O objetivo geral da presente tese foi investigar possíveis efeitos da atenção dividida da memória implícita perceptual não-verbal e verbal, e conceitual na fase de recuperação. Foram realizados dois estudos teóricos e um empírico. O primeiro estudo teórico teve o objetivo de revisar sistematicamente pesquisas que avaliaram o papel da atenção em testes de memória implícita (priming de repetição) com o paradigma da atenção dividida, na fase de codificação ou de recuperação. Foram selecionados 31 artigos empíricos com base em critérios pré-estabelecidos. Concluiu-se que os primings, perceptual e conceitual, são afetados pela atenção dividida na codificação quando a tarefa secundária demanda mais atenção, isto é, quando exige resposta frequente e é apresentada sincrônica ao estímulo alvo de memória. Poucos estudos foram realizados na fase de recuperação e indicaram imunidade desses primings à atenção dividida. O segundo estudo buscou apresentar e discutir aspectos metodológicos relevantes à elaboração de experimentos usando priming de repetição, com ênfase na seleção de materiais (software, listas de estímulos normatizados para o Brasil e relevância de fatores psicolinguísticos) e manipulação de variáveis (calibração pré-experimental, instruções e tempo de exposição dos estímulos, por exemplo). Recomendações para pesquisas futuras foram apresentadas. O artigo empírico foi o terceiro estudo e incluiu três experimentos. Os experimentos exploraram o papel da atenção na memória implícita perceptual não verbal e expandiram os resultados com testes perceptual e conceitual verbal, avaliando os efeitos da atenção dividida em novas condições experimentais. O experimento 1 utilizou o teste implícito de completar fragmentos de figuras com uma tarefa secundária de julgamento de tons; o experimento 2 utilizou completar radical de palavra e o experimento 3, produção de exemplar da categoria, ambos com uma tarefa secundária de julgamento de sequências de consoantes. Os resultados evidenciaram que a memória implícita foi afetada pela atenção dividida nos testes de completar fragmentos de figura e produção de exemplar da categoria, enquanto completar radical de palavra foi imune aos efeitos da divisão da atenção. Coletivamente, os resultados indicaram que, sob algumas circunstâncias, memória implícita perceptual exige recursos atencionais na recuperação. Recursos atencionais são exigidos pela memória implícita conceitual, tal como hipotetizado na literatura. / The general aim of this thesis was to investigate the role of attention in nonverbal perceptual implicit memory and expand knowledge on perceptual implicit memory and verbal conceptual. Two theoretical studies and one empirical were performed. The first theoretical study systematized research that evaluated the role of attention in implicit memory tests (repetition priming) with the paradigm of divided attention in encoding or retrieval phase. A total of 31 empirical articles based on pre-established criteria. The conclusion was that the primings, perceptual and conceptual, are affected by divided attention in encoding when the secondary task demands more attention, that is, when requires frequent response and it is presented synchronously to the memory target stimulus. Few studies was conducted in the retrieval phase and indicated that the primings are immune to divided attention. The second theoretical study aimed to present and discuss methodological aspects relevant to the elaboration of experiments using repetition priming, with emphasis on the selection of materials (software, standardized stimuli lists for Brazil and relevance of psycholinguistic factors) and variable manipulation (pre-calibration experimental, instructions and exposure time of the stimuli, for example). Recommendations for future research are presented. The empirical paper was the third study and included three experiments. The experiments explored the role of attention in nonverbal perceptual implicit memory and expanded the results with perceptual tests and verbal conceptual, evaluating the effects of divided attention on new experimental conditions. Experiment 1 used the implicit picture fragment completion test with a secondary task of judgment tones; Experiment 2 used word stem completion and the experiment 3, exemplary production category, both with a secondary task of judgment consonant sequences. The results showed that implicit memory was affected by divided attention in picture fragment completion and category exemplar production, while word stem completion was immune to the effects of divided attention. Collectively, the results indicated that, under some circumstances, perceptual implicit memory requires attentional resources in recovery. Attentional resources are required by the conceptual implicit memory, as hypothesized in the literature.

A idéia de que memória possa ser segregada em diferentes sistemas e processos possui uma longa história. O desenvolvimento desta concepção esteve associada a casos clínicos envolvendo pacientes amnésicos, estimulando a noção da existência de funções cognitivas específicas relacionadas ao funcionamento de regiões específicas do sistema nervoso. Considerando o contexto histórico no qual se inserem os modelos de memória de longa duração explícita e implícita, a proposta do presente trabalho foi avaliar (1) a extensão da aquisição de conhecimento implícito percepto-motor por meio da imaginação vista aqui como um mecanismo de manipulação de informações na memória operacional, por controle da atenção, e (2) se conhecimento implícito adquirido num dado contexto de treino pode ser utilizado em novos contextos, contrariando conceitos estabelecidos na área, de que esse tipo de conhecimento está firmemente associado ao contexto em que se deu a aquisição. O Experimento 1 mostrou inequivocamente que há aquisição de habilidades motoras por meio de treino imaginativo e, adicionalmente, que essa aquisição segue um curso temporal idêntico àquele observado na aquisição por treino real, sugerindo que ambos os tipos de aquisição exibem propriedades similares, podendo ser equivalentes. O Experimento 2 mostrou que a aquisição de conhecimento implícito envolvendo leitura de texto cujos caracteres foram submetidos a variados tipos de rotação favorece o desempenho na leitura de texto com rotação completamente nova, indicando que o conhecimento implícito adquirido previamente foi flexivelmente empregado no desempenho da nova tarefa. No conjunto, esses resultados mostram que a manipulação de conteúdos na memória operacional permite adquirir conhecimento implícito “de-cima-para-baixo” e que a utilização desse tipo de conhecimento não está restrita ao contexto de sua aquisição, podendo ser empregado flexivelmente em novas situações. Esses resultados indicam para a necessidade de revisão dos conceitos vigentes sobre a interação entre sistemas de memória e sobre as propriedades do sistema de memória implícita / The notion that memory may be dissociated in distinct systems is antique. The development of this assumption seems to be associated with studies involving amnesic patients, which contributed for the notion that specific cognitive functions are underlied for specific brain regions. Taking into account the historic context in which the models for explicit and implicit long-term memory developed, the aims of this study was to evaluate (1) to which extent there is acquisition of perceptual-motor implicit knowledge by way of imagery - seen here as a manner of handling information in working memory by control of attention, and (2) to which extent implicit knowledge acquired in a specific context may be used to solve problems in novel contexts, confronting established assumptions that this type of knowledge is strongly associated to the context of its acquisition. The Experiment 1 showed that there is acquisition of perceptual-motor implicit knowledge by way of imagination; the time-course for this acquisition is similar to that seen when acquisition occurs by actual task performance, suggesting that similar properties underlie both types of acquisition. The Experiment 2 showed that prior implicit knowledge acquisition related to reading rotated texts favors performance for reading texts with completely novel types of rotations, indicating the occurrence of transfer of training and, more importantly, that implicit knowledge was flexibly used for performance of a novel task. Taken together, these results show that handling information in working memory promotes “top-down” acquisition of perceptualmotor implicit knowledge and that this type of knowledge is not strictly associated to the specific context of its acquisition, being used for novel tasks. These results indicate the need for a review of the current assumptions about the interaction of memory systems and about the admitted properties of the implicit memory system.

No description available.

Although much research has been done on how well working memory predicts processing of consciously activated information, research on the possible influences of working memory on automatically activated information is scarce (Barrett, Tugade, & Engle, 2004). Working memory capacity (WMC) may be related to how much information is activated automatically by either aiding ease of access to relevant information or by its role in inhibiting irrelevant thoughts and information (i.e., noise). The purpose of the present study was to examine the contribution of individual differences in WMC on implicit and explicit processes in cued recall. Participants studied target words and recall was cued by associatively related words. Target connectivity was varied in Experiment 1 and target set size was varied in Experiment 2. The cued recall memory test was conducted after various retention intervals (0, 10 and 20 mins). In addition, memory span of all participants was measured with both operation and counting span tasks. Finally, all participants studied a second list of words under divided attention instructions. The present experiments examined 1) the influence of retention interval on cued recall performance, 2) the influence of individual differences in WMC on cued recall after various retention intervals and 3) the role of WMC and divided attention on implicitly activated knowledge (i.e., connectivity and set size effects). The findings revealed that working memory is related to intentional (explicit) types of processes, but not related to implicit processes outside of a person's awareness. WMC also interacted with retention interval. This finding is compatible with an attentional interpretation of WMC that assumes the high span advantage is apparent only when there is interference. Surprisingly, low span participants tended to outperform high span individuals on an immediate test. These findings are explained by differences in maintenance of information and rehearsal, and retrieval strategies.

Syftet med studien var att studera effekten av priming vid ordstamskomplettering. Mina frågeställningar var 1) har priming en effekt på kompletteringen av sammansatta ords ordstammar? 2) är en svarstid på fyra sekunder för kort för kompletterandet av en ordstam? 3) kompletteras ordstammarna med det första ordet försökspersonerna kommer på? För att besvara mina frågeställningar utförde jag ett experiment. Den oberoende variabeln var priming eller inte priming av sammansatta ord, och den beroende variabeln var antalet korrekt kompletterade ordstammar. Svarstiden var fyra sekunder och antalet ordstammar var 226. Efteråt ställde jag dem frågor om hur de gått tillväga när de svarat. Antalet korrekt kompletterade ordstammar var signifikant högre för de sammansatta ord som försökspersonerna hade primats på (p<.001), vilket visar att priming har effekt på kompletteringen av sammansatta ords ordstammar, samt att hela ord kan användas som ordstam. En svarstid på fyra sekunder korrelerade inte med ett stort antal missade svar (M = 9, SD = 4), vilket visar att en svarstid på fyra sekunder inte är för kort. Enligt försökspersonerna svarade de, på i snitt 4% av ordstammarna (M = 10, SD = 9), inte med det första ordet de kom på, vilket antyder om att ordstammar nästan uteslutande kompletteras med det första ordet försökspersoner kommer på. / The purpose of the study was to examine if priming has an effect on word stem completion. The questions I wanted to answer was 1) does priming have an effect on the completion of the word stems of compound words? 2) is a response time of four seconds too short for the completion of a word stem? 3) are the word stems completed with the first word that comes to the subject’s minds? To answer my questions, I performed an experiment. The independent variable was priming or not priming of compound words, and the dependent variable was the number of correctly completed word stems. The response time was four seconds and the number of word stems was 226. Afterwards I asked them questions about how they did when they answered. The number of correctly completed word stems was significantly higher for the compound words that the subjects had been primed for (p<.001), which shows that priming has an effect on the completion of the word stems of compound words, and that a whole word can be used as a word stem. A response time of four seconds did not correlate with a big number of missed answers (M= 9, SD = 4), which shows that a response time of four seconds is not too short. According to the subjects they, on an average of 4% of the word stems (M = 10, SD = 9), did not answer with the first word that came to mind, which suggests that word stems almost exclusively are completed with the first word that comes to subject’s minds.

No description available.

Virtual reality applications are developing fast and break new grounds every day in new industries. In today's market, most of the virtual reality projects are funded by venture capitalists and are yet to produce any revenue. For an advertiser to be willing to advertise they must see some sort of value or possibility to receive revenue out of the intended commercial. Memory is a common measure of influence from a commercial. Therefore, this thesis aim was to investigate if the memory, in terms of implicit and explicit memory, was affected by objects with different levels of interaction in virtual reality. A user study was conducted where the participants were instructed to go through several virtual rooms, where they were exposed to static, semiinteractive and interactive objects in the categories fruits/vegetables and beverage cans. The static objects were presented as pictures on instruction boards, the semi-interactive objects were presented through point-and-click tasks, and the interactive objects were presented through tasks that utilized body movements in virtual reality.When the participants were finished with the virtual reality application, they conducted a survey regarding their experiences and was asked to fill out three memory tests; a word-fragment completion task, a cued recall test, and a recognition task. Results show that interactive and semi-interactive objects in virtual reality did have a significant impact on explicit memory, and that the static objects did not. For implicit memory a conclusion could not be drawn whether the objects in the virtual environment had any impact due to no significant difference between the study participants and the control group without influence of the study as a result of not enough data. The results from the study were vastly different for fruits/vegetables and beverage brands, where results for the fruits/vegetables had a clear distinction and the beverage brands had almost no significant data, which could be due to “Inattentional blindness”. / Virtuella verklighets (Virtual reality) applikationer utvecklas snabbt och bryter ny mark varje dag i nya industrier. På dagens marknad, så är de flesta virtuella verklighets projekten finansierade av riskkapitalister och är fortfarande i ett läge där de inte producerar intäkt. For att marknadsförare ska vara villiga att investera måste de se någon potential i att få intäkter från den avsedda reklamen. Minne, är ett vanligt mått för att mäta påverkan av en reklam. Därav var avsikten for denna avhandling att undersöka om minnet, i form av implicit och explicit minne, blev påverkat av objekt med olika nivåer av interaktion i en virtuell verklighet. Ett användartest utfördes där deltagare blev instruerade att gå genom flera virtuella rum, där de blev exponerade för statiska, semi-interaktiva och interaktiva objekt i kategorierna frukter/grönsaker och dryckesmärken. De statiska objekten representerades som bilder på en statisk instruktionstavla, dom semi-interaktiva objekten representerades genom en peka-ochklicka uppgift, och de interaktiva objekten var representerade genom uppgifter som utnyttjade kroppsrörelser i en virtuell verklighet.När deltagarna fullföljt den virtuella verklighets applikationen fick de fylla i en enkät angående deras upplevelser, samt fylla i tre minnes test; ett ord-fragmentkompletterings test, ett indikation återkallelsetest, och ett igenkännings test. Resultaten visar på att de interaktiva och de semi-interaktiva objekten i den virtuella verkligheten hade en signifikant påverkan på det explicita minnet, samt att de statiska inte hade det. För de implicita minnet kunde inga slutsatser dras huruvida objekten i den virtuella verkligheten hade någon inverkan på grund av ingen signifikant skillnad mellan studiedeltagarna och kontrollgruppens resultat som en efterföljd av otillräckliga data. Resultaten från studien hade olika utfall för frukter/grönsaker och dryckesmärken, där resultaten för frukter/grönsaker hade en klar distinktion, medan dryckesmärkena hade nästan ingen signifikant data, vilket kan bero på ”Ouppmärksam blindhet” (Inattentional blindness).

The mere exposure effect, positive affect elicited by exposure to a previously unfamiliar stimulus, is considered one of the most well established findings in the psychological literature. Yet its mechanism remains unknown. In Experiments 1 - 5, memory encoding was examined to determine whether the mere exposure effect was a form of conceptual or perceptual implicit priming, and, if not either, whether cardiovascular psychophysiology could reveal its nature. Experiment 1 examined the effects of study phase level of processing on recognition, the mere exposure effect, and word identification implicit priming. Deep relative to shallow processing improved recognition, but did not influence the mere exposure effect or word identification implicit priming. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the effect of study-test changes in font and orientation, respectively, on the mere exposure effect and word identification implicit priming. Different study-test font and orientation reduced word identification implicit priming, but had no influence on the mere exposure effect. The combined results from Experiments 1-3 suggested that conceptual and perceptual processing do not drive the mere exposure effect. Experiments 4 and 5 developed and used, respectively, an innovative cardiovascular psychophysiological implicit priming paradigm to examine whether stimulus-specific cardiovascular reactivity at study predicted the mere exposure effect at test. At encoding, stimulus-specific peripheral vasodilatation had predictive value for the mere exposure effect, but not for word identification implicit priming. Experiments 6 and 7 examined whether sustained or transitory anxiety (i.e., trait or state, respectively) would influence the mere exposure effect. Greater trait and state anxiety reduced the mere exposure effect. Together, the findings from these experiments (N = 362) identify a novel affective mechanism of implicit priming that is influenced by cardiovascular psychophysiology and variations in trait and state anxiety.

<p dir="ltr">It is well known that persons with aphasia (PWA) demonstrate deficits in sentence processing. Specifically, many show difficulties with syntactic re-analysis, or the ability to revise one’s interpretation of a sentence due to a temporary ambiguity. Emerging evidence suggests that structural priming, individuals’ tendency to unconsciously re-use a previously encountered structure, can facilitate production and comprehension of different sentence structures in PWA. However, there are inconsistencies within the literature regarding the robustness of priming across different sentence structures and tasks, and the existing findings are limited to off-line measures which do not capture real-time sentence processing. Furthermore, a range of individual variability has been shown in magnitudes of priming effects.</p><p dir="ltr">This current project addressed these critical gaps by investigating the effects of structural priming on comprehension of sentences with reduced relative (RR) clauses. Study 1 examined whether PWA show immediate structural priming and longer-term cumulative priming in a computerized self-paced reading paradigm. In this study, participants read RR target sentences that were preceded by prime sentences with either an RR or a main clause (MC) interpretation. Study 2 examined if and how individuals’ cognitive (memory) skills account for individual variability shown in structural priming. Participants completed a Serial Reaction Time task as a measure of implicit memory, and the Verbal Paired Associates I task as a measure of explicit memory. Eighteen healthy adults (HA) and 18 PWA participated in both studies.</p><p dir="ltr">In Study 1, PWA demonstrated robust and timely immediate structural priming effect, providing novel evidence that structural priming can be captured in real-time using self-paced reading, and that priming can help ameliorate syntactic re-analysis deficits in PWA. However, these online changes were not reflected in the behavioral measures, highlighting the sensitivity of self-paced reading in detecting the dissociation between automatic, real-time processing and overt behavioral responses. Cumulative priming as traditionally defined was also not significant for either group, although participants became faster at reading RR target sentences as the session progressed. Study 2’s findings suggest that implicit memory may be an important cognitive skill to promote sentence processing, whereas having strong explicit memory may not be facilitative of the learning process.</p>

No description available.