Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Friday Evening Posters 3023–3029
tion. One assumption about the internal clock is that it can be started
and stopped arbitrarily, much like a stopwatch. The present study
tested this assumption in two experiments. Participants first learned
to reproduce 1-sec, 2-sec, or 4-sec target durations, using a fixedinterval
training procedure, and then were tested on their ability to reproduce
the target duration in the presence of a perturbation tone.
Under run instructions, participants ignored the perturbation tone and
responded as during training. Under reset instructions, participants
restarted timing following the perturbation tone. Inconsistent with the
arbitrary start/stop assumption, temporal productions under run and
reset instructions were strongly affected by the phase of the perturbation
and were dependent on the target duration.
(3023)
Timing of Cross-Modal Intervals in the Ranges of Milliseconds and
Seconds: Evidence for a Single Mechanism of Temporal Information
Processing. THOMAS RAMMSAYER, University of Göttingen, &
JUDITH NITSCHKE & ROLF ULRICH, University of Tübingen—
Several lines of research suggest two distinct timing mechanisms underlying
temporal processing (distinct timing hypothesis): a sensory
mechanism for processing of durations in the subsecond range and a
cognitive one for processing of longer durations. In three experiments,
subjects discriminated between the duration of a standard stimulus
and the duration of a variable comparison stimulus. On congruent trials,
both stimuli were presented to the same sensory modality (i.e.,
both visual or both auditory), whereas on incongruent trials, each
stimulus was presented to a different modality. According to the distinct
timing hypothesis, sensory incongruency should lower temporal
discrimination performance for brief, but not for long, standards. Contrary
to this prediction, sensory compatibility affected performance
more for long than for short durations. It is concluded that a singleclock
mechanism based on neural counting provides a better account
for these results than does the distinct timing hypothesis.
(3024)
Interruption in Time Reproduction: An Analysis of Interference Between
Specific Processes. LOBNA CHÉRIF & CLAUDETTE FORTIN,
Université Laval (sponsored by Claudette Fortin)—The impact of an
interruption on a time reproduction task involving the encoding and
reproduction of time intervals was investigated in this experiment.
Participants were trained to reproduce time intervals during which a
tone was presented. The tone was interrupted either during the encoding
or during the reproduction phase of the task. Participants were
instructed to reproduce the tone duration while ignoring the time for
which it was interrupted. Results show that expecting the interruption
causes an underestimation of the tone duration but that the effect was
stronger when the interruption occurred in the reproduction phase of
the task than when it occurred in the encoding phase. These findings
suggest that the effect of expecting an interruption in timing varies,
depending on the specific operations required in the timing task, and
they are discussed within a framework that emphasizes the processes involved
in the encoding and reproduction phases of time reproduction.
• AGING AND MEMORY •
(3025)
Aging and Qualitative Characteristics of Memories. SUZANNE M.
BLOISE, MARCIA K. JOHNSON, CAROL L. RAYE, & KAREN J.
MITCHELL, Yale University, & LINDA M. BARTOSHUK & DEREK J.
SNYDER, Yale University School of Medicine—We investigated age
differences in memory for complex pictures, using objective and subjective
memory measures. In preliminary analyses, given labels of
pictures, older adults showed poorer old/new recognition than did
younger adults, but gave higher ratings on some subjective memory
measures. We compare memory characteristic questionnaires (McQ),
using a typical McQ rating scale (Johnson et al., 1988) or using a variant
of the general linear magnitude scale (Bartoshuk et al., 2002), and
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discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages for comparing
across age groups and types of features of memory.
(3026)
Age, Implicit Motives, and Memory for Positive and Negative Social
Information. ANGELA H. GUTCHESS, Harvard University, & CARO-
LYN YOON & OLIVER C. SCHULTHEISS, University of Michigan—
Elderly adults exhibit poor memory for negative emotional information,
but less impaired memory for positive emotional information
(Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003). We tested whether this finding
extends to social information. Sixty young and 60 elderly adults
incidentally encoded 60 words and 90 pictures that were neutral, positive
social (e.g., “together”; depictions of group interactions), or negative
social (e.g., “apart”; depictions of isolated individuals). Positive
and negative social pictures, but not words, were better recognized,
relative to control pictures, for young and elderly adults, but elderly
adults were not disproportionately impaired on negative social stimuli.
However, elderly adults more motivated by affiliation and intimacy
(as assessed by the Picture Story Exercise; Schultheiss & Brunstein,
2001) showed a greater relative memory advantage for social
stimuli, relative to control stimuli. The relationship was not present
for young adults, suggesting that individual differences in motivation
have a greater contribution to memory with age.
(3027)
Collaborative Facilitation in High-Functioning Older Adults.
MICHELLE L. MEADE & DENISE C. PARK, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign—We tested the hypothesis that retrieval strategy
and repeated trials would reduce collaborative inhibition in young and
older adults. Subjects recalled unrelated word lists on their own or in
collaboration with another subject and developed strategies (individually
or collaboratively) to improve memory across repeated study–test
trials. Collaborative inhibition obtained on the first recall trial for both
young and older adults but persisted across trials only for young adults
(whose individual memory did not decline). For older adults, individual
recall performance declined across trials, but collaborative recall
performance did not decline. This pattern of collaborative facilitation
was obtained only for high-functioning older adults; the mechanism
for collaborative facilitation was the suggestion of more effective
strategies (not necessarily collaborative strategies) that require a
baseline level of cognitive capacity to implement. In cases where individual
memory declines, it may be advantageous to look to a collaborator
for more effective retrieval strategies.
(3028)
Retrieving the Names of Cartoon Characters: Effects of Name Descriptiveness
and Aging. LORI E. JAMES & KETHERA A. FOGLER,
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs—Few studies have tested
why a person’s name is more difficult to retrieve than other information
about that person. Names usually lack meaningful reference to individuals,
and this has been suggested to contribute to the difficulty
of names. Large age differences have been identified in memory for
names, and this experiment tested whether the arbitrary assignment of
names to individuals contributes to the age decrement in name memory.
Young and older adults named pictures of cartoon characters with
descriptive (depicting personality or appearance; e.g., Pink Panther)
and nondescriptive (e.g., Garfield) names. For percent correct, older
adults demonstrated pronounced deficits in recalling nondescriptive
names, as compared with descriptive ones. This interaction suggests
that part of the often-obtained age deficit in name memory occurs because
names generally lack meaningful reference to individuals.
Findings are interpreted within current theories of cognitive aging,
and practical applications of the results are suggested.
(3029)
Verbal Intelligence: Over the Hill and Picking Up Speed. AMY L.
SIEGENTHALER, Tokyo University of Social Welfare, BOB UTTL,