Dale Stout

Effects of colored separate and interactive pictures on cued recall.

Participants (N = 509) were tested for backward cued recall of concrete noun pairs illustrated with pictures. Recall was considerably higher when a picture showed an interactive relationship than when the two items were drawn separately. However, with separate pictures in which the stimulus drawing appeared in a color that bore a direct relationship to the response object or when both drawings shared a color that was not related to the response object, recall was higher than with uncolored drawings. Performance was even better when the shared color was associated with the response object, although it remained below that with uncolored interactive pictures. The positive effects of shared colors did not occur with interactive pictures, but recall improved further when the response color appeared either in the stimulus or response portions of the combined drawing. It is concluded that cued recall is mediated by common elements and that the effects are additive, at least with separate pictures.

EXTRAVERSION AND THE REBOUND EFFECT AFTER THOUGHT SUPPRESSION

83 participants thought about a white bear before or after trying to suppress the idea. There was no rebound effect (more expression of white-bear thoughts after than before suppression) for either introverts or extraverts.

E. G. Boring, C. Murchison, and Clark University: Research Practice and Practical Politics

In 1926 E. G. Boring and Carl Murchison debated the merits of differing methodological approaches to psychological research. Although their debate received little attention, it provides an incident which demonstrates the complexity of placing methodological debates in their context. The debate is centered on the clear methodological split between experimental and correlational approaches to research. Yet even this divide does not receive unambiguous expression. In the case of Boring and Murchison quite local institutional politics interact with a long lasting divide as to the sites where valid psychological knowledge could be produced and the types of competence required to certify it. I argue that this debate was not merely a testing of their adversary’s defences concerning differing epistemological points. Rather, Boring and Murchison fashioned their arguments with the principle aim to damage careers, not to persuade the other of the cogency of a methodological position. Further, this debate suggests that because methodology holds a strategical ground in our science for establishing group identities, differences over research practice tend to cut to the fabric of our social relations.