1,721,042 research outputs found
On the Requirements of Feature Binding in Visual Short-Term Memory: Evidence from the Attentional Boost Effect
No full textDivided attention can enhance early-phase memory encoding. The attentional boost effect and study trial duration
No full textDivided attention during encoding typically produces marked reductions in later memory. The attentional
boost effect (ABE) is a surprising variation on this phenomenon. In this paradigm, each study stimulus
(e.g., a word) is presented along with a target or a distractor (e.g., different colored circles) in a detection
task. Later memory is better for stimuli co-occurring with targets. The present experiments indicate that
the ABE arises during an early phase of memory encoding that involves initial stimulus perception and
comprehension rather than at a later phase entailing controlled, elaborative rehearsal. Experiment 1
demonstrated that the ABE was robust at a short study duration (700 ms) and did not increase with
increasing study trial durations (1,500 ms and 4,000 ms). Furthermore, the target condition is boosted to
the level of memory performance in a full-attention condition for the short duration but not the long
duration. Both results followed from the early-phase account. This account also predicts that for very
short study times (limiting the influence of late-phase controlled encoding and thus minimizing the usual
negative effect of divided attention), the target condition will produce better memory than will the
full-attention condition. Experiment 2 used a study time of 400 ms and found that words presented with
targets lead to greater recognition accuracy than do either words presented with distractors or words in
the full-attention condition. Consistent with the early-phase account, a divided attention condition
actually produced superior memory than did the full-attention condition, a very unusual but theoretically
predicted resultDivided attention during encoding typically produces marked reductions in later memory. The attentional boost effect (ABE) is a surprising variation on this phenomenon. In this paradigm, each study stimulus (e.g., a word) is presented along with a target or a distractor (e.g., different colored circles) in a detection task. Later memory is better for stimuli co-occurring with targets. The present experiments indicate that the ABE arises during an early phase of memory encoding that involves initial stimulus perception and comprehension rather than at a later phase entailing controlled, elaborative rehearsal. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the ABE was robust at a short study duration (700 ms) and did not increase with increasing study trial durations (1,500 ms and 4,000 ms). Furthermore, the target condition is boosted to the level of memory performance in a full-attention condition for the short duration but not the long duration. Both results followed from the early-phase account. This account also predicts that for very short study times (limiting the influence of late-phase controlled encoding and thus minimizing the usual negative effect of divided attention), the target condition will produce better memory than will the full-attention condition. Experiment 2 used a study time of 400 ms and found that words presented with targets lead to greater recognition accuracy than do either words presented with distractors or words in the full-attention condition. Consistent with the early-phase account, a divided attention condition actually produced superior memory than did the full-attention condition, a very unusual but theoretically predicted result. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved
Theory of mind, mental state language and metalinguistic knowledge: A study with school-age children
No full textHow narrative structure changes in the stories written by Italian children of primary school
No full textNarrative discourse represents an essential mechanism for making sense of human experiences and relationships, providing “the major link between our own sense of self and our sense of others in the social world around us” (Bruner, 1986, p.69). A long tradition of research (Allen, Kertoy, Sherblom & Pettit, 1994; Hudson & Shapiro, 1991; Peterson & McCabe, 1983) has shown that, in the oral modality, children are capable of producing complete personal episodes by the time they enter first grade, whereas they often engage in unstructured event descriptions when telling fictional stories.
In the present study we investigated differences between three types of narratives written by a sample of 150 Italian children in the third, fourth and fifth grade (from 8 to 11 years of age). Each participant composed fictional, personal and hypothetical stories. In particular, in the latter task children were requested to write an imaginary story in which they themselves were the main characters. Narrative structure was analyzed using the categories proposed by Stein and Glenn (1979): Presentation, Description, Event, Internal Response, Planning, Action, Direct Consequences and Conclusion. A global index of narrative completeness was obtained by counting the number of different categories included in each story (range: 0-8).
The results indicated that narrative completeness was greater for fictional and hypothetical stories than for personal narratives. Furthermore, significant differences between the three stories were found in all categories, except for Event and Planning. Children used Presentation, Internal Response and Conclusion more frequently in fictional and personal narratives than in hypothetical stories. On the other hand, the Action and Description categories were employed more often in hypothetical and personal stories, respectively. These findings suggest that school-age children make clear differentiations between the three narrative tasks and that, contrary to what happens in the oral modality, they are more proficient at producing fictional than personal stories
Relationship between false belief, mental state language, metalinguistic awareness and social abilities in school-age children
No full textThe present study examined the concurrent relationships between false belief understanding, mental state language,
metalinguistic knowledge, narrative competence and social ability in a sample of 150 school-age children between 8 and 12 years
of age. Results revealed significant associations between performance in false belief and metalinguistic tasks. The use of mental state language was negatively correlated with emotional instability and aggressiveness. Finally, both theory of mind and mental state language were positively associated with the number of narrative categories included in a fictional story and the occurrence of subordinate propositions
Maternal mind-mindedness and communicative functions in free-play and mealtime contexts: Stability, continuity and relations with child language at 16 months
No full textThe present study aimed at investigating the contextual stability, the contextual continuity and the concurrent associations between maternal measures (general language, communicative functions and mind-mindedness) and child measures (total number of word types and tokens) in two different contexts, free-play and mealtime. To this purpose, the interactions occurring between 25 mothers and their 16-month-old children in each context were video-recorded, transcribed and later coded for the selected measures. Significant contextual stability was observed in the mothers’ production of general language measures (total number of utterances, total number of words and MLU), in the children’s production of word types and tokens, and in some communicative functions (Tutorial, Control and Asynchronous). No contextual stability was found for the mothers’ production of attuned mind-related comments. For continuity, both mothers and children produced more utterances and words in the free-play than in the mealtime context; the production of attuned mind-related comments and the use of the Control function were also more frequent in the free-play context. Lastly, the analysis of the concurrent correlations indicated that, especially in the mealtime context, the number of words produced by children was positively associated with the number of words produced by mothers and by their use of the Tutorial and Didactic functions, but negatively associated with their use of the Control function. The mothers’ production of attuned mind-related comments bore no relation with children’s expressive language. Similarities and differences with previous findings are discussed
The Attentional Boost Effect with Verbal Materials
No full textStudy stimuli presented at the same time as unrelated targets in a detection task are better remembered than stimuli presented with distractors. This attentional boost effect (ABE) has been found with pictorial (Swallow & Jiang, 2010) and more recently verbal materials (Spataro et al., 2013). The present experiments examine the generality of the ABE with verbal materials and critically assess the perceptual-encoding hypothesis, the notion that the memory benefits are due to enhanced encoding of the perceptual properties of the study stimulus. Experiments 1 and 3 demonstrated an ABE with visual study items, comparable in size whether the recognition test was visual or auditory. Experiments 2 and 3 established an ABE for auditory study stimuli which was again equivalent for auditory and visual recognition tests. Experiments 4 and 5 found an ABE on the test of free recall. Finally, the ABE was greater for high frequency than low frequency words. The results demonstrate the generality of the ABE over study and test modality, and over memory tests (recognition and free recall), while also documenting a moderating factor (word frequency). Importantly, the representational basis for the ABE with verbal materials appears to be abstract, or amodal, rather than modality specific
Conoscenza esplicita della teoria della mente in età scolare: relazioni con le abilità metalinguistiche, e sociali.
No full textIl ruolo della struttura sintattica e narrativa nella produzione del lessico psicologico: storie inventate e personali a confronto in età scolare
No full textThis study examined the production of written texts in two types of narrative tasks (fictional and autobiographic stories) in a sample of 162 children equally distributed in three primary school classes (3rd, 4th and 5th). Data show that fictional narratives are longer, more articulate and complete than autobiographic stories. With respect to the use of the psychological lexicon, cognitive and volitional terms are employed more often in the fictional narratives, whereas emotional terms occur more frequently in the autobiographic stories. Furthermore, it has been found a significant correlation between internal state words and the amount of subordinate clauses in the fictional, but not in the autobiographic task. Overall, the results obtained on different measures (syntactic complexity, narrative structure and mental state talk) indicate that the fictional story represents the most adequate framework for children to express their abilities of theory of mind understanding
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