This thesis is concerned with current debate about alternative 'lexical' and 'episodic' accounts of repetition priming in visual word perception. Like some previous research, the present study investigated effects of 'context congruence' of pre-test and test word presentations. However, modified methods were employed to limit methodoligical problems observed in previous research and to treat the issue of strategic control in repetition priming. The experiments investigated the effect of test orienting tasks which either did or did not require subjects to engage in deliberate remembering of pre-test context. A recognition-memory orienting task was employed to induce deliberate remembering and a letter-judgement orienting task was employed to avert deliberate remembering. Experiment 1 demonstrated a strong effect of orienting tasks in a naming task; repetition priming was reliably greater in the recognition-memory condition. The effect was replicated in a 'restricted' tachistoscopic identification task in Experiment 2, suggesting that the locus of the effect was within processes integral to word identification. Experiment 3 showed that the effect could not be attributed to an inadvertent masking of repetition priming in the letter-judgement conditions, or to be manipulation of subjects' prior knowledge of repetitions. Although these results provide new evidence of episodic memory coding in repetition priming, it can be argued that they do not necessarily imply that all repetition effects depend upon episodic memory coding. The remembering-enhanced repetition effect might reflect the superimposition of an exceptional autobiographical-memory repetition effect upon a normal lexical repetition effect. To test this possibility, Experiments 4 through 7 tested for evidence of dual memory components as a functional dissociation between normal and remembering-enhanced repetition effects. No evidence of a dissociation was found for the following expprimental manipulations: (1) modality of pre-test word presentation, (2) word frequency, (3) subjects' confidence criteria for word naming, (4) 'level of processing' of pre-test words. The discussion considers theoretical and methodological implications, and reviews some related research. The main conclusion suggests that the findings of this thesis are consistent with the assumption of a unitary episodic memory system underlying repetition priming and other phenomena of learning and memory, and that the findings pose some problems for alternative accounts.

No description available.

Much research into the Working Memory model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) has involved secondary task experiments, where secondary tasks of known requirements are performed concurrently with primary tasks of interest. The thesis has explored the use of Random Generation, a novel secondary task, in this paradigm. The task requires subjects to generate a string of items from a given response set, by calling out the items in as random a fashion as possible. Random generation tasks are held to make heavy demands on the Central Executive component of Working Memory (Baddeley, 1986 & 1990), and would seem to reflect the involvement of this component in dual-task studies. The work has addressed the experimental design, administration, and analysis of performance when random generation is used in secondary task experiments. Standard procedures were developed and used throughout, so that the inter-comparison of experiments was possible. Performance was measured by calculating redundancy indices (H_single, H_pairs, H₂, and Evans' RNG) from one-hundred responses. Random generation from a set of ten numbers (1 to 10) was chosen for further exploration and development. Random number generation proved to be sensitive to primary task loading in a variety of situations. The stability of some aspects of performance between experiments may be questionable, but the overall picture is encouraging. However, there is a clear need for basic research to support more detailed cognitive modelling of the task, before it can be used with confidence in the Working Memory dual-task paradigm.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, November, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-101)

Thesis (M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Directed by Lili Sahakyan; submitted to the Dept. of Psychology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 13, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-55).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, November, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-101)

Interleaving exemplars from different to-be-learned categories, rather than blocking exemplars by category, often enhances the inductive learning of those categories, as measured by learners’ subsequent ability to classify new exemplars from those categories. Majority of the studies on the learning of motor skills, perceptual categories, and mathematics procedures conceptualize the interleaving benefit to be a general learning phenomenon. Results from this dissertation extend the interleaving benefit to the inductive learning of cognitive, rule-based categories (e.g., statistical concepts). In this dissertation I examine factors that modulate this interleaving benefit, such that interleaving is more or less effective than blocking depending on whether the learning emphasis is on discriminating between categories (discriminative-contrast hypothesis) or encoding commonalities within a category (commonality-abstraction hypothesis), and depending on whether the temporal spacing between exemplars from the same category optimally promote distributed retrieval practice of critical features shared within a category (study-phase retrieval hypothesis). Thus, findings from the current dissertation offer further insight into the boundary conditions of the interleaving benefit. Consistent with the discriminative-contrast hypothesis, an interleaving benefit was observed when between-category similarity was high and within-category similarity was low, and when there was no temporal spacing between exemplars to disrupt contrast processes critical to between-category comparisons. Consistent with the commonality- abstraction hypothesis, a blocking benefit was observed when between-category similarity was low and within-category similarity was high, and when exemplars were presented three-at-a-time instead of one-at-a-time. Consistent with the study-phase retrieval hypothesis (i.e., introducing spacing between exemplars engages retrieval processes that enhance learning), a blocking benefit was observed when there was temporal spacing between exemplars from the same category. Moreover, the type of categories themselves and learners’ cognitive abilities drove the effects of category learning differently. Findings from the current dissertation begin to demonstrate the interactions between study schedules and perceptual-based categories (artists’ painting styles) and rule-based categories (statistical concepts). For instance, when between-category similarity was low, the interleaving benefit was eliminated for the perceptual-based categories, but no blocking benefit was obtained, contrary to our prediction. This suggests that blocked versus interleaved schedules may be more or less conducive to learning depending on the type of categories. Finally, learners with lower working memory capacities—that is, learners with cognitive limitations related to information processing and integration—benefited from schedules in which exemplars were presented three-at-a-time, and from schedules that were either temporally spaced or interleaved, but having neither or both manipulations produced sub-optimal performance. To conclude, findings from this dissertation clarify when, for whom, and with what kind of categories is interleaving beneficial. / Dissertation / Candidate in Philosophy / Interleaving exemplars from different to-be-learned categories, rather than blocking exemplars by category, often enhances the inductive learning of those categories, as measured by learners’ subsequent ability to classify new exemplars from those categories. I examined the generality of the interleaving benefit and the conditions that make interleaving more or less effective for learning than blocking. Consistent with the hypothesis that interleaving enables between-category comparisons, I demonstrate that the interleaving benefit generalizes to the learning of complex, rule-based categories and across all learners, particularly those with lower cognitive abilities. Conversely, blocking enables within-category comparisons, and thus can be as beneficial as, or even more beneficial than, interleaving under certain conditions—if exemplars from the same category are presented at three-at-a-time rather than one-at-a-time or if the categories are structured such that there is high-within and low-between category similarity. These findings highlight the need to shift focus away from examining which type of schedule— interleaving or blocking—is more effective for category learning to identifying when and why each type of schedule may be more effective.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Engle, Randall, Committee Chair ; Spieler, Daniel, Committee Member ; Corballis, Paul, Committee Member ; Smith, Anderson, Committee Member ; Washburn, David, Committee Member.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-128). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2007. / Title from title page screen, viewed on February 15, 2008. Dissertation Committee: Dawn M. McBride (chair), Alvin E. House, Karla J. Doepke, Robert Peterson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-100) and abstract. Also available in print.