Biomedical subjects

M C Steffens

Publications and source records attributed to M C Steffens.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Simultaneous learning of different regularities in sequence learning tasks: limits and characteristics.

Two experiments are reported which were designed to investigate the generality and the power of the mechanisms underlying sequence learning. In both experiments, participants reacted to systematic sequences of tones. They were informed that there was a tone systematicity. Participants were not told that the interval between a response to a tone and the onset of the subsequent tone (response-signal interval, RSI) also varied according to a fixed regularity. Experiment 1 showed that the unattended RSIs were learned when they were uniquely related to the tone sequence, but not when the relation was ambiguous. Experiment 2 showed that, on the basis of the traditional reaction time performance measure, participants who learned the RSIs by attending to their systematicity could not be distinguished from those in an incidental learning condition in which the RSI systematicity was unattended. However, a model-based analysis of the processes contributing to judgements about the event sequences suggested that the two groups had acquired qualitatively different knowledge.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Items' cross-category associations as a confounding factor in the Implicit Association Test.

The introduction of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) has stimulated numerous research activities. The IAT is supposed to measure the degree of association between concepts. Instances have to be assigned to these concepts by pressing appropriate keys as quickly as possible. The reaction time difference between certain conditions, termed the IAT effect, is used as an indicator of the degree of the concepts' association. We tested the hypothesis that the degree of association between one concept (or category) and the instances of the other presented concept also influences reaction times. In our experiment, the instances in the target categories, male and female names, were kept constant. The adjectives in the evaluative categories were manipulated: Either the pleasant adjectives were female-associated and the unpleasant adjectives were male-associated, or vice versa. These stereotypic associations were indeed found to exert a substantial influence on the size of the IAT effect. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that the IAT effect may be interpreted as a pure measure of the degree of association between concepts.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Auditory negative priming in speeded reactions and temporal order judgements.

Two experiments are reported that demonstrate negative priming for auditory stimuli. Reaction times and temporal order judgements were used as the dependent measures in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. In Experiment 1, participants classified tones presented to one ear as wind or string instruments while ignoring tones presented to the other ear. The task was identical for both the prime and the subsequent probe presentations. Probe reactions were slower for previously ignored tones than for tones that had not occurred during the prime presentation. Probe reactions to previously attended tones were faster than reactions to nonrepeated tones. In Experiment 2, the probe reactions were replaced by temporal order judgements. The probability of accepting a tone as antecedent was lower for previously ignored primes than for new tones. No difference was observed between previously attended and new tones. The results are compatible with the conclusion that distractor inhibition is a necessary component of the processes that bring about observable negative priming phenomena.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Gender stereotyping and decision processes: extending and reversing the gender bias in fame judgments.

M. R. Banaji and A. G. Greenwald (1995) demonstrated a gender bias in fame judgments--that is, an increase in judged fame due to prior processing that was larger for male than for female names. They suggested that participants shift criteria between judging men and women, using the more liberal criterion for judging men. This "criterion-shift" account appeared problematic for a number of reasons. In this article, 3 experiments are reported that were designed to evaluate the criterion-shift account of the gender bias in the false-fame effect against a distribution-shift account. The results were consistent with the criterion-shift account, and they helped to define more precisely the situations in which people may be ready to shift their response criterion on an item-by-item basis. In addition, the results were incompatible with an interpretation of the criterion shift as an artifact of the experimental situation in the experiments reported by M. R. Banaji and A. G. Greenwald.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Further evidence on the similarity of memory processes in the process dissociation procedure and in source monitoring.

Buchner, Erdfelder, Steffens, and Martensen (1997) proposed that the memory processes involved in recognition judgments in the process dissociation procedure are the same as those involved in standard source monitoring tasks. Two extensions of that research are presented here. First, following a line of reasoning recently brought forward by Jacoby (1998), the instructions in the earlier study could have triggered different processes from those triggered by his instructions. However, with instructions conforming as closely as possible to those reported by Jacoby (1991), Experiment 1 replicated the earlier recognition judgment finding almost perfectly. Second, the memory processes underlying fame judgments in the process dissociation procedure could also resemble those involved in source monitoring tasks. Indeed, the results of Experiment 2 are compatible with the hypothesis that the same processes are involved in fame judgments given a source monitoring or a process dissociation procedure.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

The role of relational processing in memory for actions: a negative enactment effect in free recall.

The enactment effect occurs if people remember items that they enacted or enacted symbolically during study better than items that they were simply asked to remember. Enactment is generally believed to lead to thorough processing of individual items. There has been some controversy as to whether the superior processing of information concerning the relations between action phrases (i.e. whole-list relational information) may additionally contribute to the enactment effect. The extant empirical data on this issue seem contradictory. In the account brough forward here, it is hypothesized that whole-list relational information is processed better during enactment than during verbal learning only if it taps the same aspect of a concept as the verb-object relational information within each action phrase. It is processed worse if these two types of information tap different aspects of a concept. This explanation represents an extension of the three-factor account of positive and negative generation effects to the field of memory for actions. To provide evidence for this account, positive and, notably, negative enactment effects in object recall and in organization scores are demonstrated in three experiments with a total of 246 participants.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

Irrelevant auditory material affects counting.

R. H. Logie and D. A. Baddeley (1987) suggested that event counting may be supported by a phonologically based working-memory structure referred to as the phonological loop. However, inconsistent results concerning the detrimental effects of irrelevant speech on event counting led them to propose that lexical or semantic representations are also involved. In 4 experiments, the authors showed that this extension of Logie and Baddeley's original conceptualization was unnecessary. Instead, the number of irrelevant syllables spoken per time unit, a factor that was not taken into account in previous research, can explain Logie and Baddeley's results. In addition, the present results support the hypothesis that in cases of interference from the auditory channel, correction processes that help to recover the current running total from past running totals are also involved in counting performance.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

Determinants of positive and negative generation effects in free recall.

Better retention of self-produced as opposed to experimenter-presented material is called generation effect; the reverse phenomenon is the negative generation effect. Both are found in intentional-learning experiments in which generating versus reading is manipulated between subjects. The present article presents an overview of those findings and aims at clarifying the conditions under which these effects emerge. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that if cue-target relations are manipulated within one list, a negative generation effect in free recall can be obtained for all items, no matter which cue-target relation they bear. In Experiment 3, cue-target relations were manipulated between lists. Here, a negative generation effect in free recall was found only in lists in which items were cued with words that mismatched the inter-target relations, whereas a positive generation effect was observed in those lists in which the generation cues matched the inter-target relations. A subsequent cued-recall test demonstrated that in cases of mismatch of relations, participants in the generate condition process cue-target relations at the expense of inter-target relations. The three-factor theory can be integrated with the task-demand account in a transfer-appropriate processing framework to accommodate these findings.

Attention↗

PubMed1997

The nature of memory processes underlying recognition judgments in the process dissociation procedure.

The hypothesis is tested that the memory processes involved in recognition judgments in the process dissociation procedure are the same as those involved in standard source-monitoring tasks. It is shown how source-monitoring response categories can be mapped onto process dissociation response categories. On the basis of this abbreviation, an experiment was conducted in which it was possible to compare, using a multinomial modeling approach, the parameters representing memory processes in the process dissociation procedure with those involved in source monitoring. For the two different encoding conditions realized, the results are compatible with the hypothesis that the same processes are involved in source monitoring and in recognition judgments in the process dissociation procedure. Implications for the interpretation of the model's parameters are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

[The psychology of individual prevention of health risks].

The object of the investigation is to diagnose the prototypical avoidance- and processing-mechanisms of risk factors for health and their psychological basis. The investigation is based on an explorative pilot study (n = 30 persons) and a psychological representative study (n = 415 persons; 208 men, 207 women; age: 28-60 years).

Adult↗

PubMed1996

[Education for responsible health behavior].

34 nursery school teachers, 40 primary school teachers, and 40 parents of primary school children were interviewed. Based on the results of these interviews, standardized questionnaires were developed and answered by 100 mothers of primary school children. Main results are as follows. Most of the nursery school teachers, primary school teachers, and mothers don't show great interest in health-related information, despite the fact that they lack knowledge in this area. Health risks which children could be educated to know, like unhealthy nutrition, are underestimated, whereas ecological risks which cannot be affected are overrated. Nursery and primary school teachers hold that parents are responsible for the health education of their children. Consequently, health-related behaviour in kindergarten and health-related teaching in school are unsatisfactory. Mothers, however, expect schools to teach health-related topics concerning dependencies of all sorts--nicotine, alcohol, illegal drugs, and medication. Nursery school teachers as well as mothers demonstrate little systematic control and few sanctions when it comes to teaching children hygienic behaviour. Therefore, most children show satisfactory preventive behaviour only with regard to brushing their teeth. There are clear deficits in other areas. The mothers act only partly as good role models--for example, many mothers smoke when their children are around. Additionally, mothers don't regularly talk to their children about health-related topics.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

[Family situation of home care givers].

80 family care givers were interviewed. Half of them were daughters or daughters-in-law of the patients, half were parents and partners. 30 of them were supported in care giving by professionals. Half of the patients were younger, half were older than 70 years. Results of the study can be summarized as follows. The days of family care givers are packed with care giving activities, there is little spare time. Daily hassles keep increasing without hope that the situation will improve. Often, a radical change in life style becomes necessary when, all of a sudden, care giving is needed. Families are met unprepared, and thus, there is a deficit in competencies, resulting in insecurity, embarrassing situations, and overwork. Although they know that hygiene is crucial for the elderly and sick, and they know about the importance of care of the body for the patients' well-being, hygiene deficits are found which are due to care givers' overwork. Most of the time, meals are freshly prepared by care givers. Anyway, keeping and reheating meals and not being watchful enough as far as mold is concerned results in health risks for the elderly and sick. Care givers supported by professionals rate their aid positively. Problems are generally due to time mismanagement. Nursing homes are rejected and morally condemned by care givers and patients unanimously. Only a few care givers feel so overworked that they would prefer nursing home care.

Aged↗