Benefiting from new data provided by experimental economists, behavioral economics is now moving beyond empirical tests of standard behavioral assumptions to the problem of designing improved institutions that are tuned to fit real-world behavior. It is therefore worthwhile to consider the potential for new experiments to advance school choice…

Carol Pilgrim received her PhD from the University of Florida in 1987 with a specialization in the experimental analysis of behavior. She is currently Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. She has been honored with a Distinguished Teaching Professorship, the…

K. Rayner, A. Pollatsek, D. Drieghe, T. J. Slattery, and E. D. Reichle argued that the R. Kliegl, A. Nuthmann, and R. Engbert corpus-analytic evidence for distributed processing during reading should not be accepted because (a) there might be problems of multicollinearity, (b) the distinction between content and function words and the skipping…

Two experiments explored the possibility that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) partially reflect differences in the size of the search set from which items are retrieved. High- and low-WMC individuals were tested in delayed (Experiment 1) and continuous distractor (Experiment 2) free recall with varying list lengths. Across…

The authors comment on B. Gawronski and G. V. Bodenhausen's (2006; see record 2006-10465-003) associative-propositional evaluation model of implicit and explicit attitudes by examining the claims that (a) truth value is attached to propositions but not to associations; (b) pattern activation is qualitatively different from syllogistic structure of…

Previous research by J. M. Hinson, T. L. Jameson, and P. Whitney (2003) demonstrated that a secondary task in a delayed discounting paradigm increased subjects' preference for the immediate reward. J. M. Hinson et al. interpreted their findings as evidence that working memory load results in greater impulsivity. The present authors conducted a…

L. L. Bonatti, M. Pena, M. Nespor, and J. Mehler (see record 2006-06642-010) argued that P. Perruchet, M. D. Tyler, N. Galland, and R. Peereman (see record 2004-21166-008) confused the notions of segmentation and generalization by ignoring the evidence for generalization in M. Pena, L. L. Bonatti, M. Nespor, and J. Mehler (see record…

A. M. Franco-Watkins, H. Pashler, and T. C. Rickard (2006) discussed some interesting issues about the interpretation of working memory load effects and decision making in their reanalysis of our previously published data (J. M. Hinson, T. L. Jameson, & P. Whitney, 2003). Nonetheless, there is sufficiently strong evidence to sustain our original…

Comments on the article by B. Gawronski and G. V. Bodenhausen (see record 2006-10465-003). A metacognitive model (MCM) is presented to describe how automatic (implicit) and deliberative (explicit) measures of attitudes respond to change attempts. The model assumes that contemporary implicit measures tap quick evaluative associations, whereas…

Erin Rasmussen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Idaho State University where she teaches learning, behavioral pharmacology, senior seminar, and introductory psychology. She received her MS and PhD in experimental psychology (with a minor in behavioral pharmacology and toxicology) from Auburn University. She taught at…

Any study of the history of psychology must first determine what is to be considered psychology, whether to stick to the relatively continuous Western tradition or to include others (e.g., Eastern, Oriental), and whether to investigate the impact of the socio-cultural events of the time on the views of that period or consider those views in a…

Compares the advantages of using chickens over rats in college-level introductory psychology lab courses. Chicks are cheaper, gentler, easier to handle, and require less time to adapt to laboratory conditions than rats. They are also easy to condition and impervious to distraction by room noise. (AM)

P. A. van der Helm and E. L. J. Leeuwenberg (1996; see record 1996-01780-002) outlined a holographic account of figural goodness of a perceptual stimulus. The theory is mathematically precise and can be applied to a broad spectrum of empirical data. The authors argue, however, that the account is inadequate on both theoretical and empirical…

The authors argue that people's tendency to diversify their allocations of money and consumption choices over alternatives gives rise to decisions that vary systematically with the subjective grouping of available options. These subjective groupings are influenced by subtle variations in the presentation of options or elicitation of preferences.…

Kurt Michael is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Appalachian State University (ASU) where he teaches history and systems of psychology, abnormal psychology, child psychopathology, and interventions for children and adolescents. He received his BA (cum laude) from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his MS and PhD in…