Wolfgang Schönpflug

The trade-off between internal and external information storage

Abstract External information storage is an alternative to memorizing which contributes considerably to the efficiency of human knowledge preservation. Three experiments on the trade-off between internal and external storage are described. In all three experiments, subjects had to prepare a report based on text materials which were successively displayed on a screen. The subjects could produce printouts of texts, instead of or in addition to memorizing them. Text relevance and text complexity had an impact on inspection time and printout rate; the complexity effect was particularly pronounced with hierarchically ordered texts. Increasing operational costs for starting the printer depressed the printout rate, and led to a shift toward memorizing. The dissociation of the agent of encoding and the agent of retrieval was studied by asking subjects to prepare a report to be written by a partner. Under this condition, the printout rate was inflated, especially for texts of intermediate complexity. The hypothesis is put forward that retrieval from an external store and the merging of internally and externally stored materials require an internal representation of external storage.

Behavior economics as an approach to stress theory.

The behavior economics approach (Schonpflug, 1979, 1983) has been developed as an extension and partial reformulation of earlier cognitive stress theories (Appley, 1967; French & Kahn, 1962; Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964; Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Launier, 1978; McGrath, 1976). Cognitive stress theories deal with problem states as sources of stress, that is, with task demands and threats that heavily tax or even overcharge an individual’s abilities and resources. Attempts have been made to assess demands and threats, and abilities and resources objectively, as features of a person’s environment or as characteristics of the person. However, cognitive theorists rely more on subjective appraisal than on objective problem states. Subjective appraisals establish mental representations of problem states, yielding large interindividual differences in representations of the same objective situation; veridical representations, as well as biased, incomplete, and illusionary versions can be observed. Cognitive theorists then relate emotional and physiological stress reactions to these subjective representations rather than to objective problem states.

Effort Regulation and Individual Differences in Effort Expenditure

When confronted with a problem, individuals have a variety of coping techniques at their disposal. Qualitative differences among these techniques relate to the choice of means-end combinations. Thus, problem oriented, emotion oriented and defensive responses to stressors have been identified (Lazarus & Launier, 1979; Moos & Billings, 1982). All classes of coping attempts may include both cognitive and motor components. The intensity, extent and persistence with which these components are used may amount to a dimension of involvement vs. disengagement. This dimension is quantitative in nature, and can conceptually be equated with effort expenditure as also studied under conditions of information processing and motor performance. The dimension may well be orthogonal to variations in the quality of coping procedures.

Einprägen und Aktivierung bei gleichzeitiger Variation der Absichtlichkeit des Lernens und der Ich-Bezogenheit des Lernstoffs

ZusammenfassungEine Gruppe von Wörtern mit höherer Ich-Bezogenheit und eine von Wörtern mit niedrigerer Ich-Bezogenheit war einmal absichtlich, einmal beiläufig einzuprägen. Als abhängige Variablen dienten die Zahl der behaltenen Glieder und — zur Bestimmung des Aktiviertheitsgrades während des Einprägens — die Höhe des elektrischen Hautwiderstands. Sowohl einzeln als auch in Wechselwirkung verursachten die genannten unabhängigen Variablen bedeutsame Unterschiede hinsichtlich des Behaltens und der Aktivisierung. Der Deutung der Ergebnisse wurde die Annahme zugrunde gelegt, daß Aktivierungsvorgänge zu den Geschehnissen gehören, die für das Behalten von Bedeutung sind.SummaryTwo series of nouns with high and low emotional tone had to be memorized both intentionally and incidentally. During learning the amount of electrodermal skin resistance was registered as a measure of organismic activation, thereafter the Ss had to recall the words presented previously. The independent variables mentioned led to significant main and interaction effects in regard to both retention and activation data. The interpretation of the results is based on the assumption that retention is affected by activational processes.

Retrieving texts from an external store: the effects of an explanatory context and of semantic fit between text and address

SummaryExternal-information storage may reduce the load on human memory. But if information is preserved in an external store the task of retrieving information from that store puts new demands on memory. This creates a trade-off between internal and external storage. One of the prerequisites for external retrieval is learning an address. In this study, the trade-off between internal and external retrieval is exemplified by contrasting the memorization of written texts with the memorization of addresses under which these texts are stored in a computer file. In Experiment 1 Ss were tested for the retention of addresses. In Experiment 2 they were tested for the retention of texts, but had the choice between memorizing the texts and memorizing an address under which the texts were available. Independent variables were the availability of an explanatory context, and the semantic fit between address and text. An explanatory context improved address learning in Experiment 1 and unaided recall in Experiment 2. It did not influence the utilization of addresses as tested in Experiment 2. The semantic fit between address and text had a considerable impact on both the learning and the utilization of addresses. Whereas some subjects were assigned standard addresses, others generated their own addresses. Self-generated addresses had effects similar to standard addresses selected for high semantic fit. It is suggested that learning an external address involves an internal representation of the material stored under that address.

GSR and the anchoring of pitch judgments

In earlier studies it was shown that the mean anchor-adaptation level relationship follows a cubic trend. The “arousal” hypothesis that anchor stimuli produce specific GSR effects was tested and confirmed. It was recommended that the question of whether or not the quartic GSR trend that was found reflects “context” effects should be further investigated.

Fritz Heider - My Academic Teacher and His Academic Teachers Heider's "Seminar in Interpersonal Relations" and Comments on his European Background

In the summer of 1958 at the University of Kansas, Heider offered a seminar based on the galley proofs of his forthcoming book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. Personal memories of the seminar are reported, and an attempt is made to reconstruct the European background of Heider’s work. It is argued that the warm reception of Heider’s book was partly the result of his revival of philosophical ideas that had served as starting points for psychology, but had since been abandoned. Especially with respect to the analysis of naive concepts, complex structures, and causal attributions, Heider owes an intellectual debt to his mentor Alexius Meinong at the University of Graz, and to Ernst Cassirer at the University of Hamburg. Commemorating the publication of Heider’s book can, therefore, also be regarded as an implicit tribute to the European philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Improving Efficiency of Action Control Through Technical and Social Resources

Theories of action share the supposition that persons construct representations of the world, set goals, and operate toward achievement of these goals (Airaksinen & Gasparski, 1993; Frese & Zapf, 1994). According to these theories, efficiency of action derives from the quality of representations, the appropriateness of goals, and the skills of planning and executing operations. Improving efficiency requires the acquisition of skills for superior planning and execution, as well as learning how to construct better representations and how to find more adequate goals. Such a view focuses on individuals as agents who exert direct personal control in domains of their concern.

On the Role of Psychophysiological Recording in Stress Research

The concept of stress is discussed in terms of a theory of behavior economics. The presented view is supported by a survey of results with respect to phasic and tonic changes in peripheral physiological indices, obtained in field-like laboratory situations which simulated different computer-aided clerical tasks. As a consequence a reformulation of the Yerkes-Dodson-law is proposed.

Paarlernen, Behaltensdauer und Aktivierung

ZusammenfassungDie Beziehung zwischen dem Behalten und der beim. Einprägen herrschenden Aktivierung versuchen zwei Theorien zu erklären; sie werden hier als Kurvilinearitätstheorie und als Theorie vom Leistungsabfall bezeichnet. Sie unterscheiden sich ebensosehr voneinander wie die Befunde, auf welche sie sich stützen. Hier wird ein Versuch beschrieben, dessen Ergebnisse eine Entscheidung zugunsten einer der beiden Theorien ermöglichen sollen. In diesem Versuch betrachten Personen Verbindungen von Wörtern und Ziffern und bemühen sich später, sie wiederzugeben. Die Wörter unterscheiden sich in ihrer Valenz. Außerdem variieren die Zeit zwischen Betrachten und Wiedergabe und der Schallpegel während des Betrachtens. Als Indikator der Aktivierung wird die elektrische Leitfähigkeit der Haut gemessen. Die Häufigkeit richtiger Wiedergaben nimmt ab mit der Dauer des Behaltens; Verbindungen mit Wörtern, deren Darbietung zu stärkeren kurzfristigen Erhöhungen der Leitfähigkeit führt, werden stets häufiger wiedergegeben als Wörter, deren Darbietung die Leitfähigkeit weniger verändert. Die akustische Zusatzreizung erhöht die Leitfähigkeit während des Einprägens und während der Prüfung, beeinflußt die Gedächtnisdaten aber nicht. Die Ergebnisse sprechen gegen die Richtigkeit der Theorie vom Leistungsabfall und zeigen keine Übereinstimmung mit den Beobachtungen, welche diese Theorie stützen; mit der Kurvilinearitätstheorie lassen sie sich vereinbaren.SummaryFindings on the relation between retention and arousal during learning have been controversial. They gave support to two conflicting theories, a theory postulating a curvilinear function between retention and arousal, and an action decrement theory of learning. Therefore, a critical experiment in paired-associate learning was planned varying the valence of the stimulus term, the duration of the retention interval and the amount of acoustical stimulation during learning. Electrical skin conductance was continuously monitored as a measure of arousal. The number of correct reproductions decreased as the duration of the retention interval increased. Pairs with a stimulus term, which gave rise to larger changes of skin conductance, were always better reproduced than pairs with a stimulus term leading to minor changes. Arousal during both learning and reproduction grew with the amount of acoustical stimulation; this, however, did not affect retention. The results are not in accordance with the data favouring the action decrement theory of learning; they can be interpreted in the light of the curvilinearity theory.