The eACS: Attentional control in the presence of emotion

We present a questionnaire – The Emotional Attentional Control Scale (eACS) – An adaptation of the original Attentional Control Scale (ACS) that assesses the voluntary control of attention. A low score on the ACS has been associated with high levels of anxiety and depression. As the ACS items are affectively neutral, some people scoring high on the ACS may still show low levels of attentional control (AC) in more emotionally-demanding situations. We propose that the eACS, which focuses on the emotional modulation of AC, may explain additional variance in AC deficits associated with psychopathology.     

Putting behavior on hold decreases reward value of need-instrumental objects outside of awareness

We examined whether cues that put impulsive behavior towards rewarding objects on hold reduces the value of the rewarding objects outside of conscious awareness. We manipulated the reward value of water by making participants thirsty, or not. Next, a bottle of water was subliminally presented in a go/no-go task, and paired with either go cues or no-go cues (putting behavior on hold). Subsequently, as a measure of reward value of water, participants estimated the size of water objects. Results showed that repeatedly withholding behavior towards water reduced the perceived size of water objects, but only when participants were made thirsty. These results suggest that withholding impulsive behavior towards objects that serve basic needs nonconsciously reduces reward value of these objects. Implications for nonconscious behavior regulation are briefly discussed.     

Focus on the positive: Anxiety modulates the effects of emotional stimuli on hemispheric attention

People with high levels of trait anxiety are said to orient attention selectively to threatening stimuli ( and ), but this effect is sometimes difficult to replicate. We suggest a reason for this difficulty is that typical tests of the spatial attention bias in anxiety failed to consider together: (1) the differential effects of positive and threatening stimuli on attention in anxiety, (2) the separate contributions of each hemisphere to the attention bias, and (3) whether the attention bias in anxiety is restricted to orienting or can be observed more strongly in the conflict or alerting networks of attention. We compared the effects of schematic angry, happy, and neutral face cues using a lateralized version of Posner’s Attention Network Task (Lateralized Attention Network Test) which distinguishes spatial Orienting Cost (due to an invalid cue; disengagement) from spatial Orienting Benefit (due to a valid cue; hypervigilance), and which considers executive Conflict resolution and Alerting in addition to spatial Orienting in each hemisphere separately. We tested participants with high and low trait anxiety measured by the STAI-TA (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1983). Surprisingly, happy face cues rather than angry face cues interacted with target visual field and participant level of anxiety. Happy face cues presented to participants with low anxiety elicited maximal Orienting Benefit and minimal Orienting Cost for targets presented to the left visual field. Anxious individuals failed to benefit from happy cues in the left visual field. We suggest that lateralized positive cues can provide a more sensitive index of attention changes in anxiety than is provided by centrally-presented threatening cues.     

Impact and the art of motivation maintenance: The effects of contact with beneficiaries on persistence behavior

We tested the hypothesis that employees are willing to maintain their motivation when their work is relationally designed to provide opportunities for respectful contact with the beneficiaries of their efforts. In Experiment 1, a longitudinal field experiment in a fundraising organization, callers in an intervention group briefly interacted with a beneficiary; callers in two control groups read a letter from the beneficiary and discussed it amongst themselves or had no exposure to him. One month later, the intervention group displayed significantly greater persistence and job performance than the control groups. The intervention group increased significantly in persistence (142% more phone time) and job performance (171% more money raised); the control groups did not. Experiments 2 and 3 used a laboratory editing task to examine mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions. In Experiment 2, respectful contact with beneficiaries increased persistence, mediated by perceived impact. In Experiment 3, mere contact with beneficiaries and task significance interacted to increase persistence, mediated by affective commitment to beneficiaries. Implications for job design and work motivation are discussed.     

Intertrial pellets influence the acquisition and expression of timed appetitive responding in rats

Two experiments examined temporally based changes in the conditioned magazine-entries of rats when a target food pellet arrived at a fixed time before the termination of a conditioned stimulus. Both experiments found that increasing the rate of intertrial pellets systematically interfered with the rate of acquisition. When intertrial pellets were featured in acquisition, their omission on test trials also resulted in a very poorly expressed conditioned response. On test trials preceded by intertrial pellets, however, peak times in groups trained with intertrial pellets were shifted in a rightward direction under a long but not short interstimulus interval. This rightward shift was accompanied by a smaller standard deviation. Our key findings are best accommodated by real-time associative models.     

A time of change: Behavioral and neural correlates of adolescent sensitivity to appetitive and aversive environmental cues

Adolescence is a developmental period that entails substantial changes in affective and incentive-seeking behavior relative to both childhood and adulthood, including a heightened propensity to engage in risky behaviors and experience persistent negative and labile mood states. This review discusses the emotional and incentive-driven behavioral changes in adolescents and their associated neural mechanisms, focusing on the dynamic interactions between the amygdala, ventral striatum, and prefrontal cortex. Common behavioral changes during adolescence may be associated with a heightened responsiveness to incentives and emotional cues while the capacity to effectively engage in cognitive and emotion regulation is still relatively immature. We highlight empirical work in humans and animals that addresses the interactions between these neural systems in adolescents relative to children and adults, and propose a neurobiological model that may account for the nonlinear changes in adolescent behavior. Finally, we discuss other influences that may contribute to exaggerated reward and emotion processing associated with adolescence, including hormonal fluctuations and the role of the social environment.     

Changing commuters’ behavior using rewards: A study of rush-hour avoidance

In a 13-week field study conducted in The Netherlands, participants were provided with daily rewards – monetary and in-kind, in order to encourage them to avoid driving during the morning rush-hour. Participants could earn a reward (money or credits to keep a Smartphone handset), by driving to work earlier or later, by switching to another mode or by teleworking. The collected data, complemented with pre and post measurement surveys, were analyzed using longitudinal techniques and mixed logistic regression. The results assert that the reward is the main extrinsic motivation for discouraging rush-hour driving. The monetary reward exhibits diminishing sensitivity, whereas the Smartphone has endowment qualities. Although the reward influences the motivation to avoid the rush-hour, the choice how to change behavior is influenced by additional factors including education, scheduling, habitual behavior, attitudes, and travel information availability.     

Behold the voice of wrath: cross-modal modulation of visual attention by anger prosody

Emotionally relevant stimuli are prioritized in human information processing. It has repeatedly been shown that selective spatial attention is modulated by the emotional content of a stimulus. Until now, studies investigating this phenomenon have only examined within-modality effects, most frequently using pictures of emotional stimuli to modulate visual attention. In this study, we used simultaneously presented utterances with emotional and neutral prosody as cues for a visually presented target in a cross-modal dot probe task. Response times towards targets were faster when they appeared at the location of the source of the emotional prosody. Our results show for the first time a cross-modal attentional modulation of visual attention by auditory affective prosody.     

The Influence of Approach and Avoidance Cues on Attentional Flexibility

Motivation and Emotion - In two experiments, we tested the prediction that rudimentary approach, relative to avoidance, motivational cues bolster attentional flexibility. This prediction was...     

Approach/avoidance motivation, message framing, and health behavior: understanding the congruency effect

Health messages framed to be congruent with individuals’ approach/avoidance motivations have been found to be more effective in promoting health behaviors than health messages incongruent with approach/avoidance motivations. This study examines the processes underlying this congruency effect. Participants (undergraduate students, N=67) completed a measure of approach/avoidance orientation (the BIS/BAS scales) and read either a gain- or loss-framed message promoting dental flossing. Results demonstrated a congruency effect: Participants who read a congruently framed message had greater flossing efficacy, intended to floss more, and used more dental flosses than did the participants who read an incongruent message. Moreover, intention to perform the behavior predicted the congruency effect and self-efficacy mediated participants’ intentions to perform the health behavior. Discussion centers on the role of personality factors and situational factors in models of behavior change.

Mediational effects of sensation seeking on the age and financial risk-taking relationship

The current study examined the potential mediating role of sensation seeking in the well-established negative relationship between age and financial risk-taking. A total of 299 participants, aged 17–90 years, allocated hypothetical money into mutual funds that varied in risk and completed a sensation seeking measure. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that the amount of variability age accounted for in risk-taking (4.1%; β = −.22) was significantly reduced when sensation seeking was controlled for (0.8%; β = −.12). A Sobel test revealed that sensation seeking fully mediated the aforementioned relationship. Results suggest sensation seeking’s role as a mediator in more physiologically arousing risk-taking contexts (e.g., surfing). Discussion recommends investigating potential biologically and cognitively-rooted mediators and moderators of the age and risk-taking relationship.     

The desire to win: The effects of competitive arousal on motivation and behavior

The paper theoretically elaborates and empirically investigates the “competitive arousal” model of decision making, which argues that elements of the strategic environment (e.g., head-to-head rivalry and time pressure) can fuel competitive motivations and behavior. Study 1 measures real-time motivations of online auction bidders and finds that the “desire to win” (even when winning is costly and will provide no strategic upside) is heightened when rivalry and time pressure coincide. Study 2 is a field experiment which alters the text of email alerts sent to bidders who have been outbid; the text makes competitive (vs. non-competitive) motivations salient. Making the desire to win salient triggers additional bidding, but only when rivalry and time pressure coincide. Study 3, a laboratory study, demonstrates that the desire to win mediates the effect of rivalry and time pressure on over-bidding.     

Viewing artworks: Contributions of cognitive control and perceptual facilitation to aesthetic experience

When we view visual images in everyday life, our perception is oriented toward object identification. In contrast, when viewing visual images as artworks, we also tend to experience subjective reactions to their stylistic and structural properties. This experiment sought to determine how cognitive control and perceptual facilitation contribute to aesthetic perception along with the experience of emotion. Using functional MRI, we show that aesthetic perception activated bilateral insula which we attribute to the experience of emotion. Moreover, while adopting the aesthetic orientation activated the left lateral prefrontal cortex, paintings that facilitated visuospatial exploration activated the left superior parietal lobule. The results suggest that aesthetic experience is a function of the interaction between top-down orienting of attention and bottom-up perceptual facilitation.     

Examining the impact of distraction on tic suppression in children and adolescents with Tourette syndrome

Tourette syndrome (TS) is characterized by motor and/or vocal tics. Tics are thought to be temporarily suppressible, and it is believed that suppression requires significant attentional resources. The aim of the current study was to examine the impact of an attention-demanding distraction task on tic suppression. A secondary aim was to examine whether performance on that task decreased during concomitant periods of suppression. Nine children with TS, ages 9-15, participated in the study. An alternating treatment design was used to compare three conditions, free-to-tic baseline (BL), reinforced tic suppression (SUP) and reinforced tic suppression plus a distraction task (SUP + DIS). Tic frequencies were significantly higher during BL conditions than both SUP and SUP + DIS conditions, and tic frequencies during SUP and SUP + DIS did not differ. Accuracy on the distraction task decreased during SUP + DIS as compared to BL. Results suggest that contextual distractions may not negatively impact tic frequencies. In addition, accuracy on an attention-demanding task may be impacted if a child is simultaneously suppressing.     

Trade-offs in visual attention and the enhancement of memory specificity for positive and negative emotional stimuli

Emotional influences on memory can lead to trade-offs in memory for gist or detail and trade-offs in memory for central or peripheral aspects of an event. Attentional narrowing has often been proposed as a theoretical explanation for this pattern of findings with negative emotion. These trade-offs have been less extensively investigated with positive emotion. In three experiments, we investigate memory for specific visual details of positive and negative stimuli, examine central–peripheral trade-offs in memory, and assess the hypothesis that attentional narrowing contributes to emotional enhancement of memory specificity. We found that memory for details was enhanced by negative and positive emotion. Central–peripheral trade-offs were found in memory for negative emotional stimuli but not in memory for positive emotional stimuli. These trade-offs with negative emotion were associated with attentional narrowing at the time of encoding, as measured by eye movements. There were no attentional effects at the time of encoding found with positive emotional stimuli. Evidence was found for the attentional narrowing hypothesis of memory specificity and central–peripheral trade-offs in memory for negative emotional events. Alternative explanations for the positive emotional enhancement of memory specificity are required.     

A projective assessment of autonomous motivation in children: Correlational and experimental evidence

This article presents two studies aimed at validating a new TAT-like projective measure of autonomous motivation in children. Study 1 assesses the validity of the new measure by correlating it with self-report questionnaires of autonomous motivation, positive and negative affect, task value and mastery goal orientation. Study 2 is an experiment in which autonomous motivation is manipulated and then assessed with the new projective measure and with a self-report scale. Results of both studies support the validity of the new projective measure. In study 2, regression analysis suggests that the new projective measure is sensitive to aspects of experimentally induced autonomous motivation that are not captured by a self-report measure.

Implicit and explicit prosocial motivation as antecedents of volunteering: The moderating role of parenthood

We test a model proposing that having children influences motivational pathways of volunteering in the same way across two different cultures. The model posits that parents’ engagement in volunteering is driven by implicit, whereas non-parents’ engagement in volunteering is related to explicit prosocial motivation. Participants were 570 parents and non-parents from Turkey and the US (M_age = 33.7 years; 58.2% female). Results across the two cultural contexts confirmed our model. Our findings highlight the need for considering implicit prosocial motivation as an antecedent of volunteering, and underline the importance of examining parenthood as a moderator for motivations to volunteer. Avenues for further research and implications for voluntary organizations are discussed.     

Metacognition and proofreading: the roles of aging,motivation, and interest

The current study examined younger and older adults’ error detection accuracy, prediction calibration, and postdiction calibration on a proofreading task, to determine if age-related differences would be present in this type of common error detection task. Participants were given text passages, and were first asked to predict the percentage of errors they would detect in the passage. They then read the passage and circled errors (which varied in complexity and locality), and made postdictions regarding their performance, before repeating this with another passage and answering a comprehension test of both passages. There were no age-related differences in error detection accuracy, text comprehension, or metacognitive calibration, though participants in both age groups were overconfident overall in their metacognitive judgments. Both groups gave similar ratings of motivation to complete the task. The older adults rated the passages as more interesting than younger adults did, although this level of interest did not appear to influence error-detection performance. The age equivalence in both proofreading ability and calibration suggests that the ability to proofread text passages and the associated metacognitive monitoring used in judging one’s own performance are maintained in aging. These age-related similarities persisted when younger adults completed the proofreading tasks on a computer screen, rather than with paper and pencil. The findings provide novel insights regarding the influence that cognitive aging may have on metacognitive accuracy and text processing in an everyday task.     

Boredom proneness in anger and aggression: effects of impulsiveness and sensation seeking

The present study was a replication and extension of Rupp and Vodanovich’s (1997) work on the role of boredom proneness in anger expression and aggression. In addition to replicating their primary analyses, impulsiveness and sensation seeking were included to determine the potential impact of these variables on the relationships between boredom proneness and anger and aggression. Two hundred and twenty-four college student volunteers completed measures of boredom proneness, impulsiveness, sensation seeking, anger expression, and aggression. Findings were consistent with Rupp and Vodanovich (1997) but demonstrated more pervasive effects of external boredom proneness on aggression. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that the relationships between external boredom proneness and trait anger, anger expression/control, and aggression persisted even after accounting for impulsiveness and sensation seeking. Boredom due to a lack of external stimulation predicted one’s propensity to experience anger, maladaptive anger expression, aggression, and deficits in anger control.