Experimental psychology最新文献

Learning information may benefit from movement: Items that are spoken aloud are more accurately remembered than items that are silently read (the production effect). Candidate mechanisms for this phenomenon suggest that speaking may enrich or improve the feature content of memory traces, yet research suggests that prior language skill also plays a role. Recent work showed a larger production effect in bilinguals for words in their second language (L2) compared to their first language (L1), potentially suggesting that bilinguals engage different or additional linguistic features when speaking L2 compared to L1 words. The current study examined whether the increased L2 production effect reduces for L2 and L1 pseudowords, which may similarly engage mainly phonological features. German (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals first read (out loud or silently) and subsequently recognized German or English words or pseudowords following German or English phonology. The production effect increased for L2 compared to L1 items and for words compared to pseudowords. Modest evidence suggested L2-L1 similarity in production effect scores for pseudowords, but different L2-L1 scores for words. Integrating feature models of memory with models of bilingual language production, we propose that speaking an L2 may engage more extensive and diverse linguistic features than an L1.

Previous work suggests that similar cognitive processes contribute to memory and comprehension. This is unsurprising as both begin with a common process: encoding. Despite this, the investigation of techniques that benefit memory and comprehension has proceeded separately. In the current study, we compared the robust memory techniques of production and drawing to a similarly effective comprehension strategy known as paraphrasing. Depending on the group, participants were asked to either engage in one of the encoding types (read aloud, draw, or paraphrase) or to silently read 20 term-definition pairs (randomly intermixed and counterbalanced). The encoding techniques of drawing and paraphrasing resulted in better performance on a multiple-choice test of concept comprehension, relative to silently reading. By contrast, reading aloud at encoding did not lead to any benefit relative to silently reading. The results suggest that techniques that invoke transformation of the to-be-remembered text into another format, be it into a picture (drawing) or personally relevant summary (paraphrasing), are particularly effective at improving comprehension. By contrast, encoding techniques that mainly provide a perceptual repetition (production and silent reading) are less effective.

The current study examined whether the benefit of mixed-list production could extend to memory for background contexts using word-background context pairs. Participants studied words presented on background images; words were read aloud or silently. In Experiment 1a, half of the studied items were tested on their studied background image and half were tested on a new image using old-new recognition. Although a production effect in word recognition was observed, context reinstatement had no effect on sensitivity and only a marginal effect on hit rates; it did not interact with production. In Experiment 1b, whether participants encoded the backgrounds and whether that encoding was affected by production was tested using separate recognition tests. A production effect was found in word recognition, but there was no effect in image recognition. Experiment 2 used a cued-recall test, with the studied background images as the cues to directly test whether associations were formed between words and backgrounds at study. A production effect was found but did not interact with the presence of cues during recall. Both the benefit of production and the benefit of context reinstatement appear to be independent of one another, with production not aiding memory for the associations between items nor the context.

Recent changes in environments from in-person to remote present several issues for work, education, and research, particularly related to cognitive performance. Increased distraction in remote environments may lead to increases in mind-wandering and disengagement with tasks at hand, whether virtual meetings, online lectures, or psychological experiments. The present study investigated mind-wandering and multitasking effects during working memory tasks in remote and in-person environments. In two experiments, participants completed a working memory task with varied cognitive load during a secondary task. After each working memory trial, participants reported their mind-wandering during that trial. Some participants completed the procedures in-person, while others completed the procedures remotely. Overall, remote participants reported significantly more mind-wandering and poorer secondary task performance than in-person participants, but this pattern was not reflected in working memory accuracy. Both groups exhibited similar multitasking effects on performance. Additional analyses found that for remote participants, task engagement better predicted working memory performance than either cognitive load or mind-wandering rates but did not indicate a tradeoff in resources between tasks. Together, these results demonstrate the importance of considering multiple metrics when assessing performance and illustrate that making assumptions about the equivalence of remote and in-person work is a risky proposition.

We investigated effects of emotions on arithmetic problem-solving and age-related differences in these effects. Young and older adults verified addition problems displayed superimposed on emotionally negative, positive, or neutral pictures. Participants obtained poorer performance in emotion than in neutral conditions, with stronger interference by negative than positive emotions. Also, participants were more impaired by negative emotions while solving true problems than false problems, whereas they were influenced by positive emotions similarly on true and false problems. Interestingly, effects of both positive and negative emotions were comparable in young and older adults. These findings have important implications for further understanding how negative and positive emotions influence arithmetic problem-solving.

A conditioned response to a stimulus can be transferred to an associated stimulus, as seen in sensory preconditioning. In this research paper, we aimed to explore this phenomenon using a stimulus-response contingency learning paradigm using voluntary actions as responses. We conducted two preregistered experiments that explored whether a learned response can be indirectly activated by a stimulus (S1) that was never directly paired with the response itself. Importantly, S1 was previously associated with another stimulus (S2) that was then directly and contingently paired with a response (S2-R contingency). In Experiment 1a, an indirect activation of acquired stimulus-response contingencies was present for audiovisual stimulus pairs wherein the stimulus association resembled a vocabulary learning setup. This result was replicated in Experiment 1b. Additionally, we found that the effect is moderated by having conscious awareness of the S1-S2 association and the S2-R contingency. By demonstrating indirect activation effects for voluntary actions, our findings show that principles of Pavlovian conditioning like sensory preconditioning also apply to contingency learning of stimulus-response relations for operant behavior.

The production effect refers to the finding that words read aloud are better remembered than words read silently. This finding is typically attributed to the presence of additional sensorimotor features appended to the memory trace by the act of reading aloud, which are not present for items read silently. Supporting this perspective, the production effect tends to be larger for singing (the singing superiority effect) than reading aloud, possibly due to the inclusion of further sensorimotor features (e.g., more pronounced tone). However, the singing superiority effect has not always replicated. Across four experiments, we demonstrate a production effect for items read aloud but observe a singing superiority effect only when items are tested in the same color in which they were studied (with foils randomized to color). A series of meta-analytic models revealed the singing superiority effect to be smaller than previously thought and to emerge only when test items are presented in the same color in which they were studied. This outcome is inconsistent with common distinctiveness-based theoretical accounts.

In the verbal domain, it is well established that words read aloud are better remembered than their silently read counterparts. It has been hypothesized that this production effect stems from the addition of distinctive features, with the caveat that the processing that generates added features interferes with rehearsal. Here, we tested the idea that a similar trade-off is found in the visuospatial domain. In all experiments, a short series of single dots sequentially appeared at various locations on a screen. Participants produced the items by clicking on them at presentation, watched the items appear quietly, or produced an irrelevant click after each item to better even out rehearsal opportunities between produced and control conditions. In Experiment 1, the dots appeared within a visible grid and an order reconstruction task was used. Experiment 2 also called upon reconstruction, but with the grid removed. In Experiments 3, a recall task was used. The results show that producing items hindered performance compared to the control condition. Conversely, production improved performance compared to the control condition where rehearsal was hindered. This is the first demonstration of a visuospatial production effect. The key findings were successfully modeled by the Revised Feature Model (RFM).

The production effect is the finding that, relative to silent reading, producing information at study (e.g., reading aloud) leads to a benefit in memory. In most studies of this effect, individuals are presented with a set of unique items, and they produce a subset of these items (e.g., they are presented with the to-be-remembered target item TABLE and produce table) such that the production is both unique and representative of the target. Across two preregistered experiments, we examined the influence of a production that is unique but that does not match the target (e.g., producing fence to the target TABLE, producing car to the target TREE, and so on). This kind of production also yielded a significant effect-the mismatching production effect-although it was smaller than the standard production effect (i.e., when productions are both unique and representative of their targets) and was detectable only when targets with standard productions were included in the same study phase (i.e., when the type of production was manipulated within participant). We suggest that target-production matching is an important precursor to the production effect and that the kind of production that brings about a benefit depends on the other productions that are present.

Mathematical models explaining production effects assume that production leads to the encoding of additional features, such as phonological ones. This improves memory with a combination of encoding strength and feature distinctiveness, implementing aspects of propositional theories. However, it is not clear why production differs from other manipulations such as study time and spaced repetition, which are also thought to influence strength. Here we extend attentional subsetting theory and propose an explanation based on the dimensionality of feature spaces. Specifically, we suggest phonological features are drawn from a compact feature space. Deeper features are sparsely subselected from a larger subspace. Algebraic and numerical solutions shed light on several findings, including the dependency of production effects on how other list items are encoded (differing from other strength factors) and the production advantage even for homophones. This places production within a continuum of strength-like manipulations that differ in terms of the feature subspaces they operate upon and leads to novel predictions based on direct manipulations of feature-space properties.