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Biomedical subjects

M J Intons-Peterson

Publications and source records attributed to M J Intons-Peterson.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Age, testing at preferred or nonpreferred times (testing optimality), and false memory.

Two experiments investigated whether age and testing at preferred (optimal) times of day or nonpreferred (nonoptimal) times affected the ability to select relevant from irrelevant but thematically related alternatives in a verbal false memory paradigm. A 3rd experiment pursued the same issues with a visual false memory paradigm. In all 3 experiments, younger adults (n = 195) correctly recalled studied items more often than older adults (n = 121), whereas the 2 age groups correctly recognized about the same numbers of previously studied items. In all 3 experiments, nonoptimally tested older adults had more difficulty excluding nonstudied but thematically related items than the other groups; thus, they showed the greatest evidence of false memory, although all groups did so to a significant extent. The results suggest that optimality and its circadian determinants need to be considered with some tasks for the elderly. Various models and mechanisms are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Sensory-perceptual qualities of images.

Four experiments demonstrated that such sensory-perceptual features of objects as weight, color, and numerosity affect imaginal performance involving images of those objects. For example, imaginary transport times of objects increased with both the hypothetical weight of the imagined object and the distance traversed. The transport functions were steeper when a map of the terrain was imagined than when it was perceived, suggesting that imaginal performance of heft did not parallel more perceptually guided performance. Corresponding to the view that images activate noncanonical information from long-term memory, mental transport times were longer for maps of familiar terrains than for those of presumably unelaborated unfamiliar terrains. Further, the effects of imaginary color discriminations depended on the familiarity of the object being imagined. Images of customarily colored familiar objects were generated faster when projected onto a surface of the same color than when projected onto a surface of another color, whereas images constructed from unfamiliar targets were recognized more accurately when the target's color differed substantially from that of the ground than when it differed by a smaller amount. The results were predicted by a model that assumed that images may incorporate ancillary characteristics in addition to canonical information.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Imagery paradigms: how vulnerable are they to experimenters' expectations?

The effects of experimenters' expectations on subjects' responses in imagery paradigms were investigated by leading some experimenters to believe that performance based on the use of imagery would be superior to performance based on perception. Other experimenters were led to expect perceptual superiority. Three paradigms are tested. Experiment 1 considered imaginal and perceptual acuity as functions of the size and relative brightness of the stimulus patterns; Experiment 2 compared imaginal and perceptual scanning of maps; and Experiments 3 and 4 studied the identification of rotated hands after imaginal or perceptual priming. In all the experiments, subjects' performances varied with the experimenters' beliefs, suggesting that these paradigms are sensitive to subtle influences from experimenters' tacit, unintentional cues. Experiment 4 probed the ability of observers to identify both tacit cues and the experimenters' expectations. The observers accurately assigned the experimenters' beliefs but were unable to systematically detect distinguishing and differential characteristics of the experimenters' presentations of the instructions. Analysis of taped transcriptions yielded some differences in temporal phrasing. Implications of these results are discussed.

Discrimination Learning↗
PubMed1981

Experimenter naiveté and imaginal judgments.

Finke and Kurtzman report that fields of resolution increase with increases in the diameter of both perceived and imagined circular patterns. Their study apparently was conducted by an experimenter who was aware of the hypotheses under test. In contrast to these results, we find no such increase for imagined circular patterns when the experimenter is not aware of the experimental predictions, even though our subjects received imagery training as extensive as that used by Finke and Kurtzman. Our results cannot readily be attributed to differences between the experiments, other than those associated with experimenter naiveté, for we replicated Finke and Kurtzman's observations that (a) the fields of resolution in perception increase with both the diameter and the relative brightness of the patterns and (b) the fields of resolution in imagery do not increase with the relative brightness of the patterns. Our results also challenge Finke and Kurtzman's contentions that imagery and perception are treated as functionally equivalent at area-processing levels of the visual system but not at contrast-processing levels.

Discrimination Learning↗