Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 3057–3064 Friday Evening
(3057)
Does Memory Retrieval Interference Require A Verbal Competing
Task? ANA M. FRANCO-WATKINS, TIM C. RICKARD, & HAROLD
PASHLER, University of California, San Diego—Fernandes and
Moscovitch (2000) found that a (verbal) memory retrieval task suffered
interference from a verbal competing task, but not from a numerical
competing task. We examined both verbal and numerical
competing tasks with varying levels of difficulty. Each of these competing
tasks was performed either alone or paired with a memory retrieval
task. In addition to analyzing overall performance levels, we
conducted a more microscopic analysis of the relative timing of responses
on the two tasks in order to shed light on the degree and nature
of interference. The results provide little support for the view that
memory retrieval is especially susceptible to interference from concurrent
verbal processing.
(3058)
Attentional Limits in Memory Retrieval—Revisited. COLLIN
GREEN & JAMES C. JOHNSTON, NASA Ames Research Center, &
ERIC RUTHRUFF, University of New Mexico—Carrier and Pashler
(1995) concluded that memory retrieval is subject to a central bottleneck.
Using locus-of-slack logic in a dual-task paradigm, they provided
evidence that memory retrieval (both recall and recognition) on
Task 2 was delayed until after the bottleneck caused by performing a
tone discrimination Task 1 occurred. New experiments explored the
limitations of Carrier and Pashler’s conclusions. To increase the likelihood
of observing parallel processing during memory retrieval, our
experiments used more typical dual-task instructions and used preferred
stimulus–response modality pairings. In addition, we considered
the hypothesis that central resources are required for the initiation
and/or termination of memory retrieval, but not for the retrieval
process itself.
(3059)
Probing the Link Between Orienting and IOR Using a Dual-Task
Procedure. TROY A. W. VISSER, University of British Columbia,
Okanagan, ROBERT BOURKE, University of Melbourne, & JENEVA
L. OHAN, University of British Columbia, Okanagan—A nonpredictive
visual cue presented at the same location as a target facilitates responses
when the interval between cue and target (cue–target onset
asynchrony; CTOA) is short (e.g., 100 msec) but slows responses
when the CTOA is longer (e.g., 800 msec). This slowing is commonly
referred to as inhibition of return (IOR). Although, IOR is clearly
linked to the attentional shift caused by the appearance of the cue, the
relationship between attention and IOR is still unclear. To investigate
this issue, the present work combined a conventional cuing paradigm
with a dual-task procedure. Observers were presented with a central
letter target, followed by a nonpredictive peripheral cue and a peripheral
target. The interval between the target letter and the cue was manipulated
to vary attentional availability for the cue. Results suggest
that limiting attention influenced early facilitation and later IOR, indicating
that both effects were subsumed by common mechanisms.
• SPEECH PERCEPTION •
(3060)
The Effect of Word/Emotion Congruency on Dichotic Laterality
Effects. CHERYL TECHENTIN & DANIEL VOYER, University of
New Brunswick (sponsored by Daniel Voyer)—The present study investigated
the effect of word/emotion congruency in dichotic listening.
Eighty participants were dichotically presented with pairs of
words expressing emotions in one of two report conditions (blocked
or randomized). Words and emotions were combined in congruent
(e.g., “glad” pronounced in a happy tone) and noncongruent (e.g.,
“glad” in a sad tone) pairs. Participants identified the presence of either
a target word or an emotion in separate blocks or in a randomized fashion.
In addition to an overall right-ear advantage (REA) for words and
a left-ear advantage (LEA) for emotions, a material (word or emotion) �
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congruency � ear interaction was obtained only for randomized testing.
It indicated an REA for words congruent with the expressed emotion,
whereas emotions showed an LEA only for incongruent stimuli.
Implications of these findings for research claiming functional complementarity
in the cerebral representation of verbal and nonverbal
tasks are discussed.
(3061)
Word and Subword Units in Speech Perception. IBRAHIMA
GIROUX & ARNAUD REY, LEAD-CNRS, Université de Bourgogne,
Dijon (sponsored by Arnaud Rey)—Saffran et al. (1996) found that
human infants are sensitive to statistical regularities corresponding to
lexical units when hearing an artificial spoken language. In order to
account for this early word segmentation ability, Simple Recurrent
Networks (SRN: Elman, 1990) suggest that associations between subword
units are strengthened with time. Alternatively, according to
Parser (Perruchet & Vinter, 1998), only lexical units are strengthened
independently from the weight of subword units. In the present study,
we compared word and subword recognition performance of adults after
hearing 2 or 10 min of an artificial spoken language. The data are consistent
with Parser’s predictions showing improved performance on
words after 10 min, but not on subwords. This result suggests that
word segmentation abilities are not simply due to stronger subword
units’ associations but to the emergence of stronger lexical representations
during the development of speech perception processes.
(3062)
Using Pronunciation Data to Constrain Models of Spoken Word
Recognition. LAURA DILLEY & MARK A. PITT, Ohio State University,
& KEITH JOHNSON, University of California, Berkeley—Many
of the mysteries of how spoken words are recognized have evolved out
of the observation that the acoustics of speech are highly variable, yet
perception is amazingly stable (i.e., listeners perceive the words intended
by talkers). Proposed solutions to this perceptual constancy
problem can be process oriented, in which mental processes restore
or recover the intended word form en route to lexical memory, or representation
oriented, in which the variation itself is encoded in the
word’s lexical entry. The viability of both approaches was examined
by studying the phonological and acoustic variability found in the
Buckeye corpus of conversational speech, specifically in environments
associated with regressive assimilation (“green” becomes
“greem” in “green ball”). The results highlight obstacles that models
of both classes must overcome.
(3063)
The Perception and Representation of an R-Dropping Dialect.
MEGHAN SUMNER & ARTHUR G. SAMUEL, SUNY, Stony Brook—
Much variation a listener is exposed to is due to differing phonological
characteristics of dialects. For example, in American English,
speakers of the Long Island dialect (LID) regularly drop the “er”
sound word finally (e.g., “mother” sounds similar to “moth-uh”). An
important question is how listeners within and across dialects perceive
and store such variation. Four speakers from two different dialect
groups (LID and non-LID) were used to address this question. Listeners
participated in either a long-term priming task or a semantic
priming task, with two speakers from each dialect. Examining dialectal
variation in this way enabled us to see whether speakers of an
r-dropping dialect stored representations similar to their own productions
(regardless of the input form). It also clarified whether the predictability
of the variation enables non-LID listeners to encode these
variants into the already existing representations of their own dialect, or
whether they created new speaker- or dialect-specific representations.
(3064)
Orthographic Influence in Phonological Variant Recognition.
LARISSA J. RANBOM & CYNTHIA M. CONNINE, SUNY, Binghamton
(sponsored by Cynthia M. Connine)—Although spoken word
recognition is influenced by phonology, orthographic characteristics