In-Mao Liu

Encoding operation and transcoding as the major loci of the frequency effect

The present study used a lexical naming task as well as a regular naming task and a lexical decision task for locating the frequency effects in lexical decision and naming. The naming of Chinese characters in the lexical naming task (pseudocharacters also presented as in the lexical decision task) involves decision processes, while they are absent in the regular naming task. Since naming a Chinese character necessarily involves lexical access, a decision component of the frequency effect in lexical decision can be isolated. This procedure will not work for alphabetic orthographies, because sublexical processes underestimate the frequency effect in the regular naming task. As a consequence, not only can a prelexical component of the frequency effect in lexical decision be estimated, but a postlexical component of the frequency effect in naming can be estimated.

Conditional reasoning and conditionalization

In solving conditional reasoning problems, reasoners are assumed to compute the probability of the conclusion, conditionalizing first on the categorical premise, giving the knowledge-based component, and conditionalizing then on the conditional-statement premise, from which the assumption-based component is derived. Because reasoners find it difficult to compute the second-step conditionalization except when the conditional-statement premise is found to be related to the result of the first-step conditionalization as for modus ponens or, possibly, for modus tollens, the knowledge-based component generally dominates reasoning performance. After representing all the possible cases in which conditional-argument forms may appear, this approach was found to be consistent with the results from the 3 experiments reported in this study, whereas 2 alternative hypotheses account for only some of the results.

The long-term modality effect : in search of differences in processing logographs and alphabetic words

The visual superiority effect (a reverse long-term modality effect) has been consistently found with Chinese logographs. For its explanation in terms of script differences, it has been believed that lexical access is more direct or quicker for Chinese logographs than for alphabetic words. It has also been believed that Chinese logographs are more unique in shape or more discriminable than alphabetic words. Finally, Chinese logographs have been considered to facilitate recall through their graphic features that classify Chinese words into categories. The results of Experiments 1-5 show that these three assumptions can be ruled out. The results of Experiments 6-10, on the other hand, support the long-term priming interpretation of the visual superiority effect, which explains (a) why the visual superiority effect can be consistently obtained for recall of Chinese words by Chinese subjects, (b) why the effect cannot be consistently obtained for recall of English words by Western subjects, (c) why the effect can be also obtained for recall of English words by Chinese subjects, (d) why the effect can be easily obtained for recall of a set of words, but not for recall of a different set of words by Chinese subjects, and (e) why the effect can be easily obtained from Chinese subjects speaking a dialect that is different from Mandarin.

Separating comprehension from the verification process

The present experiments aimed at separating comprehension of a sentence from its verification. Presentation of a first sentence was terminated by the subject’s keypress after his comprehension. This gave a measure of sentence comprehension. A second sentence appeared immediately for a fixed interval. Then, a picture was presented, and the subject verified the first sentence against the picture. Finally, a second picture appeared, and the subject verified the second sentence against the second picture. The purpose of presenting a second sentence was to stop the processing of the first sentence after the subject’s keypress (so that comprehension did not continue beyond what was measured) and also to insure the subject’s full comprehension (comprehending the sentence to form a unitary representation) that would resist forgetting in the face of processing a second sentence. The purpose of presenting a second picture was to insure the subject’s processing of a second sentence. Using this experimental technique, an atypical pattern of verification latencies ITA < FA < TN < FN) was obtained (Experiment 1). When a sentence could be falsified in more than one way (Experiment 2), TN was found to be about equal to FN. A theoretical model was proposed to account for the present and the previous findings.

A successive-conditionalization approach to disjunctive and syllogistic reasoning

With p and q each standing for a familiar event, a disjunctive statement, “either p or q”, seems quite different from its material conditional, “if not p then q”. The notions of sufficiency and necessity seem specific to conditional statements. It is surprising, however, to find that perceived sufficiency and necessity affect disjunctive reasoning in the way they affect conditional reasoning. With B and C each standing for a category name, a universal statement, “all B are C”, seems stronger than its logically equivalent conditional statement, “if B then C”. However, the effects of perceived sufficiency or necessity were found to be as pronounced in conditional reasoning as in syllogistic reasoning. Furthermore, two experiments also showed that (a) MP (modus ponens)-comparable disjunctive reasoning was as difficult as MT (modus tollens)-comparable disjunctive reasoning, and that (b) MT-comparable syllogisms were easier to solve than MT problems in conditional reasoning.

Categorization time as independent of the number of condition-action rules

A list of item pairs was presented one pair at a time. The subject’s task was to respond to each pair by pressing the left or right key according to condition-action rules such as “If an English letter protruding upward or downward appears on the left (or right) side, then press the left (or right) key,” “If two English capital letters in alphabetical order appear on the left (or right), then press the left (or right) key,” etc. With this procedure, the number of rules does not covary with the number of responses. It was found, in Experiment 1, that the number of highly compatible rules in a list had no effect on the time of condition categorization. Experiments 2 and 3 supported the hypothesis that the lack of the rule set size effect was indeed due to the rules’ being compatible. It was concluded that the bottleneck of perceptual processing occurs not at the stimulus categorization stage, but quite late at the stimulus-to-response translation stage.

Role of contextual activity in conditioning of voluntary response

Conditioning of a voluntary response was studied by arranging a tone and a light as CS and UCS respectively with a CS-UCS interval of 200 msec. Ss in Group C were instructed to respond to the light by pressing a key (1250 gm of force, 6250 gm cm of work). Ss in Group E pressed to a prescribed extent to the CS (contextual activity of 500 gm of force or 1000 gm cm of work) and completed the reaction in response to the UCS. It was found that far more CRs and more uniform results were obtained in Group E, suggesting that, with the control of a certain contextual variable, results without exceptions may not be out of our reach.

A Probabilistic Approach to Conditional Reasoning Development

How likely is the glass to break, given that it is heated? The present study asks questions such as this with or without the premise if the glass is heated, it breaks. A reduced problem (question without premise) measures the statistical dependency (conditional probability) of an event to occur, given that another has occurred. Such statistical dependency represents knowledge-based reasoning (inferring from “glass heated” to “its breaking”) and is a component of the response to the complete problem (question with premise). The complete problems therefore measure not only knowledge-based reasoning in terms of statistical dependencies (inductive component) but assumption-based reasoning (deductive component). Two experiments revealed: a) Knowledge-based reasoning continues to develop and attains adult levels at 7th grade for the problems tested, and b) assumption-based reasoning (deductive component) is reliable only for secondary school students (7th graders).

Common and specific features in pictorial analogies.

Pictures belonging to different domains (cups and persons), as well as pictures belonging to the same domains (cups or persons only), were used to construct analogies of various paradigms. Pictures from different domains shared three common features, while pictures within each domain had two features specific to that domain. When no specific feature change was introduced, an asymmetry of the paradigms IA cup is to B cup as R person is to S person and P person is to Q person as C cup is to D cup) was obtained as an extension of the theory of metaphoricity (Ortony, 1979) predicted. When specific feature changes were introduced, however, the obtained results were not as the extended theory would predict. An alternative model that emphasizes the function of a set of reference feature changes in extraction and comparison of the feature changes that may exist in the first and second terms was proposed to account for the experimental findings.

A derivation of latency equation

Given three primary events, occurrences or nonoccurrences of two response classes and nonoccurrence of both response classes, with their respective probabilities to be known, and assuming the first two events are disjoint, this paper deduces the error equation of the incorrect response and the latency equation of the correct response under the condition of correlated reward situation.