Response retrieval in a go/no-go priming-of-popout task

Priming of popout is the finding that singleton search is faster when features of a target and of nontargets are repeated across trials than when the features switch. Theoretical accounts suggest that intertrial repetition influences perceptual and attentional selection processes, episodic retrieval processes, or both. The present study combined a popout search task with a go/no-go task. In Experiment 1, the nontarget distractors in each display carried the go/no-go feature, and in Experiment 2, the texture of all items carried the go/no-go feature. Results showed that the go/no-go task moderated the intertrial repetition effects. In Experiment 1, the target color elicited retrieval of the preceding distractor color and associated no-go response, resulting in larger interference effects. In Experiment 2, the target color elicited retrieval of the preceding target color and no-go response, resulting in reduced facilitation effects. Additional results from both experiments showed that the colors in a search display also influenced target selection on the following trial. Taken together, the results of both experiments suggest that intertrial repetition influences both early selection and postselection retrieval processes.     

State of the Hope: The New Bad Object in the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis

Until recently, most psychoanalytic conceptualizations of the analyst as a new object have tended to equate newness with good experience and safety. Recent papers in the relational literature have explored not only the therapeutic value, but also the inevitability of the patient's experience of the analyst as bad, as well as the analyst's participation in this experience. This author examines the multifarious nature of hope, goodness, and badness in the clinical situation. The patient gets to know not only elements of his or her own self that are held by the analyst, but also ways in which the patient holds elements related to the particulars of the analyst's person in the analytic situation. Shifts in American psychoanalysis regarding conceptualizations of the analyst as a new object are examined. Limitations of a bifurcated approach to goodness and badness in clinical conceptualizations are also explored.     

Punishing Individuals for Their Infirmities: Effects of Personal Responsibility, Just-World Beliefs, and In-Group/Out-Group Status

This research examined how derogation of cancer victims was moderated by (a) the perceived responsibility of the victim, (b) individual differences in just-world beliefs, and (c) whether the victim was an in-group versus out-group member. Participants formed an impression of an in-group or an out-group member who was known to have a terminal case of cancer. Half of the participants were informed that the target person was partially responsible for this medical condition, whereas the remaining participants were not given this information. Results showed that blaming judgments of high versus low responsibility targets were moderated by just-world beliefs, but this was only true when the person being judged was an out-group member. The implications of these results for research and theory on differential processing of in-group versus out-group members are discussed.     

Violations of implicit theories and the sense of prediction and control: implications for motivated person perception

Beginning with the assumption that implicit theories of personality are crucial tools for understanding social behavior, the authors tested the hypothesis that perceivers would process person information that violated their predominant theory in a biased manner. Using an attentional probe paradigm (Experiment 1) and a recognition memory paradigm (Experiment 2), the authors presented entity theorists (who believe that human attributes are fixed) and incremental theorists (who believe that human attributes are malleable) with stereotype-relevant information about a target person that supported or violated their respective theory. Both groups of participants showed evidence of motivated, selective processing only with respect to theory-violating information. In Experiment 3, the authors found that after exposure to theory-violating information, participants felt greater anxiety and worked harder to reestablish their sense of prediction and control mastery. The authors discuss the epistemic functions of implicit theories of personality and the impact of violated assumptions.     

What are you looking at? Acuity for triadic eye gaze

The authors measured observers' ability to determine direction of gaze toward an object in space. In Experiment 1, they determined the difference threshold for determining whether a live "looker" was looking to the left or right of a target point. Acuity for eye direction was quite high (approximately 30 s arc). Viewing the movement of the looker's eyes did not improve acuity. When one of the looker's eyes was occluded, the observers' acuity was disrupted and their point of subjective equality was shifted away from the exposed eye. Experiment 2 was a replication of Experiment 1, but digitized gaze displays were used. The results of Experiment 3 showed that the acuity for direction of gaze depended on the position of the looker's target. Overall, the results indicated that humans are highly sensitive to gaze direction and that information from both eyes is used to determine direction of regard.     

A comparison of generalization functions and frame of reference effects in different training paradigms.

Six experiments were carried out to compare go/no-go and choice paradigms for studying the effects of intradimensional discrimination training on subsequent measures of stimulus generalization in human subjects. Specifically, the purpose was to compare the two paradigms as means of investigating generalization gradient forms and frame of reference effects. In Experiment 1, the stimulus dimension was visual intensity (brightness); in Experiment 2, it was line orientation (line-angle stimuli). After learning to respond (or to respond "right") to stimulus value (SV) 4 and not to respond (or to respond "left") to SV2 (in Experiment 1) or SV1 (in Experiment 2), the subjects were tested for generalization (recognition) with an asymmetrical set of values ranging from SV1 to SV11. Go/no-go training produced peaked gradients, whereas choice training produced sigmoid gradients. The asymmetrical testing resulted in a gradual shift of the peak of responding (go/no-go group) or in the point of subjective indifference (PSI; choice group) toward the central value of the test series; thus, both paradigms revealed a frame of reference effect. The results were comparable for the quantitative (intensity) and the qualitative (line-angle) stimulus dimensions. Experiment 3 compared the go/no-go procedure with a yes/no procedure in which subjects responded "right" to SV4 and "left" to all other intensities and found no differences between these procedures. Thus the difference in gradient forms in go/no as opposed to (traditional) choice paradigms depends on whether one or two target stimuli are used in training. In Experiment 4, in which visual intensity was used, the shift in the PSI following choice training varied positively with the range of asymmetrical test stimuli employed. In Experiment 5, also with visual intensity, the magnitude of the peak shift following go/no-go training varied as a function of overrepresenting a high or a low stimulus value during generalization testing. Experiment 6, with line angles, showed that the PSI following choice training varies in a similar way. The frame of reference effects obtained in these experiments are consistent with an adaptation-level model.     

From gaze cueing to perspective taking: Revisiting the claim that we automatically compute where or what other people are looking at

ABSTRACT

Two paradigms have shown that people automatically compute what or where another person is looking at. In the visual perspective-taking paradigm, participants judge how many objects they see; whereas, in the gaze cueing paradigm, participants identify a target. Unlike in the former task, in the latter task, the influence of what or where the other person is looking at is only observed when the other person is presented alone before the task-relevant objects. We show that this discrepancy across the two paradigms is not due to differences in visual settings (Experiment 1) or available time to extract the directional information (Experiment 2), but that it is caused by how attention is deployed in response to task instructions (Experiment 3). Thus, the mere presence of another person in the field of view is not sufficient to compute where/what that person is looking at, which qualifies the claimed automaticity of such computations.     

Stimulus-specific processing consequences of pattern goodness

Two issues concerning the effects of visual pattern goodness on information processing time were investigated: the role of memory vs. encoding and the role of individual stimulus goodness vs. stimulus similarity. A sequential “same-different” task was used to provide differentiation of target item or memory effects from display item or encoding effects. Experiment 1 used four alternative stimuli in each block of trials. The results showed that good patterns were processed faster than poor patterns for both “same” and “different” responses. Furthermore, the goodness of the target item had a greater effect on reaction time than did the goodness of the display item, indicating that memory is more important than encoding in producing faster processing of good stimuli. Effects of interstimulus similarity on processing time were minimal, although isolation of good stimuli in a similarity space could explain many of the results. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1, despite the fact that differences in similarity space had been minimized by using only two alternative stimuli in each block. In addition, the speed of processing a “same” pair was essentially independent of the particular alternative stimulus in a block. These results suggest that in this task, there is a processing advantage for good stimuli that is stimulus specific, with the effect operating primarily in memory.     

Building face composites can harm lineup identification performance

Face composite programs permit eyewitnesses to build likenesses of target faces by selecting facial features and combining them into an intact face. Research has shown that these composites are generally poor likenesses of the target face. Two experiments tested the proposition that this composite-building process could harm the builder's memory for the face. In Experiment 1 (n = 150), the authors used 50 different faces and found that the building of a composite reduced the chances that the person could later identify the original face from a lineup when compared with no composite control conditions or with yoked composite-exposure control conditions. In Experiment 2 (n = 200), the authors found that this effect generalized to a simulated-crime video, but mistaken identifications from target-absent lineups were not inflated by composite building.     

Effect of Personal Injustice on Attributions for the Success of Others

The current research tested competing predictions on whether the experience of personal injustice would increase or decrease internal attributions of others' success. Compared with the control condition, Study 1 found that individuals gave less credit to another person for his promotion after they recalled their own unfair experience. Study 2 revealed that personal injustice led weak just-world believers, but not strong just-world believers, to perceive a lottery winner to be less deserving. Study 3 showed that these effects were mediated by resentment. The findings demonstrate that thinking about one's own injustice can lead to a more cynical outlook on others' positive outcomes.     

Joint attention: inferring what others perceive (and don't perceive)

Research has shown that observers automatically align their attention with another's gaze direction. The present study investigates whether inferring another's attended location affects the observer's attention in the same way as observing their gaze direction. In two experiments, we used a laterally oriented virtual human head to prime one of two laterally presented targets. Experiment 1 showed that, in contrast to the agent with closed eyes, observing the agent with open eyes facilitated the observer's alignment of attention with the primed target location. Experiment 2, where either sunglasses or occluders concealed the agent's eye direction, showed that only the agent with the sunglasses facilitated the observer's alignment of attention with the target location. Taken together, the data demonstrate that head orientation alone is not sufficient to trigger a shift in the observer's attention, that gaze direction is crucial to this process, and that inferring the region to which another person is attending does facilitate the alignment of attention.     

Role selection in the service of self-presentation

Two experiments were conducted to examine the general hypothesis that a person’s behavior in a social situation is a function of the kind of impression he wants to make on the other person, and that the kind of impression that he wants to make is influenced by the characteristics of the other person. Two experiments were conducted in which male subjects anticipated interaction with either an attractive female (attractive condition), an unattractive female (unattractive condition), or a female whose attractiveness was unknown (control). Each subject first chose either a high, medium, or low status role to enact during the interaction with the female. He then indicated the role which most closely corresponded to his true role. In Experiment I, role choices were significantly biased in the direction of higher status roles in the attractive condition but not in the unattractive or control conditions. These findings were partially replicated in Experiment II, but difference was shown to be a consequence of the fact that the experimenter was an attractive female. The subjects biased their reports of true role status in the direction of higher status, thus leaving little room for change in the selection of role to be enacted during the social interaction. These findings are consistent with the general hypothesis and with exchange theory predictions.     

The combined effect of gaze direction and facial expression on cueing spatial attention

Empirical evidence shows an effect of gaze direction on cueing spatial attention, regardless of the emotional expression shown by a face, whereas a combined effect of gaze direction and facial expression has been observed on individuals' evaluative judgments. In 2 experiments, the authors investigated whether gaze direction and facial expression affect spatial attention depending upon the presence of an evaluative goal. Disgusted, fearful, happy, or neutral faces gazing left or right were followed by positive or negative target words presented either at the spatial location looked at by the face or at the opposite spatial location. Participants responded to target words based on affective valence (i.e., positive/negative) in Experiment 1 and on letter case (lowercase/uppercase) in Experiment 2. Results showed that participants responded much faster to targets presented at the spatial location looked at by disgusted or fearful faces but only in Experiment 1, when an evaluative task was used. The present findings clearly show that negative facial expressions enhance the attentional shifts due to eye-gaze direction, provided that there was an explicit evaluative goal present.     

Inhibitory guidance in visual search: The case of movement–form conjunctions

We used a probe-dot procedure to examine the roles of excitatory attentional guidance and distractor suppression in search for movement-form conjunctions. Participants in Experiment?1 completed a conjunction (moving X amongst moving Os and static Xs) and two single-feature (moving X amongst moving Os, and static X amongst static Os) conditions. "Active" participants searched for the target, whereas "passive" participants viewed the displays without responding. Subsequently, both groups located (left or right) a probe dot appearing in either an occupied or an unoccupied location. In the conjunction condition, the active group located probes presented on static distractors more slowly than probes presented on moving distractors, reversing the direction of the difference found within the passive group. This disadvantage for probes on static items was much stronger in conjunction than in single-feature search. The same pattern of results was replicated in Experiment?2, which used a go/no-go procedure. Experiment?3 extended the go/no-go procedure to the case of search for a static target and revealed increased probe localisation times as a consequence of active search, primarily for probes on moving distractor items. The results demonstrated attentional guidance by inhibition of distractors in conjunction search.     

Adolescent girls' perceptions of goodness and badness and the role of will in their behavioral decisions

The present study explored adolescents' ethical self-images and related behavioral decisions. Data were collected from two groups of adolescent girls (N = 49) using an open-ended survey. One group attended a public high school for gifted students and the other group attended an alternative public high school. The results indicate that goodness is connected with altruism, adherence to external standards, or self-beneficial actions. Alternatively, badness is associated with going against social norms, harming others, or violating inner values. In these two groups overall, decisions about how to behave seem influenced by both inner standards and relational pulls. Differences between the two groups are also discussed.     

Knowledge activation after information encoding: Implications of trait priming on person judgment

It is widely assumed that traits primed after the encoding of person information do not lead to assimilation effects on the judgment of that person. The authors challenge this view by providing evidence that post-encoding trait primes can result in assimilative person judgments under certain conditions. In Experiments 1 and 2, we identify the conditions under which these assimilation effects occur. Experiment 1 shows the importance of participants’ goals during person information encoding: assimilation is observed when person information is encoded as part of a memorization goal (as opposed to an impression formation goal). The findings of Experiment 2 further reveal that the encoded person information should imply trait concepts rather than being merely vague with respect to the primed trait category. Finally, the results of Experiment 3 suggest that the obtained assimilation effect is driven by differential accessibility for prime-congruent person information.     

Event-related potentials indicate different processes to mediate categorical and associative priming in person recognition

Whether representations of people are stored in associative networks based on co-occurrence or are stored in terms of more abstract semantic categories is a controversial question. In the present study, participants performed fame decisions to unfamiliar or famous target faces (Experiment 1) or names (Experiment 2), which were primed, either by highly associated celebrity names or by names from the same occupational category, or were unprimed. Reaction times and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Reaction times yielded significant priming effects for both associated and same category conditions. ERPs to targets in the associated condition were significantly more positive than were ERPs in all other conditions over central and parietal areas (300-600 ms; N400 priming effect). By contrast, a more posterior effect was found for categorical priming. These findings held for both cross-domain (Experiment 1) and within-domain conditions (Experiment 2). Results (a) demonstrate behavioral and ERP evidence for categorical priming in person recognition, consistent with the assumption that shared semantic information units can mediate semantic priming, and (b) suggest that associative and categorical priming are based on mechanisms that are at least partially different.     

Alcohol and aggression without consumption. Alcohol cues, aggressive thoughts, and hostile perception bias

Researchers and the lay public have long known of a link between alcohol and aggression. However, whether this link results from alcohol's pharmacological effects or is merely an artifact of the belief that alcohol has been consumed (i.e., placebo effect) has been debated. The current experiments examined the propensity for alcohol-related cues to elicit aggressive thoughts and hostile perceptions in the absence of alcohol or placebo consumption. In Experiment 1, participants made faster lexical decisions concerning aggression-related words following alcohol-related primes compared with neutral primes. In Experiment 2, participants who first were exposed to alcohol advertisements subsequently rated the behavior of a target person as more hostile than participants who initially viewed control advertisements. Furthermore, this effect was largest among participants who most strongly associated alcohol and aggression. Findings are discussed in terms of semantic network theory and links in memory between alcohol and its anticipated effects.     

In search of perceptual influences of sentence context on word recognition

A major issue in the study of word perception concerns the nature (perceptual or nonperceptual) of sentence context effects. The authors compared effects of legal, word replacement, nonword replacement, and transposed contexts on target word performance using the Reicher-Wheeler task to suppress nonperceptual influences of contextual and lexical constraint. Experiment 1 showed superior target word performance for legal (e.g., "it began to flap/flop") over all other contexts and for transposed over word replacement and nonword replacement contexts. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with higher constraint contexts (e.g., "the cellar is dark/dank") and Experiment 3 showed that strong constraint contexts improved performance for congruent (e.g., "born to be wild") but not incongruent (e.g., mild) target words. These findings support the view that the very perception of words can be enhanced when words are presented in legal sentence contexts.     

Who am I and who are you? Priming and the influence of self versus other focused attention

Recent research has demonstrated that primes can affect self-perceptions, and that subsequent behavior is typically in line with these changed self-perceptions. However, a wide range of other priming effects have been documented, including changes in person perception, motivation, and so forth. The conditions under which a given prime affects the self as opposed to creating one of these other outcomes remains unclear. The present research seeks to offer insight into this question by examining attentional factors as one determinant of whether the self or another target will be biased by a prime. Across two studies, manipulating attention to the self (or an irrelevant target) immediately following a prime produced assimilation in behavior (Experiment 1) and self-perceptions (Experiment 2) when participants thought about themselves, but not an irrelevant target. In addition, when participants thought about an unrelated target, perceptions of this target, but not the self, were changed (Experiment 2).