypotheses, and the associative memory data in terms of the effects of the experimental conditions on the amount of attention devoted to 1 or both members during vdl. (french summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual learning style and learning proficiency: A test of the hypothesis.

Given the potential importance of using modality preference with instruction, the authors tested whether learning style preference correlated with memory performance in each of 3 sensory modalities: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. In Study 1, participants completed objective measures of pictorial, auditory, and tactile learning and learning style self-assessments. The results indicate that objective test performance did not correlate with learning style preference. In Study 2, the authors examined in more detail the information participants used to answer the learning style self-assessment. The findings indicate that participants answered the inventory using general memories and beliefs rather than specific examples of learning in different modalities. These results challenge the hypothesis that individuals learn best with material presented in a particular sensory modality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pictures, imagery, and retarded children's prose learning.

96 10–16 yr old educable mental retardates were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental conditions to listen to a 20-sentence story: Picture Ss viewed illustrations of the story, imagery Ss were instructed to generate mental pictures of the story, repetition control Ss heard each sentence of the story twice, and control Ss simply listened to the story once. Planned comparisons revealed that picture Ss recalled more story information than did Ss in all other groups. Differences among the other conditions, age by conditions interactions, and age differences per se were not statistically significant. A number of theoretically and practically interesting issues are discussed in the context of recent prose learning findings with normal children. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental handedness and relative hand skill: A test of the developmental instability hypothesis.

In previous studies (e.g, R. A. Yeo et al; see record 1993-40422-001), both left-handers and extreme right-handers showed evidence of increased developmental instability, as indexed by minor physical anomalies and by specific fluctuating anatomic asymmetries. Thus, developmental instability may be an important factor affecting handedness. In the present study, a specific prediction of the developmental instability model of handedness, one that distinguishes it from the single-gene models of M. Annett (1985) and I. C. McManus (see record 1986-21280-001), was tested among 225 undergraduates. The model suggests that the degree of deviation from modal handedness, rather than direction of handedness, is heritable. Thus, it was hypothesized that extreme right-handers as well as left-handers have an elevated proportion of left-handed parents. Results supported this hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of hypothesis testing in children's discriminative learning: A study of the development of problem-solving strategies.

Reports on 3 studies of elementary school children's problem-solving procedures in intentional discrimination tasks. Obtaining verbalizations of hypotheses on every trial made possible detailed analyses of the techniques used by the children to solve the problems. Exps I and II investigated the procedures used by 192 children in 2 age groups (about 7.5 and 10.5 yrs). These children not only used current stimulus information efficiently, but they also showed a reliable tendency, stronger in the older group, to permanently reject hypotheses that failed. Such use of hypothesis memory indicates strategic information processing. However, these same children failed to show an ideal problem-solving strategy, such as "focusing," or to make any use of stimulus memory. In Exp III, 49 5-yr-olds' performances were observed. These children showed the ability to use current information appropriately. However, unlike the older children, they failed to use hypothesis memory strategically. In fact, the kindergartners exhibited a counterproductive and contrasting tendency to resample previously rejected hypotheses. The findings are discussed as they relate to an understanding of problem solving and its development in children. A critical analysis of previous methodology and conclusions is included. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental interpretation of young children's noncompliance.

This study examined developmental changes in maternal control strategies and children's responses to maternal directives and associations between the interactive strategies of mothers and children. The subjects were 70 dyads consisting of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their 1?- to 3?-year-old children. Data on parent and child behaviors were coded from videotapes of spontaneous interactions in a naturalistic apartment setting. Developmental analyses of maternal control strategies indicated a shift from the physical to the verbal modalities with age. Maternal explanations, bargaining, and reprimands increased with age and distraction decreased with age. Developmental changes in children's responses to control were consistent with a social skill perspective on children's noncompliance. Passive noncompliance and direct defiance decreased with age, whereas negotiation, the relatively more sophisticated form of resistance, increased with age. Mothers' use of reasoning and suggestion were associated with the children's use of negotiation as a form of resistance, whereas relatively direct maternal strategies were associated with the children's defiant responses. Girls were more compliant than boys, but only in families with well, rather than depressed, mothers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the declining interest hypothesis.

Responds to the comment by A. Rowan and K. J. Shapiro (see record 1997-07159-001) on H. A. Herzog's (see record 1996-13937-001) examination of media coverage of the animal rights movement. Herzog agrees with Rowan and Shapiro's assessment of the movement's impact on popular culture and contemporary attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Herzog states that the amount of coverage in print media represents a fairly crude reflection of the cultural status of a grassroots social movement. However, he offers the meager turnout for the 1996 "March for the Animals" as an excellent test of the "declining interest hypothesis." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental imagery verbal processes: A developmental study.

Administered a battery of 9 tests, including verbal and imaginal measures, to 200 children in Grades 1-5 at 2 private suburban elementary schools. Results reveal that verbal processes and mental imagery developed in a curvilinear manner with parallel rates of change. Factor analyses also showed that the 2 components of imagery (cognitive and subjective) were distinct from each other and from verbal abilities. Conclusions drawn from this data support the theory of Piaget (1971) and A. Paivio (1971) claiming that verbal and imaginal processes are independent traits whose development parallels each other rather than one (imagery) being the predecessor of the other (verbal) as stated by J. S. Bruner (1966). (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological recoding and orthographic learning: A direct test of the self-teaching hypothesis

According to the self-teaching hypothesis (Share, 1995), word-specific orthographic representations are acquired primarily as a result of the self-teaching opportunities provided by the phonological recoding of novel letter strings. This hypothesis was tested by asking normal second graders to read aloud short texts containing embedded pseudoword targets. Three days later, target spellings were correctly identified more often, named more quickly, and spelled more accurately than alternate homophonic spellings. Experiment 2 examined whether this rapid orthographic learning can be attributed to mere visual exposure to target strings. It was found that viewing the target letter strings under conditions designed to minimize phonological processing significantly attenuated orthographic learning. Experiment 3 went on to show that this reduced orthographic learning was not attributable to alternative nonphonological factors (brief exposure durations or decontextualized presentation). The results of a fourth experiment suggested that the contribution of pure visual exposure to orthographic learning is marginal. It was concluded that phonological recoding is critical to the acquisition of word-specific orthographic representations as proposed by the self-teaching hypothesis.     

A test of the complementarity hypothesis in A-B research.

Results of a study with 48 male undergraduates fail to support J. Berzin and E. Seidman's (see record 1969-13028-001) complementarity hypothesis, which predicts that it would be more beneficial to pair therapists with patients on the basis of dissimilar reactions to stress. Rather, the data tend to support the notion of greater effectiveness of "A" therapists, or the "super-A" hypothesis of G. M. Chartier and W. Weiss (see record 1974-28173-001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Configural processes in human associative learning.

The extent to which human discrimination learning is based on elemental or configural stimulus representations was examined in 7 experiments. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants were able to learn nonlinear discrimination problems in a food-allergy task. In unique-cue theories, such learning is explained by individual stimulus elements acquiring independent connections with the outcome and also combining to form unique cues that function elementally. In Stage 1 of Experiments 2, 3, and 4a–c, Food A signaled an allergy outcome (O) (A?→?O) when presented alone but signaled no allergy (AB?→?no O) when paired with Food B. In Stage 2, Food B was paired with the allergy (B?→?0). In a test phase, the original discrimination between A and AB was found to be intact, at variance with the unique-cue theory. By contrast, in Experiments 5a, 5b, and 6, an effect of the B?→?O trials on the A–AB discrimination was observed with training procedures previously found by D. A. Williams (1995) to encourage elemental processing. Experiment 7 showed that the influence of B?→?0 trials on the A–AB discrimination was unaffected by pretreatments designed to foster an elemental processing strategy.… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reexamination of the role of imagery in learning and memory.

Five experiments were conducted to examine whether the superior recall of concrete over abstract words might be better accounted for in terms of relative differences in the processing of relational and distinctive information rather than redundant verbal and imaginal memory codes. Concrete and abstract word pairs were presented in the standard paired-associated learning task or under conditions intended to affect the nature and extent of relational processing between pair members. Concreteness effects were attenuated or eliminated when relational processing was prevented at encoding (Experiments 3, 4, and 5) or when the use of encoded relations within pairs was prevented at recall (Experiments 1, 2, and 3). The results indicated the viability of an account of concreteness effects in paired-associate learning based on the joint functions of distinctive and relational information. They also remove theoretical constraints imposed on imagery theories by the incorrect assumption of a uniform presence of concreteness effects in memory for word lists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A biased test of the encoding shift hypothesis.

A recognition memory experiment with 72 8-, 11-, and 20-yr-olds investigated the hypothesis that with age, semantic encoding becomes increasingly important relative to acoustic encoding. Target words were paired with words related either semantically or acoustically in order to bias encoding in the direction of features common to both words. In support of the encoding shift hypothesis, recognition accuracy improved with age when encoding was biased semantically relative to accuracy when encoding was biased acoustically. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Projection: A test of the psychoanalytic hypothesis.

Investigated classical Freudian projection with 83 male and 105 female college students. After completing the Sexual Defensiveness Scale, Ss selected a most unfavorable other from a group of photographs. The experimental Ss then examined a portfolio containing pornographic material. Following this, all Ss described an unfavorable other and themselves according to a standard list of trait rating scales. Results show that higher sexually defensive experimental Ss denied being sexually aroused and, in accordance with the psychoanalytic hypothesis, projected the highest amounts of arousal (the trait lustful) onto an unfavorable other. This effect was significantly increased when the unfavorable other was a male target and was further increased when female Ss rated male targets. Findings offer support for the concept of classical projection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some phenomena of associative learning in honeybees.

Two experiments present data on extinction in 111 free-flying honeybees previously reinforced for landing on distinctively colored and scented targets. A variety of phenomena familiar from the study of vertebrate learning, such as the overlearning-extinction effect, the partial reinforcement effect, overshadowing, summation, and conditioned inhibition, are described, and their significance is considered. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Joking riddles: A developmental index of children's humor.

Administered joking riddles selected for aggressive, dependent, and neutral content to a total of 48 children of bright normal intellect in Grades 1, 3, and 5. From Grade 1 to Grade 5, comprehension of joking riddles increased linearly, while enjoyment decreased modestly. S's enjoyment of arbitrary nonjoking riddles also declined with age although more sharply. In both instances this decline was attributed to the diminishing appeal of these riddles to older Ss with more complex cognitive structures. No major sex differences were found in riddle comprehension or enjoyment. No major relationships between intellectual level and enjoyment of joking riddles and nonjoking riddles were revealed, although comprehension of joking riddles was significantly related to intelligence. Enjoyment of joking riddles was not significantly correlated with their comprehension. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the salience hypothesis of dream recall.

Tested the hypothesis that dream salience (subjective impact of the generated dream) would be greater for frequent than infrequent dream recallers. Dream recall data from 8 frequent and 8 infrequent recallers (male undergraduates) were obtained under 2 conditions: tape-recorded verbal reports given to the E after interruption of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and written diary reports after awakening by alarm clock in the absence of the E. Analysis of the verbal reports confirmed the hypothesis. The relatively greater difference between the 2 groups in mean percentage of dream diary recall for Stage 2 (non rapid eye movement; NREM) than for REM awakenings suggests that salience differences between the 2 groups may be greater following NREM than REM awakenings. Although salience may be affected by dream recall as well as dream generation processes (imagery ability seems related to both), the higher frequency of temporal references to past and future in the dreams of frequent recallers appears to relate to the generation process alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The double-deficit hypothesis for the developmental dyslexias.

The authors propose an alternative conceptualization of the developmental dyslexias, the double-deficit hypothesis (i.e., phonological deficits and processes underlying naming-speed deficits represent 2 separable sources of reading dysfunction). Data from cross-sectional, longitudinal, and cross-linguistic studies are reviewed supporting the presence of 2 single-deficit subtypes with more limited reading impairments and 1 double-deficit subtype with more pervasive and severe impairments. Naming-speed and phonological-awareness variables contribute uniquely to different aspects of reading according to this conception, with a model of visual letter naming illustrating both the multicomponential nature of naming speed and why naming speed should not be subsumed under phonological processes. Two hypotheses concerning relationships between naming-speed processes and reading are considered. The implications of processing speed as a second core deficit in dyslexia are described for diagnosis and intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)