Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Sunday Morning Papers 286–292
enon. We posit that the blink curve is a hallmark of limitations in the
temporal resolution of the binding of working memory tokens to types.
In our model, lag 1 sparing results from a temporal window approximately
150 msec in length during which multiple items can be bound
to the same token. Recovery of the blink occurs when a second token
becomes available for binding. Here, we describe a reduced model that
captures the dynamics of working memory consolidation inherent in our
simultaneous-type/serial-token model. This modeling work is accompanied
by experimental work that corroborates our account of sparing
as a failure of working memory to assign unique tokens to two targets.
9:20–9:35 (286)
Suppression of Attention at Previously Attended Locations: Evidence
From Human Electrophysiology. JOHN J. MCDONALD, CLAYTON
HICKEY, JESSICA J. GREEN, & JENNIFER C. WHITMAN, Simon
Fraser University—Inhibition of return (IOR) is the term used to refer
to the delay in responding to objects that appear at recently stimulated
locations. IOR may reflect a difficulty in deploying attention to recently
attended locations, but most evidence has pointed to inhibition in response
processes. Here, a component of the event-related potential that
is known to reflect the deployment of attention—the N2pc—was examined
in order to determine whether IOR reflects an inhibition of attentional
processes. If IOR does reflect such inhibition, the N2pc should
be reduced or delayed for targets appearing at recently attended locations.
If IOR is unrelated to attention, then the N2pc should be the same
for targets appearing at recently attended and unattended locations. IOR
was associated with a reduced N2pc, which shows that people are slow
to respond to objects at recently attended locations because subsequent
attentional processes at those locations are suppressed.
9:40–9:55 (287)
Correlated Conjunction Effects Under Selective Attention. J. TOBY
MORDKOFF & ROSE HALTERMAN, Pennsylvania State University—
When performing a selective-attention task, subjects are affected by
to-be-ignored items that are associated with responses by the instructions
(the standard flanker effect) and by to-be-ignored items that are
correlated with certain responses (the correlated flanker effect) . . . at
least when the items are defined in terms of just shape or just color.
We extended this work by examining situations involving shape–color
conjunctions and found no standard flanker effect, as would be predicted
by many models, but a strong correlated flanker effect. These data will
be discussed in terms of a multipath model of visual perception.
Language Production
Civic Ballroom, Sunday Morning, 8:00–10:20
Chaired by Craig P. Speelman, Edith Cowan University
8:00–8:15 (288)
The Science of Cognitive Systems: A New Approach to Fractionation.
CRAIG P. SPEELMAN, Edith Cowan University, STEPHAN R. P.
HALLOY, New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food Research, & KIM
KIRSNER, University of Western Australia—The science of cognitive
systems depends on inferential procedures designed to identify system
components. Such procedures have been subject to criticism however
(e.g., Dunn & Kirsner, 2003). In this paper, we introduce a new
procedure that involves mathematical analysis of abundance distributions
(Halloy, 1998) or Zipf functions (Zipf, 1945), a close relative.
The objective is to determine whether or not a given set of data violates
the expected relationship between log frequency and log rank
and demands treatment as two sets or systems. We tested this relationship
for words and letters in English, and for kanji and radicals in
Japanese, using high-word-frequency data. The results were consistent
with the hypothesis that whereas kanji and the radicals constitute
a single system, words and letters constitute distinct systems. The utility
of this technique supports an argument proposed by Speelman and
Kirsner (2005) regarding the relationship between cognition and
complex systems.
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8:20–8:35 (289)
Memory Processes in Spontaneous Speaking: Measurement of Pause
and Speech Segment Duration. KIM KIRSNER, University of Western
Australia, KATHRYN HIRD, Curtin University of Technology, & JOHN
DUNN & JONATHAN FOSTER, University of Western Australia—
The assumption that memory and communication occupy distinct cognitive
domains has relied in part on the use of static and decontextualized
tasks designed specifically to measure one or other type of
behavior. In this paper, we use new measurement procedures to study
retrieval effects under natural language conditions. The procedures
enable separation and characterization of the short-pause, long-pause,
and speech duration distributions in spontaneous speaking (Kirsner,
Dunn, Hird, Parkin, & Clark, 2002). The experiment involved the contrast
between story generation and story recall and the results were as
follows: First, retrieval task influenced the means and other fluency
parameters under natural language conditions. Second, the critical
pause and speech duration distributions conform to the log normal, a
pattern that implies interaction among the memory and communication
variables. Third, amnesia influences the pause and speech duration
distributions. The results further undermine the argument that
memory and communication should be treated as distinct domains.
8:40–8:55 (290)
Structural Persistence in Anterograde Amnesia: Evidence for Implicit
Learning. VICTOR S. FERREIRA, University of California,
San Diego, & KATHRYN BOCK, NEAL J. COHEN, & MICHAEL P.
WILSON, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign—Speakers tend
to repeat syntactic structures. This structural persistence is tacit, incidental,
and long-lived, suggesting that it is a form of implicit learning.
However, most attested forms of implicit learning involve information
less abstract than syntactic knowledge. We determined
whether structural persistence reflects implicit learning by assessing
structural persistence in 4 patients with anterograde amnesia and 4
matched controls. Speakers (1) repeated passive or active primes and
dative or double-object primes; (2) repeated 0, 1, 6, or 10 neutral sentences;
(3) described pictures that elicited passive or active and dative
or double-object descriptions; and (4) made recognition judgments for
the prime sentences or matched foils. Amnesics had impaired recognition
memory for prime sentences in comparison with controls, but
both groups showed significant and equivalent structural persistence.
This is consistent with structural persistence being a form of implicit
learning and implies that implicit learning accrues even to the abstract
knowledge underlying syntactic production.
9:00–9:15 (291)
Do Speakers and Listeners Observe the Gricean Maxim of Quantity?
PAUL E. ENGELHARDT, Michigan State University, KARL G. D.
BAILEY, Andrews University, & FERNANDA FERREIRA, Michigan
State University (read by Fernanda Ferreira)—According to the Gricean
maxim of quantity, speakers provide as much information as is required
for referent identification and no more. Listeners should therefore
expect unambiguous but concise descriptions. In three experiments,
we examined the extent to which naive participants are
sensitive to this principle of communication. The first experiment was
a production experiment that demonstrated that listeners overdescribe
in almost one-third of their utterances. The second experiment showed
that listeners do not judge overdescriptions to be any worse than concise
expressions. The third experiment used the visual world paradigm
to measure listeners’ moment-by-moment interpretations of overdescribed
utterances. This last experiment revealed that overdescriptions
trigger eye movements that suggest confusion. The results provide
support for the use of a simple heuristic such as minimal attachment
or argument saturation to create an initial parse. We conclude that, in
general, people are only moderately Gricean.
9:20–9:35 (292)
Effects of Phoneme Repetition in the Spoken Production of Short
Phrases. MARKUS F. DAMIAN, University of Bristol—The effects