Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 4113–4120 Saturday Noon
(4113)
Perception of Age in Human Faces. PATRICIA A. COSTELLO, Gustavus
Adolphus College, & TRACY L. CLEVELAND & SETH M.
LANGEVIN, Bradley University—Faces convey a substantial amount
of information about their owners, including emotional state, gender,
and age. Perception of age plays an important role in how we interact
socially with others. This study seeks to understand how people’s age
and gender influence age judgment of an unknown face. The study
also examines the effect of exposure time on the judgment about a
face’s age. Younger subjects (college age) viewed male and female
faces ranging from 20 to 80 years old for 100 msec and estimated how
old each face was. Older subjects (55–85) viewed faces for 3 sec and
also estimated how old each face was. All subjects also categorized
the faces as “young” or “old.” Both the younger and the older subjects
were more accurate for their own age groups, but younger subjects
tended to underestimate faces from older age groups and older subjects
tended to underestimate younger age groups.
(4114)
Revisiting the Chicago–Rome Effect. CATHERINE MELLO &
MICHÈLE ROBERT, Université de Montrèal—Examination of biases
in location estimates has led some authors (Friedman & Brown, 2000;
Friedman, Kerkman, & Brown, 2002) to think that North America,
Europe, and Africa were organized in distinct subjective units. The
present study assesses the biases existing in relative location judgments
for pairs of Old and New World cities belonging to different
subjective subregions. Sixty undergraduate students from Québec provided
28 location estimates, using a compass. Overall, their answers
were biased, as predicted, from previous studies. However, analyzing
individual items suggests that the subjective geography of these participants
may differ from that of the prior Albertan and American samples.
The present participants seem to align the United States with
southern Europe and northern Africa and do not appear to conceptualize
northern Europe as a whole. Since such distortions in geographical
representations cannot be explained by climate considerations,
the role of various categorical cues needs to be investigated.
(4115)
Influence of Task Rule on the MARC Effect. YANG SEOK CHO,
Korea University, & ROBERT W. PROCTOR, Purdue University—
The MARC effect is that performance is better when an even number
is mapped to the right response and an odd number to the left response
than when the mapping is opposite. Two experiments examined the effect
of task rule on the MARC effect. In Experiment 1, participants
made left–right keypresses to Arabic numerals 3, 4, 8, and 9 with the
odd–even classification rule or with a multiple-of-3-or-not rule. The
MARC effect was evident with the odd–even rule, whereas a reverse
MARC effect was obtained with the multiple-of-3-or-not rule. However,
the SNARC effect (left response faster for small numbers and
right response for large numbers) was not influenced by task rule. In
Experiment 2, in which the stimuli were Arabic numbers or number
words, the same result pattern was obtained for both stimulus modes.
These results suggest that the MARC effect is due to a coding asymmetry
determined by task rule.
(4116)
Thematic Relations and Individual Differences in the Noninversion
of Similarity and Difference. SABRINA G. SIMMONS & ZACHARY
ESTES, University of Georgia (sponsored by Zachary Estes)—We investigated
the role of thematic relations in the apprehension of similarity
and difference, and we identified systematic individual differences
in the perception of similarity. Although traditional models
construe similarity as a weighted function of common and distinctive
features (Tversky, 1977), recent evidence suggests that thematic relations
also influence perceived similarity (Wisniewski & Bassok,
1999). That is, related items (milk–coffee) are judged more similar
than unrelated items (milk–lemonade). Experiment 1 revealed that
thematic relations affect similarity more than difference (the nonin-
122
version effect). Experiment 2 eliminated this noninversion effect by
instructing participants to ignore relations. Experiment 3 used a prescreening
task (Is dog more similar to cat or bone?) to distinguish
relation-dominant participants (bone) from feature-dominant participants
(cat). Relation-dominant participants exhibited the noninversion
effect, whereas feature-dominant participants did not. Results suggest
that the noninversion of similarity and difference is attributable to thematic
relations, and is subject to individual differences.
(4117)
Bidirectional Relatedness Norms: Comparisons With Associability
and Latency Measures. HARRIETT AMSTER & DAVID S. GORFEIN,
University of Texas, Arlington, & KIMBERLY K. WEAR, High Point
University—Rated relatedness ratings were obtained for word pairs
that were of three types: (1) members of the same category (e.g.,
ruby–emerald), (2) associatively related as primary (e.g., black–white)
or secondary (e.g., black–dark), and (3) assorted relationships, including
homographs paired with related nonhomograph responses to
each of two meanings of the homograph (e.g., bat–baseball; bat–rat).
The ratings for relatedness were obtained in both the forward and the
backward directions.
• MATHEMATICAL COGNITION AND PROBLEM SOLVING •
(4118)
All Mixed Up: The Effect of Numeral Format on Single-Digit Addition
and Multiplication Performance. JO-ANNE LEFEVRE &
MARCIE PENNER-WILGER, Carleton University—How does numeral
format affect calculation? University students (n = 40) solved
single-digit problems in either addition or multiplication in digit format
(e.g., 2 + 3), word format (e.g., two + three), and mixed format
(e.g., 2 + three; two + 3). Participants reported their solution methods.
For addition, participants took longer to solve mixed than digit
problems and longer to solve word than mixed problems. Participants
also reported using retrieval less frequently for word than for digit
problems. There was a problem size effect for all dependent measures,
but no format � size interaction for addition. For multiplication, participants
were slower to solve word than mixed or digit problems.
There was a problem size effect for all dependent measures, and there
was a format � size interaction such that the problem size effect was
greater for digit than for mixed or word problems. Implications for
theories of arithmetic performance are discussed.
(4119)
Effects of Numerical Surface Form on Performance of Simple Arithmetic
Rules. JAMIE I. CAMPBELL & ARRON W. METCALFE, University
of Saskatchewan—Adults performed simple, rule-based arithmetic
problems (N + 0 = N, N � 1= N, N � 0 = 0) composed of Arabic
digits (5 � 1; 0 + 4) or written English number words (five � one;
zero + four). With Arabic digits, N � 0 = 0 was relatively slow, compared
with the other zero and one problems, and there was a high rate of
N � 0= N errors. In contrast, with word stimuli, N � 0 items were
relatively fast and yielded a low rate of N � 0= N errors. These
format-related differences imply that Arabic digits generated more interrule
confusion than did number words. These findings provide additional
evidence that numeral-encoding mechanisms and central
mechanisms for calculation can be interactive, rather than strictly additive,
processes.
(4120)
Assessing Students’ Mathematics Learning. PATRICIA BAGGETT,
New Mexico State University, & ANDRZEJ EHRENFEUCHT, University
of Colorado, Boulder—In the United States, in conjunction with
state and national standards, as well as NCLB evaluations of schools,
methods of assessment and their uses are hotly discussed. Most assessment
instruments rely heavily on multiple choice questions and short answers
and are also cumulative, covering many topics only briefly. We
are experimenting with a different paradigm. Students are taught a