Biomedical subjects

M A McDaniel

Publications and source records attributed to M A McDaniel.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

The stability of validity coefficients over time: Ackerman's (1988) model and the general aptitude test battery.

This study examined P. L. Ackerman's (1988) model of skill acquisition within an applied setting. Differences were examined between jobs on the basis of task consistency: changes in performance variability across experience, learning curves, and stability of ability-performance correlations across experience. Results showed the degree of task consistency influenced the shape of learning curves, with jobs composed of primarily consistent tasks improving more rapidly and reaching asymptote sooner. In addition, trends in ability-performance correlations were moderated by the degree of task consistency within ajob. Specifically, forjobs with primarily consistent tasks, general cognitive ability best predicted early performance whereas psychomotor ability best predicted later performance. In contrast, general cognitive ability was the strongest predictor across experience for jobs with primarily inconsistent tasks.

Aptitude Tests↗

PubMed2001

Use of situational judgment tests to predict job performance: a clarification of the literature.

Although situational judgment tests have a long history in the psychological assessment literature and continue to be frequently used in employment contexts, there has been virtually no summarization of this literature. The purpose of this article is to review the history of such tests and present the results of a meta-analysis on criterion-related and construct validity. On the basis of 102 coefficients and 10,640 people, situational judgment tests showed useful levels of validity (rho = .34) that were generalizable. A review of 79 correlations between situational judgment tests and general cognitive ability involving 16,984 people indicated that situational judgment tests typically evidence relationships with cognitive ability (rho = .46). On the basis of the literature review and meta-analytic findings, implications for the continued use of situational judgment tests are discussed, particularly in terms of recent investigations into tacit knowledge.

Employee Performance Appraisal↗

PubMed2001

Varying the importance of a prospective memory task: differential effects across time- and event-based prospective memory.

Only few studies have addressed the issue of task importance in prospective memory. Most of them, but not all, have shown that perceived task importance does improve prospective memory performance. However, there is little understanding of (1) the conditions under which importance of the prospective memory task makes a difference in performance and (2) the mechanisms by which perceived task importance has an effect on prospective memory performance. The present study reports two experiments that manipulate task importance in a time-based and an event-based prospective memory paradigm. Results show that importance has an effect on the time-based but not on the event-based task. Further analyses of the performance in the cover tasks as well as the monitoring behaviour indicate that importance improves prospective memory to the degree the task requires the strategic allocation of attentional resources.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

What is minimal about predictive inferences?

Pronunciation of a probe word that relates to a highly predictable event is typically facilitated when the probe immediately follows the target sentence, but not when it is delayed until after a second sentence. These findings suggest that inferences about highly predictable events are minimally drawn during reading. Using a similar paradigm, in which the probe was delayed, we found significant priming in a reading condition that encouraged focus on the referential state of affairs (situation level) expressed in the sentences. In contrast, significant priming for predictive texts was not observed in a reading condition that encouraged focus on the text per se (text level). These results are interpreted within a theoretical model that assumes that predictive inferences are represented at a situational level only, whereas explicitly presented information is represented at several levels (text and situational). It is in this sense that predictive inferences may be said to be minimally represented.

Cognition↗

PubMed2001

Many-to-one and one-to-many associative learning in a naturalistic task.

Associative learning of a coding scheme for alternative and augmentative communication devices requires the formation of multiple associations to 1 stimulus or 1 response. Alternative study presentations differ on several important factors, including recognition versus recall responses and many-to-one versus one-to-many associative learning. Also, the directionality of the association emphasized at study does not necessarily parallel the use of the association, raising questions concerning retention. Two experiments tested expectations regarding the efficacy of 2 study presentations. The study presentations produced dissociative effects for acquisition versus retention of the coding scheme for normal and intellectually disabled participants. Consideration of the results and the manner in which the coding scheme is used recommends many-to-one training in which vocabulary items are given as stimuli and icons are learned as responses.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Order information and retrieval distinctiveness: recall of common versus bizarre material.

The order-encoding hypothesis (E. L. DeLosh & M. A. McDaniel, 1996) assumes that serial-order information contributes to the retrieval of list items and that serial-order encoding is better for common items than bizarre items. In line with this account, Experiment 1 revealed better free recall and serial-order memory for common than for bizarre items in pure lists, and Experiment 2 showed that recall for bizarre items increased and the recall advantage of common items was eliminated when serial-order encoding for bizarre items was increased to the level of common items. However, inconsistent with a second assumption that bizarre-item advantages in mixed lists reflect better individual-item encoding for bizarre items, Experiments 3 and 4 showed that the bizarreness effect in mixed lists is eliminated when alternative retrieval strategies are encouraged. This set of findings is better explained by the differential-retrieval-process framework, which proposes that contextual factors (e.g., list composition) influence the extent to which various types of information are used at retrieval, with the bizarreness advantage in mixed lists dependent on a distinctiveness-based retrieval process.

Cognition↗

PubMed2000

Prospective memory and aging: forgetting intentions over short delays.

Retrieved intentions often cannot be performed immediately and must be maintained until there is an opportunity to perform them. In 3 experiments, on seeing a target event, younger and older participants were to withhold an action until they encountered the appropriate phase of the experiment. When initial retrieval was made facile by the use of a salient retrieval cue, the age-related decrements were often dramatic, even over unfilled delay intervals as brief as 10 s (Experiments 1 and 2). When initial retrieval was difficult, older adults showed no forgetting over the retention interval (Experiment 3). Several theoretical perspectives were offered as explanations for the age differences observed with salient retrieval cues, including those that focus on age differences in metamemory, the degree to which plans are reformulated, and the ability to nonstrategically maintain current concerns in working memory.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Plan formation, retention, and execution in prospective memory: a new approach and age-related effects.

Existing laboratory paradigms of prospective memory instruct subjects to remember to perform a single, isolated act at an appropriate point in the experiment. These paradigms do not completely capture many everyday complex prospective memory situations in which a series or set of delayed actions is planned to be executed in some subsequent period of time. We adapted a laboratory paradigm within which to study these prospective memory processes, and we investigated age-related influences on these prospective memory processes. Age-related declines were found in the planning, initiation, and execution of the set of tasks. In contrast, there were no age differences in plan retention or in the fidelity with which the plan was performed.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Analogy with knowledgeable learners: when analogy confers benefits and exacts costs.

Though embedding analogy in a text can improve acquisition of concepts that are relatively unfamiliar to learners (Donnelly & McDaniel, 1993), it remains uncertain how analogy influences learning for learners with some background knowledge for the target material. We develop several theoretical possibilities and report an experiment to test these possibilities. Target concepts familiar to college students were expressed either in literal form or through analogy, and the concepts were presented in a manner that either facilitated or discouraged contact with subjects' prior knowledge. As revealed by multiple-choice testing, analogy facilitated learning when the targets were presented to discourage contact with prior knowledge. In contrast, analogy decreased performance when the same targets were presented to facilitate contact with prior knowledge. Possible interpretations of this unique finding are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Prospective memory: a neuropsychological study.

To examine the neuropsychology of prospective remembering, older adults were divided preexperimentally into 4 groups on the basis of their scores on 2 composite measures: one assessing frontal lobe function and the other assessing medial temporal lobe function. The groups reflected the factorial combination of high and low functioning for each neuropsychological system, and they were tested on an event-based laboratory prospective memory task. High-functioning frontal participants showed better prospective remembering than low-functioning frontal participants. There was no significant difference in prospective memory performance attributable to medial temporal functioning. The results support the theoretical notion that frontal lobe processes play a key role in prospective remembering. Discussion focuses on the particular components of prospective memory performance that frontal lobes might mediate.

Aged↗

PubMed1998

Dynamic changes in hypermnesia across early and late tests: a relational/item-specific account.

Two experiments tested predictions derived from R. R. Hunt and M. A. McDaniel's (1993) relational/item-specific account of hypermnesia. According to this framework, participants encoding relational information should show greater hypermnesia on early test trials than on later test trials. In contrast, participants encoding item-specific information should show greater hypermnesia on later test trials than on early test trials. These predictions were not anticipated by other accounts but were confirmed by the results. Further, the patterns of reminiscence and intertest forgetting supported the theoretical underpinnings of these predictions. A 3rd experiment examined some factors by which item-specific encoding might enhance reminiscence (and thus hypermnesia) on later test trials. These results suggested that a richer set of encoded attributes rather than a fluctuating retrieval plan supported the beneficial effects of item-specific encoding on reminiscence.

Female↗

PubMed1998

Relational and item-specific information: trade-off and redundancy.

In two experiments, the trade-off and the redundancy hypotheses for relational and item-specific information proposed by Hunt and Seta (1984) were tested. Lists consisting of categories of varying sizes were presented under categorising instructions and under pleasantness-rating instructions. Memory was tested in free recall and a recognition test. Different measures were used for relational and item-specific information. According to the trade-off hypothesis, the amount of relational information should increase with increasing category size, and at the same time, the amount of item-specific information should decrease. This hypothesis could not be confirmed. Whereas the amount of relational information increased with increasing category size, the amount of item-specific information did not decrease. The redundancy hypothesis assumes that relational and item-specific information depend on category size only if the relevant information is not provided otherwise, as by orienting tasks. This hypothesis could not be conformed either. Rather, relational encoding is supplemented when both orienting task and the list structure focus encoding of that type of information. Item-specific encoding, on the other hand, is independent of category size and increases when the instruction focuses on it. The findings of free recall show that free recall is determined by more than the interplay of relational and item-specific information in an additive manner.

Humans↗

PubMed1998

Prospective memory: when reminders fail.

A frequent assumption in the area of prospective memory is that a reminder to do an activity in the future improves the likelihood of doing the activity. The results of four experiments indicated, however, that the most general version of this assumption is incorrect. Subjects were either reminded of a prospective memory task several times during a retention interval or not reminded of the prospective memory task. The most effective reminders referred both to the prospective memory target events and to the intended activity. Reminders that referred only to the target events did not improve prospective memory (relative to a no-reminder control). Reminders that referred only to the intended activity did improve prospective memory, but not to the level of reminders that referred both to the target events and to the intended activity. Instructions to imagine oneself performing the prospective memory task did not further improve prospective memory. Neither the delay between the prospective memory instructions and the prospective memory cover task nor the delay between a reminder and a prospective memory target event significantly influenced performance. The results, which are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications, support a new theory of prospective memory and suggest surprising conditions under which reminders fail to benefit prospective memory.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Distinctiveness effects in recall: differential processing or privileged retrieval?

Unusual information is generally recalled better than common information (the distinctiveness effect). Differential processing accounts propose that the effect occurs because unusual material elicits encoding processes that are different from those elicited by common material, and strong versions of these accounts predict distinctiveness effects in between-list as well as within-list designs. Experiment 1 employed a between-list design and manipulated presentation rate. Contrary to differential processing predictions, no distinctiveness effect emerged, nor did recall patterns for atypical versus common sentences differ as a function of presentation rate. Experiment 2 further tested differential processing accounts as well as representation accounts via a within-list manipulation and conditions that included experimenter-provided elaborations. Distinctiveness effects emerged in all conditions and, contrary to differential processing predictions, the pattern of recall in the elaborated conditions did not differ from that in the unelaborated conditions. Taken together, the results of this study lend more support to a representation view that suggests mechanisms related to the representation and subsequent retrievability of elements in the memory record play a major role in the distinctiveness effect.

Humans↗

PubMed1998

Prospective remembering: perceptually driven or conceptually driven processes?

Converging experimental operations and several prospective memory tasks were used across three experiments to determine the extent to which prospective remembering is supported by data-driven versus conceptually driven processes. In all experiments, subjects were asked to perform an action when a target item later occurred. When the semantic context changed from encoding to test, prospective memory significantly declined (Experiment 1). When the target event (the item, which in its subsequent appearance in the experiment was the signal to perform the action) was presented as word (relative to picture presentation, Experiment 2) or was encoded nonsemantically (relative to semantic encoding, Experiment 3), there was a decline in prospective memory performance. Dividing attention during prospective memory retrieval substantially reduced prospective memory performance (Experiment 3). The results of this research indicated that prospective memory is largely conceptually driven, and it behaves more similarly to direct rather than indirect conceptual tests. We suggest that prospective remembering of the type studied here is mediated by a reflexive episodic associative memory system as proposed by Moscovitch (1994).

Cognition↗

PubMed1997

The abstraction of intervening concepts from experience with multiple input-multiple output causal environments.

The purpose of this article is threefold: (a) introduce a new paradigm for investigating how intervening concepts are learned, (b) report four new experiments that provide converging evidence for the acquisition of intervening concepts, and (c) propose a simple associative learning mechanism to account for the results. The new paradigm utilizes a stimulus-response-feedback task in which subjects learn trial by trial how a multivariate set of inputs maps into a multivariate set of outputs. The first two experiments use evidence based on a principal component analysis to replicate the finding that intervening-concept learning occurs spontaneously, but only in environments that contain an intervening factor. The next experiment provides a second converging line of evidence for this conclusion by showing that subjects can use an intervening concept to make accurate inferences to a new fourth output during a transfer test. The last experiment provides a third line of evidence by showing that subjects can use an intervening concept to make accurate inferences from a new fourth input. The results are explained by a hidden-unit connectionist learning mechanism that includes both accuracy and parsimony as learning objectives.

Association Learning↗

PubMed1997

Extrapolation: the sine qua non for abstraction in function learning.

Abstraction was investigated by examining extrapolation behavior in a function-learning task. During training, participants associated stimulus and response magnitudes (in the form of horizontal bar lengths) that covaried according to a linear, exponential, or quadratic function. After training, novel stimulus magnitudes were presented as tests of extrapolation and interpolation. Participants extrapolated well beyond the range of learned responses, and their responses captured the general shape of the assigned functions, with some systematic deviations. Notable individual differences were observed, particularly in the quadratic condition. The number of unique stimulus-response pairs given during training (i.e., density) was also manipulated but did not affect training or transfer performance. Two rule-learning models, an associative-learning model, and a new hybrid model with associative learning and rule-based responding (extrapolation-association model [EXAM]) were evaluated with respect to the transfer data. EXAM best approximated the overall pattern of extrapolation performance.

Humans↗

PubMed1997

Aging and prospective memory: the influence of increased task demands at encoding and retrieval.

A feature of prospective memory tasks is that they tend to be embedded into other background activities. Two experiments examined how the demands of these background activities affect age differences in prospective memory. The first experiment showed that increasing the demands of the background activities (by adding a digit-monitoring task) significantly reduced prospective memory performance. Planned comparisons revealed that age differences in prospective memory were reliable only in the more demanding background condition. The second experiment revealed significant prospective memory declines when the demands were selectively increased at encoding for both younger and older adults. When the demands were selectively increased at retrieval, older adults were particularly affected. The authors propose a model that relies on both automatic retrieval processes and working memory resources to explain prospective memory remembering.

Adult↗