The effect of induced sadness and moderate depression on attention networks

This study investigates how sadness and minor/moderate depression influences the three functions of attention: alerting, orienting, and executive control using the Attention Network Test. The aim of the study is to investigate whether minor-to-moderate depression is more similar to sadness or clinical depression with regard to attentional processing. It was predicted that both induced sadness and minor-to-moderate depression will influence executive control by narrowing spatial attention and in turn this will lead to less interference from the flanker items (i.e. less effects of congruency) due to a focused attentional state. No differences were predicted for alerting or orienting functions. The results from the two experiments, the first inducing sadness (Experiment 1) and the second measuring subclinical depression (Experiment 2), show that, as expected, participants who are sad or minor to moderately depressed showed less flanker interference compared to participants who were neither sad nor depressed. This study provides strong evidence, that irrespective of its aetiology, sadness and minor/moderate depression have similar effects on spatial attention.     

Mood and global-local focus: priming a local focus reverses the link between mood and global-local processing

Positive moods promote a focus on the forest (global focus) and negative moods, a focus on the trees (local focus). Is this well-established link fixed or variable? Does it reflect a direct influence of affect, as usually assumed, or is it frequently observed simply because a global perspective is often dominant? If affect serves as information about the value of currently accessible inclinations, and a global focus is generally the default perspective, then the global focus of positive affect and local focus of negative affect might be variable rather than fixed. Two experiments tested this hypothesis using different mood inductions, different tests of global-local focus, and different methods of inducing global and local perspectives. In each, we discovered that positive affect empowered whatever focus was momentarily dominant. Thus, whether individuals in happy moods saw the forest or the trees depended only on which of the two had been primed.     

Behavioral and physiological findings of gender differences in global-local visual processing

Hemispheric asymmetries in global-local visual processing are well-established, as are gender differences in cognition. Although hemispheric asymmetry presumably underlies gender differences in cognition, the literature on gender differences in global-local processing is sparse. We employed event related brain potential (ERP) recordings during performance of a global-local reaction time task to compare hemispheric asymmetries and processing biases in adult men (n=15) and women (n=15). Women responded more quickly to local targets while men did not differentially respond to hierarchical stimuli. ERP data indicated that women had P100 responses that were selectively lateralized to the left hemisphere in response to local targets and N150 responses that were smaller for global targets. They also had P300 responses that were greater following local stimuli. The physiological data demonstrate that male-female performance differences arise from biologically based differences in hemispheric asymmetry. Findings are discussed in the context of existing literature regarding gender differences, hemispheric specialization, and the role of stimulus characteristics.     

Systems Factorial Technology provides new insights on global-local information processing in autism spectrum disorders

Previous studies of global-local processing in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have indicated mixed findings, with some evidence of a local processing bias, or preference for detail-level information, and other results suggesting typical global advantage, or preference for the whole or gestalt. Findings resulting from this paradigm have been used to argue for or against a detail focused processing bias in ASDs, and thus have important theoretical implications. We applied Systems Factorial Technology, and the associated Double Factorial Paradigm (both defined in the text), to examine information processing characteristics during a divided attention global-local task in high-functioning individuals with an ASD and typically developing controls. Group data revealed global advantage for both groups, contrary to some current theories of ASDs. Information processing models applied to each participant revealed that task performance, although showing no differences at the group level, was supported by different cognitive mechanisms in ASD participants compared to controls. All control participants demonstrated inhibitory parallel processing and the majority demonstrated a minimum-time stopping rule. In contrast, ASD participants showed exhaustive parallel processing with mild facilitatory interactions between global and local information. Thus our results indicate fundamental differences in the stopping rules and channel dependencies in individuals with an ASD.     

A bright side of sadness: The depolarizing role of sadness in intergroup conflicts

Intractable conflicts constitute violent and threatening environments that lead to intense emotions and polarized attitudes. Sadness is one emotion frequently elicited by the price of such conflicts. This investigation characterized the effects of sadness on conflict‐related information processing and attitudes in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Findings from four experimental studies suggest that both incidental and integral sadness can induce a depolarization of political attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 163), sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on conflict‐related decisions. Sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on in‐group bias in resource allocation in Studies 2 (N = 213) and 4 (N = 274), willingness to negotiate in Studies 1 and 3 (N = 174), and openness to information supporting the out‐group's perspective (Study 4). Overall, in addition to its more negative implications, these results suggest that sadness (compared to both the non‐emotional and anger conditions) may have a bright side, since it may induce depolarization of political attitudes in intractable conflicts.     

愤怒和悲伤情绪对助人决策的影响:人际责任归因的作用

基于具体情绪理论——评价倾向框架理论(ATF),采用两项研究考察负性情绪愤怒和悲伤对助人决策的影响,并探究人际责任归因在这一关系中的作用。两项研究均采用自传体情绪记忆任务诱发情绪,研究一中自变量情绪为组间变量,包括愤怒、悲伤和中性三个水平,因变量助人决策操作为为他人花费时间;研究二中自变量1为组间变量情绪,包括愤怒和悲伤,自变量2为组内变量人际责任归因,操作为模糊归因、不可控的情景归因、可控的自我归因三种情境,因变量助人决策操作为为他人花费金钱。结果发现:(1)与愤怒情绪相比,悲伤情绪下个体为他人花费的时间和捐助的金钱更多;(2)在模糊的人际责任归因条件下,悲伤个体会比愤怒个体捐助更多的钱。研究表明:同为负性情绪的愤怒和悲伤在助人决策上的作用不同,悲伤个体比愤怒个体做出更多的助人决策;人际责任性归因会影响附带情绪和助人决策的关系。研究结论有助于理解附带情绪对助人决策的影响,进一步丰富并延伸ATF理论的证据和领域,对发挥情境中人际责任归因在助人决策中的作用具有一定的现实意义。     

The effect of saccades on number processing

Recent research has shown that saccadic eye movements interfere with dorsal-stream tasks such as judgments of object orientation, but not with ventral-stream tasks such as object recognition. Because saccade programming and execution also rely on the dorsal stream, it has been hypothesized that cognitive saccadic suppression occurs as a result of dual-task interference within the dorsal stream. Judging whether one number is larger or smaller than another (magnitude comparison) is a dorsal-stream task that relies especially on the right parietal cortex. In contrast, judging whether a number is odd or even (parity judgment) does not involve the dorsal stream. In the present study, one group of subjects judged whether two-digit numbers were greater than or less than 65, whereas another group judged whether two-digit numbers were odd or even. Subjects in both groups made these judgments while making no, short, or long saccades. Saccade distance had no effect on parity judgments, but reaction times to make magnitude comparison judgments increased with saccade distance when the eyes moved from right to left. Because the right parietal cortex is instrumental in generating leftward saccades, these results provide further evidence for the hypothesis that cognitive suppression during saccades occurs as a result of dual-task interference within the dorsal stream.     

The effect of face orientation on holistic processing

Holistic processing, a hallmark of face processing, can be measured by the composite face effect: adults have difficulty recognising the top half of a face when it is aligned with a new bottom half, unless holistic processing is disrupted by misaligning the two halves. Like the recognition of facial identity, holistic processing is impaired when faces are inverted. To obtain a more refined measure of the influence of orientation on holistic face processing, we administered the composite face task to adults at each of seven orientations. In both experiment 1 (in which orientations were randomly intermixed) and experiment 2 (in which orientations were blocked), the composite face effect decreased linearly with rotation. We conclude that holistic processing is tuned to upright faces, diminishes as faces deviate from upright, and becomes insignificant once faces reach a sideways orientation. We propose a hierarchical model of face perception in which linear decreases in holistic processing underlie qualitative shifts in other aspects of face perception.     

Sadly,you made me earn it: The effect of responsibility attributions for sadness on food indulgence

This article addresses the mixed findings of prior studies regarding hedonic food indulgence in sadness. Building upon the idea that self‐licensing may underlie the effect of sadness on food indulgence, the current research identifies responsibility attributions, namely, whether consumers attribute the cause of their sadness to themselves or to others, as an important factor that may affect sense of deservingness, and consequently affect hedonic food consumption in sadness. Four experiments show that sadness enhances food indulgence more when consumers attribute the responsibility for their sadness to others rather than to themselves. Specifically, findings show that (a) when self‐responsibility attributions are unlikely, sadness increases chocolate consumption; (b) sadness leads to a greater sense of deservingness and enhanced food indulgence when people hold others rather than themselves responsible for their sadness; and (c) the responsibility attribution effect on food indulgence in sadness is more pronounced at high levels of sadness and when the event that triggered one's sadness is significant. These findings contribute to our understanding of the factors that influence food indulgence in sadness.     

The effect of orientation on number word processing

Besner and Coltheart [Besner, D., & Coltheart, M. (1979). Ideographic and alphabetic processing in skilled reading of English. Neuropsychologia, 17, 467-472] found a size congruity effect for Arabic numbers but not for number words. They proposed that Arabic numbers and number words are processed in different ways. However, in their study orientation of the stimuli and notation were confounded. In the present study, it is found that orientation of number words affects numerical processing. Orientation modulates both the size congruity effect and the distance effect; horizontal presentation produces similar results to those produced by Arabic numbers whereas vertical orientation produces different results. Accordingly, it is proposed that our cognitive system is endowed with two different mechanisms for numerical processing; one relies on a visual-spatial code and the other on a verbal code.     

The effect of reference field organization on language processing

Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada Subjects were exposed to a miniature artificial language in which auditorily presented nonsense words were correlated to a visually presented reference field. Both the organization of the reference field and the order of words were manipulated to test whether subjects were encoding on the basis of an English-based semantic code or a code based on the nonverbal reference field. Results indicated that the code used was based on the organization of the nonverbal reference field.     

The effects of subliminal anger and sadness primes on agency appraisals

Two studies examined whether appraisals can be differentially affected by subliminal anger and sadness primes. Participants from Singapore (Experiment 1) and China (Experiment 2) were exposed to either subliminal angry faces or subliminal sad faces. Supporting appraisal theories of emotions, participants exposed to subliminal angry faces were more likely to appraise negative events as caused by other people and those exposed to subliminal sad faces were more likely to appraise the same events as caused by situational factors. The results provide the first evidence for subliminal emotion-specific cognitive effects. They show that cognitive functions such as appraisals can be affected by subliminal emotional stimuli of the same valence.     

认知负载对基于动机的情绪刺激加工的影响

结合数数任务和情绪flanker任务,探究不同认知负载条件下,高低趋近动机对情绪刺激加工的影响。结果发现：高负载组中,高趋近动机条件下,对积极目标刺激的反应显著快于消极目标刺激;低趋近动机条件下,对消极目标刺激的反应显著快于积极目标刺激。且高负载组中,各条件下的反应大多都显著慢于低负载组。低负载组中没有发现各条件之间的差异。结果表明,高负载条件下,高趋近动机促进了积极情绪刺激的加工,低趋近动机促进了消极情绪刺激的加工,高负载在一定程度上阻碍了情绪刺激的加工。     

认知负载对基于动机的情绪刺激加工的影响

结合数数任务和情绪flanker任务,探究不同认知负载条件下,高低趋近动机对情绪刺激加工的影响。结果发现：高负载组中,高趋近动机条件下,对积极目标刺激的反应显著快于消极目标刺激;低趋近动机条件下,对消极目标刺激的反应显著快于积极目标刺激。且高负载组中,各条件下的反应大多都显著慢于低负载组。低负载组中没有发现各条件之间的差异。结果表明,高负载条件下,高趋近动机促进了积极情绪刺激的加工,低趋近动机促进了消极情绪刺激的加工,高负载在一定程度上阻碍了情绪刺激的加工。     

音乐学习对语言加工的促进作用

音乐学习可以增强个体的艺术素养,同时,音乐学习对其他认知加工过程尤其是语言学习还有正面的促进作用。近年来国内外学者主要围绕着音乐家、音乐学习障碍个体开展了一系列相关工作,同时还进行了相关的追踪研究。值得注意的是,有关音乐学习促进语言加工的实证依据主要来自横断研究,还需要更多的纵向追踪研究来进一步提供因果关系的证据。这方面的工作将最终促进音乐学习与训练在教育与医疗领域的广泛应用。     

The effect of context on the processing of type-shifting verbs

Recent research in lexical semantics has suggested that verbs such as begin and enjoy semantically select for a complement that denotes an activity or an event. When no such activity or event is specified in the form of a progressive or infinitival complement, as in John began (to read/reading) the book, the verb is said to "coerce" the NP direct object to shift its role to encompass the activity that begin requires as complement (e.g., writing, reading). Empirical support for this view has been provided by McElree, Traxler, Pickering, Seely, & Jackendoff (2001). In the present study, however, in two self-paced reading experiments, type-shifting effects (taken to be longer reading times engendered by the computation of the coercion process) were not obtained with sentences in isolation (Experiment 1) or with sentences embedded in contexts that specified the nature of the activity performed over the complement NP (Experiment 2). It is argued that type-shifting verbs are similar to non-preferred verbs for given contexts and that type-shifting operations are pragmatic inferences computed over underspecified semantic representations.     

The effect of familiarity on the processing of fragmented figures

The processing of fragmented figures was investigated in a same-different reaction time task with pairs of intact and pairs of fragmented alphabet letters. The effect of fragmentation was significantly larger for pairs of letters rotated into an unfamiliar orientation than for pairs of normally oriented letters. Since this significant interaction was obtained for subjects emphasizing a structural mode of processing (Hock, 1973), it was concluded that familiarity had a direct effect on the structural/ organizational processing of the fragmented figures.     

The effect of sex and gender-schematic processing on sport participation

This study examined the extent to which an individual's overall experience with and personal commitment to athletic activities is constrained by the sex appropriateness of the sport, the sex of the individual, and the individual's classification on the Bem Sex Role Inventory. No sex differences were found for levels of participation for either measure of participation. For both measures, neutral sports were preferred, followed by sex-appropriate and then sex-inappropriate sports. Females' experience and commitment was greater than males' to feminine activities, whereas males' was greater than females' for masculine activities. Sex-typed males reported significantly less experience with and commitment to feminine sports than androgynous and undifferentiated males. When sex-typed females were compared with androgynous and cross-sex-typed females, they reported significantly less commitment to masculine sports.     

The effect of exogenous spatial attention on auditory information processing

This study investigated the effect of exogenous spatial attention on auditory information processing. In Experiments 1, 2 and 3, temporal order judgment tasks were performed to examine the effect. In Experiment 1 and 2, a cue tone was presented to either the left or right ear, followed by sequential presentation of two target tones. The subjects judged the order of presentation of the target tones. The results showed that subjects heard both tones simultaneously when the target tone, which was presented on the same side as the cue tone, was presented after the target tone on the opposite side. This indicates that spatial exogenous attention was aroused by the cue tone, and facilitated subsequent auditory information processing. Experiment 3 examined whether both cue position and frequency influence the resulting information processing. The same effect of spatial attention was observed, but the effect of attention to a certain frequency was only partially observed. In Experiment 4, a tone fusion judgment task was performed to examine whether the effect of spatial attention occurred in the initial stages of hearing. The result suggests that the effect occurred in the later stages of hearing.