Manipulations that disrupt generative processes decrease conformity to examples: evidence from two paradigms

Participants in six experiments viewed experimenter-provided examples of space creatures (Experiments 1-3) or nonwords (Experiments 4-5b) and then created their own novel space creatures or nonwords. Consistent with previous research, people borrowed many of the features found in the examples despite instructions to avoid using any aspects of the experimenter's examples. However, requiring people to include a designated shape in their space creatures or a designated letter in their nonwords attenuated this effect. Additionally, the type of shape or letter (conventional versus unconventional) also affected conformity. These results suggest that the strategies that people use to create novel products can affect the level of conformity and also highlight the importance of adopting unconventional, or at the very least, new strategies when creating new products.     

How examples may (and may not) constrain creativity

Three experiments were performed to test Smith, Ward, and Schumacher’s (1993) conformity hypothesis— that people’s ideas will conform to examples they are shown in a creative generation task. Conformity was observed in all three experiments; participants tended to incorporate critical features of experimenter-provided examples. However, examination of total output, elaborateness of design, and the noncritical features did not confirm that the conformity effect constrained creative output in any of the three experiments. Increasing the number of examples increased the conformity effect (Experiment 1). Examples that covaried features that are naturally uncorrelated in the real world led to a greater subjective rating of creativity (Experiment 2). A delay between presentation and test increased conformity (Experiment 3), just as models of inadvertent plagiarism would predict. The explanatory power of theoretical accounts such as activation, retrieval blocking, structured imagination, and category abstraction are evaluated.     

Constraining effects of examples in a creative generation task

In three experiments we tested the conformity hypothesis—that subjects' ideas would conform to examples they had been shown—by using a creative generation paradigm in which subjects imagined and sketched new exemplars of experimenter-defined categories. Designs madeby subjects who had first seen three examples of ideas were compared with those of control subjects, who received no examples. In all three experiments, the designs of subjects who had seen the examples were more likely to contain features of the examples. This conformity effect did not significantly decrease in Experiment 2, when a 23-mm task was interpolated between viewing the examples and generating related ideas. The hypothesis that the observed conformity effects may have been caused by subjects' assumptions that they should try to generate ideas similar to the examples was refuted in Experiment 3; explicitly instructing subjects to create ideas that were verydifferent from the examples did not decrease conformity to the examples, and instructing them to conform to the examples significantly increased conformity. The results show that recent experience can lead to unintentional conformity, constraining the generation of creative ideas.     

Manipulations that disrupt generative processes decrease conformity to examples: Evidence from two paradigms

Participants in six experiments viewed experimenter‐provided examples of space creatures (Experiments 1–3) or nonwords (Experiments 4–5b) and then created their own novel space creatures or nonwords. Consistent with previous research, people borrowed many of the features found in the examples despite instructions to avoid using any aspects of the experimenter's examples. However, requiring people to include a designated shape in their space creatures or a designated letter in their nonwords attenuated this effect. Additionally, the type of shape or letter (conventional versus unconventional) also affected conformity. These results suggest that the strategies that people use to create novel products can affect the level of conformity and also highlight the importance of adopting unconventional, or at the very least, new strategies when creating new products.     

Developmental changes in self-corrected elaboration effects on incidental memory

Abstract:  Two experiments were carried out to investigate the changes across age groups in the effects of self-corrected elaboration on incidental memory. Each participant performed an orienting task involving three conditions: self-corrected, self-generated and experimenter-provided elaboration. The orienting task was followed by free recall tests. In Experiment 1, the participants were sixth-grade and second-grade students. For sixth-grade students the self-corrected elaboration led to a better free recall than the other two elaborations, whereas for the second-grade students, no difference was observed between any of the three elaborations. In Experiment 2, using a longer word list than that in Experiment 1, the participants were undergraduates. The self-corrected and self-generated elaborations led to a better free recall than the experimenter-provided elaboration, and no difference between the former two elaborations was observed. The results obtained from these two experiments were interpreted as showing that the effectiveness of a self-corrected elaboration depends on the participants' age.     

Linguistic and Perceptual Mapping in Spatial Representations: An Attentional Account

Building on evidence for embodied representations, we investigated whether Spanish spatial terms map onto the NEAR/FAR perceptual division of space. Using a long horizontal display, we measured congruency effects during the processing of spatial terms presented in NEAR or FAR space. Across three experiments, we manipulated the task demands in order to investigate the role of endogenous attention in linguistic and perceptual space mapping. We predicted congruency effects only when spatial properties were relevant for the task (reaching estimation task, Experiment 1) but not when attention was allocated to other features (lexical decision, Experiment 2; and color, Experiment 3). Results showed faster responses for words presented in Near‐space in all experiments. Consistent with our hypothesis, congruency effects were observed only when a reaching estimate was requested. Our results add important evidence for the role of top‐down processing in congruency effects from embodied representations of spatial terms.     

Changes in activation levels with negation

Three experiments investigated the effects of negation during on-line language processing. It was hypothesized that negation of a noun (e.g., no bread) would affect the activation level of the mental representation of that noun. Experiment 1 manipulated the location of the negation in sentences that were followed by a probe recognition task. Subjects were slower to indicate that a probe had been in the sentence when the probe corresponded to a negated noun. Experiment 2 replicated these results with a probe naming task. Experiment 3 replicated the result that reading the phrase no bread inhibits responses to bread in the probe task but found no evidence of inhibition of the response to an associate probe, such as butter. The results of these three studies suggest that negation affects the discourse focus of a noun phrase, and hence the activation level of its representation.     

Why does a red snake in the grass capture your attention?

It has been suggested that affective stimuli automatically capture attention; this preferential processing is thought to be related to the evolutionary significance of affective stimuli. However, recent evidence suggests that perceptual salience alone might explain why some affective stimuli are more likely to influence attentional processes in certain contexts. In this study, we manipulated affective and perceptual salience to better understand how affective information is processed and how it impacts attentional processes in different contexts. We used stimuli that are both affectively and perceptually salient, while varying the task requirement to encourage the processing of perceptually salient (Experiment 1) or affectively salient (Experiment 2) information. This design made it possible to observe independent and interdependent relationships between perceptual and affective salience. The results showed that when the task encouraged the processing of perceptually salient information, affective salience did not influence task performance. In contrast, when the task encouraged the processing of affectively salient information, affectively salient information impaired task performance. The findings suggest that the affective nature of the stimuli does not always influence attentional processes.     

Seeing the big picture: Broadening attention relieves sadness and depressed mood

We examined whether the broadened attentional scope would affect people's sad or depressed mood with two experiments, enlightened by the meaning of “seeing the big picture” and the broaden‐and‐build model. Experiment 1 (n = 164) is a laboratory‐based experiment, in which we manipulated the attentional scope by showing participants zoomed‐out or zoomed‐in scenes. In Experiment 2 (n = 44), we studied how depressed mood and positive and negative emotions were affected when participants watched distant versus proximal scenes for eight weeks in real life. Healthy participants in Experiment 1, who were induced to feel sad, could return to the baseline mood after having the broadened attention task but not after having the narrowed attention task, which indicated that immediate attention broadening manipulation could function as antidotes for the lingering effects of induced negative emotions. Participants with depressed mood in Experiment 2 showed reduced depressed mood, increased positive affect, and decreased negative affect after receiving attention broadening training compared to those receiving attention narrowing training. Our findings suggest a robust role of broadened attentional scope in relieving negative emotions and even mildly depressed mood in the long run.     

Cognitive processes in writing during pause and execution periods

The present study investigated how writing processes are activated during pause and execution periods. In two experiments, handwriting demands were manipulated by asking participants to compose with their familiar handwriting or with a high-demanding cursive uppercase calligraphy. Experiment 1 investigated narrative writing, a task with low planning demands. Experiment 2 addressed essay writing, a task with stronger planning demands. Occurrences of processes and their cognitive effort were analysed by asking participants to respond to random auditory probes and then to report their ongoing mental activity according to learned categories referring to the planning, translating, and revising writing processes. All together, the findings indicate that demands on planning did not affect how writing processes were activated during pauses and execution periods but automaticity of handwriting did. When handwriting was effortless, translating was mostly activated in parallel with motor execution, whereas revising and planning were mainly activated during pauses. However, none of the writing processes could be characterised as being typical of pauses, since translating was activated to a similar extent as the other two processes. By contrast, when handwriting was effortful, participants shifted to a more sequential functioning and activated translating mainly during pauses.     

Mood and the generation effect

Three experiments address the assumptions, derived from a dual-force model, that positive mood supports assimilative (knowledge-driven) processes whereas negative mood supports accommodative (stimulus-driven) functions, and that mood-selective recall (mood congruency) is mainly a matter of assimilation. The generation-effect paradigm was borrowed from memory research to test these assumptions. In Experiment 1, the theoretical variable, degree of assimilation, was operationalised by the ease with which stimulus meaning could be generated from word fragments. In Experiment 2, self-generated stimuli (assimilation) were compared to experimenter-provided stimuli (accommodation). As predicted, positive mood supported assimilation which in turn enhanced mood-congruent recall. In Experiment 3, retrieval mood rather than encoding mood was manipulated. In this situation, positive mood facilitated the recall of all self-generated information, whether congruent or not. The empirical results are generally consistent with the predictions derived from the dual-force framework.     

Instruction effects in task switching

The present study examined the effect of instructions on sequential task preparation using a cuing paradigm with three tasks. All task transitions were predictable, whereas task identity was unpredictable in switches but predictable in repetitions. In Experiment 1, predictability (predictable vs. random) was manipulated while preparation time (i.e., the cue-stimulus interval, or CSI) remained constantly short. In Experiment 2, CSI was manipulated for predictable task transitions. Both experiments showed clear instruction effects, but these were restricted to predictable task repetitions, for which predictability determined the identity of the upcoming task. Predictability effects were small in task switches and were not modulated by instruction, suggesting that preparation is mainly task-specific rather than switch-specific. Together, these results suggest that intentional processes contribute to predictability benefits in task repetitions, probably by enhancing the monitoring of sequential transitions in working memory in order to maintain activation in task repetitions.     

Familiarity increases subjective positive affect even in non-affective and non-evaluative contexts

Previous research shows that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect. In two experiments we clarify and extend this research by showing that the experience of familiarity involves the experience of positive affect even when the nature of the experimental task is non-affective and non-evaluative and even when participants are actively performing other cognitive operations—that the association of familiarity and positive affect is not disrupted by (non-affective and non-evaluative) judgments regardless of whether familiarity does or does not play a role in those judgments. Experiment 1 used a non-affective but evaluative task and Experiment 2 a completely non-evaluative task. Both studies manipulated familiarity through re-exposure and showed that processing familiar stimuli induced a pleasurable subjective experience.     

Tasks of a feather flock together: Similarity effects in task switching

Recent research on task switching has paid little attention to how tasks are represented and how the relations between task representations might affect the executive processes engaged to achieve a task switch. Two experiments investigated the effect of task similarity on task switching. Similarity was defined in terms of shared component operations--attentional control settings in Experiment 1 and response modality in Experiment 2--with tasks sharing more component operations said to be more similar to each other than tasks sharing fewer component operations. Across both experiments, task similarity facilitated task switching, seen in reduced switch costs for switching between similar tasks as opposed to dissimilar tasks. These results indicate that task similarity defined in terms of component operations can be used to define a multidimensional task space in which the executive processes of task selection and implementation are active.     

Spatial reasoning with external visualizations: what matters is what you see, not whether you interact

Three experiments examined the effects of interactive visualizations and spatial abilities on a task requiring participants to infer and draw cross sections of a three-dimensional (3D) object. The experiments manipulated whether participants could interactively control a virtual 3D visualization of the object while performing the task, and compared participants who were allowed interactive control of the visualization to those who were not allowed control. In Experiment 1, interactivity produced better performance than passive viewing, but the advantage of interactivity disappeared in Experiment 2 when visual input for the two conditions in a yoked design was equalized. In Experiments 2 and 3, differences in how interactive participants manipulated the visualization were large and related to performance. In Experiment 3, non-interactive participants who watched optimal movements of the display performed as well as interactive participants who manipulated the visualization effectively and better than interactive participants who manipulated the visualization ineffectively. Spatial ability made an independent contribution to performance on the spatial reasoning task, but did not predict patterns of interactive behavior. These experiments indicate that providing participants with active control of a computer visualization does not necessarily enhance task performance, whereas seeing the most task-relevant information does, and this is true regardless of whether the task-relevant information is obtained actively or passively.     

Aggressive Outcomes and Videogame Play: The Role of Length of Play and the Mechanisms at Work

We conducted three experiments to rectify methodological limitations of prior studies on selective exposure to music and, thereby, clarify the nature of the impact of sad mood on music preference. In all studies, we experimentally manipulated mood (sad vs. neutral in Experiments 1 and 2; sad vs. neutral vs. happy in Experiment 3) and then assessed participants' preferences for expressively happy versus sad musical selections. To further help illuminate the reasons for their music preferences, we also asked participants to indicate how they believed listening to each song would affect their current emotional state as well as how appropriate they felt it would be to select a given song. Results suggested that individuals in sad moods were not reliably inclined to listen to sad songs, but rather, were strongly averse to listening to happy songs, apparently out of concern that choosing such songs would feel inappropriate. We discuss implications of these findings for theories of selective media exposure and emotion regulation.     

Explicit awareness supports conditional visual search in the retrieval guidance paradigm

In four experiments we explored whether participants would be able to use probabilistic prompts to simplify perceptually demanding visual search in a task we call the retrieval guidance paradigm. On each trial a memory prompt appeared prior to (and during) the search task and the diagnosticity of the prompt(s) was manipulated to provide complete, partial, or non-diagnostic information regarding the target's color on each trial (Experiments 1–3). In Experiment 1 we found that the more diagnostic prompts was associated with faster visual search performance. However, similar visual search behavior was observed in Experiment 2 when the diagnosticity of the prompts was eliminated, suggesting that participants in Experiment 1 were merely relying on base rate information to guide search and were not utilizing the prompts. In Experiment 3 participants were informed of the relationship between the prompts and the color of the target and this was associated with faster search performance relative to Experiment 1, suggesting that the participants were using the prompts to guide search. Additionally, in Experiment 3 a knowledge test was implemented and performance in this task was associated with qualitative differences in search behavior such that participants that were able to name the color(s) most associated with the prompts were faster to find the target than participants who were unable to do so. However, in Experiments 1–3 diagnosticity of the memory prompt was manipulated via base rate information, making it possible that participants were merely relying on base rate information to inform search in Experiment 3. In Experiment 4 we manipulated diagnosticity of the prompts without manipulating base rate information and found a similar pattern of results as Experiment 3. Together, the results emphasize the importance of base rate and diagnosticity information in visual search behavior. In the General discussion section we explore how a recent computational model of hypothesis generation (HyGene; Thomas, Dougherty, Sprenger, & Harbison, 2008), linking attention with long-term and working memory, accounts for the present results and provides a useful framework of cued recall visual search.     

Conceptual and perceptual processing in prospective remembering

McDaniel, Robinson-Riegler, and Einstein (1998) recently reported findings in support of the proposal that prospective remembering is largely conceptually driven. In each of the three experiments they reported, however, the task in which the prospective memory target was encountered at test had a predominantly conceptual focus, thereby potentially facilitating retrieval of conceptually encoded features of the studied target event. We report two experiments in which we manipulated the dimension (perceptual or conceptual) along which a target event varied between study and test while using a processing task, at both study and test, compatible with the relevant dimension of target change. When the target was encountered in a sentence validity task at study and test, and the semantic context in which a target was encountered was changed between these two occasions, prospective remembering declined (Experiment 1). A similar decline occurred, using a readability rating task, when the perceptual context (font in which the word was printed) was altered (Experiment 2). These results indicate that both perceptual and conceptual processes can support prospective remembering.     

重复刺激的末位优势效应

探讨在RSVP任务中重复刺激的呈现位置和报告方式对重复知盲效应的影响, 检验该研究提出的注意资源最优化假设和末位优势效应。实验1操作了刺激性质和重复刺激位置, 得出了刺激性质和重复刺激位置的交互效应; 实验2操作了刺激性质和情景信息, 结果是交互效应不显著; 实验3操作了刺激性质和报告方式, 出现了刺激性质和报告方式的交互效应。该结果表明: (1)由于注意资源分配的优化, 重复刺激有末位优势效应。(2)重复知盲的产生不是发生在知觉阶段, 而是发生在报告阶段。(3)注意资源分配最优化理论比建构/归因理论能更合理地解释重复知盲的发生。