A bilateral advantage for maintaining objects in visual short term memory

Research has shown that attentional pre-cues can subsequently influence the transfer of information into visual short term memory (VSTM) (Schmidt, B., Vogel, E., Woodman, G., & Luck, S. (2002). Voluntary and automatic attentional control of visual working memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 64(5), 754–763). However, studies also suggest that those effects are constrained by the hemifield alignment of the pre-cues (Holt, J. L., & Delvenne, J.-F. (2014). A bilateral advantage in controlling access to visual short-term memory. Experimental Psychology, 61(2), 127–133), revealing better recall when distributed across hemifields relative to within a single hemifield (otherwise known as a bilateral field advantage). By manipulating the duration of the retention interval in a colour change detection task (1 s, 3 s), we investigated whether selective pre-cues can also influence how information is later maintained in VSTM. The results revealed that the pre-cues influenced the maintenance of the colours in VSTM, promoting consistent performance across retention intervals (Experiments 1 & 4). However, those effects were only shown when the pre-cues were directed to stimuli displayed across hemifields relative to stimuli within a single hemifield. Importantly, the results were not replicated when participants were required to memorise colours (Experiment 2) or locations (Experiment 3) in the absence of spatial pre-cues. Those findings strongly suggest that attentional pre-cues have a strong influence on both the transfer of information in VSTM and its subsequent maintenance, allowing bilateral items to better survive decay.     

Immediate emotion-enhanced memory dependent on arousal and valence: The role of automatic and controlled processing

The phenomenon that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral ones is called emotion-enhanced memory (EEM). Previous studies have shown that both valence and arousal of stimuli contributed to EEM. Kensinger and Corkin (2004) proposed that the EEM dependent on arousal was associated with automatic encoding processes, whereas the EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled encoding processes. Their experiment with negative words provided some evidence for this associative pattern. However, it is unclear whether the observed association that occurred with negative emotional stimuli could be replicated with positive emotional stimuli. To further examine this issue, two experiments were conducted to investigate the immediate EEM of emotional words in three different attention conditions using a divided attention (DA) paradigm. Results indicated that the immediate EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled processing, while the immediate EEM dependent on arousal was not always associated with automatic processing. The immediate EEM dependent on arousal for negative stimuli was associated with automatic processing, whereas the immediate EEM dependent on arousal for positive stimuli was associated with controlled processing. Therefore, the immediate EEM dependent on arousal, whether it is associated with automatic or controlled processing, is moderated by the valence of stimuli.     

Confidence–accuracy resolution in the misinformation paradigm is influenced by the availability of source cues

After witnessing an event, people often report having seen details that were merely suggested to them. Evidence is mixed regarding how well participants can use confidence judgments to discriminate between their correct and misled memory reports. We tested the prediction that the confidence–accuracy relationship for misled details depends upon the availability of source cues at retrieval. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 77) viewed a videotaped staged crime before reading a misleading narrative. After seven minutes or one week, the participants completed a cued recall test for the details of the original event. Prior to completing the test, all participants were warned that the narrative contained misleading details to encourage source monitoring. The results showed that the strength of the confidence–accuracy relationship declined significantly over the delay. We interpret our results in the source monitoring framework. After an extended delay, fewer diagnostic source details were available to participants, increasing reliance on retrieval fluency as a basis for memory and metamemory decisions. We tested this interpretation in a second experiment, in which participants (N = 42) completed a source monitoring test instead of a cued recall test. We observed a large effect of retention interval on source monitoring, and no significant effect on item memory. This research emphasizes the importance of securing eyewitness statements as soon as possible after an event, when witnesses are most able to discriminate between information that was personally seen and information obtained from secondary sources.     

Induced forgetting and reduced confidence in our personal past? The consequences of selectively retrieving emotional autobiographical memories

People build their sense of self, in part, through their memories of their personal past. What is striking about these personal memories is that, in many instances, they are inaccurate, yet confidently held. Most researchers assume that confidence ratings are based, in large part, on the memory's mnemonic features. That is, the more vivid or detailed the memory, the higher the confidence people have in its accuracy. However, we explore a heretofore underappreciated source on which confidence ratings may be based: the accessibility of memories as a result of selective retrieval. To explore this possibility, we use Anderson, Bjork, and Bjork's retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm with emotional (positive and negative) autobiographical memories. We found the standard RIF effect for memory recall across emotional valence. That is, selective retrieval of emotional autobiographical memories induced forgetting of related, but not retrieved emotional autobiographical memories compared to the baseline. More interestingly, we found that the confidence ratings for positive memories mirrored the RIF pattern: decreased confidence for related, unpracticed autobiographical memories relative to the baseline. For negative memories, we found the opposite pattern: increased confidence for both practiced autobiographical memories and related, unpracticed autobiographical memories. We discuss these results in terms of accessibility, the diverging mnemonic consequences of selectively retrieving positive and negative autobiographical memories and personal identity.     

Symmetry perception in the blind

Bilateral mirror symmetry, especially vertical symmetry, is a powerful phenomenon in spatial organization of visual shapes. However, the causes of vertical symmetry salience in visual perception are not completely clear. Here we investigated whether the perceptual salience of vertical symmetry depends on visual experience by testing a group of congenitally blind individuals in a memory task in which either horizontal or vertical symmetry was used as an incidental feature. Both blind and sighted subjects remembered more accurately configurations that were symmetrical compared to those that were not. Critically, whereas sighted subjects displayed a higher level of facilitation by vertical than horizontal symmetry, no such difference was found in the blind. This suggests that the perceptual salience of the vertical dimension is visually based.     

Audiovisual beat induction in complex auditory rhythms: Point-light figure movement as an effective visual beat

This study investigated whether explicit beat induction in the auditory, visual, and audiovisual (bimodal) modalities aided the perception of weakly metrical auditory rhythms, and whether it reinforced attentional entrainment to the beat of these rhythms. The visual beat-inducer was a periodically bouncing point-light figure, which aimed to examine whether an observed rhythmic human movement could induce a beat that would influence auditory rhythm perception. In two tasks, participants listened to three repetitions of an auditory rhythm that were preceded and accompanied by (1) an auditory beat, (2) a bouncing point-light figure, (3) a combination of (1) and (2) synchronously, or (4) a combination of (1) and (2), with the figure moving in anti-phase to the auditory beat. Participants reproduced the auditory rhythm subsequently (Experiment 1), or detected a possible temporal change in the third repetition (Experiment 2). While an explicit beat did not improve rhythm reproduction, possibly due to the syncopated rhythms when a beat was imposed, bimodal beat induction yielded greater sensitivity to a temporal deviant in on-beat than in off-beat positions. Moreover, the beat phase of the figure movement determined where on-beat accents were perceived during bimodal induction. Results are discussed with regard to constrained beat induction in complex auditory rhythms, visual modulation of auditory beat perception, and possible mechanisms underlying the preferred visual beat consisting of rhythmic human motions.     

The impact of concurrent visual feedback on coding of on-line and pre-planned movement sequences

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which participants could effectively switch from on-line (OL) to pre-planned (PP) control (or vice versa) depending on previous practice conditions and whether concurrent visual feedback was available during transfer testing. The task was to reproduce a 2000 ms spatial–temporal pattern of a sequence of elbow flexions and extensions. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two practice conditions termed OL or PP. In the OL condition the criterion waveform and the cursor were provided during movement production while this information was withheld during movement production for the PP condition. A retention test and two effector transfer tests were administered to half of the participants in each acquisition conditions under OL conditions and the other half under PP conditions. The mirror effector transfer test required the same pattern of muscle activation and limb joint angles as required during acquisition. The non-mirror transfer test required movements to the same visual–spatial locations as experienced during acquisition. The results indicated that when visual information was available during the transfer tests performers could switch from PP to OL. When visual information was withdrawn, they shifted from the OL to the PP-control mode. This finding suggests that performers adopt a mode of control consistent with the feedback conditions provided during testing.     

Implicit transfer of spatial structure in visuomotor sequence learning

Implicit learning and transfer in sequence learning are essential in daily life. Here, we investigated the implicit transfer of visuomotor sequences following a spatial transformation. In the two experiments, participants used trial and error to learn a sequence consisting of several button presses, known as the m × n task (Hikosaka et al., 1995). After this learning session, participants learned another sequence in which the button configuration was spatially transformed in one of the following ways: mirrored, rotated, and random arrangement. Our results showed that even when participants were unaware of the transformation rules, accuracy of transfer session in the mirrored and rotated groups was higher than that in the random group (i.e., implicit transfer occurred). Both those who noticed the transformation rules and those who did not (i.e., explicit and implicit transfer instances, respectively) showed faster performance in the mirrored sequences than in the rotated sequences. Taken together, the present results suggest that people can use their implicit visuomotor knowledge to spatially transform sequences and that implicit transfers are modulated by a transformation cost, similar to that in explicit transfer.     

The effects of visual context and individual differences on perception and evaluation of modern art and graffiti art

Traditionally, artworks are seen as autonomous objects that stand (or should stand) on their own. However, at least since the emergence of Conceptual Art in the 1920s and Pop Art in the 1960s, art lacks any distinctive perceptual features that define it as such. Art, therefore, cannot be defined without reference to its context. Some studies have shown that context affects the evaluation of artworks, and that specific contexts (street for graffiti art, museum for modern art) elicit specific effects (Gartus & Leder, 2014). However, it is yet unclear how context changes perception and appreciation processes. In our study we measured eye-movements while participants (64 psychology undergraduates, 48% women) perceived and evaluated beauty, interest, emotional valence, as well as perceived style for modern art and graffiti art embedded into either museum or street contexts. For modern art, beauty and interest ratings were higher in a museum than in a street context, but context made no difference for the ratings of graffiti art. Importantly, we also found an interaction of context and individual interest in graffiti for beauty and interest ratings, as well as for number of fixations. Analyses of eye-movements also revealed that viewing times were in general significantly longer in museum than in street contexts. We conclude that context can have an important influence on aesthetic appreciation. However, some effects depend also on the style of the artworks and the individual art interests of the viewers.     

Event-method directed forgetting: Forgetting a video segment is more effortful than remembering it

Videos were presented depicting events such as baking cookies or cleaning a fish tank. Periodically, the video paused and an instruction to Remember (R) or Forget (F) the preceding video segment was presented; the video then resumed. Participants later responded more accurately to cued-recall questions (E1) and to true/false statements (E2–5) regarding R segments than F segments. This difference was larger for specific information (the woman added 3 cups of flour) than for general information (the woman added flour). Participants were also slower to detect visual probes presented following F instructions compared to those presented following R instructions. These findings suggest that intentional forgetting is an effortful process that can be performed even on segments of otherwise continuous events and that the result is a relatively impoverished representation of the unwanted information in memory.     

Parallel averaging of size is possible but range-limited: A reply to Marchant,Simons, and De Fockert

In their recent paper, Marchant, Simons, and De Fockert (2013) claimed that the ability to average between multiple items of different sizes is limited by small samples of arbitrarily attended members of a set. This claim is based on a finding that observers are good at representing the average when an ensemble includes only two sizes distributed among all items (regular sets), but their performance gets worse when the number of sizes increases with the number of items (irregular sets). We argue that an important factor not considered by Marchant et al. (2013) is the range of size variation that was much bigger in their irregular sets. We manipulated this factor across our experiments and found almost the same efficiency of averaging for both regular and irregular sets when the range was stabilized. Moreover, highly regular sets consisting only of small and large items (two-peaks distributions) were averaged with greater error than sets with small, large, and intermediate items, suggesting a segmentation threshold determining whether all variable items are perceived as a single ensemble or distinct subsets. Our results demonstrate that averaging can actually be parallel but the visual system has some difficulties with it when some items differ too much from others.     

A process-dissociation analysis of semantic illusions

We examine semantic illusions from a dual-process perspective according to which the processes that go into failing or succeeding to detect such illusions can be decomposed into controlled processes (checking the facts in the sentence against the information in memory) and automatic processes (the impression of truth that comes from the semantic associations between the elements in the sentence). These processes, we argue, make largely independent contributions to truth judgments about semantic-illusory sentences. The Process Dissociation Procedure was used to obtain estimates of these two kinds of processes. In Study 1, participants judged whether sentences were true or false while under high or low cognitive load. Cognitive load increased the rate of semantic illusions by specifically affecting controlled processing but not automatic processing. In Study 2, a previous paired-associate learning task also increased the rate of semantic illusions, but it did so by specifically affecting automatic processing, not controlled processing.     

Simultaneous interpretation selectively influences working memory and attentional networks

Recent research has shown that becoming an expert in a certain domain may lead to a transfer of the acquired skills to other domains requiring similar abilities. Thus, the cognitive skills acquired by professional interpreters after intensive training may also transfer to other domains. Simultaneous interpreters are known to develop high working memory capacity (e.g., Christoffels, de Groot, & Kroll, 2006; Signorelli, Haarmann, & Obler, 2012). However, little is known about transfer of other processes such us updating and some aspects of attention also involved in interpretation. In Experiment 1, we found that interpreters outperformed a control group in updating skills, as measured through a dual version of the n-back task (Jaeggi et al., 2007). In Experiment 2, use of the ANTI-V allowed us to reveal that interpreting differentially modulates the interactions between attentional networks. Thus, we found no group differences in conflict resolution, but the interaction between the alertness and orienting networks differed between interpreters and non-interpreters. Taken together, these results suggest that experience in simultaneous interpreting transfers to other domains, but this transfer seems specific to the cognitive processes more closely involved in the interpreting tasks.     

Differential impact of relevant and irrelevant dimension primes on rule-based and information-integration category learning

Research has identified multiple category-learning systems with each being “tuned” for learning categories with different task demands and each governed by different neurobiological systems. Rule-based (RB) classification involves testing verbalizable rules for category membership while information-integration (II) classification requires the implicit learning of stimulus–response mappings. In the first study to directly test rule priming with RB and II category learning, we investigated the influence of the availability of information presented at the beginning of the task. Participants viewed lines that varied in length, orientation, and position on the screen, and were primed to focus on stimulus dimensions that were relevant or irrelevant to the correct classification rule. In Experiment 1, we used an RB category structure, and in Experiment 2, we used an II category structure. Accuracy and model-based analyses suggested that a focus on relevant dimensions improves RB task performance later in learning while a focus on an irrelevant dimension improves II task performance early in learning.     

Simultaneous attentional guidance by working-memory and selection history reveals two distinct sources of attention

Recent theories of attention have proposed that selection history is a separate, dissociable source of information that influences attention. The current study sought to investigate the simultaneous involvement of selection history and working-memory on attention during visual search. Experiments 1 and 2 used target feature probability to manipulate selection history and found significant effects of both working-memory and selection history, although working-memory dominated selection history when they cued different locations. Experiment 3 eliminated the contribution of voluntary refreshing of working-memory and replicated the main effects, although selection history became dominant. Using the same methodology, but with reduced probability cue validity, both effects were present in Experiment 4 and did not significantly differ in their contribution to attention. Effects of selection history and working-memory never interacted. These results suggest that selection history and working-memory are separate influences on attention and have little impact on each other. Theoretical implications for models of attention are discussed.     

Individual differences in information order effects: The importance of right-hemisphere access in belief updating

The order in which information is received alters the evaluation of causal hypotheses. Specifically, research suggests that the last piece of information oftentimes has the greatest impact on the evaluation and that the difference in subjective value between two pieces of information is an important factor influencing the magnitude of this recency effect. The present paper extends this line of work by exploring individual differences in this phenomenon via one's degree of handedness. Two hundred and five participants were given two hypothetical scenarios and related causal hypotheses accompanied by two pieces of additional information and asked to revise their belief in each hypothesis as information accumulated. Results confirmed predictions that 1) inconsistent/mixed-handers (those who use their non-dominant hand for at least some activities) show a larger effect with two pieces of inconsistent weak or strong information, and 2) neither mixed-handers nor consistent/strong-handers (those who use their dominant hand for almost all activities) show an effect with strong and weak pieces of consistent information. Mixed-handers' susceptibility to persuasive arguments and Ramachandran’s (1995; Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998) belief-updating theory centered around communication between the two halves of the brain and functional access to the right hemisphere are used to account for these data.     

The role of working memory in achievement goal pursuit

The present research examined the role of working memory in the pursuit of qualitatively different achievement goals. Pursuit of a mastery-approach goal entails a focus on developing self-referential competence while a performance-approach goal entails a focus on demonstrating normative competence. Across two experiments it was found that, when working memory is loaded, individuals pursuing a mastery-approach goal experienced larger performance decrements than individuals pursuing a performance-approach goal or those in a no-goal control. It was also found that reliance upon working memory intensive strategies (explicit strategies) was more evident for those in a mastery-approach condition, whereas reliance upon less working memory intensive strategies (implicit strategies) was more evident for those in the performance-approach condition. Results suggest that a motivated focus on developing self-referential skill relies heavily on working memory, facilitated by the use of deliberative, ‘step-by-step’ strategies during goal pursuit. Conversely, a focus on demonstrating normative skill depends less on working memory, facilitated by the use of more heuristic ‘short-cut’ strategies during goal pursuit. These findings show, for the first time, that working memory plays an important, but selective, role in achievement goal pursuit.     

How verbs can activate things: cross-language activation across word classes

The present study explored whether language-nonselective access in bilinguals occurs across word classes in a sentence context. Dutch–English bilinguals were auditorily presented with English (L2) sentences while looking at a visual world. The sentences contained interlingual homophones from distinct lexical categories (e.g., the English verb spoke, which overlaps phonologically with the Dutch noun for ghost, spook). Eye movement recordings showed that depictions of referents of the Dutch (L1) nouns attracted more visual attention than unrelated distractor pictures in sentences containing homophones. This finding shows that native language objects are activated during second language verb processing despite the structural information provided by the sentence context.     

Sex differences in unfamiliar face identification: evidence from matching tasks

Research on sex differences in face recognition has reported mixed results, on balance suggesting an advantage for female observers. However, it is not clear whether this advantage is specific to face processing or reflects a more general superiority effect in episodic memory. The current study therefore examined sex differences with a face-matching task that eliminates memory demands. Across two experiments, female but not male observers showed an own-sex advantage on match trials, in which two pictures have to be identified as the same person. This advantage was present for whole faces and when only the internal or external facial features were shown. Female observers were also more accurate in these three conditions on mismatch encounters, in which two photographs have to be identified as different people, but this reflects a more general effect that is present for male and female faces. These findings converge with claims of a female advantage in face recognition and demonstrate that this effect persists when memory demands are eliminated.     

Modulating Fitts's Law: perceiving targets at the last placeholder

Fitts's Law predicts increasing movement times (MTs) with increasing movement amplitudes; however, when targets are placed in a structured perceptual array containing placeholders, MTs to targets in the last position are shorter than predicted. We conducted three experiments to determine if this modulation has a perceptual cause. Experiment 1, which used extremely diminished (three pixel) placeholders, showed that the modulation is not due to perceptual interference from neighboring placeholders. Experiment 2, which measured reaction times using a target detection task, showed that the modulation does not result from speeded perceptual processing at the last position of the array. Experiment 3, which measured accuracy using a masked letter-discrimination task, showed that the modulation does not result from the increased quality of perceptual representation at the last position of the array. Overall, these findings suggest that the changes in effectiveness of visual processing (less interference, speeded processing, and increased quality) at the last position in the perceptual array do not drive the modulation. Thus, while the locus of the Fitts's Law modulation appears to be in the movement planning stage, it is likely not due to perceptual mechanisms.