Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Sunday Morning Papers 300–306
Maggie Shiffrar)—Why do people demonstrate impressive visual sensitivity
to human action? Visual expertise theories suggest that this
sensitivity reflects a lifetime of experience watching other people
move. Motor experience theories suggest the visual analysis of human
movement selectively benefits from motor system contributions. To
test these theories, naive observers performed a series of identity discrimination
tasks. Observers viewed point-light displays of actions
performed by themselves (with which they have the most motor experience),
their friends (most visual experience), or matched strangers
(baseline condition). On each trial, participants viewed two actions
and reported whether the actions were performed by the same actor
or two different actors. Across studies, participants demonstrated the
greatest visual sensitivity to their own movements. Friends’ actions
were discriminated at above-chance levels. Performance was viewpoint
and action dependent. These results suggest that both motor experience
and visual experience define visual sensitivity to human
movement.
Emotion and Memory
Grand Ballroom Centre, Sunday Morning, 10:20–12:00
Chaired by Janet Metcalfe, Columbia University
10:20–10:35 (300)
Memory Under Stress: The Case of First-Time Parachute Jumping.
JANET METCALFE & BRIDGID FINN, Columbia University—The
memorial effects of traumatic levels of stress are difficult to assess because
of ethical considerations. However, the stress levels during firsttime
parachute jumping approach those of trauma. A series of memory
tests were, therefore, administered to first-time jumpers. The
results of these tests will be discussed in terms of the hot/cool framework
of memory and emotion.
10:40–10:55 (301)
“Remembering” Emotional Words Is Based on Response Bias Not
Recollection. SONYA DOUGAL, New York University, & CAREN M.
ROTELLO, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (read by Caren M.
Rotello)—Recent studies have demonstrated that emotion modulates
recognition memory by increasing the proportion of remember judgments
to emotional stimuli (Kensinger & Corkin, 2003; Ochsner,
2000). This finding has led to the claim that recognition memory for
emotional stimuli depends largely on a recollective process. We present
ROC data from two experiments that challenge this conclusion. In
both experiments, subjects studied and received a recognition test for
neutral and emotional words. At test, subjects gave confidence ratings
that each item had been studied. In Experiment 2, we also collected
remember/know judgments. Three models were fit to individual subjects’
data: a one-dimensional familiarity-based model (Donaldson,
1996), the dual-process model (Yonelinas, 1994), and STREAK
(Rotello et al., 2004). In accord with the literature, we find that emotion
increases subjective reports of “remembering.” However, the effect
is due to response bias differences rather than sensitivity change
or use of a high-threshold recollection process.
11:00–11:15 (302)
The Effect of Mood on Implicit Motor Sequence Learning. JANET E.
PALMER, GERALD L. CLORE, & DANIEL T. WILLINGHAM, University
of Virginia (read by Daniel T. Willingham)—We used music
to induce a happy or sad mood and observed the effect on implicit sequence
learning using the serial response time task. During training,
a sad mood led to overall faster performance, but a happy mood led
to more robust implicit sequence learning. After training, participants
listened to music designed to bring them back to a baseline mood and
then completed a probe of their learning. Once the effect of mood was
reversed, the difference in learning disappeared, which indicated that
mood affected the expression of implicit learning, but not learning itself.
The results are interpreted as supporting the mood-as-information
hypothesis.
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11:20–11:35 (303)
Emotion-Linked von Restorff and Interference Effects in Immediate
Memory: Arousal Versus Priority-Binding Mechanisms. DONALD
G. MACKAY & CHRISTOPHER H. HADLEY, UCLA—Binding theory
(MacKay et al., 2004) predicts three emotion-linked effects in immediate
recall of taboo versus neutral words: (1) a von Restorff effect for
taboo words presented slowly (2,000 msec/word) in mixed taboo-neutral
lists—that is, better recall of taboo words and their immediately adjacent
neutral words relative to position- and familiarity-matched neutral words
in unmixed lists; (2) equivalent recall of taboo and neutral words in
unmixed lists presented at fast or slow rates; (3) encoding interference
that impairs recall of neutral words in comparison with taboo words
in rapidly presented (200 msec/word) mixed lists—because emotion
triggers binding mechanisms for encoding context of occurrence,
taboo words impair the encoding of prior and subsequent neutral
words in rapidly presented mixed lists as a result of emotion-linked
capture of the mechanisms for binding list context. Our data supported
all three predictions, suggesting that time-limited binding processes,
rather than arousal or rehearsal processes triggered by taboo words,
underlie our von Restorff effect.
11:40–11:55 (304)
Working Memory and Emotion: Ruminations on a Theory of Depression.
ALAN D. BADDELEY, University of York—A number of
theories of emotion implicate working memory as a link between physiologically
based emotions and psychologically experienced feelings.
The Baddeley and Hitch multicomponent model of working memory
can account for the effects of fear and anxiety in terms of the distracting
effects of worry. Depression presents a greater problem. A possible
solution is proposed in terms of a hedonic detector system based on
physiological, possibly visceral information that then feeds into a comparator
when choices are required. The detector depends on a neutral
point which may be influenced genetically, environmentally, or pharmacologically.
Depression is assumed to reflect on inappropriate setting
of this neutral point. Working memory is required for storage within the
comparator and for the direction and control of the detection system.
Methods of testing the model empirically will be discussed.
Category Learning
Grand Ballroom East, Sunday Morning, 10:20–12:00
Chaired by Ben R. Newell, University of New South Wales
10:20–10:35 (305)
Challenging the Role of Implicit Processes in Probabilistic Category
Learning. BEN R. NEWELL, University of New South Wales, & DAVID
A. LAGNADO & DAVID R. SHANKS, University College London—
Considerable interest in the hypothesis that different cognitive tasks
recruit qualitatively distinct processing systems has led to the proposal
of separate explicit (declarative) and implicit (procedural) systems. A
popular probabilistic category learning task known as the “weather
prediction task” is said to be ideally suited to examine this distinction
because its two versions—“observation” and “feedback”—are claimed
to recruit the declarative and procedural systems, respectively. In two
experiments, we found results that were inconsistent with this interpretation.
In Experiment 1, a concurrent memory task had a greater
detrimental effect on the putatively implicitly mediated (feedback) version
than on the explicit (observation) version. In Experiment 2, participants
displayed comparable and accurate insight into the task and
their judgment processes in both the feedback and observation versions.
These findings have important implications for the study of
probabilistic category learning in both normal and patient populations.
10:40–10:55 (306)
Regulatory Focus and Flexibility in Classification. ARTHUR B.
MARKMAN, GRANT C. BALDWIN, & W. TODD MADDOX, University
of Texas, Austin—We explored the influence of regulatory fit
on category learning. Regulatory focus theory suggests that people