This research concerns the effects of post-exposure verbal description and imaging on subsequent face recognition. In Experiment 1 subjects viewed a sequence of 6 target photographs, and after each, groups of subjects performed one of four tasks. Two were target-directed description tasks, an adjective checklist or an adjective generate task. Other subjects were instructed to image the target face or they performed an irrelevant/distractor task. In the subsequent recognition test subjects looked for the targets in a sequence of 140 facial photographs. The results indicated that the adjective checklist task produced lower recognition performance compared to the adjective generate task. The imaging task produced the highest recognition performance but was not significantly different from the adjective generate task. The irrelevant/distractor task did not significantly differ from the other tasks. Experiment 2 used different adjective checklist and adjective generate forms, and added an adjective rate task. Orthogonal to the post-exposure manipulation was the presence vs. absence of imaging instructions. Like Experiment 1, the results indicated that the adjective generate condition produced higher recognition performance than the adjective checklist condition. The adjective rate task was intermediate but did not differ from the other two description tasks. Imaging instructions did not produce a main effect, but it did interact with post-exposure task. The adjective checklist and adjective rate tasks produced lower recognition when imaging instructions were given compared to when they were not given. However, the adjective generate task produced better recognition with imaging instructions than without. The highest quality descriptions were produced by the adjective generate condition. In addition, the quality of the adjective generate and adjective rate descriptions related to subsequent recognition but the adjective checklist condition did not. The recognition decrements shown by the adjective checklist task are explained primarily in terms of confusion by irrelevant face cues. If verbal descriptions are requested from eyewitnesses, a descriptor generation task is preferred over a descriptor checklist because it does not degrade subsequent recognition, it produces the best quality descriptions, and description quality is diagnostic of subsequent recognition performance.

Experiments reported here demonstrate that imagery can promote priming on perceptual implicit memory tests. In Experiment 1, when subjects were given words during a study phase and asked to form mental images of corresponding pictures, more priming was obtained on a picture fragment identification test than from a condition in which subjects performed a semantic analysis of words. Experiments 2a and 2b replicated the finding of imaginal priming. In Experiment 3, imaginal priming of picture fragment identification occurred for recoverable fragments, but not nonrecoverable fragments. Experiment 4 showed that the imagery effect was restricted to the imaged type of material: imagining pictures (when presented with words) primed picture fragment identification but not word fragment completion. Similarly, when pictures were presented, imagining the corresponding words primed word fragment completion but not picture fragment identification. Overall, results support the hypothesis that imagining engages the same mechanisms used in perception, thereby producing priming.

The goal of this research was to test the effect of display organization on user performance under a situation representative of non-experts' interactions with an online display. Alphabetical, categorical, and random organizations were tested for response time and accuracy on a visual search task (Experiment 1) and on a problem solving task (Experiment 2). Term or definition targets were searched for in displays consisting of items from distinct or overlapping categories. Performance with alphabetical and categorical organizations was similar when targets were terms and categories were distinct, however, these conditions are atypical of non-experts' interactions. Categorical organizations were superior when task difficulty increased. Surprisingly, overlapping categories resulted in decreased accuracy with alphabetical organizations relative to the distinct category conditions, whereas, performance with categorical organizations remained unaffected. This result and evidence suggesting that the individual display items influence how these factors affect performance have implications for interpreting past display organization research.

Effects of distinctiveness have been investigated with explicit memory tests, but not implicit memory tests. Therefore, four experiments compared the effects of two types of distinctiveness on an implicit test (word stem completion) and two explicit tests (word stem cued recall and free recall). Experiments 1 and 2 indicated a highly beneficial effect of instructions to attend to a particular word on its free recall and its primed word stem completion. Experiment 3 showed a nonsignificant effect in word stem completion, while still showing significant effects in word stem cued recall and free recall. Experiment 4, using pictures embedded in word lists as distinctive events, showed no effect in word stem completion or word stem cued recall, but a large effect in free recall. Thus making events distinctive greatly benefits free recall, and may benefit tests with word stems as cues depending on the nature of the distinctive events.

Jensen and Martin (1987) reported that subjects require additional time, and make more errors, when responding to a negative probe in a visual probe recognition task when the memory set contains one word that is either a rhyme of, differs by one letter from, or is a synonym of the probe. The experiments reported in this thesis investigate some aspect of each of these interference effects. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the phonological interference effect is not reduced when subjects must suppress articulation during a 12 second retention interval, and is not increased when subjects must recall the memory set after responding to the probe. This result implies that the phonological interference effect does not result from the retention of the memory set in an articulatory based short-term store. Experiment 2 and 3 demonstrate that similarity of graphemes, not just letters, leads to the graphemic interference effect since the effect was observed even when the probe and memory set were presented in different cases. Secondly, Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate the suitability of a phonological control against which graphemic interference must be measured. Finally, Experiment 4 reveals that the semantic interference effect may result from directional association as well as synonymy. The results of these four experiments are consistent with several recent models of working memory proposed by Barnard (1985) and Monsell (1984) which propose that working memory involves both activated pre-existing memory traces as well as the temporary storage of trace images.

Three experiments investigated cognitive organization in chess. The conventional view of perception in chess is the recognition-association model which emphasizes perceptual chunking as a basis for expertise. These experiments explored an alternative hypothesis that a higher level cognitive organizing process allows experts to integrate and perceive a position as a whole, rather than merely as a collection of perceptual chunks. In the first two experiments, subjects were presented with chess positions and high level descriptions of those positions either before or after position presentation. In both experiments, recall in the description-before condition was superior, supporting the importance of a higher level cognitive organization. The third experiment contrasted recall of positions presented by chunk with positions presented by pawn structure. Results showed recall was similar in the two conditions, again lending support to the idea that more than chunking is involved in the expert's perception and recall of a chess position.

This study investigates the function word deficits in aphasic patients and, in particular, agrammatic Broca's aphasics. Several explanations for the function word problem are addressed including a function word vocabulary deficit theory, a general syntactic deficit theory, and an abstract word deficit theory. Subjects with varying degrees of agrammatism were tested on a variety of production, comprehension, and reading, and syntactic tests which isolate semantic and syntactic aspects of both function and content words in order to better define the nature of the function word deficits in agrammatism.

The methods which people use to reason about everyday events and the strategies they employ have received much attention throughout the years. One aspect of this history is the debate about whether learning rules or examples most facilitates transfer of knowledge to a different domain. This research attempted to answer this question through two experiments. The first experiment concentrated on defining the dimensions along which subjects perceived problems which embodied statistical heuristics. The results identified a contextual dimension along which subjects classified the problems. The second experiment was conducted to determine if the contextual dimension or the problem domain dimension could best account for transfer of training to novel problems. The results indicated that the training transferred to all novel problems, however, training did not transfer to a different set of problems presented to the subjects as a phone survey. Explanations for this lack of transfer are discussed.

The role of stimulus similarity as an organizing principle in immediate memory was explored in a series of experiments. Each experiment involved the presentation of a short sequence of items. The items were drawn from two distinct physical categories and arranged such that the category changed after each pair of items. Following list presentation, one item was re-presented, and the subjects tried to recall the item that had directly followed it in the list. Recall was more probable if the re-presented item and the item to be recalled had been presented in the same sensory modality (i.e., auditory or visual), the same voice, or in the same spatial location than if they had been presented in a different modality, voice, or location. It is concluded that stimulus similarity plays a broader role in organizing immediate memory than is generally assumed.

Priming is a measure of memory where the influence of studied events is assessed indirectly by a later disguised test (e.g., the effect of studying windmill on the probability of solving the anagram lindwilm). Priming is typically sensitive to the perceptual aspects of studied items (e.g., little priming might be obtained from studying a picture of windmill). This property suggests that priming reflects perceptual operations involved in the identification of words and objects. An investigation of perceptual priming can therefore provide clues about the perception of words and objects. In five experiments, perceptual priming was assessed in picture identification tasks by varying the perceptual attributes of study and test objects. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of priming on the identification of briefly presented fragmented pictures as a function of receiving the intact pictures, reading the names of pictures, or generating the names at study. Substantial priming was obtained from pictures compared to words, which showed negligible priming in both conditions. Experiment 2 investigated priming on the fragment naming task as a function of receiving the same fragment, an intact picture, or a different fragment of the same object at study. Same fragments showed the greatest priming; less priming was obtained from intact versions or different fragments. In Experiments 3 and 4, priming on the identification of briefly presented pictures was examined when study and test objects were different viewing angles of the same object. Same study-test views showed the greatest priming. Priming across different views was greater when subjects studied an unusual view of the object and were tested on a usual view, compared to when subjects studied a usual view and were tested on the unusual view. Experiment 5 indicated that priming across viewing angles of the object was specific to obtaining pictorial information about the object: no priming was observed when subjects studied the names of the test objects. Together, these data support theories of memory and perception that assume that priming primarily involves perceptual operations that are specific to studied events (such as the fragment or view presented at study) rather than reflecting abstract representations of the studied events.