Selective information processing and schematic content related to eating behavior

An adaptation of the Stroop color-naming task was used to investigate selective information processing related to eating behavior in 90 undergraduate women. This study differed from previous studies by (a) treating eating behavior as a continuous variable and (b) looking at five separate categories of words including color, neutral, food, body shape, and other emotionally salient words. We did not find a strong pattern of relation between the Stroop task and eating and body image measures. Results suggest that in a nonclinical population, direct methods of accessing cognitions related to eating may be more fruitful than indirect measures.     

Ratings of gender appropriateness of sports participation: Effects of gender-based schematic processing

The domain of sports and physical activity has traditionally been considered to be appropriate for men and not compatible with the feminine role. Because gender-based schematic processing has been shown to affect attitudes and behavior, there might be differences in the categorization of sports as masculine or feminine, between sex-typed and non-sex-typed individuals. The findings in this study, including 104 women and 103 men (96.6% Caucasian, 2.9% Arabic, 0.5% Black) showed differences in gender appropriateness ratings between groups classified according to the Bem Sex Role Inventory, and also between men and women. Men, in general, and sex-typed men, in particular, were more inclined to stereotype sports as masculine or feminine. An explanation might be that these individuals engage to a greater extent in gender-based schematic processing. A possible additional explanation could be that childhood socialization into sports may serve as a means of providing proof of boys' manliness and the validation of prejudices against women, and that the need for this proof is stronger among sex-typed men.This research was partly supported by a grant from the Swedish National Center for Research in Sports (No. 10/95).     

Chromatic information processing

The investigation of visual processing mediated solely by chromatic information requires conditions preventing a subject's use of the luminance differences normally accompanying a chromatic change. In Experiment 1, which involved a discriminative reaction time (RT) task, chromatic and white stimuli of the same luminance were presented on a dimmer achromatic background. Subjects were instructed to respond only to the chromatic stimuli. RT was slowest at 570 nm and somewhat faster to short wavelengths than to long wavelengths. In Experiment 2, which compared two discriminative RT tasks, RT was faster when subjects responded to color than when they responded to white. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that a brighter white surround decreased the perceived brightness of chromatic stimuli as well as their perceptual similarity to white, but did not affect RT. The results are discussed in terms of the response strength of the chromatic processing channel.     

Selective information processing

Past studies have shown that in certain tasks, subjects are not able to selectively attend to specific areas of a visual display even if instructed to do so. Yet, a more recent study (Graves, 1976) has used the concept of selective attention to explain the difference between the number of items processed in forced choice detection tasks and the number processed in full report tasks. Graves proposed that only identification processing is necessary in the detection task, while both identification and position processing are required in the full report task. A problem with Graves’ task is that it requires memory searching after stimulus presentation, probably reducing the predicted number of items processed. The experiment reported here utilized partially filled arrays and required responses based upon only positional processing, or only identification processing, or both types of processing. In direct contradiction to Graves’ conclusions, the results showed that although subjects could inhibit identification processing while engaged in positional processing, the reverse was not true. In addition, positional processing was shown to be faster than identification processing.     

Disentangling schematic and conceptual processing: A test of the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems framework

Central to the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems framework (ICS) is the assertion that meaning exists at both the propositional and implicational levels. This assertion was tested by having 26 fast-year undergraduates make speeded judgements of emotional expression and emotional content in separate tasks on 120 single recorded words. Propositional meaning was represented by the content of the words while implicational meaning was conveyed by the expression of the word. In two tasks, participants decided whether the content or the expression of the word was emotional or neutral. In the expression task main effects were found for expression but not for content. In the content task main effects were found for both content and expression with an interaction between the two factors. Some congruency effects were evident in both tasks. Predictions of the framework concerning the independent processing and eventual integration of these two levels of meaning were partially supported. The significance of separating conceptual and schematic processing for other models of multilevel cognitive processing is addressed.     

Refractoriness in information processing

Two experiments on refractoriness were carried out in which the warning, first and second signals, S₀, S₁ and S₂ respectively, were all single-valued, and the distributions of random intervals between S₀ and S₁, and S₁ and S ₂ were the same. In the first experiment the intervals in a trial were statistically independent: the null hypothesis, that the latencies of the two responses would be similar, was rejected, but the results were also found to agree with no existing alternative hypothesis. In the second experiment the intervals in a trial were conditionally related and the second response was found to be faster than in the first experiment. This is discussed in the context of the issue of serial or parallel processing of information.     

Depth of visual information processing

The depth of visual information processing is identified with the longest randomly-generated binary-encoded spatial pattern whose partial repetitions can be detected. In contrast with the auditory detection of sequentially-presented constraints, the depth of perceptible visual encoding of spatially-presented constraints is sharply limited. Depths of about 35 were achieved for one-dimensional constraints; depths of perhaps 3 or 4 were achieved for two-dimensional constraints imposed in only one direction and depths of perhaps 2 for two-dimensional constraints imposed in two directions. With one-dimensional constraints, it is shown that the inferred depth of processing is partially determined by the number of pattern representations and by the spatial distance between successive representation for visual displays of fixed size.     

Cognitive processing of body and appearance words as a function of thin-ideal internalization and schematic activation

To better understand how women at risk of body image disturbance respond when their body concerns are activated, we examined attentional and memory biases in undergraduate women with high thin-ideal internalization, an identified risk factor for eating disorders, following priming of body and appearance concerns. Female undergraduates (N = 186) viewed photos of either sports cars or attractive swimsuit models, then completed the Lexical Decision Test, a word recall test, and questionnaires assessing thin-ideal internalization and eating disorder symptomatology. High thin-ideal internalizers did not exhibit cognitive biases predicted by cognitive models of eating disorders, even when their body and appearance concerns were primed by exposure to attractive models. Converging evidence suggests that high-risk non-clinical samples rarely exhibit cognitive biases characteristic of individuals with eating disorders, and, in fact, may actually incorporate ideal appearance into their schemas and preferentially attend to attractive stimuli.     

Sex differences in information processing

Sex differences in cognitive activity were investigated. Using a list containing words with masculine, feminine, and neutral connotations, Experiment 1 revealed that masculine words were better recalled by male college students (n=16) while feminine words were better recalled by female college students (n=16). This difference was reduced on a recognition test. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the phenomenon was not due to a difference in the way males (n=20) and females (n=20) interpreted the meaning of the words. Finally, in Experiment 3, the memorial selectivity was shown to exist in the same manner for White middle-class elementary school (n=32) and high school (n=32) students. Learning and repression interpretations of the effect were proposed. Some practical implications of the data were suggested.These investigations were supported by a seed grant to the first author. This grant was jointly funded by Southern Methodist University and the National Science Foundation's Institutional Grants for Science Program (GU-3752). The authors would like to express their appreciation to the pupils and teachers on Fain Elementary School and Rider High School, both in Wichita Falls, Texas.     

Algorithms for processing spatial information

Pairs of stimuli taken from a psychometric measure of spatial aptitude were shown to 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and adults. The stimuli in pairs were (a) either identical or mirror images, and (b) presented in orientations that differed by 0-150 degrees. Individuals judged, as rapidly as possible, if the stimuli in a pair would be identical or mirror images if presented at the same orientation. In Experiment 1, in which the stimuli were letter-like characters, at all ages most persons solved the problems using an algorithm in which an individual encodes the stimuli in working memory, mentally rotates one stimulus to the orientation of the other, compares them to determine if they are identical, and responds. In Experiment 2, the stimuli were multielement flags; here, the modal algorithm for both 9- and 13-year-olds differed from the previously described algorithm in that if the comparison process revealed that the stimuli were dissimilar, individuals did not respond immediately, but continued processing until a self-imposed deadline was reached. Among adults, the modal algorithm was the same one used in Experiment 1. Results are discussed in terms of the roles of encoding in contributing to the use of a particular algorithm.     

Visual information processing and intelligence

Measures of inspection time (IT) have robust, moderately-sized correlations with IQ-type test scores. However, the reason for the IT-IQ correlation is not understood. Although the original theory asserted that IT performance was based on a single parameter—essentially speed of visual processing—peculiarities of the task have afforded other interpretations of IT differences and the IT-IQ association. In the present report two new visual processing tasks, visual change detection (VCD) and visual movement detection (VMD) are found to be correlated at or above .4 with IT and with non-verbal scores from the Alice Heim 4 test of general intelligence. VCD and VMD, in common with IT, assess the stimulus duration that is required by subjects in order to make an accurate discrimination. VCD and VMD, however, require a broader attentional focus than IT and do not involve backward masking. Measures of contrast sensitivity, a difficult discrimination task in which stimuli are not time-limited, had near-to-zero correlations with other visual processing tasks and with IQ-type test scores. We tested the hypothesis that only the latent trait derived from the speeded visual processing tasks (rather than task-specific features) would correlate with cognitive ability, and this was supported. The present study adds weight to the view that it is the ability to make accurate discriminations in the face of limited stimulus time that causes IT to correlate with psychometric intelligence. The psychological correlates of VCD, in terms of neural circuits that detect “difference” suggest a new line of investigation into the psychobiological bases of human intelligence.     

Post-choice information processing by pigeons

In a conditional discrimination (matching-to-sample), a sample is followed by two comparison stimuli, one of which is correct, depending on the sample. Evidence from previous research suggests that if the stimulus display is maintained following an incorrect response (the so-called penalty-time procedure), acquisition by pigeons is facilitated. The present research tested the hypothesis that the penalty-time procedure allows the pigeons to review and learn from the maintained stimulus display following an incorrect choice. It did so by including a penalty-time group for which, following an incorrect choice, the sample changed to match the incorrect comparison, thus providing the pigeons with post-choice misinformation. This misinformation group acquired the matching task significantly slower than the standard penalty-time group (that had no change in the sample following an error). Furthermore, acquisition of matching by a control group that received no penalty time fell midway between the other two groups, suggesting that the pigeons did not merely take more care in making choices because of the aversiveness of penalty-time. Thus, it appears that in the acquisition of matching-to-sample, when the stimulus display is maintained following an incorrect choice, the pigeons can review or acquire information from the display. This is the first time that such an effect has been reported for a nonhuman species.     

Stimulus intensity and information processing

The physiological and behavioral literature regarding effects of stimulus intensity on the time course of information processing is reviewed. The physiological data describe intensity effects on the sensory pathway. Reaction time studies show that the effect of intensity on behavioral responses also depends on and may be mediated by more cognitive processes. The degree to which intensity affects simple reaction time varies directly with the response criterion subjects use. The lack of this dependence in choice reaction time may indicate different intensity effects on energy and nonenergy pathways. The literature suggests that intensity affects the time course of information processing not only by influencing the speed of processing in sensory pathways, but also by affecting alertness and the time required to direct attention to a stimulus.     

Rejected children's processing of interpersonal information

This research examined differences in the interpersonal information processing of socially rejected and average children. Rejected and average fifth-graders were presented with two pieces of videotaped information about peers, making judgments of the peers after each. Two judgment tasks, differing in the extent to which they were self-relevant, were used. The judgments were liking judgments for peers (low self-relevance) and predictions of how the peers would behave toward the self (high self-relevance). Rejected children used the available behavioral information differently than average children to make their predictions of how peers would behave toward them, but did not differ in their liking judgments. These findings were consistent with the hypothesis that rejected children's capabilities to process interpersonal information comparably to better adjusted children break down in highly self-relevant judgments.I thank John Coie and Gina Krehbiel, who helped identify subjects for this study. Also, my appreciation to Daniel Wegner, Linda Anooshian, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This paper was presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, April 1987.