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Visual Indexing And Inhibition Of Return Of Visual Attention, Christopher R. Sears
Visual Indexing And Inhibition Of Return Of Visual Attention, Christopher R. Sears
Digitized Theses
When an observer's visual attention is involuntarily drawn to a particular spatial location by a highly salient cue, the processing of stimuli appearing at that location is facilitated. When attention is then disengaged from the cued location, subsequent shifts of attention (either voluntary or involuntary) to the same location are inhibited. This inhibition in returning attention to a previously attended location delays the processing of stimuli appearing there, a phenomenon known as inhibition of return (IOR). IOR is a particularly intriguing phenomenon because it suggests that the attentional system has some means of keeping track of previously attended locations. That …
An Examination Of Whether Irony And Sarcasm Are Different Terms For The Same Psychological Construct, Christopher James Lee
An Examination Of Whether Irony And Sarcasm Are Different Terms For The Same Psychological Construct, Christopher James Lee
Digitized Theses
Researchers have studied counterfactual statements, such as "There's not a cloud in the sky!" uttered during a violent thunderstorm, both as instances of irony (Jorgensen, Miller & Sperber, 1984; Kreuz & Glucksberg, 1989; Katz & Lee, 1993) and as instances of sarcasm (Gibbs, 1986; Kreuz & Glucksberg, 1989). It is not surprising that some terms are used inconsistently in a young field of investigation such as the psycholinguistics of irony and sarcasm. However. the inconsistent use of the terms irony and sarcasm across different empirical studies is problematic when research participants are asked to judge whether or not counterfactual statements …
The Role Of Literal Meaning In Proverb Comprehension, Nigel E. Turner
The Role Of Literal Meaning In Proverb Comprehension, Nigel E. Turner
Digitized Theses
According to the 'Standard Pragmatic Model of Language', a person initially attempts to understand figurative sentences such as metaphors and proverbs in terms of their literal meaning and only processes the figurative meaning when the literal meaning is found inadequate. Experimental studies have failed to support this model; however, many of these studies confounded literalness with conventionality. Furthermore, the role of literal meaning during figurative language comprehension remains unresolved. The purpose of this thesis is to conduct a more valid test of the Standard Pragmatic Model, and to determine the role of literal meaning during proverb comprehension. In the first …
Hand And Hemispace Differences In The Visual Control Of Aiming Movements, David Peter Carey
Hand And Hemispace Differences In The Visual Control Of Aiming Movements, David Peter Carey
Digitized Theses
The purpose of this thesis was to examine left and right hand performance in three aiming movement experiments, designed to identify differences in movement kinematics when task demands were varied along dimensions thought to differ between the hemispheres. In Experiment 1, fourteen subjects were required to make aiming movements with the index finger to single light emitting diodes (LEDs) or to the midpoints of two simultaneously illuminated LEDs. Movements were recorded using a WATSMART system (Northern Digital, Inc.). Contrary to previous claims, no evidence was found for left hand advantages in accuracy in hand-invisible conditions. The large advantage in accuracy …
The Influence Of Eye Movements And Surround Contours On The Generation And Interocular Transfer Of The Motion Aftereffect, Lawrence Andre Symons
The Influence Of Eye Movements And Surround Contours On The Generation And Interocular Transfer Of The Motion Aftereffect, Lawrence Andre Symons
Digitized Theses
Despite its considerable use as a psychophysical tool, relatively little attention has been paid to factors that might influence the interocular transfer of the motion aftereffect. The present thesis reports five experiments that examined the role of eye-movements and their interaction with surround contours in the generation and interocular transfer of the motion aftereffect. Experiment 1 compared the amount of transfer of three different aftereffects when the non-adapted eye viewed a dark occluder or an equiluminant occluder. Equiluminant occlusion enhanced interocular transfer of the motion aftereffect but no the other two aftereffects. Experiment 2 showed a similar enhancement of interocular …
Binocular Vision And The Kinematics Of Human Prehension, Philip Raymond Servos
Binocular Vision And The Kinematics Of Human Prehension, Philip Raymond Servos
Digitized Theses
A series of experiments was devised to examine the contribution of binocular depth and distance cues to skilled reaching and grasping movements in humans. These movements were monitored using a high resolution opto-electronic recording device.;In the initial experiment, subjects reached out and grasped oblong blocks under conditions of either monocular or binocular vision. Kinematic analyses revealed that grasping movements made under monocular viewing conditions showed longer movement times, lower peak velocities, proportionately longer deceleration phases, and smaller grip apertures than movements made under binocular viewing. In short, subjects appeared to be underestimating the distance of objects (and as a consequence, …
The Influence Of Intervening Activities And Testing Conditions On The Accuracy And Confidence Of Source Memory, Joanne Louise Harbluk
The Influence Of Intervening Activities And Testing Conditions On The Accuracy And Confidence Of Source Memory, Joanne Louise Harbluk
Digitized Theses
The research in this thesis investigated factors that influence a particular type of source memory decision, the discrimination between memories that originate with others and memories that originate with ourselves. In their reality monitoring model, Johnson & Raye (1981) characterize the source decision process as an attribution based on an examination of memory rather than the retrieval of a label or tag that specifies a memory's source. Their research demonstrated that subjects rely on information from initial encoding to guide their decisions about the origins of their memories. The present research examined the influence of events occurring after encoding on …
Studies Of The Visual Detection Of Bilateral Symmetry, Andrew Mark Herbert
Studies Of The Visual Detection Of Bilateral Symmetry, Andrew Mark Herbert
Digitized Theses
Ernst Mach (1897) first observed that bilateral symmetry was most easily observed when the axis of symmetry was vertical, and proposed this occurred because of symmetric connections across the vertical midline of the visual system. This neuroanatomical account has been reasserted by Julesz (1971) and Braitenberg (1984, 1990). Braitenberg suggested that the corpus callosum could serve as a conduit for connections between cells representing symmetric areas in space around the vertical midline. If vertical symmetry in the visual system mediates the vertical advantage there are a number of predictions that follow. One would expect that the tuning of symmetry detection …
Finsting Multiple Places In The Visual Field: Evidence For Simultaneous Facilitation, Jacquelyn Ann Burkell
Finsting Multiple Places In The Visual Field: Evidence For Simultaneous Facilitation, Jacquelyn Ann Burkell
Digitized Theses
Indexing of multiple locations in a visual display was examined in the context of a selective search task. Subjects searched for a conjunctively defined target among subsets of display items randomly distributed throughout the display, identified only by their abrupt onset relative to other items in the display. Experiment 1 indicates that search is faster when observers search selectively over a subset of three display items (among a total of fifteen) indicated as potential target positions. Moreover, this result cannot be due to selective attention to one of the indicated items only, because search times are influenced by characteristics of …
Polysemy Effects: Evidence For Dual Access Routes To Word Meanings, Yasushi Hino
Polysemy Effects: Evidence For Dual Access Routes To Word Meanings, Yasushi Hino
Digitized Theses
The effects of polysemy (number of meanings) and word frequency were examined in lexical decision and naming tasks. Polysemy effects were observed in both tasks. In the lexical decision task, polysemy was additive with frequency. Polysemy effects appeared for both high and low frequency words. In the naming task, however, polysemy effects interacted with frequency, with polysemy effects being limited to low frequency words. When degraded stimuli were used in both tasks, the interaction appeared not only in naming but also in lexical decision. When pronounceable nonwords were replaced by pseudohomophones in lexical decision tasks, however, polysemy was once again …
Picture-Word Differences In Memory Comparisons Involving Colour, Deborah Joan Stuart
Picture-Word Differences In Memory Comparisons Involving Colour, Deborah Joan Stuart
Digitized Theses
Picture-word differences in mental comparisons involving object colour were investigated. On each trial of Experiment 1, a colour was tachistoscopically presented beside either an uncoloured line drawing of an object or the object's name. Subjects indicated whether or not the colour differed from the object's real-life colour. The categorical structure of colour concepts was operationalized by using normative data so that the presented colours best exemplified basic and boundary (e.g., greenish blue) colour terms and were either from the same colour name category as the real-life colour of the object or from a different category. Also, perceptual distance between the …
The Effect Of Expectancy Of Analgesic Efficacy On Analgesic Effectiveness For Experimental And Clinical Pain, Manon Houle
The Effect Of Expectancy Of Analgesic Efficacy On Analgesic Effectiveness For Experimental And Clinical Pain, Manon Houle
Digitized Theses
The study evaluated the effects of expectation of analgesic efficacy on subsequent analgesic effectiveness for experimental and clinical pain. The experimental pain consisted of noxious heat pulses (45-51 C) delivered to the inside of the forearm. After providing baseline visual analogue scale ratings (VAS) of the sensory intensity and the unpleasantness of the heat pulses, sixty subjects were divided into two groups--a hi-expectancy group, made to expect a potent analgesic and a lo-expectancy group, made to expect an ineffective drug. In either case, half of each group received a potent analgesic while the other half received a placebo. Forty-five minutes …
A Critical Examination Of Connectionist Cognitive Architectures, Marin S. Marinov
A Critical Examination Of Connectionist Cognitive Architectures, Marin S. Marinov
Digitized Theses
The dissertation represents a critical evaluation of the major connectionist theories of human cognitive architecture. The central connectionist thesis that artificial neural networks (ANNs) can serve as finitary models of human cognizers is examined and rejected. Connectionist theories, in contrast to the classical symbol-processing theories of cognitive architecture, cannot explain the productivity and systematicity of mental states. The reason for this is that ANN-based cognitive architectures cannot maintain representational states with compositional structure. Chapter One analyzes the implementational connectionism's solution to the problem of compositionality. It is shown that neither the theory of weak nor of strong compositionality can solve …
Using Elaborative Interrogation To Help Students Overcome Their Science Misconceptions, Vera Ella Woloshyn
Using Elaborative Interrogation To Help Students Overcome Their Science Misconceptions, Vera Ella Woloshyn
Digitized Theses
The experiments reported here investigated whether a question-answering strategy called elaborative-interrogation would facilitate children's acquisition of science facts. Of particular interest was whether the strategy would help students acquire facts that addressed their inaccurate beliefs, or what are otherwise known as misconceptions. Across two experiments, 140 students in grades 6 and 7 were asked to process individually presented statements. Half of these statements were consistent with their prior knowledge, whereas the remaining facts were inconsistent (i.e., subject to misconceptions). Half of the students in each grade were instructed to read the sentences aloud at a rate that allowed them to …
Escalating Commitment To A Failing Course Of Action: The Effect Of Choice And Justification, D Ramona Bobocel
Escalating Commitment To A Failing Course Of Action: The Effect Of Choice And Justification, D Ramona Bobocel
Digitized Theses
Previous research suggests that decision-makers who are responsible for initiating a failing course of action are more likely to escalate their commitment to that action, compared to those who are not responsible for the initial choice. It is purported that responsibility for initiating a failing course of action induces the escalation of commitment through an underlying psychological process of self-justification. Two problems are evident in this research, however, that question the validity of this interpretation. First, the effect of responsibility has only been demonstrated using a role-playing research methodology. Second, responsibility for initiating the course of action (operationalized as choice) …
Cholinergic-Noradrenergic And Cholinergic-Serotonergic Interactions In Measures Of Working And Reference Memory Of The Rat, Peter Prior
Digitized Theses
These experiments concerned potential interactions of the cholinergic with the noradrenergic or serotonergic systems, in rat working and reference memory (WM & RM). In experiment 1a, 63 rats were trained to collect reinforcement from a radial maze, with eight of 16 arms consistently reinforced. Working errors (WEs) were re-entries into baited arms visited within a session; reference errors (REs) were visits to never-baited arms. The rats then participated in a dose-response study of scopolamine (scop). Correct entries decreased; WEs and REs increased concomitantly with dose. Cholinergic systems may not subserve WM specifically. Forty-one of these rats participated a year later …
Necessity And Sufficiency In Conditional Reasoning, Valerie Anne Thompson
Necessity And Sufficiency In Conditional Reasoning, Valerie Anne Thompson
Digitized Theses
The purpose of this thesis was to contrast two current theories of conditional reasoning. Conditional reasoning entails drawing inferences about situations in which the occurrence of one event is conditional upon the occurrence of another event (e.g., if the car runs out of gas, then it will stall). According to pragmatic schema theory (Cheng and Holyoak, 1985) conditional reasoning is mediated by context-sensitive inference rules that specify the inferences that are pragmatic in a given situation; these rules differ from context to context. For example, the inferences that are thought to be pragmatic in causal situations (in which one event …
The Effects Of Self-Referencing In The Processing Of Linear Ordering Relations, Hsiao H. D'Ailly
The Effects Of Self-Referencing In The Processing Of Linear Ordering Relations, Hsiao H. D'Ailly
Digitized Theses
The purpose of the present research was to investigate the effects of self referencing in the processing of linear ordering relations in a task designed to simulate certain aspects of classroom mathematics instruction. In each of three experiments, undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology course were asked to read a series of paragraphs each of which contained a 5-term linear ordering relation (e.g., {dollar}\rm A>B>C>D>E).{dollar} After this information was encoded, subjects were asked to make pair-wise comparisons of these 5 terms. Two major factors were tested: the inclusion of a "You" term (Self-Referencing) among the …
Pictures, Words, And Synonymy: Representations And Processes, Terrence Charles Biggs
Pictures, Words, And Synonymy: Representations And Processes, Terrence Charles Biggs
Digitized Theses
A series of four experiments are presented which contrast the hypothesis that synonymy is semantically represented with the hypothesis that synonymy is lexically represented. They also stress the importance of task focal information in the interpretation of experimental results. Current mental models appear to operate with the implicit assumption that synonymy is represented semantically. The findings of Biggs and Marmurek (1983, 1990), that synonymous word-picture prime-target presentations produced greater naming facilitation than their repeated counterparts, run counter to the semantic representation hypothesis. The current investigations manipulated the type and degree of processing overlap between prime and target items by using …
Cognitive Components Of Naming In Children: Effects Of Referential Uncertainty And Stimulus Realism, Carla J. Johnson
Cognitive Components Of Naming In Children: Effects Of Referential Uncertainty And Stimulus Realism, Carla J. Johnson
Digitized Theses
The purpose of this research was to identify stimulus characteristics that influence the ease of picture naming in children. Naming is a basic aspect of language behavior that includes such components as object identification, selection of an appropriate name, and generation of the naming response. Little is known about factors that influence the proficiency with which these components are executed. This research attempted to isolate the effects on naming efficiency of: (a) the number of available correct names for a picture (referential uncertainty) and (b) the degree to which a picture realistically represents the depicted object (stimulus realism).;Results from three …
Memorial Effects Of Importance And Taxonomic Frequency In Schematic And Categorical Organizations Of Knowledge, Mustaq Khan
Memorial Effects Of Importance And Taxonomic Frequency In Schematic And Categorical Organizations Of Knowledge, Mustaq Khan
Digitized Theses
The functional similarity of schematic and categorical organizations of knowledge was investigated by comparing schema importance effects with taxonomic frequency effects. Importance effects refer to better recall of important over unimportant events in schema-based text (descriptions of everyday activities), and taxonomic frequency effects refer to better recall of common over uncommon members of natural categories. Importance effects have been explained in terms of differences in the number of interconnections among elements in the schematic knowledge structure, whereas taxonomic frequency effects have been explained in terms of differences in strength of association between the category and its members. Recognition and recall …
Subitizing And Counting: Preattentive And Attentive Processing In Visual Enumeration, Lana M. Trick
Subitizing And Counting: Preattentive And Attentive Processing In Visual Enumeration, Lana M. Trick
Digitized Theses
Subitizing, the process of visual enumeration when there are fewer than four items, is rapid (40-100 msec/item), accurate and effortless. In contrast, counting, the process of enumerating more than four items is comparatively slow (250-350 msec/item), effortful and error prone. Why does this occur? In this paper an attempt is made to incorporate subitizing and counting into a general theory of visual perception and spatial attention, as espoused by Marr(1982), Ullman(1984), and Treisman(1988). In particular, it is argued that the rapid apprehension of number in the 1-4 range is parasitic on a preattentive limited capacity mechanism that individuates feature clusters …
Intermediate-Level Visual Processing And The Perception Of Inside/Outside Spatial Relations, Richard David Wright
Intermediate-Level Visual Processing And The Perception Of Inside/Outside Spatial Relations, Richard David Wright
Digitized Theses
The visual perception of inside/outside spatial relations often appears to be immediate and effortless. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the processes underlying this perception are numerous and complex. According to Ullmann, these processes can be characterized as sequences of basic operations called visual routines. Each routine consists of different combinations of operations which allow the visual system to establish object shapes and to extract spatial relations between objects. The research described in this thesis involved manipulations of display parameters for tasks in which observers made judgements about whether a target was inside or outside of a bounding figure. …
Target-Directed Locomotion: A Critique Of The Short-Term Memory For Spatial Locations Proposed By Thomson, Runa Elizabeth Steenhuis
Target-Directed Locomotion: A Critique Of The Short-Term Memory For Spatial Locations Proposed By Thomson, Runa Elizabeth Steenhuis
Digitized Theses
This thesis presents a systematic examination of a common visuomotor behavior--locomotion directed to a target in the immediate environment.;The first part of the thesis focuses on an attempt to replicate an earlier finding of a highly accurate transitory short-term memory for target locations (Thomson, 1980, 1983). No evidence of such an accurate short-term memory was found here. The distance to the target, not the elapsed time, affected accuracy of walks with eyes closed. Delays of 2 and 4 s between viewing the target and walking did not result in a deterioration of performance. A 30 s delay did result in …
Retrieval Inhibition In Human Memory: An Extension And Evaluation Of The Sam Theory, Andrew Scott Patrick
Retrieval Inhibition In Human Memory: An Extension And Evaluation Of The Sam Theory, Andrew Scott Patrick
Digitized Theses
Retrieval inhibition occurs when related information presented during the act of remembering inhibits recall performance. In the part-list cuing paradigm, subjects are presented with part of a list and asked to recall the rest of the list. A comparison with an uncued condition shows that recall is reduced by the part-list cues. This finding is important because many memory theories propose that lists of words are learned by forming associations between the words and, thus, part-list cues should allow subjects to follow these associations and increase their recall. Shiffrin's SAM (Search of Associative Memory) theory of memory retrieval provides the …
Evidence Of Temporal Coding In A Forward Masking Task, Gregory John Fleet
Evidence Of Temporal Coding In A Forward Masking Task, Gregory John Fleet
Digitized Theses
The use of masking to study the auditory system's frequency selectivity characteristics has been quite extensive. From these studies, a specific model of spectral analysis has been developed that emphasizes the energy distribution across frequency. This perspective is acceptable when describing the processing of simple tones, but certainly lacking when interest is in a description of the processing of more complex stimuli. The following experiments examined the ability of sinusoidal signals to mask single- and double-frequency probes. The paradigm was similar to that used in psychophysical tuning curve studies: the masker level was adapted to just mask a low-level probe …
Conditional And Biconditional Interpretations Of If-Then Sentences: The Role Of Content And Context, Nancy Linda Digdon
Conditional And Biconditional Interpretations Of If-Then Sentences: The Role Of Content And Context, Nancy Linda Digdon
Digitized Theses
Three experiments examined content and context effects on the interpretation of if-then sentences as either conditionals or biconditionals. In Experiment 1, participants were from four grade levels, ranging from kindergarten to grade 12. All grade levels gave biconditional interpretations to sentences in which the antecedent was necessary to the consequent but gave conditional interpretations to sentences in which the antecedent was only sufficient to the consequent. In Experiment 2, subjects were from three grade levels, ranging from grade 4 to university. All grade levels interpreted the same abstract if-then sentences as conditionals in one context but as biconditionals in another …
Age Differences In Recall Of Meaningful Stimuli, Farida Spencer
Age Differences In Recall Of Meaningful Stimuli, Farida Spencer
Digitized Theses
The purpose of the present research was to investigate the effects of meaningfulness of stimulus phrases and orienting task conditions on free recall performance of older and younger adults in an incidental learning paradigm. It was expected that orienting tasks might affect the depth of processing, while meaningfulness would influence the spread of encoding. It was hypothesized that variables assumed to affect depth and elaborateness of semantic processing might also affect the direction of recall differences between older and younger adults.;Two studies were designed to evaluate the proposed hypotheses. In the first study, meaningfulness ratings were collected. Meaningfulness was defined …
The Spatial And Temporal Characteristics Of Visually Directed Limb Movements And Comparison Of Ocular And Manual Performance, John David Fisk
The Spatial And Temporal Characteristics Of Visually Directed Limb Movements And Comparison Of Ocular And Manual Performance, John David Fisk
Digitized Theses
The purpose of this thesis was to examine visually guided movements of the upper limbs which approximated normal reaching behaviour, and to describe the production of these movements on the basis of a number of interrelated measures. The series of studies required subjects to point quickly and accurately to small visual targets presented lateral to a visual fixation point, on an otherwise featureless screen. In Studies 1 and 2 the kinematic characteristics of the limb movements were examined by a frame-by-frame analysis of video records of the subjects' performance. The use of visual feedback information in the guidance of the …
Comparison Of Four Models For Predicting Person Reliability, Geziena Cynthia Fekken
Comparison Of Four Models For Predicting Person Reliability, Geziena Cynthia Fekken
Digitized Theses
The purpose of this research was to examine the efficacy of four models for predicting person reliability, which was defined as across-session item consistency. Two prediction models were based on item characteristics alone, namely, p-values and social desirability scale values. Two prediction models attempted to take into account both item and person characteristics. These models were based on individuals' latencies for responding to particular items and on individuals' thresholds for answering items in terms of some item characteristics. The latter model was derived from Jackson's (1968) threshold model for responding which describes the response process with reference to a threshold, …