No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study investigated attributes of picture processing within a priming paradigm. Prime and target pictures were paired to create physical identity, name identity, and unrelated conditions. The primes were tachistoscopically presented both above and below naming threshold. In addition, interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 90- and 490 msec were employed. Subjects were required to name the target pictures as quickly as possible. In the above threshold priming condition at both ISIs the physical identity pairs produced the greatest response facilitation, followed by the name identity pairs. In the below threshold priming condition, the only significant effect occurred at the 90 msec ISI, where the name identity condition showed response facilitation. The results are discussed in the contexts of attentional and automatic processing and the Warren and Morton (1982) revised logogen model.

This thesis reports a series of experiments which study various aspects of perceptual coding processes in normal adults. Perceptual coding involves several distinct stages of analysis, which it is possible to separate by suitable experimental manipulations. The importance of "functional" concepts and models, in discussing the nature and relationship of these stages, is a recurrent theme which is illustrated both by review and by experiment. The opening section of the Introduction examines the relationship between "recognition" and "discrimination" and distinguishes the concepts of "norminal" and "functional" as they are applied to human information processing. Following a brief discussion of "active" and "passive" theories of recognition, the nature of information theory is elaborated and evaluated with particular emphasis upon recent criticisms and its ability to model discrimination performance. The theory is found to be inadequate in several important respects - in particular in its failure to provide a viable account of the functional basis of information processing. The following section discusses and criticises the concepts of serial and parallel processing which are frequently employed in modelling the way in which pattern discriminations are executed. Although the terminology is useful in certain instances, it is suggested that it presents difficulties which appear to multiply with the increasing conceptual refinement demanded by new data. Several logical and empirical assumptions upon which the dichotomy rests are made explicit and considered. A number of these are found to be questionable, to an extent which makes it difficult to maintain and heuristic value for the original distinction. The necessity for functional models is further emphasised in a review of data obtained from some well-tried experimental paradigms. Three are selected on the basis of their relevance to the chapters which follow, as well as for their own intrinsic interest.[see text for continuation of abstract].

Methods of instruction which are intended to facilitate understanding tend to incorporate all of the elements required for understanding in the instructions. Frequently, these types of instructions may overwhelm a learner???s limited working memory and hinder learning. The five experiments reported in this thesis were generated by cognitive load theory. Cognitive load theory is based on the assumption that features of human cognitive architecture have important implications for how we learn and understand. The experiments examined an alternative approach to instructional design which had the goal of promoting schema construction in order to foster understanding. A two phase, isolated-interacting elements learning approach was developed which, in the first phase, artificially reduced the element interactivity of complex material by presenting the material as isolated elements of information that could be processed serially, rather than simultaneously, in working memory. In the second phase of instruction, all the information for understanding was presented. The control group???s instruction was a more conventional approach to promoting understanding where all the information for understanding was presented in both Phase 1 and 2. Although a possible consequence of artificially reducing the element interactivity of material may be an initial decrease in a student???s capacity for understanding, it was hypothesised that over the longer term it would lead to an increase in learners??? understanding. The results reported in this thesis provide powerful evidence that for certain groups of learners, information is better learnt through the isolated-interacting elements instructional method. Evidence is also provided in support of the proposal that schema construction is the mechanism underlying the success of the isolated-interacting elements instructional method. Experiments 1 and 3 demonstrated that when novice students are required to learn complex information, the isolated-interacting elements method of instruction was superior to the control method. In contrast, no evidence was found in Experiments 2 and 4 to suggest a difference between these instructional techniques. These contrasting results can be explained by the different levels of domain knowledge possessed by the participants of each experiment. The results of Experiment 5 were similar to those of Experiments 1 and 3, namely that students performed superiorly if they had studied the isolated elements followed by interacting elements instruction. These results provide significant theoretical support for the claim that expertise is the key factor implicated in the beneficial effects associated with the isolated-interacting elements instructional technique since the participants in Experiment 5 had previously participated in Experiments 2 and 4. The difference in the outcomes of these experiments can be explained by the level of domain specific knowledge the participants of Experiment 5 had in each of the knowledge domains tested by the various experiments.