Types Of Distractors Research Articles

Developmental changes in picture recognition

Recognition of complex pictures by children in the first, third, and fifth grades (ages 7, 9, and 11 years, respectively) was tested and then compared with adult performance. Pictures were either of organized scenes or of collections of objects. By systematically varying the distractors in the recognition tests, recognition of four types of information was measured: inventory, descriptive, spatial relation and spatial composition information. Patterns of performance on the various types of distractors as well as overall accuracy were measured. For organized scenes, there was a gradual increase in accuracy with age but patterns of performance were similar at all grade levels. For unorganized pictures, children were much less accurate than adults and showed different patterns of responses. Children were particularly poor at processing spatial relation information from unorganized pictures. It was suggested that children as young as the first grade have developed scene schemata and use these cognitive structures to encode and retrieve organized scenes in the same fashion as do adults. However, children at least up to the fifth grade have difficulty in organizing materials structured in unfamiliar ways. The data were found to be congruent with other studies of both visual recognition and verbal recall, implicating unfamiliarity of stimulus materials as a major contributor to developmental trends in memory.

Task difficulty and visual similarity increase a distractor's effects on random shapes.

Recognition of random shapes followed by a visual distractor is altered by the type of distractor and whether the distractor needs to be attended. Three experiments tested which characteristics modify a visual distractor's effect on random target shapes presented for 75 to 150 msec. Exp. 1 showed that increasing the number of digits to be remembered (1, 3, or 8) increased the effectiveness of digits as distractors. Exeir effect as visual distractors for random target shapes. Random shapes were highly effective as distractors, while pictures of faces or comples colored pictures had a relatively small effect. In Exp. 3 decreasing the presentation time for novel visual distractors decreased recognition of the distractors but not of random target shapes. However, adding a three-digit distractor after the novel visual distractor did decrease recognition of target shapes. Exps. 2 and 3 showed that the order of the recognition tests of the target and distracting stimuli altered target recognition if and only if subjects did know which was to be reported first. These experiments indicate that the effect of a visual distractor depends on both the extent to which it is allotted attention and its visual similarity to the target stimulus.

Distractor Efficiency in Foreign Language Testing

guage but from different geographical areas? The type of test question used was clarifiedi the types of distractors were defined and the process of selection described, the test design was discussed, and the resulting data tabulated and interpreted. In conclusion, we found a definite hierarchy of preference, also differences and agreements in the effectiveness of the distractor types. Greater differences existed for our populations of contrasting English proficiency. Few differences existed for our populations of similar proficiency. No differences existed for our populations of similar proficiency but dissimilar location. The Multiple Choice Test (MCT) format has been selected by many language teachers for the measurement of student achievement or general proficiency. Writing such a test, however, is not easy. The professionally developed test has applied procedures unavailable to the classroom teacher, who usually has little training, equipment or time in the construction of MCT to exercise some of the arcane operations of the testing specialist. Yet most teachers are required to prepare class tests at some point in their teaching careers. How can the teacher improve his test writing efforts? Let us first look at the type of test questions being considered.

Recognition memory for elements of sentences

Although several theoretical positions and a variety of empirical tasks indicate the importance of verbs to sentences, nouns are generally recalled and recognized better in memorial tasks. Three main models can be identified to explain this discrepancy ("Fillenbaum's paradox"). To try to resolve this paradox, several experiments explored the efficiency of various sentence elements as cues in recognition memory. In Experiment I, concreteness of the stimuli did not interact with the type of distractor; however, verb phrase changes were harder to recognize than noun phrase changes when synonym distractors were used. This result was replicated in a forced-choice recognition paradigm (Experiment II) and with whole sentences where the derivational similarity of verbs and nouns was controlled (Experiment IV). The effect could not be attributed to characteristics of the English language (Experiment III) or to superior memory for form information in nouns (Experiment V). The total results are interpreted as suggesting that subjects process different parts of a sentence to different semantic levels, with verbs receiving more semantic representation and nouns more orthographic or phonological representation. The results are taken as support for a "semantic encoding model" of Fillenbaum's paradox.

Developmental trends in voluntary selective attention: Differential effects of source distinctness

The study is designed to test the hypothesis that an inability to separate incoming information into discrete messages is a source of young children's relatively poor performance in selective attention tasks. Accordingly, the experiment arranges three conditions of varying distinctness between central and distractor information. The central task consists of a continuous matching task in which the subject is required to track the position of a stick figure. Rate of presentation is manipulable. The effects of the three different distractor types are assessed on individually determined and matched baselines of performance on the central task in the absence of distraction. Kindergarteners, second graders, and fifth graders serve as subjects. Whereas second-grade and fifth-grade children are most accurate when the distinctness of the messages is high, the opposite pattern occurs in kindergarteners. This interaction implicates strategy differences that are age-related. Kindergarteners perform as if the task requires divided attention. Second graders and older children use the more appropriate focusing strategy, but the former have particular difficulty when the messages are not distinct. Equally notable is the second graders' success in focusing when the source discreteness is arranged. The relation between this result and previous reports is also discussed.

An analysis of Korsakoff patients' recall following varying types of distractor activity

Ten alcoholic Korsakoff patients and ten alcoholic control subjects were given several short-term memory, distractor type tasks in which consonant trigrams (verbal) and random shapes (nonverbal) were employed as the to-be-retained materials. The Korsakoff patients demonstrated a severe verbal memory deficit when the retention interval was filled with verbal distractor activity, but their retention of the same verbal material was intact when a nonverbal distractor task was used. In contrast, the Korsakoff patients' retention of nonverbal material was impaired regardless of the nature of the distractor activity. In fact, their retention of nonverbal material was impaired even when an unfilled retention interval was used.

Recognition latency for pictures and words as a function of encoded-feature similarity.

In separate trials of a same-different recognition task, a single target item presented as either a picture or a word was followed after a 30-sec delay by a single test item, either a picture or a word. Test items were either nominal matches for the target (same) or one of five related distractor items. Distractors were selected to resemble the target item on one of five dimensions: orthographic, acoustic, conceptual (functional or categorical), schematic (similar in shape), or neutral. Same-different reaction times were found to vary systematically as a function of depiction mode of target and/or test items and by distractor type. Verbally related distractors (orthographic and acoustic) produced longer reaction times when target or test items or both were presented as printed words. When target or test items were presented as pictures, schematic and conceptual distractors produced the longest rejection latencies.

Word recognition as a function of spelling direction during study and test

The spelling direction (backward or forward) of words presented for study and test was varied factorially. During recognition Ss indicated which word of each test pair had been presented for study, and the incorrect choice of each pair was a homophone, a synonym, or a word unrelated to the correct choice. Recognition was worst with synonym distractors and best with unrelated word distractors. For each type of distractor, recognition was better for backward-spelled study words than for forward-spelled study words, and words spelled in the same direction in both study and test were recognized better than words spelled in a different direction during study and test. The latter result supports the hypothesis that visual information may be important for word recognition. The latencies of correct recognition responses suggested that memory of decoding acts can facilitate subsequent similar decodings.

Information in Wrong Responses

Under some circumstances the wrong responses S makes on a test may contain important information. In this study, the notion of facet design provided a systematic method for a priori ordering of the distractors on the Coloured Progressive Matrices test as to degree of correctness. A score based on type of distractor chosen was shown to have a moderate degree of test-retest reliability, concurrent and predictive validity, and cross-cultural applicability. The results suggest a re-examination of Sigel's finding that type of error and total score were unrelated.

INFORMATION IN WRONG RESPONSES1

ABSTRACTUnder some circumstances the wrong responses a subject makes on a test may contain important information. In this study, the notion of facet design provided a systematic method for a priori ordering of the distractors on the Coloured Progressive Matrices test as to degree of correctness. A score based on type of distractor chosen was shown to have a moderate degree of test‐retest reliability, concurrent and predictive validity, and cross‐cultural applicability. The results suggest a re‐examination of Sigel's finding that type of error and total score were unrelated.

Keller's arthroplasty modified. A technique in ensure post-operative distraction of the toe.

1. A modification of the Keller's arthroplasty is described, in which one of two types of distractor–intramedullary wire and external staple–is used to maintain normal length of the great toe for three weeks after operation. 2. The results of the modified operation are analysed. They appear to show that the use of a distractor can be expected to produce an improved end result and to aid post-operative wound healing. 3. The possible reasons for the improvement in results are discussed. 4. The intramedullary wire and the external staple are compared with respect to ease of introduction, effectiveness in maintaining distraction and end results.