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Biomedical subjects

W P Wallace

Publications and source records attributed to W P Wallace.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Implicit word activation during prerecognition processing: false recognition and remember/know judgments.

Recognition memory for spoken words is influenced by phonetic resemblance between test words and items presented during study. Presentation of derived nonwords (e.g., /d/ransparent or transparen/d/) on a study list produces a higher than normal false recognition rate to base words (e.g., transparent). Test words that share beginning phonemes with studied nonwords have more false recognitions than do those that share ending phonemes. The latter difference has been attributed to familiarity resulting from prerecognition processing of spoken stimuli. As a listener hears/traens/, "transparent" may be activated as a potential solution. In the present experiments, we minimized contributions of postrecognition processing to this phenomenon by presenting a semantically unrelated test word (transportation) that was also expected to be activated during prerecognition stages of processing. The results indicated that false recognition was increased for words presumed to be activated only during prerecognition processing. Remember (R) and know (K) judgments revealed that the majority of studied words were R, and the majority of false recognitions were K. The lowest proportion of R judgments occurred for test words that were not activated during postrecognition processing (e.g., transportation and control words).

Cognition↗
PubMed1998

Are false recognitions influenced by prerecognition processing?

Lexical activation is a core process in models of spoken word recognition. Specific words activated are candidates, with degree of activation determined by the match with sensory information. Once identified, lexical activation shifts to provide a meaningful representation, normally through activation of semantically related words. Activated words are assumed to acquire familiarity as a result of being activated, providing a basis for memories, both real and imagined. Three experiments showed a direct relationship between number of false recognitions and their presumed degree of activation. Results converge with those from spoken word recognition in implicating lexical activation during early stages of processing. For recognition memory, the message is that prerecognition lexical processing should be included in the memory equation.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

False positives in recognition memory produced by cohort activation.

Cohort theory in spoken-word recognition assumes that a cohort of word candidates consistent with incoming sensory information is activated implicitly as a spoken sound stimulus unfolds over time. Five experiments examined implications of this internal-generation-of-words mechanism. In Experiments 1 and 2, a "base" word was disqualified (the sensory information was no longer consistent with the word) either early or late in the presentation of a spoken stimulus. On a later recognition-memory test, significantly more false-positive errors occurred to base words following presentations of study items that had late, compared to early, disqualification points. Experiments 3-5 tested whether this phenomenon could be accounted for in terms of overlapping features between non-word stimuli and their base words or in terms of a post-identification processing mechanism. Experiment 3 replicated Experiments 1 and 2, and demonstrated that differences in early and late disqualification points for non-word targets, unlike word targets, were not related to false-positive recognition memory errors. The study inter-item interval in Experiment 4 was reduced to 1 s to minimize the role of post-identification processing activities, and the results for both word and non-word targets were consistent with Experiment 3. A word-association task in Experiment 5 revealed that the late non-word derivations used in this research were on the average more effective stimuli than the early non-word derivations in eliciting their base words. However, even when comparisons were restricted to item sets with early and late non-words that were equally effective in eliciting base words, false-positive recognition memory errors to target words were higher following prior presentations of their late derived non-words than following prior presentations of their early derived non-words.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The influence on recognition of spoken words that are misperceived.

Two experiments were performed that involved an initial word-identification task in which the acoustic signal was degraded by either 50% or 60% compression of the recorded words. A control group was tested at the original recording rate (0% compression). The compression manipulation was successful in increasing the number of identification errors. During the second stage of the experiments, words were read at a normal rate. In Experiment 1, the subjects indicated whether each word had appeared on the prior list, and in Experiment 2, the subjects estimated the number of times each word had been read on the prior list. The false-negative rate decreased and frequency ratings increased as a function of the number of prior presentations (one, two, or three) of the target words. The most interesting result was that the effect of repetitions was present even for words that had been misperceived.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Transfer effects from listening to frequency-controlled and frequency-shifted accelerated speech.

Two experiments examined intelligibility of sentences reproduced with increased tonal frequency (the spectrum of the speech signal shifted upward), increased speech rate, or both frequency and speech rate increased. The first experiment showed that both the frequency and speech rate increases independently impaired sentence intelligibility. Sentences played back at increased rates and increased frequencies also were perceived as having been spoken more rapidly. In the second experiment subjects listened either to practice sentences played back at frequency-shifted (FS) or frequency-controlled (FC) accelerated rates. Subsequent to this practice, an intelligibility test was given on 10 FS and 10 FC accelerated sentences played back at double speed. The accelerated sentences were more intelligible for practice groups than for a no-practice control group, and FC accelerated rates produced more intelligible sentences than FS acceleration. The specific training experiences produced an interaction with the type of test-sentence acceleration early in transfer. The FS accelerated sentences were more intelligible following FS practice compared to FC practice, and the FC accelerated sentences were more intelligible following FC practice compared to FS practice.

Humans↗
PubMed1978

Recognition failure of recallable words and recognizable words.

Three experiments are reported introducing variations in testing mode and cuing context into the general procedures used to demonstrate recognition failure of recallable words. Recognition failure of recognizable words can be demonstrated when a cued recognition test replaces the cued recall test in these general procedures. Also, recall failure of recallable words can be demonstrated if an uncued recall test replaces the initial uncued recognition test. If the initial recognition test involves cued recognition, then both the recognition failure of recallable words and the recognition failure of recognizable words are attenuated. Recognition failure of recognizable words was also present when distractors were not used in recognition testing. It was concluded that recognition-failure phenomena represent a special class of context effects; that is, they simply result from removing original study cues from one testing context and restoring them in a second testing context. It was suggested that theories of memory that recognize that memory performance may be sensitive to testing context are not contraindicated by the demonstration of recognition failure of recallable words.

Adolescent↗