Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Sunday Morning Papers 314–321
sitivity of priming to form overlap in semantic categorization. For instance,
vapary is an effective prime for CANARY in an animal categorization
task but not in lexical decision.
11:20–11:35 (314)
The Fate of the Loser in the Competition of Real and Illusory
Words. MICHAEL NIEDEGGEN & MARTIN HEIL, Heinrich Heine
University, & CATHERINE L. HARRIS, Boston University (read by
Catherine L. Harris)—“Winner-take-all” networks are an important
theoretical construct in diverse fields. An implication of winner-takeall
networks is that a word which wins the competition for selection
receives maximal activation and will be consciously perceived, even
when selection was incorrect (i.e., when the winner out-competes the
stimulus present in the input). In the current study, competition was
induced between a physically presented (“real”) word and a selfconstructed
(“illusory”) word (Harris & Morris, 2001; Morris & Harris,
1999). Semantic activation was probed by recording event-related
brain potentials (ERPs). Only words reported by participants triggered
a spread of activation in the semantic network. Nonreported words
failed to prime downstream targets. Both effects were independent of
whether the potential primes were “real” or “illusory.” Findings indicate
that the neural “winner-take-all” network governing visual attention
extends to the processing of lexical units.
11:40–11:55 (315)
Effects of T1 Word and Orthographic Neighbor Frequency on the
Attentional Blink. JENNIFER S. BURT, SAMANTHA HOWARD,
& EMMALINE FALCONER, University of Queensland—In rapid serial
visual presentation (RSVP), identification of a target (T2) is
poorer when another target (T1) has been presented several items earlier.
This attentional blink (AB) increases in severity as the difficulty
of identifying T1 increases. In the present experiments, T1 and T2
were words, distractors were pronounceable nonwords, and the frequency
and orthographic-neighbor frequency of T1 were varied. In
Experiments 1 and 2, the AB was more severe for a low-frequency T1
than for a high-frequency T1. In Experiment 2, when T1 was a highfrequency
word, there was a predicted inhibitory effect of highfrequency
neighbors on the identification of T1 and T2. Effects of
neighbor frequency for a low-frequency T1 were less consistent, with
a predicted facilitatory effect observed for T2 identification only at
lag 2, and not for T1 identification. The AB paradigm is sensitive to
lexical variables but different effects may occur for word identification
and word memory.
Animal Cognition
Dominion Ballroom, Sunday Morning, 10:20–12:00
Chaired by William A. Roberts, University of Western Ontario
10:20–10:35 (316)
Studies of Bystander Apathy in Dogs. KRISTA MACPHERSON &
WILLIAM A. ROBERTS, University of Western Ontario (read by
William A. Roberts)—The question of whether dogs recognize an
emergency and understand the need to seek help from a bystander was
tested in two experiments. Dogs’ owners feigned an emergency in
which either the owner had a heart attack or was pinned under a fallen
book case and calling for help. Dogs’ behavior was taped and scored
to find out if they would go to an available bystander for aid. In no case
did a dog solicit help from a bystander. It was concluded that dogs did
not understand the nature of the emergency or the need to obtain help.
10:40–10:55 (317)
Remembrance of Places You Passed: Social Spatial Memories in
Rats. ROBERT F. FARLEY & MICHAEL F. BROWN, Villanova University
(read by Michael F. Brown)—Pairs of rats were tested in an
eight-arm radial maze. In one experiment, the two rats made choices
from among the eight maze arms. In a second experiment, the subject
rat first observed the other rat visit four maze arms and was then al-
49
lowed to choose from among the eight maze arms. In both experiments,
there was a tendency to avoid choosing maze arms that had
been previously visited by the other rat. This indicates that the spatial
location of choices by a foraging partner, like those of choices made
earlier by the subject, are coded in spatial working memory.
11:00–11:15 (318)
Rats Can Form a Simple Cognitive Map. REBECCA A. SINGER &
THOMAS R. ZENTALL, University of Kentucky (read by Thomas R.
Zentall)—Evidence for the formation of a cognitive map requires that
a familiar goal be reached by a novel path in the absence of available
goal-directing landmarks. Rats were trained on a three-arm maze with
distinctive arms to find food in two of the arms (the middle arm and
one side arm). They were then tested with both side arms blocked and
novel paths available between the center and side goal boxes. On the
first test trial, rats chose the novel path that led to the side goal box in
which they had found food in training significantly above chance
(75% of the time). In a second experiment, when the distinctive cues
were removed from the arms, no consistent preference was found
(49% choice). Thus, it does not appear that the rats were using a vector
and distance algorithm (path integration or dead reckoning) to find
the goal.
11:20–11:35 (319)
Rats’ Working Memory for Objects Based on Configuration and
Location Stability. VARAKINI PARAMESWARAN & JEROME
COHEN, University of Windsor (read by Jerome Cohen)—Four rats
received three baited objects in the study segment of a trial and then
a fourth baited “missing” object with the other three nonbaited objects
in the test segment of the trial. Rats were more accurate in finding the
missing object when it differed from the other three objects than when
it was similar to them (same) and when the objects remained in the
same spatial location in the square foraging arena between segments.
Increasing the intersegment delay from 1 min to 10 min reduced accuracy
to chance only when the spatial location of the objects was also
changed (Experiment 1). Varying the configuration of the different objects
between segments disrupted test segment search accuracy more
than did merely rotating their configurations (Experiment 2). The theoretical
implications of these findings are discussed on the basis of
path integration and landmark stability (Biegler; 2000, Biegler &
Morris, 1996).
11:40–11:55 (320)
What–Where–When Memory in Pigeons. SHANNON I. SKOV-
RACKETTE, NOAM MILLER, & SARA J. SHETTLEWORTH, University
of Toronto (read by Sara J. Shettleworth)—An animal that encodes
the identity, location, and time of an event should respond
correctly to any of the questions “What was it?” “Where was it?” and
“When was it?” when it cannot anticipate which question will be
asked. We describe a novel approach to testing animal “episodic-like”
memory based on this assumption. Pigeons were trained in separate,
interleaved sessions to match the identity of a 3-sec sample on a
touchscreen, to match its location, and to report on the length of the
retention interval (2 or 6 sec). When these what, where, and when trials
were then mixed randomly within sessions, birds were correct on
more than 80% of trials. In order to test whether the three features
were bound together in memory or encoded independently, we gave
birds two different tests in succession after each sample. Binding of
what and where was tested in a different way in a second experiment.
Priming in Memory Tasks
Civic Ballroom, Sunday Morning, 10:40–12:00
Chaired by Eva Dreikurs Ferguson
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
10:40–10:55 (321)
Priming, Social Category Content, and Word Repetition Effects.