Is time to scan visual images due to demand characteristics?

The time to scan across an object in a mental image increases with the distance scanned. Does this finding reflect the operation of underlying mechanisms or the effects of demand characteristics? Two types of demand characteristics were considered here. First, the scanning effects were shown to persist even when they conflicted with the experimenters' expectations. Experimenters were led to expect different rates of scanning and different effects of distance on scan times, but the results in all cases showed no hint of experimenter effects, instead displaying the usual increase in time with distance scanned. Second, the scanning effects were shown to persist in the absence of implicit task demands. Effects of distance were observed in an experiment in which subjects were never asked to scan the image; furthermore, such effects were observed only for items that should require spontaneous scanning even though they were randomly intermixed with items that should not, and this distinction was never mentioned nor alluded to in the instructions. Thus, experimenter effects and task demands are not sufficient explanations for the increase in the time to scan across an image as distance is increased.     

How do within-person changes due to aging affect job performance?

As the mean age of the workforce in industrialized countries trends upward, increasing attention has been paid to group-level differences between younger and older workers in terms of job performance. The present article takes an alternative perspective by examining within-person changes that occur with aging and how the process of aging affects employees' workplace behavior. We begin by highlighting five areas in which we observe major within-person changes related to aging: (1) cognitive capacity, (2) personality, (3) goal orientation, (4) social-emotional experience, and (5) health. Then, we demonstrate why and how these within-person changes due to aging affect core task performance, citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior across the lifespan.     

How do within-person changes due to aging affect job performance?

As the mean age of the workforce in industrialized countries trends upward, increasing attention has been paid to group-level differences between younger and older workers in terms of job performance. The present article takes an alternative perspective by examining within-person changes that occur with aging and how the process of aging affects employees' workplace behavior. We begin by highlighting five areas in which we observe major within-person changes related to aging: (1) cognitive capacity, (2) personality, (3) goal orientation, (4) social-emotional experience, and (5) health. Then, we demonstrate why and how these within-person changes due to aging affect core task performance, citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior across the lifespan.     

Is social inhibition of return due to action co-representation?

When two individuals alternate reaching responses to visual targets presented on a shared workspace, one individual is slower to respond to targets occupying the same position as their partner’s previous response. This phenomenon is thought to be due to processes that inhibit the initiation of a movement to a location recently acted upon. However, two distinct forms of the inhibition account have been posited, one based on inhibition of an action, the other based on inhibition of an action and location. Furthermore, an additional recent explanation suggests the phenomenon is due to mechanisms that give rise to action congruency effects. Thus the three different theories differ in the degree to which action co-representation plays a role in the effect. The aim of the present work was to examine these competing accounts. Three experiments demonstrated that when identical actions are made, the effect is modulated by the configuration of the visual stimuli acted upon and the perceptual demands of the task. In addition, when the co-actors perform different actions to the same target, the effect is still observed. These findings support the hypothesis that this particular joint action phenomenon is generated via social cues that induce location-based inhibition of return rather than being due to shared motor co-representations.     

Is static spatial performance distinguishable from dynamic spatial performance? A latent-variable analysis

There is disagreement among researchers about the distinction between dynamic and static spatial performance. Given that dynamic spatial performance is supposed to be important for some occupations, such as air traffic control (ATC), it is germane to have evidence about the likelihood of that distinction. In the present study, a battery of printed static spatial and reasoning tests were applied to 480 applicants for an ATC training course. Two dynamic spatial tests were also applied. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed for testing three models. In Model A, static and dynamic spatial tests were grouped, whereas in Model B, spatial tests were separated according to their static or dynamic character, and in Model C, spatial tests were segregated according to the construct they tapped (visualization or spatial relations). The authors found that Model B, which distinguished static and dynamic spatial tests, showed the best fit. They also discuss some implications of the findings.     

Anxiety and motor performance: Where to from here?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to briefly review the traditional existing theories attempting to explain the relationship between anxiety and motor performance and then suggest some future directions for research. Specifically, a review of drive theory and the inverted-U hypothesis led to the conclusion that due to methodological, conceptual and interpretive problems, these explanations for the anxiety-performance relationship are overly simplistic and lack heuristic value. Future research should focus on the interaction of psychobiological states as they relate to motor performance. Some specific suggestions include more precision in the measurement of anxiety as a multidimensional construct which includes psychophysiological, cognitive, and affective components. In addition, individual differences need to be recognized with intraindividual comparisons replacing between-subject comparisons. Hanin's zone of optimal functioning is offered as one such approach. Finally, more sensitivity and precision is needed in the measurement of performance by employing both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.     

Is it always fallacious to derive values from facts?

Since the time of David Hume, many philosophers have held that there is a logical Is/Ought gap. According to the doctrine of the Is/Ought gap, there are no valid (i.e., non-fallacious) arguments from purely factual premises about whatis the case to moral or normative conclusions about whatought to be. Occasionally, this doctrine has been challenged, but frequently it has been accepted without argumentation. Charles Pigden has recently argued for a logical Is/Ought gap on the grounds of the conservativeness of logic. I offer a counter-example which shows that Pigden's argument is unsound and that there need be no logical gap between Is-premises and an Ought-conclusion. My counter-example is an argument which is logically valid, has only Is-premises and an Ought-conclusion, and does not purport to violate the conservativeness of logic. Moreover, my argument does not rely, as other alleged counter-examples do, on controversial assumptions from Aristotelian biology about natures or ends, or about institutions such as promise-making.     

Is the enhancement of memory due to reward driven by value or salience?

Past research using two levels of reward has shown that the higher-value items are remembered better than lower-value items and this enhancement is assumed to be driven by an effect of reward value. In the present study, multiple levels of reward were used to test the influence of reward salience on memory. Using a value-learning procedure, words were associated with reward values, and then memory for these words was later tested with free recall. Critically, multiple reward levels were used, allowing us to test two specific hypotheses whereby rewards can influence memory: (a) higher value items are remembered better than lower value items (reward value hypothesis), and (b) highest and lowest value items are remembered best and intermediate-value items are remembered worst (following a U-shaped relationship between value and memory; reward salience hypothesis). In two experiments we observed a U-shaped relationship between reward value and memory, supporting the notion that memory is enhanced due to reward salience, and not purely through reward value.     

Adaptive memory: Is the animacy effect on memory due to emotional arousal?

Animate entities are often better remembered than inanimate ones. The proximal mechanisms underlying this animacy effect on recall are unclear. In two experiments, we tested whether the animacy effect is due to emotional arousal. Experiment 1 revealed that translations of the animate words used in the pioneering study of Nairne et al. (Psychological science, 24, 2099–2105, 2013) were perceived as being more arousing than translations of the inanimate words, suggesting that animacy might have been confounded with arousal in previous studies. In Experiment 2, new word lists were created in which the animate and inanimate words were matched on arousal (amongst several other dimensions), and participants were required to reproduce the animate and inanimate words in a free recall task. There was a tendency towards better memory for arousing items, but robust animacy effects were obtained even though animate and inanimate words were matched on arousal. Thus, while arousal may contribute to the animacy effect when it is not carefully controlled for, it cannot explain the memory advantage of animate items.     

Is the superior verbal memory span of Mandarin speakers due to faster rehearsal?

It is well established that digit span in native Chinese speakers is atypically high. This is commonly attributed to a capacity for more rapid subvocal rehearsal for that group. We explored this hypothesis by testing a group of English-speaking native Mandarin speakers on digit span and word span in both Mandarin and English, together with a measure of speed of articulation for each. When compared to the performance of native English speakers, the Mandarin group proved to be superior on both digit and word spans while predictably having lower spans in English. This suggests that the Mandarin advantage is not limited to digits. Speed of rehearsal correlated with span performance across materials. However, this correlation was more pronounced for English speakers than for any of the Chinese measures. Further analysis suggested that speed of rehearsal did not provide an adequate account of differences between Mandarin and English spans or for the advantage of digits over words. Possible alternative explanations are discussed.     

Is episodic memory performance more vulnerable to depressive affect in older adulthood?

This study examined how age, depressive symptoms, demographic variables, frailty, and health factors jointly influence episodic memory across the lifespan in two large, diverse samples. Hierarchical regression analyses from both samples showed that depressive symptoms negatively impacted episodic memory performance with the effect being more pronounced for older adults. Health and frailty tended not to be associated with episodic memory. However, the main effect of depressive symptoms tended to remain significant over and above other predictors, while the interaction with age was weakened with the addition of demographic variables. The unique contribution of this study is demonstrating that the relationship between depressive symptoms and episodic memory is moderated by age across relatively large non-clinical lifespan samples of adults. The findings indicate the importance of measuring and studying depressive symptoms during the course of aging in order to better understand the complex relationship between age, affect, physical functioning, and memory.     

Is There an Effective Approach to Deterring Students from Plagiarizing?

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of plagiarism detection software and penalty for plagiarizing in detecting and deterring plagiarism among medical students. The study was a continuation of previously published research in which second-year medicals students from 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 school years were required to write an essay based on one of the four scientific articles offered by the instructor. Students from 2004/2005 (N = 92) included in present study were given the same task. Topics of two of the four articles were considered less complex, and two were more complex. One less and one more complex articles were available only as hardcopies, whereas the other two were available in electronic format. The students from 2001/2002 (N = 111) were only told to write an original essay, whereas the students from 2002/2003 (N = 87) were additionally warned against plagiarism, explained what plagiarism was, and how to avoid it. The students from 2004/2005 were warned that their essays would be examined by plagiarism detection software and that those who had plagiarized would be penalized. Students from 2004/2005 plagiarized significantly less of their essays than students from the previous two groups (2% vs. 17% vs. 21%, respectively, P < 0.001). Over time, students more frequently choose articles with more complex subjects (P < 0.001) and articles in electronic format (P < 0.001) as a source for their essays, but it did not influence the rate of plagiarism. Use of plagiarism detection software in evaluation of essays and consequent penalties had effectively deterred students from plagiarizing.     

Is evidence for late selection due to automatic or attentional processing of stimulus identities?

This study determined whether evidence for late selection is due to attention processing or to processing by an automatic system that is separate from attention (two systems framework; Eriksen, Webb, & Fournier, 1990). The task was a two-choice discrimination of a target that appeared in one of two sequentially cued locations in an eight-letter visual display. Attention was directed to the first cued location (cue 1), and whether identification processing occurred at a different location before the second cue (cue 2) directed attention there was determined. Cue validity varied across two experiments, and critical trials were those in which the target appeared at cue 2. For these trials, the target was preceded by a letter (either identical, neutral, or incompatible) that changed to the target at various time intervals following cue 2. Automatic identification was assumed if the incompatible letter interfered with response to the target when it appeared only before cue 2 onset and independent of cue validity. The incompatible letter appearing only before cue 2 onset interfered with the target when the target occurred equally often at cue 1 and cue 2, but not when the target occurred at cue 1 70% and at cue 2 30% of the time. This disconfirms the two systems framework and suggests that attention is required for spatial form processing and response competition.     

Is job performance independent from career success? A conceptual distinction between competence and agency

Adopting a social approach to social judgment, we conducted five studies to validate a conceptual distinction between agency and competence traits. Studies 1–3 revealed that competence traits (e.g., skillful) are associated with job performance, whereas agentic traits (e.g., ambitious) are associated with career success. Study 4 showed that only agency predicted the amount of money people are likely to earn: the more a given trait was considered as agentic, the more it was associated with high monetary values. Study 5 highlighted the predominance of agency traits over competence traits in the evaluation of an employee applying for a promotion. Nevertheless, participants asserted that competence was the main criterion they used to judge the applicant. Implications of the conceptual distinction between agency and competence for social cognition are discussed.     

Is there a logical slippery slope from voluntary to nonvoluntary euthanasia?

John Keown has constructed a logical slippery slope argument from voluntary euthanasia (VAE) to nonvoluntary euthanasia (NVAE). VAE if justified implies that death can be of overall benefit, in which case it should also be facilitated in those who cannot consent (NVAE). Hallvard Lillehammer asserts that Keown's argument rests on a fallacy. However, pace Lillehammer, it can be restated to escape this fallacy. Its validity is confirmed by applying to VAE some well-established general principles of medical decision making. Thus, either VAE and NVAE must be accepted together or, if NVAE is regarded as unacceptable, VAE should also be rejected.     

Is there a causal link from phonological awareness to success in learning to read?

In this review, we re-assess the evidence that phonological awareness represents a skill specific to spoken language that precedes and directly influences the process of reading acquisition. Longitudinal and experimental training studies are examined in detail, as these are considered most appropriate for exploring a causal hypothesis of this nature. A particular focus of our analysis is the degree to which studies to date have controlled for existing literacy skills in their participants and the influence that these skills might have on performance on phonological awareness tasks. We conclude that no study has provided unequivocal evidence that there is a causal link from competence in phonological awareness to success in reading and spelling acquisition. However, we believe that such a study is possible and outline some ideas for its design and implementation.     

Is light in pictures presumed to come from the left side?

For good ecological reasons humans assume that the illumination in pictures comes from overhead rather than from below. Recent work has also raised the possibility that the preferred angle of illumination is between 20 degrees and 30 degrees to the left of vertical, although the ecological basis for that is obscure. We describe two studies of this question. In study 1, twenty subjects looked in free, unrestricted vision, at a picture of a single 'bubble' which appeared either convex if the illumination was from above, or concave if the illumination was from below. There was no evidence in study 1 that illumination from the left produced a different appearance from illumination from the right, the preferred angle of illumination being 0.5 degrees to the right of vertical. In study 2, on forty subjects, there was fast presentation (200 ms) of an array of 16 bubbles, one of which, the target, was illuminated from the opposite direction to the others, and hence 'popped out' from the display, appearing concave if the others were convex, or vice-versa. The preferred angle of illumination for detection of the target was about 14 degrees to the left of vertical in study 2. The estimates from studies 1 and 2 did not differ significantly, and when combined gave a preferred angle of 9 degrees to the left of vertical. The reasons for the seeming discrepancy between studies 1 and 2, or the smaller overall effect than that found in previous studies are not clear since the methodologies seem equivalent. In both studies 1 and 2 there was a highly significant association between the direction of spontaneous head tilt and preferred direction of illumination, and this factor has not previously been taken into account in studies of the phenomenon. Contrary to the study of Sun and Perona (1998, Nature Neuroscience 1 183-184), there was no association with handedness or other measures of functional lateralisation.     

Is there a developmental trend from integrality to separability in perception?

Some previous literature suggests that young children perceive in an integral, holistic fashion stimuli that older children perceive in a separable, dimensionalized mode. A prediction from a strong form of this position is that younger children actually may perform more rapidly a speeded classification task that requires “condensation” than a task that requires “filtering” (if the similarity relations among the wholes favor the former task). Older children should be able to take advantage of the simple unidimensional basis of the filtering task and thus accomplish it much more rapidly than the condensation task. The results are only partially in accord with the predictions. Kindergarteners (5 years of age), on size-and-brightness stimuli, show no speed advantage on either task, while second (8 years) and fifth (11 years) graders clearly show more rapid filtering. Therefore, the developmental hypothesis is in need of some revision and elaboration. Some stimuli are less separable for younger than for older children, but even five year olds can access their dimensional structure under some conditions.