Does mental rotation ability depend on sensory-specific experience?

No study has investigated the link between vision and touch with respect to spatial abilities using a within-subjects design. With this design, we compared participants’ tactile and visual mental rotation abilities, as measured by the Mental Rotations Test (Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978). Participants in four groups completed two consecutive sessions under no-switch (visual-visual or tactile-tactile) or switch conditions (visual-tactile or tactile-visual) to determine whether mental rotation abilities assessed in Session 2 depend on previous sensory-specific experiences (Session 1). Analysis of response accuracy revealed that all groups improved their performance in Session 2. Analysis of response time showed an improvement in visual and tactile performance during Session 2 for participants who first performed the task with the same modality. No effect of task repetition appeared for participants who performed in two different sensory conditions. These results reveal that mental rotation ability partly depends on sensory-specific conditions and that ability developed in a sensory-specific condition does not necessarily transfer to another sensory condition.     

Emotional intelligence: new ability or eclectic traits?

Some individuals have a greater capacity than others to carry out sophisticated information processing about emotions and emotion-relevant stimuli and to use this information as a guide to thinking and behavior. The authors have termed this set of abilities emotional intelligence (EI). Since the introduction of the concept, however, a schism has developed in which some researchers focus on EI as a distinct group of mental abilities, and other researchers instead study an eclectic mix of positive traits such as happiness, self-esteem, and optimism. Clarifying what EI is and is not can help the field by better distinguishing research that is truly pertinent to EI from research that is not. EI--conceptualized as an ability--is an important variable both conceptually and empirically, and it shows incremental validity for predicting socially relevant outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

Are good salespeople born or made? A new perspective on an age-old question: implicit theories of selling ability

Considering implicit theories in a sales context can provide a framework for better understanding salesperson motivation and behavior. The current research develops, tests, and examines the relevance of an Implicit Theories of Selling Ability (ITSA) measure, which measures the extent to which a person believes selling is an incremental (made) ability versus an entity (born) ability. After pre-testing the ITSA measure, two studies found an unfavorable pattern of outcomes associated with an entity belief of selling ability, consistent with research in other domains. Experimental validity for ITSA is demonstrated, thus supporting a direct relationship between ITSA and sales-relevant constructs, and suggesting manipulation of ITSA as a potential training intervention. This research extends past sales research on implicit theories by developing a sales-specific implicit theories measure and by examining goal orientations and behavior within the social-cognitive model (SCM). Conceptualizing sales performance behaviors from this SCM perspective reveals important considerations for both researchers and practitioners regarding salesperson hiring, training, and placement.     

Dogs’ ability to follow temporarily invisible moving objects: the ability to track and expect is shaped by experience

Animal Cognition - Visually tracking a moving object, even if it becomes temporarily invisible, is an important skill for animals living in complex environments. However, this ability has not been...     

Aging of attention: Does the ability to divide decline?

Previous research has yielded conflicting results regarding the relationship between adult age and the ability to divide attention between two concurrent tasks. At least some of the inconsistency is probably attributable to methodological variations, such as the manner in which divided-attention ability has been assessed, how single-task performance has been considered, and the degree of control over relative emphasis placed on each task. Two experiments employing procedures sensitive to these concerns were conducted in which a speeded decision task was performed during the retention interval of a letter-memory task. The results of both experiments indicated that there were relatively few age-related influences on dual-task performance vis-à-vis those on single-task performance.     

The case of Pinocchio: teachers’ ability to detect deception

In a study with 365 teacher students, 447 teacher trainees, and 123 teachers, the ability to detect students’ deception was tested. Participants judged the credibility of videotaped students who were accused of academic dishonesty (having cheated in a test). Half of these messages were actually true (students had not cheated on the test) and half of them were deceptive (students had cheated on the test). As expected and in line with findings on the influence of expertise on the ability to detect deception from other fields, we found that the overall accuracy rate of teachers was not higher than that of teacher trainees and teacher students. Moreover, we found no effect of teaching experience (years working as a teacher) on overall detection of deception accuracy. Interestingly, teachers were found to have a stronger truth bias and therefore had a lower accuracy in detecting deceptive messages than teacher students and teacher trainees (veracity effect). While teacher characteristics accounted for very little variance, senders’ opportunity to prepare and their gender had strong effects. Detection accuracy was higher for messages where the student had no chance to prepare before being accused of cheating. Overall, independent, or experience, participants hold inaccurate beliefs about deception.     

Individual differences in second-language proficiency: does musical ability matter?

This study examined the relation between musical ability and second-language (L2) proficiency in adult learners. L2 ability was assessed in four domains: receptive phonology, productive phonology, syntax, and lexical knowledge. Also assessed were various other factors that might explain individual differences in L2 ability, including age of L2 immersion, patterns of language use and exposure, and phonological short-term memory. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to determine if musical ability explained any unique variance in each domain of L2 ability after controlling for other relevant factors. Musical ability predicted L2 phonological ability (both receptive and productive) even when controlling for other factors, but did not explain unique variance in L2 syntax or lexical knowledge. These results suggest that musical skills may facilitate the acquisition of L2 sound structure and add to a growing body of evidence linking language and music.     

Use of orthographic structure and reading ability: What relationship?

Previous research has shown that good readers are superior to poor readers in their use of orthographic structure. The purpose of the present study was to assess the role of experience in determining these differences. Results showed that poor sixth-grade readers used orthographic structure to speed their matching judgments just as effectively as good sixth-grade readers. The apparent discrepancy in results between the present study and previous work is explained in terms of the “partial-information hypothesis” which states that the performance of good readers is superior to that of poor readers in situations which depend on the use of partial information. Support for this view was provided by the fact that good readers recognized significantly more items on a recognition test than did the poor readers.     

Does the direction and magnitude of cognitive change depend on initial level of ability?

Longitudinal change in five cognitive abilities was investigated to determine if the direction or magnitude of change was related to the individual's ability level. Adults between 18 and 97 years of age performed three versions of 16 cognitive tests on two occasions separated by an average of 2.7 years. In order to control for influences associated with regression toward the mean, level of ability was determined from scores on the first version of the cognitive tests on the first occasion, and across-occasion change was examined on the second and third versions. Change in every cognitive ability was significantly more negative with increased age. However, there was little indication of ability-dependent change in any of the five cognitive abilities, either in differences between composite scores, or in estimates of latent change. Although there are reasons to expect cognitive change to be less negative at either high or low levels of ability, these data suggest that neither the direction nor magnitude of change is related to initial ability when influences of regression toward the mean are controlled.     

Time,money, and happiness: How does putting a price on time affect our ability to smell the roses?

In this paper, we investigate how the impatience that results from placing a price on time impairs individuals' ability to derive happiness from pleasurable experiences. Experiment 1 demonstrated that thinking about one's income as an hourly wage reduced the happiness that participants derived from leisure time on the internet. Experiment 2 revealed that a similar manipulation decreased participants' state of happiness after listening to a pleasant song and that this effect was fully mediated by the degree of impatience experienced during the music. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that the deleterious effect on happiness caused by impatience was attenuated by offering participants monetary compensation in exchange for time spent listening to music, suggesting that a sensation of unprofitably wasted time underlay the induced impatience. Together these experiments establish that thinking about time in terms of money can influence how people experience pleasurable events by instigating greater impatience during unpaid time.     

Gender differences in empathic accuracy: Differential ability or differential motivation?

Following their qualitative review of the findings from 10 relevant studies, Graham and Ickes (1997) speculated that reliable gender‐of‐perceiver differences in empathic accuracy (a) were limited to studies in which the empathic inference form made empathic accuracy salient as the dimension of interest, and (b) therefore reflected the differential motivation, rather than the differential ability, of female versus male perceivers. These speculations were tested more rigorously in the present study, which examined a larger set of 15 empathic accuracy studies and applied the techniques of quantitative meta‐analysis to test Graham and Ickes’(1997) moderating variable hypothesis. The hypothesis was strongly supported, consistent with a motivational interpretation previously proposed by Berman (1980) and by Eisenberg and Lemon (1983), which argues that reliable gender differences in empathy‐related measures are found only in situations in which (a) subjects are aware that they are being evaluated on an empathy‐relevant dimension, and/or (b) empathy‐relevant gender‐role expectations or obligations are made salient.     

Twin-singleton differences in verbal ability: Where do they stem from?

In a follow-up investigation at age 9, the cognitive and social characteristics of 35 pairs of twins, studied previously at age 2, were compared with those of matched singletons at school. At age 2, twins' lower verbal ability compared with singletons' was attributed to lesser amount of speech by parents—seen as an outcome of the “twoness” of the “twin situation”—rather than to biological handicap or mother's education. At age 9, twins were equal to singletons in physical development and nonverbal ability, but the monozygotic (MZ)—not the dizygotic (DZ)—twins showed lower verbal ability. However, far more variance in verbal ability was accounted for by mother's education and birthweight than by twinship. In the long run, therefore, mothers' educational differences are more influential than the “twoness” of the “twin situation.”     

Commentary on Corradi et al.’s (2019) new conception of aesthetic sensitivity: Is the ability conception dead?

Corradi et al. (British Journal of Psychology, 2019) argue that their new conception of visual aesthetic sensitivity (as responsiveness to aesthetic features in one’s preferences) presents several advantages in comparison with the current ability view of aesthetic sensitivity, usually defined as the ability to judge aesthetic stimuli in accordance with standards (The Journal of Psychology, 1964, 57 and 49). Although the measure they propose is interesting and presents advances to the field, we point to important issues. Notably, the authors conveniently base their comparison between the two conceptions on psychometric double standards, discard a century of research on aesthetic sensitivity by focusing on Eysenck’s speculations, and disguise an extension of already existing aesthetic preference tests (e.g., The Journal of Psychology, 1952, 33 and 199; Empirical Studies of the Arts, 2005, 23 and 165) as a redefinition of aesthetic sensitivity. We conclude that both aesthetic preference and aesthetic sensitivity research are legitimate objects of study, that the authors present interesting ideas to further the study of aesthetic preferences, but that their approach is not new and that its proposed renaming only adds confusion to the field.     

Effect of external HMI for automated vehicles (AVs) on drivers’ ability to infer the AV motion intention: A field experiment

A field experiment was conducted aiming to shed light on how drivers negotiate an ambiguous traffic situation when encountering an autonomous vehicle (AV) in the presence of a yielding intention signal (AV with eHMI) or not (AV without eHMI). A traffic conflict scenario was created with two opposing vehicles instructed to perform a left turn at a four-way junction, at the same point in time. Forty participants were assigned to two groups encountering either an AV with eHMI or an AV without eHMI. To check for equivalence across the two groups, both groups also encountered a conventional vehicle (CV). Results showed that the two groups performed similarly during encounters with a CV. During encounters with AV, however, participants provided with the eHMI maintained higher speed before the AV and finished their maneuver quicker than when they were not provided with eHMI. Additionally participants provided with eHMI rated higher their ability to infer the AV intention before coming to a full-stop than those provided without eHMI. The above findings indicate that the presence of eHMI on AV can accelerate drivers’ inferences about yielding intention of an AV, and have the potential to optimize AV-driver interaction in ambiguous traffic situations.     

The genesis of reading ability: What helps children learn letter-sound correspondences?

Knowledge of letter-sound correspondences underpins successful reading acquisition, and yet little is known about how young children acquire this knowledge and what prior information they bring to the learning process. In this study, we used an experimental training design to examine whether either prior letter awareness or prior phonemic awareness directly assists preliterate children in subsequently learning letter-sound correspondences. Here 76 preschoolers received 6 weeks of training in either letter awareness, phonemic awareness, or control tasks and then received a further 6 weeks of training in either letter-sound correspondences or control tasks. There was limited evidence that prior training in either phoneme or letter awareness directly assisted learning of letter-sound correspondences, although phonemically trained children appeared to show some advantage on recognition tasks. Overall, the data suggest that there is little value in training preschoolers in either letter forms or sounds in isolation in advance of providing instruction on the links between the two.     

Effects of instruction on learners’ ability to generate an effective pathway in the method of loci

One of the most effective mnemonic techniques is the well-known method of loci. Learning and retention, especially of sequentially ordered information, is facilitated by this technique which involves mentally combining salient loci on a well-known path with the material to be learned. There are several variants of this technique that differ in the kind of path that is suggested to the user and it is implicitly assumed that these variants are comparable in effectiveness. The experiments reported in this study were designed to test this assumption. The data of two experiments show that participants who are instructed to generate and apply loci on a route to their work recall significantly more items in a memory test than participants who are instructed to generate and apply loci on a route in their house. These results have practical implications for the instruction and application of the method of loci.