S1 (FriAM 1-65) - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 4041–4047 Saturday Noon
itoring changes in continuity is critical for the construction of these
representations.
(4041)
Unfamiliarity and Belief Change: Manipulating Gender in Fictional
Narratives. MIJA M. VAN DER WEGE, Carleton College—Research
has shown that people alter their beliefs when reading fictional narratives
(e.g., Prentice, Gerrig, & Bailis, 1997) and even learn information
from fictional sources (e.g., Marsh, Meade, & Roediger,
2003). One cognitive explanation for this is that familiarity with the
story setting frees cognitive resources to evaluate factual claims in the
fictional context, and previous research has found limited support for
this theory by manipulating the familiarity of the setting of the story
(Prentice, Gerrig, & Bailis, 1997). The present study found additional
support for the familiarity hypothesis by manipulating the alignment
of the reader’s and protagonist’s genders. When reading stories with
a female protagonist, female readers experience less belief change
than when reading stories with a male protagonist, with male readers
showing the reverse pattern. However, this pattern was observed in
first-person stories, but not in third-person stories.
(4042)
How Readers’ Mood and the Valence of Story Endings Structure
Readers’ Experiences of Narratives. GIOVANNA EGIDI, University
of Chicago, & RICHARD J. GERRIG, Stony Brook University—Do
readers attend differently to story endings as a function of their positive
or negative valence? Does the valence of readers’ mood—positive or
negative—influence the way in which they process such outcomes? To
address these questions, we wrote stories that could have a positive or
negative ending, and induced participants to experience a positive or
negative mood prior to reading the stories. Independent of their mood,
participants read negative endings more slowly than positive endings
and remembered them better. However, readers in a negative mood
judged as more surprising positive endings, and readers in a positive
mood judged as more surprising negative endings. This research illustrates
that ending valence has strong influence on moment-bymoment
reading, but readers’ mood influences readers’ expectations
for story outcomes once they have formed a complete representation
of the story.
(4043)
Simple Addition and Subtraction Calculations While Reading a
Narrative. PAUL J. SCHROEDER & DAVID E. COPELAND, University
of Nevada, Las Vegas—Research with word problems has shown
that adults can make arithmetic calculations from text when asked to
do so. However, do adults make calculations while reading a text if
they are not explicitly asked to do it? The present study examined the
extent to which readers make arithmetic calculations while reading a
narrative under normal reading instructions and conditions. Specifically,
this study considered whether readers track precise values for
simple addition or subtraction while reading or whether general approximations
were acceptable. Participants read short stories that presented
two separate quantities (i.e., a starting amount and either an addition
or a loss). Arithmetic calculation was examined by comparing
reading times for inconsistent versus consistent statements regarding
the sum or difference value. Surprisingly, initial results show that
readers are more likely to detect inconsistent values for subtraction
than for addition.
• PERCEPTION •
(4044)
The Role of Familiarity and Reproducibility in Auditory Distance
Perception. PATCHOULY N. BANKS, BARBARA A. CHURCH, &
EDUARDO MERCADO III, University at Buffalo—Humans are poor
at judging the distance to a sound source. They typically underestimate
the distance when sounds have traveled far, and overestimate the
distance when sources are nearby. Several acoustic cues contribute to
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auditory distance estimation, most notably intensity. Nonacoustic
cues, including familiarity, may also play a role (Zahorik, Brungart,
& Bronkhorst, 2005). For example, previous research suggests that
distance judgments are easier for forward versus backward speech
(McGregor, Horn, and Todd, 1985). One limitation of this prior study
is that it confounded familiarity with reproducibility. We attempted to
control these factors. Participants categorized different types of
sounds, recorded at different distances, as coming from either near or
far sources. The sounds varied orthogonally in familiarity and reproducibility.
The results do not support the idea that distance judgments
are always easier for familiar sounds, but do suggest that nonacoustic
features of sounds can influence auditory distance estimation in interesting
ways.
(4045)
Interpreting Asymmetrical Correlations Between Perceived Changes
in Pitch and Loudness. ESTELLA H. LIU, BARBARA A. CHURCH,
& EDUARDO MERCADO III, University at Buffalo—Perception of
loudness and pitch interact during the processing of multidimensional
sounds. For example, listeners overestimate changes in pitch when
loudness increases, suggesting a perceptual bias for sounds with rising
intensity. We examined whether listeners show this bias when
asked to classify the direction of dynamic changes in pitch and loudness.
Listeners categorized pitch and loudness as rising or falling
when the correspondence between the two dimensions varied. Listeners
were more likely to incorrectly categorize both pitch and loudness
changes as rising/falling when the other dimension was also rising/falling.
They were also faster to correctly judge change direction
for both when the other dimension changed in the same way. As in previous
studies, perceptual bias in pitch judgments appeared to be
strongest when sounds increased in loudness. However, reaction time
data suggested a speed–accuracy trade-off. Implications of these results
for previous interpretations of asymmetrical biases are discussed.
(4046)
Acoustic and Semantic Effects on Change Deafness and Auditory
Object Encoding. MELISSA K. GREGG & ARTHUR G. SAMUEL,
Stony Brook University—Although change blindness has been frequently
demonstrated, detection of auditory change has been far less
studied; little is known about change deafness. We explored change
deafness by measuring both change detection and auditory object encoding.
Considerable change deafness occurred, even when auditory
objects were well encoded. We found that the pitch and periodicity of
sounds provided important cues for change detection, but not for object
encoding. In contrast, manipulation of the semantic relationships
between objects affected both change detection and object encoding:
Listeners committed more errors on both tasks when targets were semantically
related than when they were not. This finding suggests that
auditory objects are semantically encoded and that listeners sometimes
rely more on semantic information than on physical detail. Potential
mechanisms responsible for change deafness are discussed.
(4047)
Investigating Acoustic Property Cue Use for Complex Natural
Sound Structures. JESSE D. FLINT, RICHARD E. PASTORE, &
JEREMY R. GASTON, Binghamton University (sponsored by
Richard E. Pastore)—Many investigations of natural sound perception
assume a crisp relationship between source and sound properties, with
perception reflecting all listeners’ evaluating the relevant and ignoring
the irrelevant sound properties. However, each individual acoustic
property often reflects a number of different aspects of the source
event, resulting in fuzzy relationships between sound properties and
specific aspects of the source event. In addition, perception of individual
listeners reflects the evaluation of a limited subset of available
acoustic information, with the specific subset differing across listeners.
The present research investigates sound property utilization of individual
listeners by manipulating experience with, and knowledge
about, the relevance of specific sound properties. The results indicate