Richard J Darby

• University of Wolverhampton

Two experiments used both irrelevant speech and tones in order to assess the effect of manipulating the spatial location of irrelevant sound. Previous research in this area had produced inconclusive results (e.g., Colle, 1980). The current study demonstrated a novel finding, that sound presented to the left ear produces the greatest level of disrup...

Experiments to examine the effects of aging on the ability to identify temporal durations in an absolute identification task are reported. In Experiment 1, older adults were worse than younger adults in identifying a tone's position within a series of 6 tones of varied durations. In Experiment 2, participants were required to identify a tone's posi...

Experiments to examine the effects of aging on the ability to identify temporal durations in an absolute identification task are reported. In Experiment 1, older adults were worse than younger adults in identifying a tone's position within a series of 6 tones of varied durations. In Experiment 2, participants were required to identify a tone's posi...

An original approach to memory development that views memory as a continuous process of growth and loss over the human lifespan rather than as a series of separate periods. Until recently, the vast majority of memory research used only university students and other young adults as subjects. Although such research successfully introduced new methodo...

Maylor et al. (in press a) reported a long-term intention-superiority effect whereby young adults reported significantly more to-be-performed than performed tasks in a speeded written fluency task. Two experiments investigated whether this effect is also present in older adults and dementia patients. In Experiment 1, middle-aged (n = 40) and older...

Participants from ages 5 to 99 years completed 2 time estimation tasks: a temporal generalization task and a temporal bisection task. Developmental differences in overall levels of performance were found at both ends of the life span and were more marked on the generalization task than the bisection task. Older adults and children performed at lowe...

Participants from ages 5 to 99 years completed 2 time estimation tasks: a temporal generalization task and a temporal bisection task. Developmental differences in overall levels of performance were found at both ends of the life span and were more marked on the generalization task than the bisection task. Older adults and children performed at lowe...

The extent to which human discrimination learning is based on elemental or configural stimulus representations was examined in 7 experiments. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants were able to learn nonlinear discrimination problems in a food-allergy task. In unique-cue theories, such learning is explained by individual stimulus elements acquiring...

Two experiments examined the contributions of feature- and rule-based knowledge in a human associative learning task. Participants were presented with concurrent negative (A → O, B → O, AB → no O) and positive (C → no O, D → no O, CD → O) patterning problems in which certain combinations of foods were associated with an allergy outcome (O). In the...

In 4 experiments the authors used 2-stage designs to study susceptibility to interference in human discrimination learning. The experiments used a food allergy task. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with a discrimination in Stage 1 in which Food A predicted an allergy outcome (A-->O). In Stage 2, when combined with Food B, Food A predic...

In 4 experiments the authors used 2-stage designs to study susceptibility to interference in human discrimination learning. The experiments used a food allergy task. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with a discrimination in Stage 1 in which Food A predicted an allergy outcome (A → O). In Stage 2, when combined with Food B, Food A predic...

In two experiments with rats, three stimuli, A, B, and X, were used for an AX+ BX+ Xo discrimination in which food was presented after the simultaneous presentation of A and X, or B and X, but never after X by itself. For one group in each experiment, X was repeatedly presented by itself before the start of discrimination training. This manipulatio...

This chapter discusses theoretical issues concerning contingency judgment. One empirical result exists that appears straightaway to challenge the idea that contingency judgments can be modeled by the Rescorla-Wagner theory. This is the finding that judgments under noncontingent schedules do not always appear to converge across trials. The idea that...

In 4 experiments, the authors used rats to examine the strength of responding during a clicker-tone compound in the presence of a light, after the auditory stimuli had individually been paired with food in the presence of the same light. Experiment 1 demonstrated a higher rate of responding during the compound when the duration of the light was sho...

Four experiments examined responding in the presence of a triple-element compound ABC after discrimination training in which 2 compounds, AB and BC, signaled the delivery of food and 1 element alone, B, signaled the absence of food. In Experiments 1 and 2, using rats, responding during ABC was more vigorous than in a control group for which A and C...