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Biomedical subjects

S J McKelvie

Publications and source records attributed to S J McKelvie.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Effects of free and forced retrieval instructions on false recall and recognition.

One hundred undergraduates heard 6 lists of 14 words that were each associated with 1 of 6 central concepts not on the lists (the DRMRS procedure). The participants were instructed to recall as many words as possible (free retrieval) or to fill all 14 spaces (forced retrieval) and were subsequently given a recognition test. False recall and recognition of the critical central concepts were higher with forced than with free retrieval instructions, but correct recall and recognition were not affected. Confidence was lower for false than for correct recall and recognition. Confidence was also lower with forced than with free retrieval instructions for false recall but not for false recognition. The DRMRS procedure easily elicited false memories, but confidence judgments helped more in detecting them in recall than in recognition. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

The availability heuristic with famous names: a replication.

In two experiments, 195 Canadian undergraduates initially judged a list of 25 names (12 famous men and 13 nonfamous women or 12 famous women and 13 nonfamous men) for familiarity. Contrary to previous research, subsequent estimates of the perceived number of men's and women's names were not higher when the names were famous than nonfamous. When the estimated differences were compared to the true difference (-1), famous names were judged more numerous than nonfamous names, but the size of the effect (d = 0.34) was smaller than in previous research. Reasons for these findings are discussed.

Famous Persons↗
PubMed2001

Visual imagery in recognition and source memory for audiotape and text.

80 participants heard an audiotape of a crime, read an account with both correct and new information, then took recognition and source memory tests. While listening and reading, participants attended carefully, and half also formed visual images of the events. Imagery instructions had no effects, but recognition memory was better for material from the text only than from the audiotape only, whereas source memory was better for audiotape than for text. These results replicate previous findings for film and audiotape.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Factors affecting subjective estimates of magnitude: when is 9 > 221?

112 undergraduates separately judged the size of the numbers 9 then 221 or 221 then 9 on a 10-point scale or on a continuous line that were both anchored only at the extremes by "very, very small" and "very, very large." Replicating the 1999 Birnbaum study, 9 was given a higher rating than 221 when the numbers were judged first by different people on the numerical scale. However, 9 was given a similar or smaller rating than 221 in the other conditions. The results are discussed in terms of context effects.

Attention↗
PubMed2001

Extraversion and the rebound effect after thought suppression.

83 participants thought about a white bear before or after trying to suppress the idea. There was no rebound effect (more expression of white-bear thoughts after than before suppression) for either introverts or extraverts.

Extraversion, Psychological↗
PubMed2000

Effects of bogus feedback on intelligence test performance.

French-Canadian high school students (N = 196) completed different forms of the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT; E. F. Wonderlic, 1983) on two occasions. Before the second test, they received negative or positive bogus feedback about their initial performance. Most students (n = 158) were informed that the WPT measured intelligence, and the instruction was issued before either the first (n = 42) or the second test (n = 116). In the latter case, WPT validity either was not mentioned (n = 36) or was described as high or low (ns = 39 and 41, respectively). WPT performance improved on the second test, but it was not related to feedback in any of the instruction conditions. Reasons for these results and their practical implications are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Parental imagery vividness: gender differences and relationships to emotional closeness.

This research was an investigation of the vividness with which individuals see their parents in different situations. In 3 studies, the Vividness of Visual Imagery for Parents Questionnaire (VVIPQ; S. J. McKelvie, 1998a) was completed by university undergraduates (201 women, 167 men). Visual imagery of mothers was reported to be more vivid than that of fathers, but only by the female students. For intact families, the female students also reported more imagery of mothers than of fathers, whereas the male students reported more vivid imagery of fathers than of mothers. However, for divorced or separated families in which individuals spent more time with their mothers, both men and women rated their mothers more vividly than their fathers. More vivid imagery was positively related to reported emotional closeness to parents and to more vivid imagery for general scenes. VVIPQ scores were associated with social desirability but were not related to measures of response leniency or general intelligence. Split-half reliability of the VVIPQ was very good, and both test-retest and alternate-format reliability were acceptable. The correlational evidence supports the construct validity of the VVIPQ, which is a promising tool for studying parental imagery.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Split-half reliability of two facial imagery questionnaires.

Nine estimates of split-half reliability were calculated for two self-report facial imagery questionnaires. The mean values of .78 and .70 were judged to be only marginally acceptable. This may partly account for the previously reported weak relationship between the facial imagery and face recognition-memory performance.

Face↗
PubMed1997

The availability heuristic: effects of fame and gender on the estimated frequency of male and female names.

In two experiments, Canadian undergraduates heard a list of 13 male names and 13 female names; then they estimated how many male and female names there seemed to be. In Experiment 1, the list consisted of 26 famous names or 26 nonfamous names. Both male and female participants gave similar estimates for the number of male and female names, contradicting hypotheses of a bias toward males or toward one's own gender. In Experiment 2, where the list contained names of famous men and nonfamous women or names of famous women and nonfamous men, participants gave higher estimates for the gender that was famous (effect size d = 0.78). This result confirmed Tversky and Kahneman's (1973) fame availability effect and showed it to be moderate to large in size.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Perception of faces with and without spectacles.

For 20 faces, 85 subjects selected either a distinctive feature or a distinctive trait. For faces with spectacles, the eyes were judged to be most prominent, and the people were judged to be dull and intelligent. Results are discussed in terms of the physical attractiveness stereotype.

Esthetics↗
PubMed1996

Effect of face context on recognition memory for voices.

Participants heard 10 voices and were given a 2-alternative recognition-memory test. Accuracy was higher when testing was intentional rather than incidental and when faces accompanying the original voices were re-presented during the test. Some support was found for an attention-allocation model, which predicted poorest performance with incidental testing and faces not reinstated. Reported confidence was higher for correct than for incorrect decisions, but more confident participants were not more accurate.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Encoding operations and recognition memory for faces.

Two experiments examined the effects of encoding operations on forced-choice recognition memory for upright and inverted photographs of faces. In Experiment 1, with distractors closely matched to targets, performance was better on upright than on inverted faces, but was unaffected by whether subjects judged faces for distinctive features, distinctive traits or distinctive expressions. In Experiment 2, where distractors were either absent or weakly matched to distractors, accuracy was again higher on upright than on inverted faces, and was similar for the three encoding operations on upright faces. In contrast, it was poorer for distinctive expression judgments than for distinctive feature or for distinctive trait judgments on inverted faces. These results support Winograd's (1981) claim that distinctive feature and distinctive trait judgments both lead to the isolation of distinctive features. However, it was argued that distinctive expression judgments led to configural processing that was disrupted by inversion.

Face↗
PubMed1995

Emotional expression in upside-down faces: evidence for configurational and componential processing.

In two experiments, a total of 126 subjects judged the seven emotional expressions of Ekman & Friesen's (1976) pictures of facial affect presented upright or inverted. Inversion reduced accuracy for sad, fear, anger and disgust, and sad was identified as neutral. However, happy was identified almost perfectly on upright and inverted faces, and both anger and disgust were identified significantly often on inverted faces. In addition, the classic confusions between surprise and fear and between disgust and anger occurred on both upright and inverted faces. It is argued that expressions are difficult to identify on inverted faces when they are based on configural information. However, accurate performance on inverted faces and similar confusions on upright and inverted faces are due to componential processing.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Is memory for head orientation based on a left-looking schema?

Research has shown that people misremember right-looking heads on coins as facing to the left, suggesting a general memory schema that favors left-lookers. This hypothesis was investigated in a study of 241 subjects in three experiments who were shown photographs of faces looking to the left, to the right, or at the observer and were later asked to identify whether each one had subsequently been left-right reversed. Also, in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively, initial judgments of liking and of orientation were obtained. Unexpectedly, orientation memory accuracy was lower after a 5-s exposure than after a 1-s exposure, and after initial judgments of lateral orientation than after judgments of liking. Although the difference between left- and right-lookers was significant in only 2 of 14 comparisons, aggregated data showed that identification accuracy was generally higher for left-lookers, with a mean effect size of 0.16. Although small, this difference is consistent with the hypothesis of a left-looking schema for heads.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Effects of colored separate and interactive pictures on cued recall.

Participants (N = 509) were tested for backward cued recall of concrete noun pairs illustrated with pictures. Recall was considerably higher when a picture showed an interactive relationship than when the two items were drawn separately. However, with separate pictures in which the stimulus drawing appeared in a color that bore a direct relationship to the response object or when both drawings shared a color that was not related to the response object, recall was higher than with uncolored drawings. Performance was even better when the shared color was associated with the response object, although it remained below that with uncolored interactive pictures. The positive effects of shared colors did not occur with interactive pictures, but recall improved further when the response color appeared either in the stimulus or response portions of the combined drawing. It is concluded that cued recall is mediated by common elements and that the effects are additive, at least with separate pictures.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

The Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire as a predictor of facial recognition memory performance.

After viewing 27 upright photographs of faces, 94 subjects took a forced-choice recognition memory test in which the pairs were shown either upright (N = 54) or inverted (N = 40), then completed Marks' (1973) Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ). Although groups of 12 good and 12 poor visualizers representing the lower and upper 30 per cent of VVIQ scores were less accurate, slower to respond and less confident for inverted than upright faces, VVIQ status did not interact with the effect of inversion. However, good visualizers were more confident than poor visualizers, and VVIQ scores themselves were lower (indicating more vivid reports) in the upright than in the inverted condition. It was also found that VVIQ scores were lower for more than for less confident subjects, but only for those who were less accurate. These results contradict the hypothesis that the VVIQ reflects holistic processing, but support the hypothesis that it is contaminated by an instrument factor. It is suggested that studies with the VVIQ should be designed to avoid cueing effects of the criterion task, and that the VVIQ should be accompanied by a test of general processing capacity to identify subjects whose responses might be contaminated by confidence.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Effects of "parental filter" on reported vividness of imagery.

127 undergraduates (66 women, 61 men) completed experimental forms of Ahsen's Adapted Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (AA-VVIQ) in which the 16 items of Marks' Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) are rated separately with either mother or father in mind. When the two ratings were made side-by-side for each item and those for the father filter were given first, there was some evidence of dimmer father- than mother-filtered imagery for women. However, this effect did not appear when the mother-filtered ratings were given first, when all items were rated under one parental filter before being rated with the other, or when the filter instruction was given only before the first four items (which refer to a relative or friend). These results do not support claims that reported imagery is generally dimmer under the father than under the mother filter, but it was suggested that dimmer father- than mother-filtered imagery for women may be an order effect or may appear when raters freely compare their images under the two filters. Because scores were highly correlated (rs > .80) across filters, it was concluded that the choice of a parent for the first four items of Marks' VVIQ does not jeopardize the use of the inventory as a research instrument to classify people as good or poor visualizers.

Eidetic Imagery↗