S1 (FriAM 1-65) - The Psychonomic Society

Papers 172–178 Saturday Morning
Skill Retention and Transfer
Regency DEFH, Saturday Morning, 10:40–12:00
Chaired by Thomas H. Carr, Michigan State University
10:40–10:55 (172)
When Adults Think Like Kids About Equality: Schema Activation
and Time Pressure in Mathematical Problem Solving. SIVBOUNG C.
GO, Michigan State University, PERCIVAL G. MATTHEWS &
BETHANY RITTLE-JOHNSON, Vanderbilt University, & THOMAS H.
CARR, Michigan State University (read by Thomas H. Carr)—When
elementary-school-aged children solve 5 + 7 + 4 = 6 + __, the most
common response is 22 and the next most common response is 16—
quite different from the algebraically correct response of 10. This
error is thought to represent a mathematical misunderstanding of
“equality” and its symbol, the equals sign. As a consequence of this
misunderstanding, the equality symbol elicits various “add them up”
strategies—add every number you see, or add to the equals sign and
report what you get—rather than “make the two sides balance,” which
is the mathematically correct understanding. College students get
such problems right—if given unlimited time. But if practiced on simple
addition and put under time pressure, they once again think like
children, showing that old strategies don’t die. Instead they must be
suppressed, and they can compete with newer and better strategies
under demanding conditions.
11:00–11:15 (173)
Reverse Association in Simple Multiplication Is Task Dependent.
JAMIE I. D. CAMPBELL & NICOLE D. ROBERT, University of
Saskatchewan—Last year we reported a failure to find evidence that
repetition of specific factoring problems (54 = ? � ?) facilitated performance
of corresponding multiplication problems (6 � 9 = ?), and
no evidence of facilitative transfer from multiplication (6 � 9 = ?) to
factoring (54 = ? � ?). These negative results cast doubt on claims that
memory for multiplication facts (6 � 9 = 54) incorporates bidirectional
links from factors to product and from product to factors. This
year, we report two studies that did produce facilitative transfer in
both directions between factoring and multiplication. Bidirectional
transfer depends upon the type of transfer paradigm employed.
11:20–11:35 (174)
Typing Titles: Situation Model Development, Task Interference, and
Typing Skill. TRINA C. KERSHAW, University of Massachusetts—
Situation model development can be hindered by text properties, such
as the lack of a title (cf. Bransford & Johnson, 1972), or by a competing
task, such as proofreading. Research suggests that for highly
skilled typists, transcription typing does not interfere with concurrent
tasks such as text comprehension (cf. Gentner, 1988). However, when
typists use an altered keyboard layout, it is likely that their situation
model development will be hindered. Participants with varying levels
of typing skill completed a transcription typing task of passages with
or without a title on a regular or altered keyboard layout. The effects
of skill interference on situation model development will be examined
with respect to level of typing skill. Implications for theories of text
comprehension, skill acquisition, and negative transfer will be
discussed.
11:40–11:55 (175)
Physical but Not Mental Practice Yields Retroactive Interference.
ERICA L. WOHLDMANN, California State University, Northridge,
& ALICE F. HEALY & LYLE E. BOURNE, University of Colorado—
Eighty participants were trained to type 64 four-digit numbers 5 times
each and were tested immediately on both practiced (old) and new
numbers. Half the participants typed using their right index finger,
and the remaining half typed using their left index finger. Next, participants
were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions. They either mentally or
physically practiced typing the old numbers 5 times each using either
the same or the opposite hand as during initial training. On a final test,
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all participants typed physically old and new numbers with the finger
used initially. Reversing the hand used during practice led to slower
execution times than did maintaining the same hand throughout practice
(reflecting retroactive interference), but only with physical practice,
not with mental practice. These results are consistent with the hypothesis
(Wohldmann, Healy, & Bourne, 2007) that physical, but not
mental, practice strengthens a representation that includes effectordependent
response execution processes.
Modeling Word Processing
Beacon A, Saturday Morning, 10:20–12:00
Chaired by Christopher T. Kello, George Mason University
10:20–10:35 (176)
Large-Scale Modeling of Lexical Processing. DARAGH E. SIBLEY
& CHRISTOPHER T. KELLO, George Mason University (read by
Christopher T. Kello)—No current model of lexical processing includes
the tens of thousands of mono- and multisyllabic words that
exist in real lexicons. No single connectionist model has simulated
both word naming and lexical decision tasks for real words. Two modeling
innovations are presented and used to build a large-scale connectionist
model of word reading that simulates both naming and lexical
decision. One innovation is to adapt simple recurrent networks for
learning and processing nearly 75,000 orthographic and phonological
wordforms of English. The other innovation is to integrate the representation
and processing of wordforms using localist units, which enables
the simulation of lexical decision in one mode of processing and
word naming in another, without architecturally distinct mechanisms.
Processing generalizes to pseudowords because activations can be distributed
over the localist units. Model performance is compared with
naming and lexical decision data for over 25,000 words taken from the
eLexicon database.
10:40–10:55 (177)
Developmental Dyslexia and the Dual Route Model of Reading:
Simulating Individual Differences and Subtypes. JOHANNES C.
ZIEGLER, CNRS and University of Aix-Marseille—Developmental
dyslexia is investigated in the context of the dual route cascaded
model of reading aloud (DRC). Four tasks were designed to assess
each representational level of the DRC: letter level, orthographic lexicon,
phonological lexicon, and phoneme system. The data showed no
single cause of dyslexia, but rather a complex pattern of phonological,
phonemic, and letter processing deficits. Individual reading performance
was simulated by adding noise at a level proportional to the
underlying deficit(s) of each individual. The simulations not only accounted
for individual reading patterns but also for different dyslexia
profiles discussed in the literature (i.e., surface, phonological, mixed,
and mild dyslexia). Thus, taking into account the multiplicity of underlying
deficits on an individual basis provides a parsimonious and
accurate description of developmental dyslexia. The present work
highlights the necessity and merits of investigating dyslexia at the
level of each individual rather than as a unitary disorder.
11:00–11:15 (178)
Nested Incremental Modeling: The CDP+ Model of Reading Aloud.
MARCO ZORZI, University of Padua, CONRAD PERRY, Swinburne
University of Technology, & JOHANNES C. ZIEGLER, CNRS and
University of Aix-Marseille (sponsored by Patrick Lemaire)—We present
a new Connectionist Dual Process model, CDP+, which builds
upon the strengths of previous models while eliminating their weaknesses.
Contrary to the Dual-Route Cascaded model, CDP+ is able to
learn and produce graded consistency effects. Contrary to the Triangle
model, CDP+ accounts for serial effects and has more accurate
nonword reading performance. CDP+ also beats all previous models
by an order of magnitude when predicting individual item-level variance
on large databases. Extensions of the CDP+ model to the reading
of bi-syllabic words are discussed.