Debates concerning the types of representations that aid reading acquisition have often been infl... more Debates concerning the types of representations that aid reading acquisition have often been influenced by the relationship between measures of early phonological awareness (the ability to process speech sounds) and later reading ability. Here, a complementary approach is explored, analyzing how the functional utility of different representational units, such as whole words, bodies (letters representing the vowel and final consonants of a syllable), and graphemes (letters representing a phoneme) may change as the number of words that can be read gradually increases. Utility is measured by applying a Simplicity Principle to the problem of mapping from print to sound; that is, assuming that the “best” representational units for reading are those which allow the mapping from print to sounds to be encoded as efficiently as possible. Results indicate that when only a small number of words are read whole-word representations are most useful, whereas when many words can be read graphemic representations have the highest utility.
Temporal distinctiveness models of memory retrieval claim that memories are organised partly in t... more Temporal distinctiveness models of memory retrieval claim that memories are organised partly in terms of their positions along a temporal dimension, and suggest that memory retrieval involves temporal discrimination. According to such models the retrievability of memories should be related to the discriminability of their temporal distances at the time of retrieval. This prediction is tested directly in three pairs of experiments that examine (a) memory retrieval and (b) identification of temporal durations that correspond to the temporal distances of the memories. Qualitative similarities between memory retrieval and temporal discrimination are found in probed serial recall (Experiments 1 and 2), immediate and delayed free recall (Experiments 3 and 4) and probed serial recall of grouped lists (Experiments 5 and 6). The results are interpreted as consistent with the suggestion that memory retrieval is indeed akin to temporal discrimination.
Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with err... more Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with errors classified as movements, omissions, intrusions, or repetitions. In Experiments 1 and 2, developmental differences between groups of children aged from 7 to 11 years and adults were found in the pattern of serial recall errors. The errors of older participants were more likely to be movements than were those of younger participants, who made more intrusions and omissions. The number of repetition errors did not change with age, and this finding is interpreted in terms of a developmentally invariant postoutput response inhibition process. This interpretation was supported by the findings of Experiment 3, which measured levels of response inhibition in 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds by comparing recall of lists with and without repeated items. Response inhibition remained developmentally invariant, although older children showed greater response facilitation (improved correct recall of adjacent repeated items). Group differences in the patterns of other errors are accounted for in terms of developmental changes in levels of output forgetting and changes in the efficiency of temporal encoding processes.
Patients with schizophrenia display numerous cognitive deficits, including problems in working me... more Patients with schizophrenia display numerous cognitive deficits, including problems in working memory, time estimation, and absolute identification of stimuli. Research in these fields has traditionally been conducted independently. We examined these cognitive processes using tasks that are structurally similar and that yield rich error data. Relative to healthy control participants (n = 20), patients with schizophrenia (n = 20) were impaired on a duration identification task and a probed-recall memory task but not on a line-length identification task. These findings do not support the notion of a global impairment in absolute identification in schizophrenia. However, the authors suggest that some aspect of temporal information processing is indeed disturbed in schizophrenia.
In this paper a rationale for choosing how many and what types of spelling-tosound units of Engli... more In this paper a rationale for choosing how many and what types of spelling-tosound units of English to teach children to learn to read is introduced. The rationale is based on an analysis of the frequency with which various units of spelling-to-sound mapping occur in monosyllabic words of the English language. Analysis of spellingto-sound mappings at three levels (whole words, onsets and rimes, and graphemes) reveals that the distribution of these mappings in English text approximates Zipf's law. Further analyses reveal that a substantial proportion of text can be read if knowledge of the most frequent mappings at each level is assumed. It is suggested that viewing reading from this perspective can be useful in developing reading instruction so that children are taught information that is most useful in achieving the endpoint of learning to read.
Dell, Burger and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticipa... more Dell, Burger and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticipations (e.g., "moot and mouth") can be predicted solely from the overall error rate, such that the greater the error rate, the lower the anticipatory proportion (AP) of errors. We report a study examining whether this effect applies to changes in error rates that occur developmentally and as a result of aging. Speech errors were elicited from 8-and 11-year-old children, young adults and older adults. The error rate decreased and the AP increased from children to young adults, but neither error rate nor AP differed significantly between young and older adults. In cases where fast speech resulted in a higher error rate than slow speech, the AP was lower. Thus, there was overall support for Dell et al's prediction from speech error data across the lifespan.
… and Psychology Workshop, London, 9–11 April …, 1998
Data from the study of human speech, spelling, and short-term memory for serial order are often t... more Data from the study of human speech, spelling, and short-term memory for serial order are often taken to reflect the operation of post-output response suppression mechanisms. This inhibitory processing forms a central component of many models of human sequential behaviour. In this paper an oscillator-based model of sequential behaviour is used to show that varying the time-course of response suppression, in accordance with task demands, can explain differences in the error patterns produced in different sequential cognitive tasks. ...
Page 1. The Development of Memory for Serial Order: A Temporal-contextual Distinctiveness Model G... more Page 1. The Development of Memory for Serial Order: A Temporal-contextual Distinctiveness Model Gordon DA Brown, Janet I. Vousden, and Teresa McCormack University of Warwick, Coventry, UK Charles Hulme University of York, UK ...
Age-related deficits in short-term memory have been widely reported, but reduced overall scores c... more Age-related deficits in short-term memory have been widely reported, but reduced overall scores could reflect increased order errors, increased omissions, or increased intrusions. Different explanations for reduced short-term memory with aging lead to different predictions. In this study, young (n = 68; M age = 20 years) and older (n = 99; M age = 65 years) adults were presented with lists of letters and were asked to recall each list immediately in the correct order. Age differences in error patterns were similar for auditory and visual presentation. For example, older adults made more errors of every type, and a greater proportion of the older adults' errors were omissions. An additional condition, in which older adults were encouraged to guess, ruled out an age increase in response threshold as a full explanation for the results. The data were modeled by an oscillator-based computational model of memory for serial order. A good fit to the aging data was achieved by simultaneously altering two parameters that were interpreted as corresponding to frontal decline and response slowing.
A fiercely contested debate in teaching reading concerns the respective roles and merits of readi... more A fiercely contested debate in teaching reading concerns the respective roles and merits of reading schemes and real books. Underpinning the controversy are different philosophies and beliefs about how children learn to read. However, to some extent debates have largely been rhetoric‐driven, rather than research‐driven. This article provides a theoretical perspective derived from instructional psychology and explores the assumptions that have been made about the use of real books and reading schemes, which have tended to ...
A dynamic oscillator-based model of the sequencing of phonemes in speech production (OSCAR) is de... more A dynamic oscillator-based model of the sequencing of phonemes in speech production (OSCAR) is described. An analysis of phoneme movement errors (anticipations, perseverations, and exchanges) from a large naturalistic speech error corpus provides a new set of data suitable for quantitative modeling and is used to derive a set of constraints that any speech-production model must address. The new computational model is shown to account for error type proportions, movement error distance gradients, the syllable-position effect, and phonological similarity effects. The model provides an alternative to frame-based accounts, serial buffer accounts, and associative chaining theories of serial order processing in speech.
Dell, Burger, and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticip... more Dell, Burger, and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticipations (eg,“moot and mouth”) can be predicted solely from the overall error rate, such that the greater the error rate, the lower the anticipatory proportion (AP) of errors. We report a study examining whether this effect applies to changes in error rates that occur developmentally and as a result of ageing. Speech errors were elicited from 8-and 11-year-old children, young adults, and older adults.
Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with err... more Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with errors classified as movements, omissions, intrusions, or repetitions. In Experiments 1 and 2, developmental differences between groups of children aged from 7 to 11 years and adults were found in the pattern of serial recall errors. The errors of older participants were more likely to be movements than were those of younger participants, who made more intrusions and omissions.
Debates concerning the types of representations that aid reading acquisition have often been infl... more Debates concerning the types of representations that aid reading acquisition have often been influenced by the relationship between measures of early phonological awareness (the ability to process speech sounds) and later reading ability. Here, a complementary approach is explored, analyzing how the functional utility of different representational units, such as whole words, bodies (letters representing the vowel and final consonants of a syllable), and graphemes (letters representing a phoneme) may change as the number of words that can be read gradually increases. Utility is measured by applying a Simplicity Principle to the problem of mapping from print to sound; that is, assuming that the “best” representational units for reading are those which allow the mapping from print to sounds to be encoded as efficiently as possible. Results indicate that when only a small number of words are read whole-word representations are most useful, whereas when many words can be read graphemic representations have the highest utility.
Temporal distinctiveness models of memory retrieval claim that memories are organised partly in t... more Temporal distinctiveness models of memory retrieval claim that memories are organised partly in terms of their positions along a temporal dimension, and suggest that memory retrieval involves temporal discrimination. According to such models the retrievability of memories should be related to the discriminability of their temporal distances at the time of retrieval. This prediction is tested directly in three pairs of experiments that examine (a) memory retrieval and (b) identification of temporal durations that correspond to the temporal distances of the memories. Qualitative similarities between memory retrieval and temporal discrimination are found in probed serial recall (Experiments 1 and 2), immediate and delayed free recall (Experiments 3 and 4) and probed serial recall of grouped lists (Experiments 5 and 6). The results are interpreted as consistent with the suggestion that memory retrieval is indeed akin to temporal discrimination.
Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with err... more Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with errors classified as movements, omissions, intrusions, or repetitions. In Experiments 1 and 2, developmental differences between groups of children aged from 7 to 11 years and adults were found in the pattern of serial recall errors. The errors of older participants were more likely to be movements than were those of younger participants, who made more intrusions and omissions. The number of repetition errors did not change with age, and this finding is interpreted in terms of a developmentally invariant postoutput response inhibition process. This interpretation was supported by the findings of Experiment 3, which measured levels of response inhibition in 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds by comparing recall of lists with and without repeated items. Response inhibition remained developmentally invariant, although older children showed greater response facilitation (improved correct recall of adjacent repeated items). Group differences in the patterns of other errors are accounted for in terms of developmental changes in levels of output forgetting and changes in the efficiency of temporal encoding processes.
Patients with schizophrenia display numerous cognitive deficits, including problems in working me... more Patients with schizophrenia display numerous cognitive deficits, including problems in working memory, time estimation, and absolute identification of stimuli. Research in these fields has traditionally been conducted independently. We examined these cognitive processes using tasks that are structurally similar and that yield rich error data. Relative to healthy control participants (n = 20), patients with schizophrenia (n = 20) were impaired on a duration identification task and a probed-recall memory task but not on a line-length identification task. These findings do not support the notion of a global impairment in absolute identification in schizophrenia. However, the authors suggest that some aspect of temporal information processing is indeed disturbed in schizophrenia.
In this paper a rationale for choosing how many and what types of spelling-tosound units of Engli... more In this paper a rationale for choosing how many and what types of spelling-tosound units of English to teach children to learn to read is introduced. The rationale is based on an analysis of the frequency with which various units of spelling-to-sound mapping occur in monosyllabic words of the English language. Analysis of spellingto-sound mappings at three levels (whole words, onsets and rimes, and graphemes) reveals that the distribution of these mappings in English text approximates Zipf's law. Further analyses reveal that a substantial proportion of text can be read if knowledge of the most frequent mappings at each level is assumed. It is suggested that viewing reading from this perspective can be useful in developing reading instruction so that children are taught information that is most useful in achieving the endpoint of learning to read.
Dell, Burger and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticipa... more Dell, Burger and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticipations (e.g., "moot and mouth") can be predicted solely from the overall error rate, such that the greater the error rate, the lower the anticipatory proportion (AP) of errors. We report a study examining whether this effect applies to changes in error rates that occur developmentally and as a result of aging. Speech errors were elicited from 8-and 11-year-old children, young adults and older adults. The error rate decreased and the AP increased from children to young adults, but neither error rate nor AP differed significantly between young and older adults. In cases where fast speech resulted in a higher error rate than slow speech, the AP was lower. Thus, there was overall support for Dell et al's prediction from speech error data across the lifespan.
… and Psychology Workshop, London, 9–11 April …, 1998
Data from the study of human speech, spelling, and short-term memory for serial order are often t... more Data from the study of human speech, spelling, and short-term memory for serial order are often taken to reflect the operation of post-output response suppression mechanisms. This inhibitory processing forms a central component of many models of human sequential behaviour. In this paper an oscillator-based model of sequential behaviour is used to show that varying the time-course of response suppression, in accordance with task demands, can explain differences in the error patterns produced in different sequential cognitive tasks. ...
Page 1. The Development of Memory for Serial Order: A Temporal-contextual Distinctiveness Model G... more Page 1. The Development of Memory for Serial Order: A Temporal-contextual Distinctiveness Model Gordon DA Brown, Janet I. Vousden, and Teresa McCormack University of Warwick, Coventry, UK Charles Hulme University of York, UK ...
Age-related deficits in short-term memory have been widely reported, but reduced overall scores c... more Age-related deficits in short-term memory have been widely reported, but reduced overall scores could reflect increased order errors, increased omissions, or increased intrusions. Different explanations for reduced short-term memory with aging lead to different predictions. In this study, young (n = 68; M age = 20 years) and older (n = 99; M age = 65 years) adults were presented with lists of letters and were asked to recall each list immediately in the correct order. Age differences in error patterns were similar for auditory and visual presentation. For example, older adults made more errors of every type, and a greater proportion of the older adults' errors were omissions. An additional condition, in which older adults were encouraged to guess, ruled out an age increase in response threshold as a full explanation for the results. The data were modeled by an oscillator-based computational model of memory for serial order. A good fit to the aging data was achieved by simultaneously altering two parameters that were interpreted as corresponding to frontal decline and response slowing.
A fiercely contested debate in teaching reading concerns the respective roles and merits of readi... more A fiercely contested debate in teaching reading concerns the respective roles and merits of reading schemes and real books. Underpinning the controversy are different philosophies and beliefs about how children learn to read. However, to some extent debates have largely been rhetoric‐driven, rather than research‐driven. This article provides a theoretical perspective derived from instructional psychology and explores the assumptions that have been made about the use of real books and reading schemes, which have tended to ...
A dynamic oscillator-based model of the sequencing of phonemes in speech production (OSCAR) is de... more A dynamic oscillator-based model of the sequencing of phonemes in speech production (OSCAR) is described. An analysis of phoneme movement errors (anticipations, perseverations, and exchanges) from a large naturalistic speech error corpus provides a new set of data suitable for quantitative modeling and is used to derive a set of constraints that any speech-production model must address. The new computational model is shown to account for error type proportions, movement error distance gradients, the syllable-position effect, and phonological similarity effects. The model provides an alternative to frame-based accounts, serial buffer accounts, and associative chaining theories of serial order processing in speech.
Dell, Burger, and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticip... more Dell, Burger, and Svec (1997) proposed that the proportion of speech errors classified as anticipations (eg,“moot and mouth”) can be predicted solely from the overall error rate, such that the greater the error rate, the lower the anticipatory proportion (AP) of errors. We report a study examining whether this effect applies to changes in error rates that occur developmentally and as a result of ageing. Speech errors were elicited from 8-and 11-year-old children, young adults, and older adults.
Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with err... more Three experiments examined developmental changes in serial recall of lists of 6 letters, with errors classified as movements, omissions, intrusions, or repetitions. In Experiments 1 and 2, developmental differences between groups of children aged from 7 to 11 years and adults were found in the pattern of serial recall errors. The errors of older participants were more likely to be movements than were those of younger participants, who made more intrusions and omissions.
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