Petrusic William M, Gallitto Elena, Leth-Steensen Craig
Department of Psychology.
Can J Exp Psychol. 2014 Dec;68(4):242-9. doi: 10.1037/cep0000040.
In the current study, a novel paradigm was used in which participants (N = 24) first compared the sizes of pairs of animals and then were asked, on half of the trials, to make a follow-up identification judgment regarding either the form of the comparative instruction that had just been used for the preceding comparison (i.e., smaller? or larger?) or the size of the stimuli in the comparison pair. To selectively enhance the difficulty associated with processing each of these aspects, on a large number of comparison trials, either the comparative instruction or the stimulus pair, respectively, was presented only very briefly. Results indicate that memory for the comparative instructions was dependent on the relative size of the stimulus pair such that participants were more likely to correctly identify the smaller form of the comparative instruction after comparing pairs of small stimulus items, as well as more likely to correctly identify the larger form of the comparative instruction after comparing pairs of large stimulus items. Such results are consistent with the view that the size of the stimulus pair contextually activates the representation of the congruent form of the comparative instruction.
在当前研究中，采用了一种新的范式，其中参与者（N = 24）首先比较动物对的大小，然后在一半的试验中，被要求对刚刚用于先前比较的比较指令的形式（即较小？还是较大？）或比较对中刺激的大小进行后续识别判断。为了有选择地增加处理这些方面中每一个方面的难度，在大量比较试验中，比较指令或刺激对分别仅非常短暂地呈现。结果表明，对比较指令的记忆取决于刺激对的相对大小，以至于参与者在比较小刺激项目对之后更有可能正确识别比较指令的较小形式，并且在比较大刺激项目对之后更有可能正确识别比较指令的较大形式。这些结果与以下观点一致，即刺激对的大小在情境中激活比较指令的一致形式的表征。
