The testing effect is 1 of several memory effects moderated by experimental design, such that the effect on free recall is larger in a mixed-list than pure-list design (Mulligan, Susser, & Smith, 2016). The current experiments assess hypotheses regarding why this pattern is found. Three extant accounts of design effects (Nguyen & McDaniel,…

Adelman, Marquis, Sabatos-DeVito, and Estes (2013) collected word naming latencies from 4 participants who read 2,820 words 50 times each. Their recommendation and practice was that R2 targets set for models should take into account subject idiosyncrasies as replicable patterns, equivalent to a subjects-as-fixed-effects assumption. In light of an…

Understanding neurocognitive mechanisms in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an essential goal of autism research. Studying young children with ASD or other neurodevelopmental conditions in demanding experimental settings, however, can pose many practical and ethical challenges. In this article, we present practical strategies that…

The slope of the z-transformed receiver-operating characteristic (zROC) in recognition memory experiments is usually less than 1, which has long been interpreted to mean that the variance of the target distribution is greater than the variance of the lure distribution. The greater variance of the target distribution could arise because the…

Default options exert an influence in areas as varied as retirement program design, organ donation policy, and consumer choice. Past research has offered potential reasons why no-action defaults matter: (a) effort, (b) implied endorsement, and (c) reference dependence. The first two of these explanations have been experimentally demonstrated, but…

This article presents an interview with David Rindskopf, a Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and Psychology at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he has taught since 1979. His research and teaching are in the area of applied statistics, measurement, and research design. He is a fellow of the American Statistical…

In recent years, single-case designs have increasingly been used to establish an empirical basis for evidence-based interventions and techniques in a variety of disciplines, including psychology and education. Although traditional single-case designs have typically not met the criteria for a randomized controlled trial relative to conventional…

Improvements in motor sequence performance have been observed after a delay involving sleep. This finding has been taken as evidence for an active sleep consolidation process that enhances subsequent performance. In a review of this literature, however, the authors observed 4 aspects of data analyses and experimental design that could lead to…

Harmonic priming studies have shown that a musical context with its tonal center influences target chord processing. In comparison with targets following baseline contexts, which do not establish a specific tonal center, processing is facilitated for a strongly related target functioning as the tonic, but inhibited for unrelated (out-of-key) and…

Generation is thought to enhance both item-specific and relational processing of generated targets as compared with read words (M. A. McDaniel & P. J. Waddill, 1990). Generation facilitates encoding of the cue-target relation and sometimes boosts encoding of relations across list items. Of interest is whether generation can also increase the…

The data tend to support the hypothesis that subjects debriefed prior to a psychology experiment tend to be suspicious of perceived experimenter expectancy cues and less likely to respond to such cues. (SD)

Research psychologists at the University of Texas are using electronically activated recorders (EARs) to study a range of human behavior, including romantic couples' dynamics, cross-cultural variations in sociability, and how students coped after the 9/11 attacks. The EAR studies, although still in their relative infancy, are generating striking…

Students critiqued research contained in the book "Rival Hypotheses" (Huck and Sandler, 1979), which contains studies dealing with knowledge claims of practical importance, e.g., the evidence that saccharine causes cancer. (RM)

Cronbach, in 1957, supported the unification of two disciplines of scientific psychology--the correlational and experimental approaches. The remaining papers in this journal issue--which served as the basis for a 1978 American Educational Research Association Symposium--address this issue. (Author/RD)

Characteristics of personality research were surveyed and compared with previous reports in an attempt to identify trends. Current research in personality was guided by microtheories and experimental research designs were more prevalent. Dissatisfaction with the current status of research and the proper focus of "personality" was partially…