Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references: (p. 209-218). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 10, 2009). Advisor: John Dunlosky. Keywords: metacognition; metacomprehension; metamemory for text; cue diagnosticity; relative judgment accuracy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-103).

An empirical exploration of factors that facilitate priming in young children was undertaken utilizing sequentially degraded pictures (fragpix) developed by Snodgrass and her colleagues. The identification of fragmented pictures was studied by 288 children across four experiments. In the first two experiments abbreviated sets of fragpix were generated for use with young children. Experiments 3 and 4 manipulated five attributes of the priming stimulus to measure their effect on direct and indirect tests of memory. Experiment 3 was a scaling study that delineated age associated identification thresholds for fragpix. It also examined hypotheses regarding the impact of prior exposure and perceptual closure on indirect and direct tests of memory. During the exposure and test condition, 3-, 4-, 5- and 8-year olds were shown fragpix in descending degrees of fragmentation until they correctly named the picture. Snodgrass proposed perceptual closure as an explanatory mechanism for identification of incomplete pictures. To explore this hypothesis, following identification of each fragpic, half the children were shown the completed picture. This manipulation had no facilitative effect on identification or recall of fragmented pictures. Two measures of prior exposure, priming and transfer, were also computed. Age differences were found on picture identification, free recall, and picture recognition measures of discrimination and response bias. A linear trend was revealed on measures of priming for picture identification, and for picture recognition but not for recall. A similar method was used for each of the first three experiments: Fragpix were presented in their most degraded form with pictorial information systematically added until the picture was named. Snodgrass and Feenan (1990) suggested that priming might be equally effective if only single levels of fragmentation were presented. They reported that exposing adults to moderately fragmented pictures promoted closure and was more beneficial for later identification, than exposure to maximally-fragmented or nearly completed pictures. Experiment 4 tested this "optimal level" hypothesis with 5- and 8-year olds. Scores from Experiment 3 were used to select age-specific levels of fragmentation that made fragpix easy, moderately easy, or difficult to identify. Attributes of the priming stimulus were manipulated in Experiment 4 to examine the differential impact of varying exposure conditions on performance and on the magnitude of priming. Three manipulations occurred: One varied number of stimulus changes across levels of fragmentation, a second varied order of difficulty, and a third varied the nature of stimulus change (random or systematic). Manipulating the priming stimulus influenced fragpix identification and priming, but had little definitive impact on free recall. For both ages stimuli presented in a systematic rather than random order facilitated picture identification and the magnitude of priming. In addition, developmental differences emerged among systematic orders of presentation. Five-year-olds demonstrated optimal performance in picture identification and measures of picture recognition when there were multiple changes in temporal contrast, while order of difficulty (moderate to easy to hard) was more facilitative for 8-year-olds. A finding for a quadratic function for 8-year-olds on picture identification and magnitude of priming supported a moderately fragmented stimulus being an optimal prime, while for 5-year-olds, the relationship was monotonic. This pattern was not observed on the direct memory tests. It is argued that both perceptual and cognitive components of the task influence performance in an integrative manner on indirect and direct memory tests. A modified form of transfer appropriate processing is proposed as a reasonable explanation of the findings. / Graduate

The purpose of this research was to investigate a methodological problem in the area of retroactive interference. Retroactive interference was defined as a decrement in retention resulting from an activity, usually a learning activity, interpolated between an original learning activity and a later measure of retention. Specifically, the problem was whether retroactive interference would occur, and in what amounts, when non-learning activities of increasing intensity were interpolated between the original learning material and a later measure of retention. Intensity was defined in terms of rate of manipulation and degree of complexity of a motor task. Certain relevant studies were discussed in terms of experimental variables that have been shown-to be functionally related to retroactive interference. One theoretical system, the perseveration theory, was considered briefly in connection with the intensity factor. Following the traditional retroaction paradigm, the general procedure was as follows: there were seven groups of subjects, an experimental group and six control groups. The original learning for all subjects consisted of a paired-associate list composed of nonsense syllables as stimuli and meaningful verbal materials as responses: the interpolated activities included a paired-associate list, a rest interval, a color-naming activity, and four systematic variations of a motor task along an intensity continuum. Retention was measured in terms of the number of correct anticipations made by the subject on the first relearning trial (recall), and in terms of the number of trials required by the subject to reach the criterion on the original learning material (relearning). The amount and the direction of retroaction that occurred in each case was measured. Both the amount and the direction of retroaction differed significantly among the various groups. The bearing of these results upon the perseveration theory, and particularly upon the expectation which follows from it that retroactive interference varies with the intensity of the interpolated activity, was discussed. It was concluded that comparisons between retroaction experiments should be made with extreme caution if the equivalence of the interpolated activities has not been empirically established.. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

Rats were trained on one of three brightness discriminations. In one task, the discriminanda differed in both luminance and luminous flux. In the second task, the discriminanda differed only in terms of luminous flux. In the third task, the discriminanda differed only in terms of luminance. Following acquisition, half of the animals on each task underwent removal of the striate cortex. Retention tests indicated that a discrimination based on flux cues was relatively undisturbed following striate removal, whereas a discrimination based on luminance cues appeared to be permanently lost. Transfer discrimination tests indicated that deficits other than sensory impairments may follow striate ablation. Results are discussed in terms of sensory and attentional deficits which occur with striate removal. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Transfer in serial learning as a function of inter-list positional relations was examined in a serial to serial transfer paradigm. After learning a 16-adjective serial list to a criterion of two consecutive perfect recitations, 128 Ss, were given ten trials on a l6-adjective transfer task. There were four conditions of transfer defined by the positional relationship of Items between successive lists. First-, second-, and fourth-order derived list conditions and a control condition were used. Half of the experimental Ss were instructed as to the positional relationship between the lists while the remaining Ss were given no positional Information. The results indicated significant positive transfer in the DL₁ and DL₄ groups when compared to the control group. DL₂ performance was slightly superior to performance of the control group but this difference did not approach significance. Performance of instructed Ss was found to be significantly better than performance of non-instructed Ss. The instructions variable was not found to have a differential effect among conditions. The results were interpreted as being Incompatible with either the sequential or the ordinal-position hypothesis of serial learning, but as evidence in support of a relative ordinal-position hypothesis. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

This study examined the effects of analyzing task demands on children's selection and spontaneous transfer of effective memory strategies. Two learning tasks and a transfer task were used. One hundred and eight children in grades 3 and 5 were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions, Control, Simple Instruction (SI), and Elaborated Instruction (EI). No strategy was taught to subjects in the Control condition. Subjects in the SI and EI conditions were instructed to use appropriate memory strategies for the learning task. In addition, subjects in the EI condition also received task-specific strategies information prior to the transfer task. Their application of the memory strategies to the transfer task was examined. Results indicated that the main effect of grade was significant for the categorical word-list task but not for the paired-associate task at both learning and transfer phases. In general, subjects in the two experimental conditions (SI and EI) performed better than the subjects in the Control condition, and that the EI subjects out performed the SI subjects. Transfer of the strategies occurred mainly in the EI condition which included the task-specific information. In other words, the more task-specific information subjects received concerning the memory strategies, the more likely they would transfer the strategies appropriately to new learning situations. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

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