ISSN : 1226-9654
To investigate the processing of triangle and arrow under tachistoscopic condition, detection rates of post-cued targets were compared between the repetitive condition that the two simultaneously presented forms were the same and the alternative condition that they were different. Triangle and arrow were made by adding left or right diagonal to the context of L- shaped angle. With the two diagonal lines as possible targets positive repetition effect (that is, higher detection rate in the repetitive condition) was observed. On the contrary, with triangle and arrow as target candidates negative repetition effect (that is, higher detection rate in the alternative condition) was observed. Subsequent experiments were to study how the above repetition effects varied by using global (to form) or local (to diagonal or angle) attention task, making either diagonal or angle thick, or setting them disconnected. The results of five experiments showed that emergent features like closure and vertex were processed out of the briefly presented triangles and arrows, and the processing was affected by selective attention, other elementary features, and form compositions. Emergent features and angles were likely to be processed better than diagonals.
Both color repetition blindness (Kanwisher, 1991) and the negative color repetition effect (Park, 1988) refer to a poorer recognition of a repeated color than a nonrepeated color in perceptually-limited viewing conditions. Experiment 1 tested an input negation hypothesis that proposed that color repetition blindness (Kanwisher, Driver & Machadol, 1993) results from the negation of a repeated input based on brightness differences, rather than from the failure in token individuation. Experiment 2 explored whether attentional move is responsible for the negative color repetition effect as reported by Kim and Park (1994). These two experiments obtained results indicating that either color repetition blindness or the negative color repetition effect arises from input negation or attentional move. Experiments 3 and 4 examined which component of attention, engagement, move or disengagement, causes color repetition blindness by varying precue locations, distance between color inputs, and also by varying the exposure duration of each input. These two experiments showed that attentional disengagement is the most likely cause of color repetition blindness.
Three experiments examined whether illusory propositional conjunctions (Virzi & Egeth, 1984) are perceptual or post-perceptual phenomena. Experiment 1, using a recall task, demonstrated that illusory propositional conjunctions are observed along with illusory perceptual conjunctions. Using a successive and a simultaneous matching task, Experiment 2 & 3 examined whether illusory propositional conjunctions are dependent on verbal labeling and on memory failure (cf., Treisman & Schmidt, 1982). Illusory propositional conjunctions disappeared but illusory perceptual conjunctions were still observed in both successive and simultaneous matching tasks. These results suggest that contrary to what Virzi & Egeth (1984) claimed, illusory conjunctions occur only with perceptual features.
Using Reicher(1969) paradigm, this study examined whether the word-superiority effect could be observed with Hangul material, and if the effect were found, whether it could be accounted for by McClelland & Rumelhart's (1981) interactive activation (IA) model. The results of Experiment 1 which employed the forced-choice letter detection task showed the word-superiority effect. The pattern of the effect appeared to be similar to that found in English, suggesting that IA model could be extended to describe Hangul word recognition processes. However, the results of Experiment 2 which employed the forced-choice syllable detection task showed that simple extension of IA model to Hangul word recognition processes could be misleading. The subjects in Experiment 2 could be divided into 3 sub-groups depending on the patterns of their performance those who showed word-superiority effect, those who showed word-inferiority effect, and those who showed neither of such effects. These results indicate that forming syllable level representations differs from forming letter level representations. To account for such diverse results, a possibility was proposed in that syllable shapes play an important role in Hangul word identification.
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the inference about the emotional states of characters is generated in text comprehension. And the minimalists' and the constructionists' proposition ate compared in inference process. In this connection, the form of emotional representation is identified. For this purpose, as the on-line measurements, in Experiment 1 and 2, each of the word recognition task and the lexical decision task was given to subjects. The results showed that both semantic association words and emotional state words were inferenced in text comprehension. Another result implied that emotional state words were encoded as much as semantic association words. These two experiments demonstrated that the minimalists' proposition was limited. In Experiment 3, although not the on-line measurement approach, the context verification task was used to investigate whether the target word was activated from text's context. The result showed that the response time of relevant semantic association words was longer than that of relevant emotional state words. These experiments suggested that although emotional state words were activated in text comprehension, measuring the representation of the concrete words could not reflect the degree of activation of emotional state words, because they could be expressed many different kinds of emotional state words within the same sub-group.
Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of retention interval and the familiarity of stimuli on classification and old-new recognition of ill-defined category instances using the learning-transfer phase paradigm. The generalized context model(GCM) and the prototype abstraction model were formalized to quantitatively contrast in predicting classification performance. In experiment 1, random dot patterns were used as category instances reflecting the characteristics of ill-defined category well. In experiment 2, Reed's(1972) schematic faces were used as category instances that were more meaningful than the random dot patterns. The retention interval was manipulated in immediacy, a week, and a month. The results of experiment 1 using dot patterns showed that prototype information was not used in the classification and old-new recognition of category instances. However, there was a tendency that the fitness of GCM was decreased and that of prototype model was increased as the retention interval increased. In contrast, the results of experiment 2 using schematic faces showed that prototype information contributed significantly to the classification of category instances. Especially, the combined models showed that prototype information made more contribution than exemplar information to the classification and old-new recognition of category instances as the retention interval increased. The implications of this study were discussed.
Because inference is a constructive process of going beyond the information explicitly given, it must be based on the pre-exisiting knowledge structures. The present study attempted to examine the gender-schema or gender-related schema in mathematics ability through the analysis of biased inference responses. Two sets, such as A-set and B-set, respectively contained four story passages (in addition to other 8 story passages) all having content subject of mathematics ability were read to 1,488 Ss. After the presentation, inference items which required to have successful forward consequence inference for each story passage were given both immediately after reading and after one week delay. Names used in the story passages were either typical boy's or typical girl's names and story passages were counter-balanced in A-set and B-set. The difference of the yes-responses to the inference item of successful forward consequence from respective story passages between those of having boy's name and the conterparts having girl's names was scored as the gender-biased prejudice. To examine the developmental tendency, subjects from the second graders to the university students were used. Equal number of subjects for respective grade were analyzed for two different sets of story passages in each grade. To conclude, it was found that inference analysis could be very effective measure in identifying the underlying knowledge structure which had been commonly called schema or gender-related schema processing. Particularly, the immediate inference-making test was more sensitive. Secondly, the gender-related biased prejudices were found forming and developing fairly early from the fifth grade and on consistently. This early development of the gender-biased schema concerning mathematics ability seemed to draw special attention.
Using a paradigm which shows effects of inhibition of return, two experiments were carried out to examine attentional deficits in patients with Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer Type(SDAT). In experiment 1, using a continuous responding paradigm, we tested whether SDAT group shows inhibition effects. In contrast to normal group, we failed to obtain inhibition of return in SDAT group. In experiment 2, employing a cue-target paradigm, we found that both the normal and the SDAT group showed facilitatory effects of attention in short cue-target SOA conditions. These results suggest that 1) there is no indication of facilitatory attentional deficits in SDAT; 2) SDAT may have problems with inhibitory control of attention in various information processing pathways.