ENCODING OF FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE, TEMPORAL ORDER, AND SPATIAL LOCATION INFORMATION BY CLOSED HEAD INJURED AND ELDERLY SUBJECTS: IS IT AUTOMATIC? (MEMORY, NEUROPSYCHOLOGY).
Item
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Title
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ENCODING OF FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE, TEMPORAL ORDER, AND SPATIAL LOCATION INFORMATION BY CLOSED HEAD INJURED AND ELDERLY SUBJECTS: IS IT AUTOMATIC? (MEMORY, NEUROPSYCHOLOGY).
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Identifier
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AAI8515668
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identifier
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8515668
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Creator
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VAKIL, ELIYAHU.
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Contributor
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J. R. Tweedy
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Date
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1985
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Psychobiology
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Abstract
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Recently several theories have attempted to explain amnesia in terms of a distinction in contemporary memory theory between encoding processes that are automatic (use minimal attention) and those that are effortful (require attention). Evidence has been obtained which indicates that for normal subjects, information regarding the temporal or spatial conditions of an item, or its frequency of occurrence, accumulates in memory via automatic processes which are unaffected by age, education, or instructional variables.;Memory for these different types of information was investigated in young adults recovering from closed head injuries (CHI), normal elderly and young adult controls. Every subject engaged in temporal, spatial, and frequency of occurrence judgment tasks applied to items previously presented as members of a single list.;Three hypotheses derived from Hasher and Zacks' (1979) model were evaluated. First, there should not be a difference between groups on any of the three tests. Second, performance on judgment tasks should not be related to performance on effortful memory tasks. Third, being informed about the nature of the task requirements should not improve performance.;This paradigm also allows study of the relationships in performance between these three putative automatic tasks. The control and CHI groups showed a high correlation between performance on temporal and spatial tasks. The elderly group showed a significant correlation between the temporal and the frequency tasks.;Analyzing the variability of each subject's judgment revealed that, relative to young controls, performance on the frequency and temporal tasks was impaired for CHI and elderly groups. When the subjects were given more than two alternatives in the spatial task, the CHI group also showed performance decrements. Being informed about the task never improved performance. In some cases it impaired judgment accuracy. These results raise serious questions concerning the validity of Hasher and Zacks' (1979) contention that performance on these judgment tasks is mediated by automatic processes.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
