Pay attention! Attention to the primes increases attitude assessment accuracy

We demonstrate that an oft-used indirect attitude assessment technique—the attitude activation paradigm—accurately assesses attitudes only when participants attend to the prime stimuli during the attitude activation task. Attitude activation attitudes toward obviously valenced words (e.g., torture, liberty) were more sensitive to attitude valence and extremity when participants were required to attend to the prime words than when they attended to a competing stimulus. As a result, we observed a significantly stronger correlation between attitude activation attitudes and a direct, self-report attitude measure when participants attended to the primes than when they ignored them. We conclude that failing to require participants to attend to the primes during the attitude activation task results in a flawed measurement, which could lead researchers to underestimate relations between the attitude activation measure and direct, self-report attitude measures.     

关注民生 促进和谐

早春三月,初露新容。肩负着责任和重托的人大代表和政协委员齐聚首都,参加全国人大和全国政协十届五次会议,共议国是,胜利完成各项预定议程。我们同全国各族人民一道,热烈祝贺两会取得圆满成功!     

重视道经研读传扬道教文化

欣逢盛世 ,中国道教协会和中国社会科学院道家道教研究中心、华夏出版社于 1996年组织发起对道藏经典进行整理编校 ,编修成一部新的传统而实用的道藏 ,定名为《中华道藏》 ,这是继明正续道藏经编纂以来新的一次大规模整理 ,是盛世修典传统的继续 ,得到了教内外的大力支持。本人有幸参与并受命组织这件为道教界和社科文化界关注的大事 ,这对我来说不仅是荣幸和责任 ,更重要的是使我对道藏和道教经书有了更多的了解和进一步的认识 ,在这五年多的时间里 ,《中华道藏》整理编校工作已近完成。所见所闻 ,不仅使自己从中增长了见识 ,也使我感到自…     

How to keep attention from straying: Get engaged!

Previous research has suggested that the involuntary allocation of spatial attention to salient, irrelevant stimuli (i.e., attentional capture) is prevented when attention is in a focused state (e.g., Yantis & Jonides, 1990). Recent work has suggested that although focused attention may be necessary to prevent attentional capture by irrelevant stimuli, it is not sufficient (e.g., Folk, Leber, & Egeth, 2002). The present experiments provide evidence that attentional engagement, rather than attentional focusing, prevents capture. Observers performed a rapid serial visual presentation task in which they were asked to identify a target letter defined by color. Peripheral distractors that shared the color of the target produced evidence of attentional capture. This effect was completely eliminated, however, when the peripheral distractor was preceded by a central distractor designed to engage attention on the stream. It is concluded that attentional engagement serves to lock out capture by irrelevant, salient stimuli.     

It's alive! animate motion captures visual attention

Across humans' evolutionary history, detecting animate entities in the visual field (such as prey and predators) has been critical for survival. One of the defining features of animals is their motion-self-propelled and self-directed. Does such animate motion capture visual attention? To answer this question, we compared the time to detect targets involving objects that were moving predictably as a result of collisions (inanimate motion) with the time to detect targets involving objects that were moving unpredictably, having been in no such collisions (animate motion). Across six experiments, we consistently found that targets involving objects that underwent animate motion were responded to more quickly than targets involving objects that underwent inanimate motion. Moreover, these speeded responses appeared to be due to the perceived animacy of the objects, rather than due to their uniqueness in the display or involvement of a top-down strategy. We conclude that animate motion does indeed capture visual attention.     

Now,Pay Attention! The Effects of Instruction on Children's Attention

We investigated the effects of instructions to “stay on task” on preschoolers' attention and cognitive performance in the face of either incomprehensible or comprehensible distraction. Three- and 4-year-olds completed problem-solving tasks while a distracting event played continuously in the background under conditions of a) no instruction, b) moderate instruction, or c) frequent instruction to “stay on task.” Under conditions where an incomprehensible distractor was present, any amount of instruction reduced looking to the distracting event. Under conditions where a comprehensible distractor was present, however, frequent instruction was the most effective in increasing looking to the task and decreasing looking to the distracting event.     

Watch out! Directional threat-related postures cue attention and the eyes

Previous work indicates that threatening facial expressions with averted eye gaze can act as a signal of imminent danger, enhancing attentional orienting in the gazed-at direction. However, this threat-related gaze-cueing effect is only present in individuals reporting high levels of anxiety. The present study used eye tracking to investigate whether additional directional social cues, such as averted angry and fearful human body postures, not only cue attention, but also the eyes. The data show that although body direction did not predict target location, anxious individuals made faster eye movements when fearful or angry postures were facing towards (congruent condition) rather than away (incongruent condition) from peripheral targets. Our results provide evidence for attentional cueing in response to threat-related directional body postures in those with anxiety. This suggests that for such individuals, attention is guided by threatening social stimuli in ways that can influence and bias eye movement behaviour.     

"Shhh! We're tryin' to concentrate": attention and environmental distracters in novel word learning

The authors' purpose in this study was to evaluate the role of attention, as a central dimension of temperament, in children's real-time acquisition of novel vocabulary. Environmental distractions were administered to 47 22-month-old children as they acquired novel vocabulary in a fast-mapping task. Two distraction conditions impeded novel word acquisition, but only 1 impeded attention allocation. Attention allocation was correlated with novel word acquisition under conditions of distraction, but not in their absence. Results suggest that attention allocation is especially important for word learning under conditions of distraction. Given that in their day-to-day lives children often encounter new words amid a host of environmental distractions, children with constitutionally fewer attentional resources, such as temperamentally difficult children, may be at a vocabulary-learning disadvantage.     

关注健康的公平性

经济学的分析方法可以分为实证分析和规范分析.实证分析研究经济现象的实际情况,回答客观事物是什么的问题;规范分析研究如何处理和解决经济问题,回答应该怎么办的问题.所以,规范分析就是决策分析,宏观的决策分析就是政策分析.政策分析的基本规范原则是效率、公平和稳定.效率和公平似乎是一对矛盾,稳定的原则似乎可以协调效率和公平的关系.但是,从根本上说,上述三个原则是统一的,从人类发展目标出发可以把他们统一起来.     

Paying attention to meaning

Abstract— Several paradigms show that responses to one event compromise responses to a second event for around 500 ms. Such effects are generally attributed to attentional capacity limitations associated with processing information in the first event. In a task in which targets could be distinguished only by their meaning, we varied the semantic relationship between distractors and targets following at different lags. Semantic relatedness alone produced a classic attentional blink. We conclude by discussing how attention theory might best accommodate these new effects.     

Paying attention to consciousness

Despite being much studied by cognitive neuroscience, consciousness has resisted attempts to understand it. Recent neuroscientific papers on the problem have surprisingly neglected attention as a guide to consciousness. A new neural mechanism is proposed here, guided by a control approach to attention, which identifies the source of consciousness, especially that of the ownership of experience.     

Music draws attention to the left and speech draws attention to the right

Providing free-field music input prompts right-handers to attend to their left side in a loudness-matching task that requires no musical analysis. Conversely, speech prompts rightward attention. The processes inferred are akin to the attentional asymmetry demonstrated in the syndrome of hemispatial neglect.