Albert N. Katz

Biases in Visual Attention in Depressed and Nondepressed Individuals

Abstract The present study utilised a cognitive paradigm to examine attentional biases in mildly depressed persons. Twelve depressed and 12 nondepressed subjects completed an attentional task similar to that employed by MacLeod, Mathews, and Tata (1986). A tachistiscope was used to present subjects with a series of word pairs, each with one word printed above the other. Three types of word pairs were presented: manic-neutral, depressed-neutral, and manic-depressed. Selective attention to one member of a word pair was assessed using ac perception task. Based on cognitive models of depression, it was hypothesised that the depressed subjects would attend more to depressed-content words than to manic- or neutral-content words, whereas the nondepressed subjects would not exhibit any attentional biases. In contrast to these predictions, analyses indicated that whereas the depressed subjects attended equally to depressed-, manic-, and neutral-content words, the nondepressed subjects attended more to manic-conten...

Input, Decision, and Response Factors in Picture-Word Interference

Two variations of the picture-word analogue of the Stroop task were examined in an effort to gain a better understanding of the processes involved in responding to picture-word stimuli. Four stages in this process were outlined and then evaluated as potential sources of the interference in these types of tasks. In Experiment 1 subjects were required to respond yes or no (vocally or manually) to whether the picture was that of a dog. In Experiment 2 subjects were asked to respond by naming the pictures semantic category. Taken together, the results of these experiments indicate that (a) input factors contribute very little to the interference observed, (b) in certain situations some of the interference is due to an interaction of the semantic information from the word and the picture during a decision process, and (c) the response selection and output processes account for most of the interference but only in situations in which the words name is potentially a response. Implications of these results for the study of automatic semantic processing of words are discussed.

On the uses of sarcastic irony

Abstract The studies reported here contrasted the effects of making a criticism directly with that of making it indirectly (via sarcasm). These effects were examined either when the focus was on the person who uttered the criticism (Study 1) or when the focus was on the person to whom the barb is directed (Study 2). Moreover, we studied the beliefs associated with sarcastic uses from four different points-of-view: from that of the speaker, from that of the target of the criticism, from that of an incidental overhearer and from a control no-perspective orientation. The main task involved reading a set of passages in which one of the characters criticized another either directly or via sarcasm. Participants completed a questionnaire for each passage about why the criticism was made. A set of reasons discriminated sarcastic from direct criticism, with twice as many discriminating reasons being observed when one considers what is in the mind of the person making the sarcastic comment (Study 1) relative to what is in the mind of the person who receives it (Study 2). Factor analyses indicated that many of the seemingly separate reasons reflect a common basis, primarily verbal aggression, though separate factors indicated that verbal aggression made via sarcasm differs in some ways from that when made directly. Finally, there were some differences found in point-of-view, indicating that the effect the speaker believes his criticism has sometimes differs from the effect as seen by the victim.

Moment-By-Moment Reading of Proverbs in Literal and Nonliteral Contexts

To date there has been very little research that has examined on-line reading of proverbs. This is surprising given that proverbs offer a unique opportunity to examine how different sources of information combine to constrain the resolution of statements that are ambiguous between a literal and nonliteral interpretation. The purpose of this research was to examine whether context plays an immediate role in constraining the meaning of a proverbial statement, or whether contextual effects come into play at a later stage of processing. Two self-paced moving window studies demonstrated that (a) context influenced resolution of the ambiguous meanings during the act of reading the proverb for both familiar and unfamiliar proverbs; (b) familiar proverbs are read more rapidly than unfamiliar proverbs, an effect that begins to emerge as early as the second word of the trope; and (c) whereas the reading times indicate that ambiguity in comprehension is resolved by the end of the sentence for familiar proverbs, for unfamiliar proverbs effects are still observed into the reading of the next sentence. The results are discussed in relation to existent models of nonliteral language processing, with constraint-based approaches to language processing suggested as a positive alternative.

Saying What You Don't Mean Social Influences on Sarcastic Language Processing

In recent years, an increasingly large body of research has examined the common situation in which one thing is said in order to express another. Although research has examined the understanding of figurative language such as metaphor in some depth, sarcasm has been less studied. Understanding sarcasm requires considering social and cultural factors, which are often ignored in models of language. We report diverse experiments that point to the same conclusions: Sarcastic interpretation occurs early in processing, with gender and social-cultural factors associated with class playing an important role. These data support interactive models of nonliteral language processing, in which social and cultural factors serve as early-acting constraints on interpretation.

Dimensions of metaphor

Two rating studies examined several dimensions of metaphorical sentences. A pool of 260 metaphors was constructed, all in the form “(noun phrase) is/are (noun phrase).” In Study 1 all of the items, and in Study 2, 98 of the items were evaluated on ten scales presumed to be important to the comprehension or interpretation of metaphors: semantic relatedness of the subject and predicate, comprehensibility, imageability, imageability of the subject (topic), imageability of the predicate (vehicle), degree of metaphoricity, metaphor goodness, ease of interpretation, number of alternative interpretations, and felt familiarity of the metaphoric ground. Both experiments revealed the rated dimensions to be highly interrelated, but some analyses allowed evaluation of alternative predictions based on current theoretical approaches to metaphor quality and interpretation. The results indicated consistent but mixed support for the general poisitions under consideration as each appeared to have strong and weak areas of applicability. The interrelationships among the scales are discussed, together with implications of the findings for current theories and future metaphor research.

Are There Necessary Conditions for Inducing a Sense of Sarcastic Irony

This article investigates the contextual components utilized to convey sarcastic verbal irony, testing whether theoretical components deemed as necessary for creating a sense of irony are, in fact, necessary. A novel task was employed: Given a set of statements that out of context were not rated as sarcastic, participants were instructed to either generate discourse context that would make the statements sarcastic or meaningful (without further specification). In a series of studies, these generated contexts were shown to differ from one another along the dimensions presumed as necessary (failed expectation, pragmatic insincerity, negative tension, and presence of a victim) and along stylistic components (as indexed by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program). However, none of these components were found to be necessary. Indeed, in each case, the items rated as highest in sarcasm were often at the lowest levels on the putative “necessary” characteristic. These data are taken as consistent with constraint satisfaction models of sarcasm processing in which various linguistic and extralinguistic information provide probabilistic (but not necessary) support for or against a sarcastic interpretation.

On choosing the vehicles of metaphors: Referential concreteness, semantic distances, and individual differences

Abstract Participants were given sentence frames (e.g., Chemistry is the—of science). Their task was to select, from a set of alternatives, a vehicle which would make for a comprehensible and aesthetically pleasing metaphor. The vehicles chosen by the participants to best complete the metaphor were those moderately distant from the topic, both on a measure of domain-relevant distance (similarity between conceptual domains) and on a measure of instance-specific distance (similarity that crosscut domain distinctions). Moreover, participants preferred to complete metaphors with vehicles (1) from referentially concrete domains and (2) closer to the topic on domain-relevant distance. Finally, choice of vehicle differed as a function of analogic reasoning ability but not of imagery differences, suggesting the observed concreteness effects were not due to imagery processes.

Poetic comparisons: Psychological dimensions of metaphoric processing

A sample of 204 poetic metaphors was rated along 10 scales by 300 participants (30 different people for each of the scales). The scales were identical to ones previously used in a study involving ratings of artificially constructed metaphors, and were chosen on the basis of their relevance to current models of metaphor processing. Three major findings emerged. First, the overall pattern of findings was identical to the one obtained earlier using constructed metaphors, and aspects of it provided support for each major metaphor model without completely onfirming any one of them. Models that attribute an important role to perceptual like processes provided the most successful fit to the data. Second, all of the 10 scales were positively intercorrelated, although the correlations were generally moderate enough to permit independent experimental manipulations of the variables defined by the different scales. These results, too, are similar to those obtained earlier with constructed metaphors. Third, we identify and discuss some suggestive differences between the results of the two studies.

False recall in the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm: The roles of gist and associative strength

Theories of false memories, particularly in the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm, focus on word association strength and gist. Backward associative strength (BAS) is a strong predictor of false recall in this paradigm. However, other than being defined as a measure of association between studied list words and falsely recalled nonpresented critical words, there is little understanding of this variable. In Experiment 1, we used a knowledge-type taxonomy to classify the semantic relations in DRM stimuli. These knowledge types predicted false-recall probability, as well as BAS itself, with the most important being situation features, synonyms, and taxonomic relations. In three subsequent experiments, we demonstrated that lists composed solely of situation features can elicit a gist and produce false memories, particularly when monitoring processes are made more difficult. Our results identify the semantic factors that underlie BAS and suggest how considering semantic relations leads to a better understanding of gist formation.