It was hypothesized that thought would result in greater attitude polarization than distraction and that this effect would be more pronounced with better developed "schemas" (naive theories) for thinking about the attitude object. (Editor)

Research by Posner and Mitchell (1967) was used to investigate levels of noise processing in testing subjects' ability to "gate out" the processing of irrelevant and unwanted material. Three experiments are reported in which subjects had to judge whether two letters were the "same" or "different". Noise elements were included to test attention…

Argues for the importance of combining the concerns of the functionalist (Dewey, 1910) approach to memory with investigations of the effects of context and task demands. Two experiments are reported that demonstrate interactions between task demands and the more traditional functionalist variables. Particularly demonstrates that the effects of…

Three word-identification experiments suggest that a model derived from experiments with pseudowords can be applied successfully to word identification. The data derived from the experiments confirm the role of higher order verbal units in word identification and suggest the structural components of a verbal-mediation theory of reading. (Editor/RK)

While it is clear that schizophrenic patients often exhibit disordered thinking, the specific nature of the deficit and its role, either as a basis of abnormal behavior or as a symptom of malfunction in some underlying control process, remain to be clarified by research and by theory. Describes two experiments on the performance of conceptual…