Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society — Volume 14 — November ...

Friday Afternoon Papers 117–123
is explored through examination of the composition of the groups, the
discourse from the group interactions, and associated learning products.
Further, some specific alternative hypotheses about why the third person
may matter will be discussed.
psycholinguistics i
independence Ballroom, Friday Afternoon, 3:30–5:25
Chaired by Matthew J. Traxler, University of California, Davis
3:30–3:45 (117)
Syntactic priming in Comprehension: Residual Activation or implicit
Learning (or Both)? KRISTEN M. TOOLEY & MATTHEW J.
TRAXLER, University of California, Davis (read by Matthew J.
Traxler)—Speakers and comprehenders are sensitive to syntactic structure
information in preceding sentences. Syntactic priming effects may
reflect residual activation of the primed structure, implicit learning, or
both. Three eyetracking experiments investigated the sources of syntactic
priming. In the first experiment, participants completed five separate
sessions. In each session, participants read 24 pairs of syntactically
complex prime and target sentences. Fixation time data showed a linear
decrease in reading time for prime sentences across the five sessions,
and significant savings in target sentence reading time over and above
the linear decrease in prime sentence RT. These results suggest that both
residual activation and implicit learning contribute to syntactic priming
effects. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated whether priming occurs when
unrelated sentences intervene between the prime and the target. Equivalent
syntactic priming was observed when no, one, or three unrelated
sentences intervened between primes and targets.
3:50–4:05 (118)
Eye movements During mindless Reading. ERIK D. REICHLE & AN-
DREW E. REINEBERG, University of Pittsburgh, & JONATHAN W.
SCHOOLER, University of California, Santa Barbara—Mindless reading
occurs when a reader’s comprehension has ceased but his/her eyes
continue to move across the page. Despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon,
very little is known about what happens in the mind during mindless
reading. The present eye-movement study compared eye movements collected
during intervals of normal versus mindless reading. Comparisons
indicated gross differences between the two types of eye movements
(e.g., more erratic scan paths during mindless reading). And relative to
normal reading, fixations during mindless reading were longer in duration
and were largely affected by linguistic variables (e.g., word frequency).
The latter finding suggests that whatever cognitive processes
normally guide eye movements during reading exert less control during
mindless reading. The results are also consistent with cognitive-control
models of eye-movement control during reading and provide support for
the distinction between awareness and meta-awareness.
4:10–4:25 (119)
Repetition Facilitates Eyetracking measures of Early Word Recognition.
PETER C. GORDON, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill—A
number of studies have shown that recognition of words that are repeated in
experimental materials show facilitation on eyetracking measures of word
recognition during reading. However, current models of eye-movement
control during reading either do not incorporate mechanisms whereby
repetition could prime word recognition independently of predictability or
do not accord a major role to word recognition in the control of eye movements.
The experiments reported here show that lexical repetition has an
effect on word recognition that is independent of predictability and of the
extent to which the repeated word is easily integrated into the meaning of
the sentence. The facilitative effect of word recognition is seen on eyetracking
measures of early processing—skipping rate, first-fixation duration,
and gaze duration. These findings provide evidence that recognition
is strongly influenced by recent lexical exposure and provide a challenge
to current models of eye-movement control during reading.
4:30–4:45 (120)
Generating “Joints” in Cognitive Dynamics: The Effects of Negation
on mouse-movement Trajectories in a Sentence Verification Task.
18
RICK DALE & NICHOLAS D. DURAN, University of Memphis—
A growing strand of research has employed semicontinuous tracking
of arm movements (e.g., through the computer mouse, or Nintendo Wii
remote) as a dynamic signature of unfolding cognitive processes. These
studies have demonstrated a systematic covariation between cognitive
processes and response execution. Often this work seeks smooth or nearly
smooth trajectories in analysis, discarding any data showing “changes of
mind”—rapid shifting of the arm dynamics within a trial—as noise. We
present a new analysis that embraces these rapid shifts in cognitive dynamics
as signal rather than noise. In two experiments, the effects of negation
on sentence verification are explored and, in particular, discrete-like shifts
in sentence processing. We discuss the results in terms of an integrative,
plural perspective on cognition: Dynamic and symbolic accounts of the
mind may be usefully integrated in explaining real-time cognition.
4:50–5:05 (121)
Context Affects Semantic priming of Number Names. JAMIE I. D.
CAMPBELL, University of Saskatchewan, & BERT REYNVOET,
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven—Campbell and Metcalfe (2008) found
that naming single-digit Arabic numbers was about 15 msec slower when
performed in the context of number-fact retrieval (multiplication) than in
the context of a task requiring semantic processing (magnitude comparison).
They proposed that the comparison context enabled both semantic
and asemantic pathways for number naming, but number-fact retrieval
(2 3 3 = ?) inhibited the semantic route. To pursue this hypothesis, we
adapted their paradigm by introducing a semantic priming manipulation.
In comparison blocks, digit naming was 8 msec faster immediately after
naming near digit primes (�1) in comparison with far primes (�3), but
there was no evidence for priming in multiplication blocks. The results
reinforce the theory that number-fact retrieval can inhibit the semantic
route for digit naming.
5:10–5:25 (122)
instruments Are Not Automatically primed by Verbs. CHUNG-I SU
& GAIL MAUNER, University at Buffalo (read by Gail Mauner)—
Ferretti et al. (2001) argued that some verbs automatically prime noun
instrument role fillers. We investigated whether their results were due
to an instrument expectation strategy that would lead to both inhibition
for unrelated targets when the expectation is violated and facilitation for
related targets when it is met. After replicating their study and results,
we used a neutral (blank screen) rather than an unrelated (verb) baseline
to eliminate expectation violations. Instrument priming was not significant
and effect size was reduced. We then used continuous priming to
eliminate all instrument expectations. No priming was observed and
effect size was further reduced. These results demonstrate that instrument
priming obtained with paired-word presentation, lexical decision,
and short SOA is strategic rather than automatic. Whether other participant
role-filler priming effects are strategic or automatic remains to be
clarified by replication using continuous priming procedures that do not
encourage strategy formation.
Explicit memory i
Back Bay Ballroom C, Friday Afternoon, 3:50–5:25
Chaired by Aude Oliva, MIT
3:50–4:05 (123)
Remembering Thousands of images With High Fidelity. AUDE
OLIVA, TIMOTHY F. BRADY, & TALIA KONKLE, MIT, & GEORGE
A. ALVAREZ, Harvard University—Although it is known that human
long-term memory capacity for images is massive, the fidelity with
which human memory can represent such a large number of images
is an outstanding question. We conducted three large-scale memory
experiments to determine the details remembered per image in both
objects and natural scenes, by varying the amount of detail required to
succeed in subsequent memory tests. Our results show that contrary to
the commonly accepted view that long-term memory representations
contain only the gist of what was seen, long-term memory can store
thousands of items with a large amount of detail per item. Further
analyses reveal that memory for an item depends on the extent to which