Focused attention on one contextual attribute does not reduce source memory for a different attribute

In three experiments, participants were asked to learn a particular contextual dimension of a study episode for a later memory test. The hypothesis being evaluated was that focused attention towards learning a particular source‐specifying attribute would decrease memory for a different attribute dimension. Although source memory for the attribute dimensions in the focus of attention were generally improved, memory was not diminished for contextual attributes ostensibly outside the focus of primary attention. The absence of any decrease in memory appears to be a somewhat general phenomenon because it was found with external–external, internal–external, and internal–internal combinations of attribute dimensions. The results may be most consistent with a model of cognitive processing in which people have separate pools of attentional resources rather than a single pool of general resources.     

Mental models and the fan effect.

Explanations of data from fan effect experiments have been based on propositional network models. This article presents findings not readily predicted by such models. In particular, in three experiments we found that, during a speeded-recognition test, subjects retrieved facts about several objects associated with a single location faster than facts about several locations associated with a single object. Indeed, there was no fan effect in the former case despite the fact that there were an equivalent number of associations among concepts in both conditions. We suggest that such data are consistent with a mental model representational account.     

Focused attention on one contextual attribute does not reduce source memory for a different attribute

In three experiments, participants were asked to learn a particular contextual dimension of a study episode for a later memory test. The hypothesis being evaluated was that focused attention towards learning a particular source-specifying attribute would decrease memory for a different attribute dimension. Although source memory for the attribute dimensions in the focus of attention were generally improved, memory was not diminished for contextual attributes ostensibly outside the focus of primary attention. The absence of any decrease in memory appears to be a somewhat general phenomenon because it was found with external-external, internal-external, and internal-internal combinations of attribute dimensions. The results may be most consistent with a model of cognitive processing in which people have separate pools of attentional resources rather than a single pool of general resources.     

时间压力的双刃效应及其作用机制

时间压力是现代社会中人们经常面对的重要问题。以往研究认为时间压力只会产生消极影响, 然而现有研究发现时间压力也会产生积极影响。总结以往研究, 介绍了时间压力的概念和测量方式, 分别阐述了时间压力的损耗作用和促进作用, 并用注意焦点理论、激活理论、维生素模型和挑战?阻碍模型等理论解释时间压力的双刃效应。未来研究应该进一步关注：(1)基于时间心理账户开展时间压力的分类研究; (2)时间压力促进作用的动机和情绪双路径机制; (3)探寻有效缓解时间压力损耗作用的机制。     

You Are What They Eat: The Influence of Reference Groups on Consumers’ Connections to Brands

The set of associations consumers have about a brand is an important component of brand equity. In this article, we focus on reference groups as a source of brand associations, which can be linked to one's mental representation of self to meet self‐verification or self‐enhancement goals. We conceptualize this linkage at an aggregate level in terms of self‐brand connections, that is, the extent to which individuals have incorporated a brand into their self‐concept. In 2 studies, we show that brands used by member groups and aspiration groups can become connected to consumers’ mental representation of self as they use these brands to define and create their self‐concepts. Results from Experiment 1 show that the degree to which member group and aspiration group usage influences individual self‐brand connections is contingent on the degree to which the individual belongs to a member group or wishes to belong to an aspiration group. In Experiment 2, we found that for individuals with self‐enhancement goals, aspiration group brand use has a greater impact on self‐brand connections; for individuals with self‐verification goals, on the other hand, member group use has a greater impact.     

Mental models and deduction

According to the mental-model theory of deductive reasoning, reasoners use the meanings of assertions together with general knowledge to construct mental models of the possibilities compatible with the premises. Each model represents what is true in a possibility. A conclusion is held to be valid if it holds in all the models of the premises. Recent evidence described here shows that the fewer models an inference calls for, the easier the inference is. Errors arise because reasoners fail to consider all possible models, and because models do not normally represent what is false, even though reasoners can construct counterexamples to refute invalid conclusions.     

Do Narrative Engagement and Recipients’ Thoughts Explain the Impact of an Entertainment-Education Narrative on Discouraging Binge Drinking?

Previous research suggests that narrative engagement (NE) in entertainment-education (E-E) narratives reduces counterarguing, thereby leading to E-E impact on behavior. It is, however, unclear how different NE processes (narrative understanding, attentional focus, emotional engagement, narrative presence) relate to different thought types (negative or positive; about the narrative form or about the target behavior) and to E-E impact. This study explores these relations in the context of alcohol binge drinking (BD). Participants (N = 172) watched an E-E narrative showing negative BD consequences, thereby aiming to discourage BD. The main findings were that the E-E narrative had a positive impact on discouraging BD on almost all assessed BD determinants such as beliefs and attitude. It was shown that attentional focus, emotional engagement, and narrative presence were associated with BD-discouraging impact, albeit on different BD-related determinants. No evidence was found that negative thoughts about BD mediated these associations. From this, we conclude that attentional focus, emotional engagement, and narrative presence were important for E-E impact but that negative thoughts about BD did not play a role therein. The study’s empirical and practical implications are discussed.     

Size of the attentional focus and efficiency of processing

By following Eriksen and St. James (1986) the experiments reported in this study focused upon three questions: (a) Can the spatial extent of the attentional focus be made to vary in response to precues? (b) As the area of the attentional focus increases, is there a decrease in processing efficiency for stimuli within the focus? (c) Is the boundary of the focus sharply demarked from the residual field or does it show a gradual dropoff? The results seem to provide answers to these questions: (a) the size of the attentional focus can be adjusted so that it covers areas of the visual field of different size; (b) there is a decrease in processing efficiency when the area of the attentional focus increases; and (c) there is a gradual dropoff in processing efficiency around the attentional focus.     

The self regulatory effect of attentional control in modulating the relationship between attentional biases toward threat and anxiety symptoms in children

The present study examined the associations between attentional biases to threat, attentional control and anxiety in a sample of children aged 9 to 14. It was hypothesised that the association between attentional biases toward threat and anxiety might be stronger when the ability to control attention is reduced. The study employed pictures of neutral, happy and angry facial expressions as they have greater ecological value compared to words. Children completed a dot-probe task measuring attentional biases toward such stimuli. They also completed the Spence child anxiety scale for anxiety symptoms and, for attentional control, the child version of the attention control scale measuring the ability to focus and shift attention. Results of a hierarchical regression analysis showed that attentional control significantly explained anxiety. Furthermore, the interaction between attentional control and attentional biases significantly explained anxiety level. These results indicate that attentional control moderates the relation between attentional biases toward threatening facial expressions and anxiety in children. Additionally, a discussion about a possible protective role of attentional control is provided.     

The Effect of Positive Rumination Training on Mental Health and Attentional Bias

To examine the effect of positive rumination training on mental health and attentional bias, 32 college freshmen with low level of mental health were recruited and assigned to the experimental and waitlist control groups, 16 participants in each group. The experimental group received a 8-session group counseling with 2 h per session. Results showed that positive rumination increased while negative rumination, depression and anxiety decreased significantly for the experimental group. For the waitlist control group, all these indicators did not change significantly. The attention engagement in sad faces of the experimental group decreased significantly while other indicators of attentional bias did not change. The results indicate that group positive rumination training can improve mental health. But further research is needed to examine its effect on attentional bias.

     

Practice variability promotes an external focus of attention and enhances motor skill learning

Variability in practice has been shown to enhance motor skill learning. Benefits of practice variability have been attributed to motor schema formation (variable versus constant practice), or more effortful information processing (random versus blocked practice). We hypothesized that, among other mechanisms, greater practice variability might promote an external focus of attention on the intended movement effect, while less variability would be more conducive to a less effective internal focus on body movements. In Experiment 1, the learning of a throwing task was enhanced by variable versus constant practice, and variable group participants reported focusing more on the distance to the target (external focus), while constant group participants focused more on their posture (internal focus). In Experiment 2, golf putting was learned more effectively with a random compared with a blocked practice schedule. Furthermore, random group learners reported using a more effective distal external focus (i.e., distance to the target) to a greater extent, whereas blocked group participants used a less effective proximal focus (i.e., putter) more often. While attentional focus was assessed through questionnaires in the first two experiments, learners in Experiment 3 were asked to report their current attentional focus at any time during practice. Again, the learning of a throwing task was more effective after random relative to blocked practice. Also, random practice learners reported using more external focus cues, while in blocked practice participants used more internal focus cues. The findings suggest that the attentional foci induced by different practice schedules might be at least partially responsible for the learning differences.     

Children's understanding of belief as a normative concept

The variety of accounts of theory of mind development, arising from distinct theoretical perspectives, have focused on children's causal-explanatory views on the mind and have not developed accounts of children's normative judgments of the mental domain. This review maintains that such a focus is unfortunate and leaves our understanding of belief as a concept incomplete. First, by presenting an alternative framework that treats belief as a normative concept, this account discusses the central importance of children's understanding of epistemic justification and their appreciation of the normative significance of others’ reasons for belief. Next, this review of the relevant theory of mind literature proposes a new way of thinking about the findings of various domains in this field and gives particular attention to prior work on false belief, origins or sources of belief, and the distinctions between fantastical and epistemic states. On the basis of this review, it is concluded that in order to accurately assess the development of the concept of belief, further research is required on children's views of how beliefs ought to be formed, their evaluation of justified and unjustified believers, and the notions of duty or responsibility they associate with epistemic agents.     

The scaling of spatial attention in visual search and its modification in healthy aging

A model of visual search (Greenwood & Parasuraman, 1999) postulating that visuospatial attention is composed of two processing components--shifting and scaling of a variable-gradient attentional focus--was tested in three experiments. Whereas young participants are able to dynamically constrict or expand the focus of visuospatial attention on the basis of prior information, in healthy aging individuals visuospatial attention becomes a poorly focused beam, unable to be constricted around one array element. In the present work, we sought to examine predictions of this view in healthy young and older participants. An attentional focus constricted in response to an element-sized precue had the strongest facilitatory effect on visual search. However, this was true only when the precue correctly indicated the location of a target fixed in size. When precues incorrectly indicated target location or when target size varied, the optimal spatial scale of attention for search was larger, encompassing a number of array elements. Healthy aging altered the deployment of attentional scaling: The benefit of valid precues on search initially (in participants 65-74 years of age) was increased but later (in those 75-85 years of age) was reduced. The results also provided evidence that cue size effects are attentional, not strategic. This evidence is consistent with the proposed model of attentional scaling in visual search.     

The Relation Between Parental Mental Illness and Adolescent Mental Health: The Role of Family Factors

Children of parents with a mental illness are often found to be at high risk of developing psychological problems themselves. Little is known about the role of family factors in the relation between parental and adolescent mental health. The current study focused on parent–child interaction and family environment. This cross-sectional questionnaire study included 124 families with a mentally ill parent and 127 families without a mentally ill parent who at the time of the study had children aged 11–16 years old. Parents completed questionnaires about their mental health, parent–child interaction (i.e., parental monitoring and parental support), and family environment (i.e., cohesion, expressiveness, and conflict). Adolescents reported their internalizing and externalizing problems. Path analyses were used to examine the direct associations between parental mental illness and adolescent problems as well as the indirect relations via parent–child interaction and family environment. The results showed that interaction between parents with a mental illness and their child was significantly worse compared to parents without a mental illness. The family environment of parents with mental illness was also more negative. Mentally ill parents monitored their adolescents less, which in turn related to more externalizing problems of the adolescents. No factors mediated the relation between parental mental health and adolescent internalizing problems. Moreover, no direct effects of parental support, family cohesion, and family expressiveness with externalizing problems were found. These findings imply that parental monitoring should get a specific focus of attention in existing interventions designed to prevent adolescents with a mentally ill parent from developing problems.     

Process, not representation: reply to Radvansky (1999).

The size of fan effects is determined by processes at retrieval, not by whether or not information is represented as situations. Evidence contradicts G. A. Radvansky's (1999) claim that time to retrieve information from a situation does not depend on the number of elements in the situation. Moreover, Radvansky's principles for ascribing situational models to experiments appear to be post hoc ways of redescribing the data. On the other hand, the evidence does support the Adaptive Control of Thought--Rational (ACT-R) assumption that participants can adjust their attentional weightings and so produce differential fan effects. Moreover, the ACT-R theory of the fan effect is consistent with many other findings.     

Interpersonal self‐support and attentional bias on negative and positive interpersonal information

Interpersonal self‐support is an indigenous Chinese personality concept. It represents the idealized notion of the kind of personality traits that help individuals deal with interpersonal problems and develop and maintain the harmonic and appropriate social relationships required in China's collectivistic and interdependent culture. It also was assumed to be a protective personality factor with regard to mental health and was found to be negatively related to psychosomatic symptoms. In the current study, cognitive processing of interpersonal information is assumed to be an underlying mechanism that connects interpersonal self‐support with interpersonal relationships and mental health. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two experiments to investigate whether attentional bias on positive and negative interpersonal information was related to high and low interpersonal self‐support. A spatial cueing task and the emotional Stroop task were administered to two samples of high and low interpersonal self‐support Chinese undergraduate students to measure attentional bias. The results from both experiments suggested that high interpersonal self‐support students had an attentional bias toward positive interpersonal information, while low interpersonal self‐support students preferentially attended to negative interpersonal information. Study 1 indicated that attentional bias toward positive interpersonal information was easily engaged in the high interpersonal self‐support group, while attentional bias toward negative interpersonal information was both easy to engage and difficult to disengage in the low interpersonal self‐support students. These results support our hypotheses that high interpersonal self‐support people engage in positive processing of interpersonal information, whereas low interpersonal self‐support people engage in negative processing of interpersonal information. The differential balance between positive and negative processing on interpersonal information may explain why interpersonal self‐support predicts both mental health and interpersonal relationships. In addition, the relational schema may explain why interpersonal self‐support is associated with an attentional bias toward interpersonal information.     

Regulatory Focus Theory: Implications for the Study of Emotions at Work

Previous theory and research have shown that people have two distinct self-regulatory foci. When promotion focused, people are motivated by growth and development needs in which they attempt to bring their actual selves (their behaviors and self-conceptions) in alignment with their ideal selves (self-standards based on wishes and aspirations of how they would like to be). When prevention focused, people are responsive to security needs in which they try to match their actual selves with their ought selves (self-standards based on felt duties and responsibilities). Strategically, eagerness or ensuring gains predominate for promotion-focused persons, whereas vigilance or ensuring nonlosses predominate for prevention-focused persons. People's regulatory focus influences the nature and magnitude of their emotional experience. Promotion-focused people's emotions vary along a cheerful-dejected dimension, whereas prevention-focused people's emotions vary along a quiescent-agitated dimension. We consider the implications of the relationship between regulatory focus and emotions for such topics as person/organization fit, goal-setting theory, expectancy-valence theory, behavioral decision theory, and employee resistance to organizational change. Possible antecedents of employees' regulatory focus also are discussed.     

Inhibition,unusual perceptual experiences and psychoticism

The dimensional approach to psychosis suggests that research should focus on the performance of psychiatrically normal individuals on measures derived from the study of psychosis. Recent theories of schizophrenia postulate a defect at the interface of preconscious/conscious processes. Such a defect could occur as a result of some disturbance in inhibitory attentional mechanisms. A group of normal S's were assessed on three measures; (a) a priming task measuring inhibition, (b) a perceptual task, the verbal transformation effect, and (c) a number of questionnaires of relevance to the psychoticism dimension. As predicted low inhibition was correlated with unusual experiences on the perceptual task. Each of these measures correlated with a questionnaire measure of predisposition to hallucinations, but not with the other measures of psychoticism. No correlations with other personality variables as assessed by the EPQ were found.