When does social learning become cultural learning?

Developmental research on selective social learning, or ‘social learning strategies’, is currently a rich source of information about when children copy behaviour, and who they prefer to copy. It also has the potential to tell us when and how human social learning becomes cultural learning; i.e. mediated by psychological mechanisms that are specialized, genetically or culturally, to promote cultural inheritance. However, this review article argues that, to realize its potential, research on the development of selective social learning needs more clearly to distinguish functional from mechanistic explanation; to achieve integration with research on attention and learning in adult humans and ‘dumb’ animals; and to recognize that psychological mechanisms can be specialized, not only by genetic evolution, but also by associative learning and cultural evolution.     

Does modifying visual feedback facilitate learning to write new pseudoletters?

Learning to write relies on the efficient integration of visual and proprioceptive feedback, with a transition from a control, based on the visual inspection of the written trace at the beginning of the learning process to a more predictive control, based mainly on handwriting movement, in proficient writers. The aim of this study was to test the effect of a partial deletion of the written trace, as well as the effect of supplementary visual information, on handwriting kinematics in a learning task. Twenty-four adults learned to write six new pseudoletters using their non-dominant hand on a touch screen digital tablet. Three pseudoletters were trained with modified visual feedback conditions and the other three, in the control condition, i.e. without any visual modification. Results revealed that, in the short-term, the pseudoletters learned with modified visual feedback were traced faster and more fluently than those learned in the control condition, without spatial accuracy reduction. This method seems to be efficient in adults, which is a prerequisite before testing a method with children.     

When does performance feedback prompt complementarity in romantic relationships?

Two studies addressed five issues concerning complementarity in romantic relationships and suggest that complementarity deserves a new look. Dating couples (N= 28 couples) and married couples (N= 43). were given performance feedback to assess effects on self and perceived partner relevance. We found that comparison with a partner but not comparison with a stranger prompted complementarity (Study 1). Comparison resulted in complementarity and did not merely change self‐image (Studies 1 and 2). Both outperforming the partner and being outperformed by the partner can prompt complementarity (Study 2). Ceding areas to the partner in response to being outperformed was relatively automatic (Study 2). And, degree of development in the relationship influenced response to comparison‐feedback (Studies 1 and 2). Findings suggest that partners in romantic relationships automatically protect their views of the relationship as a “team” by increasing “perceived complementarity” in response to differential performance feedback.     

When does feedback about success at school hurt? The role of causal attributions

The present research provides evidence that attribution theory can serve as an explanatory framework not only to explain achievers’ reactions to their achievement based on their self generated understandings of what brought these achievements about but also when such information is provided by others. Thus, when we succeed at school, others may comment on the likely reasons for this success. The present research addressed the question what it is that makes certain types of feedback on the reasons for success at school hurtful. The results of two studies conducted in the context of a school setting demonstrated that the causal structure implied by an explanation for success explains why some explanations are perceived as hurtful and elicit anger, shame, and guilt rather than pleasure or pride. Interestingly, the perceived validity of the explanation is of relatively less importance for the elicitation of hurt feelings and anger than the content of the explanation. Overall, these results provide further evidence for the importance of attributional information for social emotions in educational settings.

Intentional artificial grammar learning: When does it work?

Actively searching for the rules of an artificial grammar has often been shown to produce no more knowledge than memorising exemplars without knowing that they have been generated by a grammar. The present study investigated whether this ineffectiveness of intentional learning could be overcome by removing dual task demands and providing participants with more specific instructions. The results only showed a positive effect of learning intentionally for participants specifically instructed to find out which letters are allowed to follow each other. These participants were also unaffected by a salient feature. In contrast, for participants who did not know what kind of structure to expect, intentional learning was not more effective than incidental learning and knowledge acquisition was guided by salience.     

When can a lack of structure facilitate strategic processing of information?

Background: Researchers examining the effectiveness of an elaboration strategy (answering ‘why’) for learning new information have been concerned with the familiarity of the materials and how that affects learning. It may be, however, that both how information is organised and familiarity impact on the potency of the strategy. Aims: We examined the influence of presentation structures (i.e., organisation of information) on the effectiveness of an elaboration strategy. Samples: All participants were undergraduates (78 females, 67 males) enrolled in a first‐year psychology course. Fifteen students participated in Experiment One, 42 students in Experiment Two, and 88 students in Experiment Three. Methods: In Experiment One, preference for conceptual organisation was assessed. In Experiments Two and Three, students answered ‘why’ questions when different presentation structures were used. Results: Students' preferred method of organisation did not match the imposed structure found in past research, suggesting that students may have been restricted in their ability to process the information distinctively. Students who were presented with the information in a random order achieved the largest memory scores. Conclusions: When students have to reconstruct as well as encode the information, these added task demands provide an added benefit for learning.     

When does grouping happen?

Recent research on perceptual grouping is described with particular emphasis on identifying the level(s) at which grouping factors operate. Contrary to the classical view of grouping as an early, two-dimensional, image-based process, recent experimental results show that it is strongly influenced by phenomena related to perceptual constancy, such as binocular depth perception, lightness constancy, amodal completion, and illusory contours. These findings imply that at least some grouping processes operate at the level of phenomenal perception rather than at the level of the retinal image. Preliminary evidence is reported showing that grouping can affect perceptual constancy, suggesting that grouping processes must also operate at an early, preconstancy level. If so, grouping may be a ubiquitous, ongoing aspect of visual organization that occurs for each level of representation rather than as a single stage that can be definitively localized relative to other perceptual processes.     

When does reading dirty words impede picture processing? Taboo interference with verbal and manual responses

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Picture naming takes longer in the presence of socially inappropriate (taboo) distractor words compared with neutral distractor words. Previous studies have...     

When does visual attention select all features of a distractor?

What happens after visual attention is allocated to an object? Although many theories of attention assume that all of its features are selected and processed, there has been little direct evidence that an irrelevant feature dimension of an attended nontarget is processed. In 5 experiments presented here, the authors used a singleton paradigm to investigate the effect of attention on nontarget objects. Participants made a speeded feature discrimination of a target for which the response was either compatible or incompatible with an irrelevant feature dimension of a distractor. The results show that the irrelevant distractor features were processed to the point that they interfered with the response to the target. The response compatibility effect was observed even when the location of the target or the distractor was invariant, although it was much weaker when both locations were invariant. These results demonstrate that in many circumstances, an attended distractor is completely selected and fully processed, and the complete processing of distractors depends on a number of factors, many of which are related to the strength of attention to the distractor.     

Who? What? When? Using a timeline technique to facilitate recall of a complex event

Accurately recalling a complex multi-actor incident presents witnesses with a cognitively demanding retrieval task. Given the important role played by temporal context in the retrieval process, the current research tests an innovative timeline technique to elicit information about multiple perpetrators and their actions. Adopting a standard mock witness paradigm, participants were required to provide an account of a witnessed event. In Experiment 1, the timeline technique facilitated the reporting of more correct details than a free recall, immediately and at a two-week retention interval, at no cost to accuracy. Accounts provided using the timeline technique included more correct information about perpetrator specific actions and fewer sequencing errors. Experiment 2 examined which mnemonic components of the timeline technique might account for these effects. The benefits of exploiting memory organization and reducing cognitive constraints on information flow are likely to underpin the apparent timeline advantage.     

How does the provision of semantic information influence the lexicalization of new spoken words?

The integration of a novel spoken word with existing lexical items can proceed within 24 hours of learning its phonological form. However, previous studies have reported that lexical integration of new spoken words can be delayed if semantic information is provided during learning. One possibility is that this delay in lexical integration reflects reduced phonological processing during learning as a consequence of the need to learn the semantic associations. In the current study, adult participants learnt novel words via a phoneme monitoring task, in which half of the words were associated with a picture referent, and half were phonological forms only. Critically, participants were instructed to learn the forms of the novel words, with no explicit goal to learn the word–picture mappings. Results revealed significant lexical competition effects emerging one week after consolidation, which were equivalent for the picture-present and form-only conditions. Tests of declarative memory and shadowing showed equivalent performance for picture-present and form-only words, despite participants showing good knowledge of the picture associations immediately after learning. These data support the contention that provided phonological information is recruited sufficiently well during learning, the provision of semantic information does not slow the time-course of lexical integration.     

When does action resist visual illusions?

Over the past decade, many studies of non-pathological individuals have reported functional dissociations between perceptual judgments and motor responses. These results suggested an interpretation of the ventral and dorsal streams in the primate visual system as independent modules for visual awareness and the visual guidance of actions. However, recent comparisons of perception and grasping responses in size-contrast displays have been widely reported to show that apparent dissociations are actually experimental artifacts. An overview of the literature suggests that the issue of visuomotor dissociations in healthy individuals is far from settled. Some results suggest that immunity from visual illusions might be found when task requirements emphasize observer-relative reference frames. These results suggest that the functional specialization of the two visual subsystems might be less rigid than originally posited.     

When does mimicry affect evaluative judgment?

We investigated the effect of subliminally presented happy or angry faces on evaluative judgments when the facial muscles of participants were free to mimic or blocked. We hypothesized and showed that subliminally presented happy expressions lead to more positive judgments of cartoons compared to angry expressions only when facial muscles were not blocked. These results reveal the influence of socially driven embodied processes on affective judgments and have also potential implications for phenomena such as emotional contagion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

When does algorithmic decomposition help? commentary

Algorithmic decomposition is a way of extending thinking. It will help when thinking is otherwise poor, and it may hinder when thinking is otherwise adequate. It may help decision making more than it helps numerical estimation.