Fixed interval performance as related to instructions and to subjects' verbalizations of the contingency 1Sixteen female Ss earned a total of 50 reinforcements on a FI 20 sec reinforcement schedule. The reinforcers used were points on a counter. The Ss were instructed that the re'inforcement contingency involved either the number of responses, or an interval of time, or Ss were given no information about the schedule. The Ss' performance was related not only to instructions, but also to Ss' verbalizations of the reinforcement contingency.

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Piano performance majors attempted to play short, unfamiliar selections from memory after practicing for 10 min by playing the score, visually inspecting it, or listening to a recorded rendition while examining the score. When practicing mentally, subjects were encouraged to make use of visual, acoustic, and kinesthetic imagery. Independent experts rated performance on four dimensions that were intended to reflect the musicality as well as the accuracy of the performances. Physical practice led to the best performance. Listening to a model of ideal performance provided some benefit over visual inspection alone.

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In a series of experiments, we investigated the effect of pun humor on memory. In all experiments, the participants were exposed to knock-knock jokes in either the original form retaining the pun or in a modified form that removed the pun. In Experiment 1, the authors found that pun humor improved both recall and recognition memory following incidental encoding. In Experiment 2, they found evidence that rehearsal is not the cause of the humor effect on memory. In Experiments 3 and 4, the authors found that the constraints imposed by puns and incongruity may account for the humor effects observed. Puns constrain and limit the information that can fit in the final line of a joke and thus make recall easier.