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M J Sharps

Publications and source records attributed to M J Sharps.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Body image preference in the United States and rural Thailand: an exploratory study.

The authors conducted a field study to examine the female body image preferences of young women and young men in a rural northern province of Thailand and in central California. The Thai participants did not have stronger body image preferences than did the U.S. participants overall. However, the young women preferred a significantly more slender body image than did the young men, F(1, 80) = 14.98, p < .001, and the Respondent Gender x Nationality interaction was also significant, F(1, 80) = 4.42, p = .039. Thai men, as expected, exhibited preferences for figures that were heavier than those preferred by their U.S. counterparts. Thai women, in contrast, exhibited preferences for figures that were thinner than those preferred by their U.S. counterparts or their male countrymen. These results are explained in terms of traditional Thai and U.S. values and in terms of Western cultural influences in modern Thailand.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Category superiority effects and the processing of auditory images.

Music and information appear to be processed by means of the phonological loop, as opposed to the visuospatial sketchpad, in working memory. Is this also true of memory for nonverbal, nonmusical auditory images, such as the characteristic sounds made by objects? In the present study, university students were presented with equivalent verbal stimuli, nonsemantic auditory stimuli, or pictorial stimuli, by category or in random order. Significant category superiority effects (CSEs) were obtained for both verbal and auditory stimuli, but not for pictorial stimuli, consistent with the expectation of phonological loop processing. However, absolute levels of recall for auditory stimuli were significantly higher than for verbal stimuli and did not differ from the levels observed for pictures, suggesting a somewhat intermediate character of processing for nonverbal, nonmusical auditory information.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1998

Spatial memory in young and older adults: environmental support and contextual influences at encoding and retrieval.

Previous studies have demonstrated the existence of an "unequal facilitation" effect in spatial memory. In those experiments, the provision of appropriate environmental support for recall was shown to enhance the recall performance of older adults more than that of young adults. In some cases, this process resulted in parity of performance between the two age groups. The present study evaluated the relative contribution of environmental support to the unequal facilitation effect at encoding and retrieval in a spatial memory task. Results, indicate that, although the provision of environmental support at both encoding and retrieval is necessary for optimal recall across the adult life span, the primary influence of such support for recall in the elderly derives from its presence at encoding.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Category superiority effects in young and elderly adults.

Recent research indicates that some elderly persons experience an age-related visual processing deficit, for which they may attempt to compensate through the use of relational information. This hypothesis was tested, using the category superiority effect as a model system. In studies of young adults, the category superiority effect has been shown to be confined to relatively abstract stimulus materials such as verbal items, and to be absent for more concrete representations such as photographs of actual objects. However, it was predicted that, contrary to the data from young adults, a category superiority effect would be present in elderly adults for both verbal and pictorial stimuli, because elderly people would be expected to use category information to compensate for imageric deficits. This prediction was confirmed, consistent with the hypothesis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Visual and semantic support for paired-associates recall in young and older adults.

A paired-associates task was used to investigate the degree to which young and older adults benefit from visual and semantic support for recall. Respondents were asked to recall pictorial or verbal items that were either semantically related or unrelated. As has been previously observed in spatial memory tasks, older adults benefited to a greater degree from pictorial materials than did young adults, but only for semantically related items. No such effect was observed for unrelated items. In a second experiment, the imposition of a speed requirement at retrieval eradicated the unequal recall facilitation effect for the older participants. The results of this study are consistent with Craik's (1986) environmental support theory and suggest a link between visuospatial loss and cognitive speed loss in the normal aging process.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Visual and auditory information as determinants of primacy effects.

Recent research has demonstrated that auditory and visual information have similar mnemonic properties. The relative influence of verbal, auditory, and visual stimulus materials on the primacy effect in free recall was studied. Significant primacy effects were obtained when either verbal or auditory-input stimuli were presented. However, primacy effects were suppressed when pictorial materials were used, principally because of elevation of recall for midlist and later elements. Instructions to use visual mental imagery at encoding suppressed primacy effects for verbal materials, but not for auditory materials, indicating that although auditory information processing is probably similar to phonological processing within working memory, auditory processing may share cognitive resources with visuospatial processing. Results are shown to be predictable and interpretable within the item-specific/relational information distinction of Hunt and Einstein (e.g., 1981), and within the working-memory theory of Baddeley (e.g., 1986).

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Visual memory support: an effective mnemonic device for older adults.

Based on recent on visual support for memory in the elderly, a simple mnemonic was developed. Respondents retained a visually distinctive plastic plate in a prominent place in their homes, and used it as a base for items to be recalled and for reminder notes of future activities. Specific instructions were given for the use of the plate and notes. In two experiments, this system was shown to reduce the frequency of everyday memory.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

Relational and item-specific information as determinants of category superiority effects.

Recent studies have shown that the category superiority effect--the mnemonic effect of grouping items by category--pertains largely to verbal rather than pictorial stimuli, suggesting that the category superiority effect may depend primarily upon the relative availability of relational and item-specific information in a given stimulus situation. This hypothesis was tested in two experiments, in which the level of item-specific information available per stimulus item was systematically diminished through the reduction of presentation time. This manipulation resulted in the systematic creation of significant category superiority effects for pictorial stimuli. Effects were reversed for verbal materials: They decreased with diminished presentation time. In a second experiment, the complexity of category structure was also shown to influence the category superiority effect. The category superiority effect varied predictably with manipulations of verbal and nonverbal stimulus materials, consistent with current theory concerning the processing of item-specific and relational information.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1992

Auditory imagery and free recall.

Research on mental imagery has demonstrated the importance of visual imagery to recall performance. Little attention, however, has been paid to the mnemonic value of auditory imagery. The present experiments addressed the influence of auditory and visual imagery on free recall. Characteristic sounds, pictures, or printed verbal labels of 40 common items were presented sequentially to adult subjects, who were asked to recall them after a 2-min retention interval. Pictures and characteristic sounds were associated with significantly better recall than were verbal labels alone, indicating that auditory imagery has mnemonic value similar to that of visual imagery. This effect was confirmed by further experiments. However, the effects of auditory and visual imagery on free recall were not shown to be additive.

Association Learning↗
PubMed1992

Relational and item-specific information in the determination of "blocking effects".

Items organized ("blocked") by membership in common categories are generally better remembered than unorganized items. In experiments conducted by Gollin and Sharps (1988), however, this blocking effect was largely confined to verbal stimuli. In the present manuscript, we show that this result may reflect differences in the processing of item-specific and relational information, as first described by Einstein and Hunt (1980). This hypothesis requires that the blocking effect for verbal stimuli diminish over longer retention intervals and that this diminution be attenuated or arrested by instructional manipulations at encoding. The present results verified these conjectures and replicated the result of Gollin and Sharps (1988). The findings suggest that the results of Gollin and Sharps were predictable from the application of item-specific/relational information theory and that the theory may appropriately be applied to paradigms involving both verbal and nonverbal stimuli.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Spatial memory in young and elderly adults: category structure of stimulus sets.

In 1987, Sharps and Gollin reported that the spatial memory of older adults is aided more than that of young adults by visually distinctive cues to location. In 1990, Park, Cherry, Smith, and Lafronza failed to reproduce these results. In the present study, strong category structure yielded results analogous to those of Park et al., and weak category structure similar to that of Sharps and Gollin yielded the same pattern of results as those in their study. The categorical interrelatedness of stimulus items was shown to be of potential importance in the resolution of the discrepancy between the 2 reports.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Aging and free recall for objects located in space.

The free recall of objects located in space was examined in young and elderly respondents. The visual distinctiveness of the spatial context in which the stimulus objects were placed was varied systematically. Under conditions in which contextual cues were lacking (objects presented simply in a list format), or in which the context was visually bland (a two-dimensional, black-and-white map), the free-recall performance of elderly persons was significantly poorer than that of young adults. Under conditions in which visually distinctive cues were added to the spatial context (a colored map, a three-dimensional unpainted model, a three-dimensional painted model, or a large room), no difference in performance between young and elderly respondents was observed. Results support the hypothesis that visually distinctive cues produce greater depth of processing for elderly persons, facilitating free recall of objects located in space.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Memory for object locations in young and elderly adults.

The spatial memory of elderly and young adults was compared in two conditions: one in which common objects were displayed on a map, and one in which the objects were displayed in an actual environment (a large room) represented by the map. In the map condition, elderly adults had lower spatial memory scores than did young adults. In the room condition, however, the performance of elderly adults was not different from that of young adults. It was hypothesized that differences in the visual distinctiveness of the two contexts, map and room, were responsible for the interaction of age and task setting. An experiment using models of the map-room structures, models that differed in the visual distinctiveness of their components, confirmed this hypothesis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Speed and accuracy of mental image rotation in young and elderly adults.

The mental image rotation abilities of young and elderly persons were examined in three conditions. Participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible, as accurately as possible, or to be both fast and accurate in responding. The accuracy performance of elderly adults was poorer in the speed condition than that of college-aged persons. In the accuracy and the speed/accuracy conditions, however, elderly participants responded as accurately as did younger participants, although the elderly individuals took longer on average to accomplish the image rotation tasks. The results of this study indicate that elderly persons may be more proficient at mental image rotation than has been supposed, particularly when the demand for speed in responding is tempered or eliminated.

Adolescent↗