Spatial navigation: Cognitive variables involved in route retracing among an elderly population

The cognitive processes involved in route retracing are not well known. This study aims to highlight them in an elderly population in which contradictory results have been obtained, certain studies showing specific difficulties for route retracing, others not. Thirty-nine elderly subjects performed a route-learning task (forward-backward) in a garden, then completed spatial knowledge tasks and standardised cognitive tests. Results show four factors that were predictive of route retracing performance: route repetition, the pointing task, and two standardised cognitive tests, one assessing spatial working memory, and another global cognitive efficiency. According to these results, route retracing involves route and survey knowledge (i.e., egocentric and allocentric strategy), and the integration of forward-backward perspectives is underpinned by the spatial working memory. Moreover, the subjects did not make more errors in route retracing than in the route repetition task, suggesting that a real environment could compensate for a failing allocentric strategy.     

Face processing skills predict faithfulness of portraits drawn by novices

Individuals show astonishing variability in their face recognition abilities, and the causes and consequences of this heterogeneity are unclear. Special expertise with faces, for example in portraitists, is associated with advantages on face processing tasks, especially those involving perceptual abilities. Do face processing skills improve through practice, or does drawing skill reflect pre-existing individual differences? If the latter, then the association between face processing skills and production of faithful portraits should also exist in people without practice in drawing. Two exploratory studies and one follow-up confirmatory study provide support for this hypothesis. Drawing ability of novices was predicted by their performance on face recognition tasks involving perceptual discrimination and visual short-term memory, but not by those that rely more heavily on long-term memory or memory for non-face objects. By examining non-experts, we show that expertise with faces might build upon pre-existing individual differences in face processing skills.     

Visual neglect in the first weeks after a stroke in the right hemisphere

The aim of the study was to characterize symptoms of visual neglect among patients who recently survived a stroke in the right hemisphere (RH), and to contribute to the understanding of change in symptoms during the first months after a RH stroke. Thirteen patients with a RH stroke and twenty controls were assessed by using standard neglect tests. Five patients were followed up by repetitive test sessions during the next four months. To assess more subtle symptoms, reaction-time (RT) measures derived from an experimental cue-target paradigm were included in the final test session. A high frequency of neglect symptoms was documented at the first test session. The changes in performance during the first weeks were characterized by a high inter-individual as well as a high intra-individual variability. Although the remission rate on standard tests was high in the follow-up study, the RT measures indicated sustained symptoms of visual extinction in all patients. The long-term implication of the changes of neglect symptoms during the first weeks after a stroke and signs of sustained symptoms of visual extinction calls for further longitudinal studies including a larger group of patients.     

Verbal memory compensation: application to left and right temporal lobe epileptic patients

This study investigates the compensatory impact of cognitive aids on left and right temporal lobe epileptic patients suffering from verbal memory disorders, who were candidates for surgery. Cognitive aids are defined in the levels-of-processing framework and deal with the depth of encoding, the elaboration of information, and the use of retrieval cues. Results indicate differential compensatory impact for left and right epileptic patients and are discussed according to the HERA model and the compensation framework.     

Procedural Fairness and Creativity: Does Voice Maintain People's Creative Vein Over Time?

Although some research suggests a link between procedural fairness and creativity, so far no study has directly tested whether a real manipulation of procedural fairness affects creativity. Additionally, research on procedural fairness effects consists mostly of unique studies, but more realistic, life-like longitudinal experiments with repeated fairness manipulations are lacking. This study investigated the influence of procedural fairness (i.e., having voice) on similar creativity tasks over a period of 4 weeks. Participants in the fair procedure condition maintained their level of creativity during the course of the experiment, whereas participants who were treated unfairly showed a decline in creativity. This research confirms the supporting role of conditions of procedural fairness regarding creativity and the importance of longitudinal designs to fully explore procedural fairness effects.     

How primates acquire their gestures: evaluating current theories and evidence

Animal Cognition - Mechanisms underlying gesture acquisition in primates are largely unstudied, yet heavily debated. While some studies suggest that gestural repertoires are largely innate, others...     

Undetected changes in visible stimuli influence subsequent decisions

Change blindness-our inability to detect changes in a stimulus-occurs even when the change takes place gradually, without any disruption [Simons, D. J., Franconeri, S. L., & Reimer, R. L. (2000). Change blindness in the absence of a visual disruption. Perception, 29(10), 1143-1154]. Such gradual changes are more difficult to detect than changes that involve a disruption. Using this method, David et al. [David, E., Laloyaux, C., Devue, C., & Cleeremans, A. (in press). Change blindness to gradual changes in facial expressions. Psychologica Belgica] recently showed substantial blindness to changes that involve facial expressions of emotion. In this experiment, we show that people who failed to detect any change in the displays were (1) nevertheless influenced by the changing information in subsequent recognition decisions about which facial expression they had seen, and (2) that their confidence in their decisions was lower after exposure to changing vs. static displays. The findings therefore support the notion that undetected changes that occur in highly salient stimuli may be causally efficacious and influence subsequent behavior. Implications concerning the nature of the representations associated with undetected changes are discussed.     

Attention to self-referential stimuli: can I ignore my own face?

Auto-referential materials (i.e., the own name) have been described as particularly prone to capture attention. Some recent studies have questioned this view and shown that these own name effects are temporary and appear only in specific conditions: when enough resources are available (Harris, C. R., & Pashler, H. (2004). Attention and the processing of emotional words and names: Not so special after all. Psychological Science, 15, 171-178) or when the own name is presented within the focus of attention if it is a task-irrelevant stimulus (Gronau, N., Cohen, A., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (2003). Dissociations of personally significant and task-relevant distractors inside and outside the focus of attention: A combined behavioral and psychophysiological study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 512-529). In the present study, a stimulus that is unique to each individual was used: the self-face. In Experiment 1, the self-face produced a temporary distraction when presented at fixation during a digit-parity task. However, this distraction was not different from that triggered by another highly familiar face. In Experiment 2, the self-face failed to produce interference when presented outside the focus of attention. These results confirm recent findings showing that auto-referential materials do not automatically summon attention and have a distractive power only in specific conditions.     

Things to Do Today . . . : A Daily Diary Study on Task Completion at Work

Relatively little is known about how goals in complex jobs are translated into action and how they are completed in real life settings. This study addressed the question to what extent planned work may actually be completed on a daily basis. The completion of daily work goals was studied in a sample of 878 tasks identified by 29 R&D engineers with the help of a daily diary. Multilevel analysis was used to analyse the joint effect of task attributes, perceived job characteristics, and personality attributes on the completion of planned work goals. At the level of task attributes, we found that priority, urgency, and lower importance were related to task completion, and at the individual level, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and time management training. Task completion was not related to task attractiveness, workload, job autonomy, planning, or perceived control of time. On connaît relativement peu de choses sur la manière dont les objectifs dans des tâches complexes sont traduites en action et sur la manière dont elles sont accomplies dans le cadre de la vie quotidienne. Cette étude a abordé la question de savoir dans quelle mesure les travaux prévus peuvent être effectivement achevés dans la vie quotidienne. Pour ce faire, un échantillon de 878 tâches a été identifié par 29 ingénieurs R&D à l’aide d’un journal quotidien. Une analyse multi niveau a été réalisée pour étudier l’effet conjoint des caractéristiques de la tâche et des caractéristiques de la personnalité sur l’accomplissement des objectifs d’un travail planifié. Au niveau des caractéristiques de la tâche, nous trouvons que l’accomplissement de la tâche est liéà la priorité, l’urgence et une importance basse et au niveau individuel à la conscience, la stabilitéémotionnelle et à la gestion du temps. L’accomplissement de la tâche n’est pas liéà son attrait, à la charge de travail, à l’autonomie au travail ou au contrôle du temps perçu.     

Observing or producing a motor action improves later perception of biological motion: Evidence for a gender effect

Two experiments are presented addressing the issue of whether observing (visual priming) or producing (motor priming) a running activity during a very short period (30 s) facilitates the perception of the direction of a point-light runner embedded in a dense dynamical mask. Experiment 1 showed that perceptual judgements improved and response time increased in the visual priming compared to the neutral priming condition (video of a moving car) in which judgements were at random. Because this effect was observed for male participants only, we performed a second experiment with the aim of evaluating the role of gender congruency in the visual priming condition. Results confirmed the facilitation effect and demonstrated that this effect was strictly dependent on the gender congruency between the perceiver and the priming information. Moreover, we found that actually producing a motor activity similar to the one presented in the video sequence improved to the same extent participants’ judgement of the direction of the point-light runner, without any gender effect. As a whole, these findings argue in favour of common representation for the perception and the production of human movement and showed that the perception of biological motion can be improved by prior motor activity either performed or observed. However, the gender-dependent effect of visual priming suggested that motor repertoire differed in males and females.