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

Sunday Morning Papers 316–322
Madison—Two primary methods have been used in studies of word reading:
small-scale factorial studies and larger scale “megastudies” involving
thousands of words. We conducted comparisons of the two, using
the frequency 3 regularity interaction in word naming as a test case.
Whereas the effect replicates across small-scale studies conducted in
different labs with different materials, the same results were not obtained
using item means from three megastudies. Correlations between the megastudies
are also surprisingly low. The considerable error variance in
the megastudies limits their use in creating mini (“virtual”) experiments.
The megastudies yield small but more consistent results using multiple
regression to examine factors such as frequency and length. We conclude
that important phenomena would not have been discovered using only
the megastudy methodology.
10:40–10:55 (316)
Parafoveal Preview Effects Within and Between Morphemes. DENIS
DRIEGHE, Ghent University, ALEXANDER POLLATSEK, University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, BARBARA J. JUHASZ, Wesleyan University,
& KEITH RAYNER, University of California, San Diego—Much
emphasis has been placed on how serial versus parallel models of lexical
processing during eye fixations in reading can account for observations
obtained in between-word boundary change experiments. We implemented
a boundary change manipulation within a monomorphemic
word (e.g., “fountaom,” as a preview for “fountain”), where, given adequate
visual acuity, parallel processing is uncontested. Parafoveal preview
was also examined within an unspaced compound (e.g., “bathroan,”
as a preview for “bathroom”), where serial processing of the constituents
is likely. There was larger preview benefit on monomorphemic words
than on compounds. Also, differences occurred early in the word: There
was no effect of the preview manipulation on the first constituent of the
compound, but there was on the corresponding letters of the monomorphemic
word. The massive preview benefit observed with monomorphemic
words (225 msec) casts doubts on the amount of parallel processing
typically taking place between words (effects of 20–40 msec).
11:00–11:15 (317)
Effects of Word Frequency and Repetition on the Coordination
of Eye Fixations and Responses in Word Sequences. JENNIFER S.
BURT, STEFANIE I. BECKER, MICHAEL CARROLL, & ROGER W.
REMINGTON, University of Queensland—The coordination of the eyes
and manual responses was examined in sequences of five 4-letter words
and nonwords arrayed from the left to the right edge of a computer display.
Readers fixated the items in turn and made a lexical decision to
each. Replicating previous results with single letters, the eyes left each
item approximately 250 msec prior to the execution of the manual response
to the item. Reductions of lexical processing time brought about
by repetition and high word frequency reduced both fixation durations
and interresponse times for the relevant word. Frequency of the immediately
preceding word affected fixation durations and the interval from
the eyes leaving a word until a response to it, whereas repetition of the
prior word did not consistently affect fixations or responses to the current
word. These results suggest different effects of word frequency and
repetition on eye movement control and responses.
11:20–11:35 (318)
Reading Spaced and Unspaced Chinese Text: Evidence From Nonnative
Chinese Speakers’ Eye Movements. SIMON P. LIVERSEDGE,
University of Southampton, DELI SHEN, XUEJUN BAI, JIN TIAN, &
GUOLI YAN, Tianjin Normal University, & KEITH RAYNER, University
of California, San Diego—We examined spacing in relation to word
segmentation for four groups of nonnative Chinese speakers (American,
Korean, Japanese, and Thai) learning Chinese as a second language.
We used Chinese sentences with four spacing formats: unspaced text,
word-spaced text, character-spaced text, and nonword-spaced text. Native
languages were spaced (English and Korean) or unspaced (Japanese
and Thai), character based (Japanese and Korean), or alphabetic (English
and Thai). We investigated whether spacing effects in the second language
were modulated by characteristics of the native language. Reading
measures all showed least disruption for word-spaced text and more for
unspaced, spaced, and nonword-spaced text, respectively. Effects were
48
uninfluenced by native language (though Chinese reading experience did
produce differences). Demarcation of word boundaries through spacing
speeds lexical identification during nonnative reading. The data suggest
that the word, not the character, is the primary unit of information in
Chinese reading.
11:40–11:55 (319)
Words Are Spatially Indexed During Reading. ALBRECHT W.
INHOFF, SEYMOUR BRADLEY, & JASON FLEISCHER, Binghamton
University, & RALPH RADACH, Florida State University—Our
work examined the spatial addressability of recognized visual words during
reading. Participants read text with a target word near the left (close
to sentence onset) or right margin. This was followed by a recognition
memory task in which participants were asked to determine whether
a word (target/old or filler/new) had appeared in the previously read
sentence. Word onset was accompanied by a 50-msec left- or right-side
visual cue that matched or mismatched the target’s original sentence
location or occupied a randomly selected right/left location on filler trials.
No cues were present in a baseline condition. Left-cue and no-cue
trials yielded faster RTs for left- than for right-side targets. Right-side
cues resulted in relatively long RTs for left-side targets and short RTs for
right-side targets. Spatial cuing thus facilitated lexical retrieval when the
word was not close to sentence onset.
Categories and Concepts III
Back Bay Ballroom C, Sunday Morning, 10:20–11:55
Chaired by John Paul Minda, University of Western Ontario
10:20–10:35 (320)
Visual Working Memory: Its Effects on Learning Rule-Defined and
Non-Rule-Defined Categories. JOHN PAUL MINDA & SARAH J.
MILES, University of Western Ontario—It is intuitive that category
learning involves contributions from both visual and verbal systems,
and considerable research suggests that the learning of rule-defined categories
depends on working memory. However, most existing research
has focused on verbal working memory, so the role of visual working
memory in categorization is unclear. We describe several experiments
that investigated the roles of visual and verbal memory in category
learning. In one experiment, both a visual and a verbal working memory
task interfered with the learning of rule-defined categories, but only the
visual working memory task seemed to interfere with the learning of
non-rule-defined categories. In another experiment, a visual task that
did not rely much on working memory disrupted the learning of nonrule-defined
categories, but did not disrupt the learning of rule-defined
categories. We discuss these results within a multiple systems theory of
category learning.
10:40–10:55 (321)
The Development of Categorization: Category Structure, Selective
Attention, and Inhibitory Control. VLADIMIR M. SLOUTSKY, Ohio
State University—The ability to learn categories appears early in development.
Some aspects of category learning (e.g., the ability to learn statistically
dense or similarity-based categories) exhibit relative phylogenetic
and ontogenetic universality and can be found across a wide range of species
and age groups. Other aspects of category learning are less universal,
and they emerge relatively late in development. For example, human
adults (but not human infants) can learn statistically sparse, similarity-free
categories. What changes in the course of development? We propose that,
whereas learning of dense categories could be subserved by the striatum,
learning of sparse categories requires the involvement of the prefrontal
cortex. If this is the case, the development of categorization is linked to
the development of prefrontal functions, such as selectivity and inhibitory
control. We present evidence indicating that infants and young children
learn complex categories when selectivity is not required, whereas learning
fails when selectivity or inhibitory control is required.
11:00–11:15 (322)
Categorization and Perception of Similarity in Pigeons. OLGA F.
LAZAREVA, Drake University—The ability to categorize objects and