The power of cognitive psychology lies in the promise of cognitive technology.
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The power of cognitive psychology lies in the promise of cognitive technology.
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Abstracts - Fall 2003
THEORETICAL AND RESEARCH ARTICLES Bartering Our Attention: The Distraction and Persuasion Effects of On-Line Advertisements Brad J. Sagarin, M. Anne Britt, Jeremy D. Heider, Sarah E. Wood, and Joel E. Lynch, Northern Illinois University New marketing models enable consumers to choose between paying money for products for receiving ad-sponsored versions. Two experiments examined whether these ad-sponsored products represent reciprocal exchanges of desired goods for consumer attention, as perceived by marketers, or giveaways of desired goods at no cost whatsoever, as perceived by consumers. Participants solved anagrams on a computer in the presence or absence of small, static, visually peripheral advertisements. Results suggest that although consumers maintain illusory beliefs that they can tune out such ads. The ads have substantial persuasive and subtle distracting effects. Additional results demonstrate that the interference effects of ad competition, recognition and persuasion were reduced by a second ad, but animating the ads partially mitigate this effect. Ads distracted participants by facilitating procrastination (Exp. 2) but also may have aided participants by helping them break mental sets (Exp. 1).
Virgil Sheets, Stacy Fox, Carolyn McGuire and Kristy Spindler, Indiana State University Theoretical models suggest that possessions serve as extensions of the self and are used to communicate a sense of one's self to others. Accordingly, we explored whether technological devices to aid memory are used to reflect the self, one's identity. One hundred forty-one college students served as participants in an experiment and also completed a brief survey. In the experiment, participants viewed someone who recorded a phone number in a planner, a cell phone, or a palm-pilot, and reported their perceptions of him. In the survey, participants reported their own use of these devices and rated themselves on a set of personality traits. The results confirmed that people who use technological devices to aid memory are perceived differently from people who do not use these devices and that some to these differences reflect differences in self-perceptions of users and non-users. These findings support our contention that technological devices such as cell pones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) reveal aspects of the users' identities to others.
Matt Canham, University of California, and Jennifer Wiley, University of Illinois at Chicago. "Flow" is a psychological state in which performers become completely absorbed in their task, actions are performed effortlessly, and the sense of time passage is distorted. A flow state can occur at any level of skill when there is an optimal balance between a perceived challenge and one's skill level. The current research investigates skilled memory, a possible cognitive correlate of time transformation in flow states. Significant differences were found between novice and expert climbers in memory for a climbing route and the probability of experiencing a flow state in the past. Measures taken immediately following climbs also suggested that experts were more likely to experience both flow states in general and time transformation in particular.
E. Doherty, S. Ali, D. Baskaradhas, P. Michael, Fairleigh Dickinson University and J. Rizzo, Morris County Family Services The simple act of making a phone call is impossible for many motor impaired individuals. A device using a sensor switch, electrode and transducer was created which allowed two severely motor impaired subjects to place a call without assistance. The electrode was worn on the forehead and a computer was used to generate an image of a 15 key console (this computer image was then projected on the wall to make it easier to see). The user could select a one button speed dial option or could select numbers individually. Both subjects could operate the phone including the "hang-up" button and the more impaired subject took 30 minutes to make the call and use his voice synthesizer to select groups of text. Although this may sound a bit time intensive, the user was quite motivated as this was the first call he had placed independently in 12 years.
Frederick Parenté, Michael Nestor, Eric Stouffer, Jennifer Wingrat, and Tiffany Hiob, Towson University. Invisible cognitions are perceptions and thought processes that cannot be detected with conventional statistical procedures. These phenomena usually go unnoticed in studies of cognition because the conventional data analyses are insensitive to them. Two experiments investigated the concept of invisible cognitions with a variety of data sets from studies of cognition and memory. In the first experiment, we used data sets where the Pearson correlations among all pairs of variables in the data sets were not significant. This condition insured that the general linear model could not predict any variable from any other. We then analyzed these data with an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to determine if it could predict one variable from others in the set. The results indicated that the ANN was able to detect relationships among the variables in the data sets that were invisible to the general linear model. In the second experiment, college students rated slides of artwork on five dimensions. Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA) was used to predict one dimension (pleasingness) from the remaining four. Those dimensions that did not predict using the MRA were then used in the ANN model, which produced a significant fit to the data. Predictions of ANN model were validated in a second scaling of the same slides with a different sample of students.
Sonya Sheffert, Megan MacPherson,and Melissa Wilson, Central Michigan University The purpose of this study was to evaluate the mnemonic effects of audiovisual speech. This is a critical issue in areas such as distance education which rely on televised audiovisual speech. Previous research has demonstrated that the ability to see a talker's face can facilitate speech processing. Other research has shown that dual coding may reduce cognitive load and improve memory for verbal information. The experiments reported here were designed to determine if the advantages of audiovisual interfaces extend beyond perception by improving working memory processing. In Experiment 1, participants completed a memory span task in which lists of spoken words were presented either unimodally or multimodally, by one taker or ten talkers, and at a fast rate or a slow rate. The data showed that under clear listening conditions the presence of a talker's face significantly reduced memory span. Talker variability and rate also affected recall. In contrast, when the auditory signal was slightly noisy (Experiment 2), visible speaker information was no longer a liability. Taken together, the results indicate that engaging student's interest through the use of audiovisual talkers does not automatically lead to better retention of the linguistic content. In some situations, there may be cognitive costs associated with multimodal communicative technologies.
Sandro Scielzo, and Stephen M. Fiore, University of Central Florida Review of Multimedia Learning by Richard E. Mayer With ever-increasing popularity in educational and training settings, multimodal presentations are used to convey instructional material. The advances and availability of modern technology seem to have changed the learning experience radically. However, how well can a multimedia presentation efficiently translate into effective multimedia learning? Richard Mayer methodically explores this question, and with the clarity of a true empiricist, he informs the reader on the most current theory and research. In turn, an important conclusion emerges: Effective multimedia presentation must be based on solid design principles that are modeled after the learner's cognitive abilities. In this review we first summarize the critical points from this important book and then we discuss some remaining issues not explicitly addressed.
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