Correlational cuing as a function of target complexity and target-flanker similarity.

It is generally assumed that the correlational cuing effect (CE) between targets and correlated flankers is due to learning association between the flankers and their correlated responses. The present study challenges this view. Experiment 1 shows that the CE for targets composed of color is eliminated as soon as the correlation is removed. Experiment 2 shows that the CE during training is not due to association of the flankers with responses. Experiment 3 shows that at least some of the CE during training with the correlation is due to repetition priming of the display. Experiment 4 replicates the results of Experiment 1 for orientation targets. In Experiments 5-7, more typical tasks with letter targets are examined, and it is demonstrated that preexperimental similarity between targets and correlated flankers is crucial. The CE for correlated but dissimilar target-flanker pairs, similar to that for color and orientation targets, is confined to on-line processes that occur during training. The CE is transferred, however, for correlated and similar target-flanker pairs. We propose that, at least for the simple stimulus to response mapping used in our study, the CE is not due to learning at all. Instead it is due to (1) on-line processes, such as repetition priming, that occur during training with the correlation and (2) a regular flanker effect (see, e.g., B. A. Eriksen & C. W. Eriksen, 1974) that occurs for similar target-flanker pairs.

Adoption of thermometry into clinical practice in the United States.

Technologic advances in thermometer design and conceptual advances in the understanding of homeostasis between 1700 and 1850 led to recognition of the usefulness of measuring body temperature in human disease. These advances took place in Europe and Great Britain, culminating in the publication in 1868 of the seminal work on fever in human disease by Carl Wunderlich. In the United States thermometry was popularized by a number of distinguished American physicians who used European data that had appeared in British and American journals even before 1868. Thus Edward Seguin and Austin Flint included fever curves and vital signs in articles that appeared in 1866. Flint and Jacob DaCosta added sections on thermometry to their medical textbooks in 1866-1867, and Edouard Seguin (the father of Edward) encouraged the use of thermometry by the public at large in a series of articles in the medical and lay press. Within just two decades thermometry became recognized as an indispensable medical tool, which it remains to the present time.