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Effects of stimulus familiarity on the rehearsal strategies transfer mechanism in retarded and nonretarded individuals.

The possibility that the familiarity value of stimuli might be a component of the rehearsal strategies mechanism in Ellis' (1970) multiprocess theory of short-term memory was investigated. Retarded and nonretarded subjects of equal CA were given either PA pretraining of nonsense pictures with colors or were presented with nonsense pictures alone. They were then compared in their performance on either an experimenter- or subject-paced serial memory task in which the nonsense pictures were employed as stimuli. It was expected that pretraining would increase the familiarity value of nonsense stimuli for nonretarded and, to a lesser extent, retarded subjects, facilitating transfer of information from primary to secondary memory in both groups. Although predictions about the effects of pretraining on retention were not substantiated, the results of the experiment did support the hypothesis that a production deficiency in active encoding can account for the poor secondary memory of mentally retarded subjects.

Achievement

[Dynamics of visual association formation in man].

The subjects were asked to memorize four combinations of paired visual stimuli on an illuminated tableau. The test-signal, a single flash on the tableau, was presented after the signal pair and could coincide either with the second component of the association or with the elements not involved in this particular association. After presentation of the test signal, the subject had to press the key as quickly as possible and then point to the pair on the tableau, associated with the signal pair (the second component of the association). The changes occuring in the structure of the association were evaluated by the changes of reaction time (rt) to the test-signal and the RT variability. Differences have been revealed between the RT dynamics and variabilities, which characterize the functional state of the elements activated during the achievement of the association and those not participating in the given association. During stabilization of the visual association, oppositely directed tendencies of RT changes and variabilities were observed.

Humans

Retrieval of action phrases: the efficacy of verb cues and noun cues.

Memory for noun cues has been shown to be superior to memory for verb cues. This study investigates two factors that might influence this noun-cue superiority effect: pre-experimental associations between the cue and the target, and encoding strategies. Subjects were to study a list of noun-verb phrases. The pre-experimental associations between the two components of the phrases were either symmetric or asymmetric, and either strong or weak. One group of subjects studied the list under a standard learning instruction. The other group was required to enact the phrases. The results show that the noun-cue superiority is modulated by the variation of pre-experimental associations, that enacting considerably improves cued recall performances, and that enacting neither influences the effects of pre-experimental associations nor the efficacy of the two cuetypes.

Adult

A comparison of the single-dose effects of alprazolam, buspirone, and placebo upon memory function.

The effects of alprazolam and buspirone at varying dosages were compared with placebo in a battery of memory and cognitive tests in a sample of 125 young, healthy medical students by utilizing a single-dose, double-blind design. Although the dosages in this study did not impair visuomotor reaction time in any of the experimental groups, 1.0 mg of alprazolam did result in significantly impaired performance on selective aspects of memory function as assessed by the memory battery.

Adult

[Dependence of correct solution of phonetic information on the number and kind of picture information].

It was to be shown that kindergarten children do not synthesize phonologically, auditorily presented sound sequences but solve the task primarily in a picture-related manner by using visual information and selecting singular sound units or elements. The first study demonstrated that the picture material rather than the concrete sound sequence determines the extent of correct solution. In addition, the solutions are influenced by the kind of phonetic relationship among the picture information rather than by the introduction of picture distractors. These results were basically replicated in the second study. The results are discussed against the background of decision making that is mainly oriented to the situative cues of the task and only secondarily to the sound aspects.

Child

Young children's disambiguation of object name reference.

Children show a disambiguation effect--a tendency to select unfamiliar rather than familiar things as the referents of new names. In previous studies, this effect has been reversed in young 2-year-olds, but not older children, by preexposing the unfamiliar objects, suggesting that attraction to novelty controls 2-years-olds' choices of referents for new names, but a mutual exclusivity and/or lexical gap-filling principle determines preschoolers' selections. Both the disambiguation effect and its reversal by preexposure were replicated in the present study; however, 24-month-olds' rate of selecting unfamiliar over familiar kinds was less when they were simply asked to choose between the items than when they were asked to identify the referents of unfamiliar names. Thus, some young children may have both an attraction to novel tokens and a tendency to honor an abstract lexical principle. Referent selections were also affected by object typicality and word similarity. Correlations between the tendency to acknowledge a new name's unfamiliarity and to treat it like a similar-sounding familiar name suggested that youngsters' phonological matching skills affect their interpretation of new names. Also, 4-year-olds who most often mapped distinctive-sounding new names to unfamiliar kinds tended to admit their unfamiliarity with these names most frequently, suggesting that children's increasing awareness of their own knowledge begins to affect their lexical processing during the preschool years.

Attention

Associative symmetry in the PA learning of retarded and nonrerarded children.

Mentally retarded and nonretarded children learned pairs of pictures in a single-function order (A and B terms of each pair were in the same position throughout) or in a double-function order (all items were re-paired and served as A and B terms). Associative symmetry was demonstrated by all groups when the lists were presented single-function; forward asymmetry was demonstrated when the list was presented double-function. When categorized pairs were presented double-function, items that were correctly associated by category produced symmetry; items that were correctly associated but not by category produced forward asymmetry. The possible influence of single vs. multiple associations on associative symmetry was discussed.

Child

Sentence mediation and stimulus blocking in free recall.

In a two-phasing training study, EMR adolescents were initially provided with sentences linking each pair of 2 words in a 20-word list to be free recalled. In a second phase, subjects were required to create and verbalize their own sentences. This sentence-mediation condition was compared with (a) one in which items were presented in the same fixed pairs from trial-to-trial, but without sentences and (b) a group that received items in changing pairs. Results indicated superiority of both sentence-mediation and fixed-pairs treatments in comparison to the changing-pairs condition on both correct recall and subjective organization. Sentences did not facilitate recall more than did consistent ordering. The results were discussed in the context of the growing evidence that providing input structure can remediate organization deficits in retarded persons.

Adolescent

Cognitive processes and academic achievement in EMR adolescents.

Twelve cognitive process variables were investigated as predictors of reading and arithmetic achievement and studied for internal structure, with 115 EMR adolescent subjects. Stepwise regression and factor analyses were employed to study prediction and structure, respectively. Memory variables were the most important predictors of reading. They were also involved in arithmetic but to a lesser extent. The data suggested that the ability to generate and utilize strategies facilitating the recall of unstructured material as well as the capacity to be sensitive to strategy-relevant structure embedded in stimuli were important prerequisites for the acquisition of reading skills. An oddity task, measuring the ability to maintain the same relational focus for successive applications to new stimulus material, was found to be most pertinent for predicting arithmetic computational skills.

Achievement

Induced arousal and orienting tasks as determinants of intentional recall.

In this study, the author examined the effects of intention to learn, noise, and different types of orienting tasks on short-term and long-term recall for 15 Hindi paired-associates. Intention to learn improved recall, as did encoding of semantic features, and noise impaired both short-term and long-term recall. The analysis of short-term recall scores indicated that there were no significant interactions between these factors, but the analysis of long-term recall scores indicated that there were significant interactions between noise and orienting tasks and between intentionality and orienting tasks.

Adolescent

Age, rate and instructional conditions: empirical support against the pacing variable.

The present study was an attempt to determine if the pacing effect was an artifact of the confounding of presentation rate and total learning time. Two presentation rates were factorially varied with three instructional conditions for two different age groups in a paired-associate and free-recall task. The results of the study replicated the pacing effect when learning time was deliberately confounded. When total learning time was equated for the presentation rates the pacing effect was not replicated, demonstrating that pacing is an artifact. It was suggested that the total time principle, not pacing, was the viable explanatory concept. The results of the manipulation of instructional conditions suggest that it is inappropriate to assume that a set of instructions will result in equivalent performance for both young and old samples.

Adolescent

Processing of interactive and noninteractive pictures in PA learning by retarded persons.

Retarded persons, at two MA levels, were exposed to a list of paired-associates (PAs) in which the stimulus terms were picture compounds of one animate and one inanimate object. One-half of the subjects in each MA group learned the associations with the stimulus components presented in meaningful interaction, and half learned the associations with the components depicted in noninteraction. Stimulus interaction facilitated list acquisition by the higher MA but not by the lower MA subjects. Transfer tests following PA learning indicated that the interactive stimulus components had been processed as units by the higher MA subjects, suggesting that these individuals may have spontaneously elaborated the interactive-stimulus components.

Cognition

Verbal learning dysfunction with combined centre median and amygdala lesions.

Stereotaxic lesions in either or both amygdala did not impair verbal learning ability (presented by ear as a paired-associates test). Centre median lesions alone did not impair this form of learning; however, when combined with a left amygdala lesion a significant decrease in scores occurred which persisted for up to two years after operation. The data support a hypothesis that medial thalamic structures have alerting functions in learning mechanisms.

Amygdala

The effects of experimentally induced changes in self-concept on associative learning.

It has been hypothesized that self-concept influences ability to learn. This experiment systematically manipulated the self-concepts of learners regarding their abilities to learn a foreign language and measured their subsequent learning of a synthetic foreign language vocabulary list. Eleven Ss were randomly assigned to each of three groups: self-concept raised, self-concept lowered, control. Ss were college freshman who were not enrolled in a foreign language course or had not previously taken more than one semester of a foreign language. Self-concepts were measured as self-description of ability to learn a foreign language. Self-concepts were raised or lowered by providing false scores on a foreign language aptitude test. Learning was measured as performance on a paired-associates task utilizing random shapes and CVCs. Ss with lowered self-concepts learned more slowly than control Ss or Ss with raised self-concepts.

Achievement

Rekitting the Wechsler Paired-Associate Task: the Waterford Index.

The Waterford Index provides a new scoring system for the Wechsler paired-associate task. Item performances across successive trials were coded so as to reflect the psychological phenomena of learning, forgetting and item effects (N = 50). The Index describes two rules for differentiating between cases of cognitive impairment and non-impairment. Rule 1 contrasts the respective contributions of learning and forgetting. Rule 2 takes account of cases characterized by a high proportion of correct responses. Against a criterion index based on performances on other psychological tests of organic dysfunction, the Waterford Index yielded higher predictive efficiencies than associated with other Wechsler indices, intelligence, and age.

Adult