On the time necessary for a visual impression to come into consciousnessBaxt, N.
doi: 10.1007/BF00308551pmid: 7111594
A translation is given of Baxt's pioneering paper on tachistoscopic perception (1871). Baxt showed how a stimulus can fail to be masked by a second stimulus coming after it, if a certain interval elapses between the two stimuli, an interval long enough, Baxt assumed, for the perception of the first stimulus to become conscious. Baxt showed how this interval varied with the intensity of the second stimulus, the complexity of the first stimulus, and the size of the first stimulus. It was also shown that the fainter the overall illumination, the shorter the interval could be, as would be expected from Fechner's Law.
The capacity for sequential evocation and the influence of frequency of word useOléron, G.; Tardieu, H.
doi: 10.1007/BF00308552pmid: N/A
In a free recall task it was demonstrated systematically that the evocation of a short list of unrelated words, individually presented, was in the majority of cases in conformity with the presentation order. This spontaneous recall in presentation order is called the capacity for sequential evocation (CSE). The CSE has a mode of four word units, though individual variation in its range does exist. In the present study it was shown that the introduction of frequently used words into a list (two in either initial, middle, or final positions) leads to most increase in recall in presentation order when they are placed in the initial positions. To create a situation of uncertainty with respect to strategies for information intake, lists of four words were mixed with lists of six and eight words with or without frequent words. Results confirm a theoretical perspective stipulating that the decay in the activation of response schemas (phonological and articulatory) will have the least adverse effect on recall performance when the level of activation is greatest (in proportion to the frequency of word use).
Automaticity and interference in bilingualsMägiste, Edith
doi: 10.1007/BF00308553pmid: N/A
In an experimental study with 40 English-German and 40 German-Swedish bilingual high school students, automaticity and interference were analyzed on the basis of Shiffrin and Schneider's theory of controlled and automatic processing. Confirming the assumptions inferred from the theory, dominant bilinguals reacted significantly faster to pictured objects in their dominant language than did balanced bilinguals in either of their two languages. Interaction effects with frequency indicated less experience with rare words in the balanced groups. Matched on the basis of reaction time scores, the balanced groups continued to show a higher error rate in recall, but not in recognition when compared with the dominant groups. It was concluded that training alone could not account for the differences in recall. A congenitally determined mental speed factor was suggested for which the theory makes no direct commitment. The strong interrelation between automaticity and interference was shown; their significance for bilinguals in highly speeded and unstructured tasks was also shown. The results reveal high cross-cultural consistency.
Feature mislocalizations and misjudgments of intercharacter distanceChastain, Garvin
doi: 10.1007/BF00308555pmid: 7111596
Three experiments were conducted to gather evidence for Wolford's (1975) feature perturbation model and claims derived from it. The first experiment found that perturbation or mislocalization of features toward the foveal center predominated when a distinctive standard for localization was presented and short-term memory factors were minimized. The second experiment found that foveal mislocalizations do seem to cause two figures in the visual field to be reported as closer to one another than they actually are presented. The final experiment provided no support for the notion that interference between figures in the visual field is caused by foveal mislocalizations making features from the figures appear to be at the same location. A distinction between mislocalizations of figures due to feature perturbations and errors due to figures which were correctly localized but not reported in the instructed order was possible in the last two experiments.
Recognition of the stimulus degradation in the word frequency effectWilton, R.; Pidcock, B.
doi: 10.1007/BF00308556pmid: N/A
An experiment was designed to distinguish between two explanations of the word frequency effect, each accounting for the effect in terms of response bias. One explanation assumes that the bias affects a viewer's percept, the other a decision about what to report. Subjects were shown common and uncommon words, degraded to various degrees. Their task was to state what word was presented and to estimate its degree of degradation. A word frequency effect was demonstrated: the degree of actual degradation at which some arbitrary proportion of common words was correctly reported was greater than that at which the same proportion of uncommon words was correctly reported. In addition, subjects correctly assessed that the common words correctly reported were more degraded. The result was discussed with reference to the two versions of response bias theory.
Colour associates to semantic linear ordersShanon, Benny
doi: 10.1007/BF00308557pmid: 7111597
People were asked whether they had strong colour associates (rather than associations) for different linear orders. Eighteen informants responded that they associated colours with numbers, and ten that they associated colours with the days of the week. The colours associated with both linear orders were consistent between subjects and correlated with each other. The order of the associates correlated with the order noted in the anthropological linguistic typology of Berlin and Kay (1969). Together, the patterns noted indicate that the association of colours with linear orders is an orderly cognitive phenomenon. While no causal explanation of the phenomenon is given, some implications are suggested.
The effects of realism on Wason's THOG problemNewstead, Stephen; Griggs, Richard; Warner, Susan
doi: 10.1007/BF00308558pmid: N/A
In this series of experiments the effects of phrasing Wason's THOG problem in realistic terms were investigated. Experiments 1 and 2 used realistic materials of very different kinds, but neither version of the problem produced any facilitation compared with the original abstract version. Experiment 3 used a version of the problem in which the correct answer was cued in by the realistic material, and a significant improvement was found. Experiment 4 used a version of the problem similar to that used in Experiment 3 and again improved performance was found; since the subjects in this experiment were eight- and nine-year-old children, the facilitation almost certainly was not the result of improved logical ability. The results of Experiment 5, however, suggested that it was difficult to cue in adults to give the logically incorrect answer. It is concluded that realism improves performance on this problem only when the realistic material cues in the correct answer from memory. A review of the research that makes use of other reasoning paradigms suggests that this conclusion may hold true for these as well.
Zipf's Law in transcribed speechRidley, Dennis
doi: 10.1007/BF00308559pmid: N/A
Based on large samples of written text. ‘Zipf:s Law’ holds that the logarithms of frequencies of words, and the number of different words at those frequencies, have an inverse linear relationship. This study tested this law on an oral sample by analysis of a transcribed interview which had been conducted for an unrelated study. A second purpose was to test whether the law holds differently for open- vs closed-class words. The words in the interview were tabulated by frequencies and numbers of words at each frequency, and separated by syntactic class. As Zipf found for written samples, the law provides a reasonable summary of the data for the less frequently used words but predicts fewer different words among the most frequently used words than were actually found. Linear regressions performed for each syntactic class revealed that the regression equation for open-class words provided the best fit to Zipf's law. The sample of closed-class words, containing a much smaller proportion of low frequency words, revealed a poor fit to Zipf's law.