Now you see it, now you don't: repetition blindness for nonwords

Repetition blindness (RB) for nonwords has been found in some studies, but not in others. The authors propose that the discrepancy in results is fueled by participant strategy; specifically, when rapid serial visual presentation lists are short and participants are explicitly informed that some trials will contain repetitions, participants are able to use partial orthographic information to correctly guess repetitions on repetition trials while avoiding spurious repetition reports on control trials. The authors first replicated V. Coltheart and R. Langdon's (2003) finding of RB for words but repetition advantage for nonwords (Experiment 1). When all participants were encouraged to utilize partial information in a same/different matching task along with an identification task, a repetition advantage was observed for both words and nonwords (Experiment 2). When guessing of repetitions was made detectable by including non-identical but orthographically similar items in the experiments, the repetition advantage disappeared; instead, RB was found for both words and nonwords (Experiments 3 and 4). Finally, when experiments did not contain any identical items, participants almost never reported repetitions, and reliable RB was found for orthographically similar words and nonwords (Experiments 5 and 6).     

Now you see it, now you don't: evidence for age-dependent and age-independent cross-modal distraction

Age-related deficits in selective attention have often been demonstrated in the visual modality and, to a lesser extent, in the auditory modality. In contrast, a mounting body of evidence has suggested that cross-modal selective attention is intact in aging, especially in visual tasks that require ignoring the auditory modality. Our goal in this study was to investigate age-related differences in the ability to ignore cross-modal auditory and visual distraction and to assess the role of cognitive control demands thereby. In a set of two experiments, 30 young (mean age = 23.3 years) and 30 older adults (mean age = 67.7 years) performed a visual and an auditory n-back task (0 ≤ n ≤ 2), with and without cross-modal distraction. The results show an asymmetry in cross-modal distraction as a function of sensory modality and age: Whereas auditory distraction did not disrupt performance on the visual task in either age group, visual distraction disrupted performance on the auditory task in both age groups. Most important, however, visual distraction was disproportionately larger in older adults. These results suggest that age-related distraction is modality dependent, such that suppression of cross-modal auditory distraction is preserved and suppression of cross-modal visual distraction is impaired in aging.     

Now you see it; now you don't: inhibiting recall and recognition of scenes

Postevent misleading information can distort people's memories by altering and adding scenes. But can you also inhibit the retrieval of information from memory? In two studies we show that postevent information can make memory for a scene less accessible. In both studies participants first saw an event (e.g. a restaurant scene displayed in slides, or a drunk‐driving incident shown via a video clip). Later they were shown the same event without a critical scene and were told either to use this to generate a story (Experiment 1) or to imagine the event (Experiment 2). Finally they were tested. Relative to controls, this postevent omission led to fewer people reporting the critical scene in free recall and in recognition. Thus, we demonstrated that it may be possible to inhibit memories. This finding has important implications for eyewitness testimony and the recovered memory debate. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Now you see it,now you don't: Explaining inconsistent evidence on gender stereotyping of newborns

Parental gender‐stereotyped perceptions of newborns—particularly their physical characteristics—have been discussed as important determinants of sex role socialization from birth on. However, corresponding empirical evidence is inconclusive. We propose that inconsistent findings on gender‐correlated perceptions are due to whether or not actual physical differences between newborn girls and boys are properly (statistically or experimentally) taken into account. In our study, 55 mother–father pairs rated both their own and two unknown newborns, labeled either female or male. Although we successfully replicated the typical gender‐correlated perceptions of own newborns' physical characteristics, all effects were explainable by actual physical sex differences in length and weight at birth. Similarly, no gender‐specific rating differences emerged as a function of labeled gender of unknown children matched in actual physical characteristics. Altogether, the findings demonstrate the vital importance of considering existing sex differences between newborn girls and boys for drawing valid conclusions on gender stereotyping of newborns.     

Now you see it,now you don't: The context dependent nature of category-effects in visual object recognition

In two experiments, we test predictions regarding processing advantages/disadvantages for natural objects and artefacts in visual object recognition. Varying three important parameters—degree of perceptual differentiation, stimulus format, and stimulus exposure duration—we show how different category-effects can be provoked in normal subjects on the same task. We interpret the results in light of the Pre-semantic Account of Category Effects (PACE; Gerlach, 2009), and conclude that category-effects do not reflect absolute processing differences between categories. Rather, category-effects are products of common operations which are differentially affected by the structural similarity among objects (with natural objects being more structurally similar than artefacts). The potentially most important aspect of the present study is the demonstration that category-effects are very context dependent; an aspect which has been neglected in earlier literature on category-specificity. PACE provides a useful framework in this respect, as it specifies how category-effects are influenced by changes in task and stimulus characteristics.     

Now you see it, now you don't: controlling for contingencies and stimulus repetitions eliminates the Gratton effect

The Gratton (or sequential congruency) effect is the finding that conflict effects (e.g., Stroop and Eriksen flanker effects) are larger following congruent trials relative to incongruent trials. The standard account given for this is that a cognitive control mechanism detects conflict when it occurs and adapts to this conflict on the following trial. Others, however, have questioned the conflict adaptation account and suggested that sequential biases might account for the Gratton effect. In two experiments, contingency biases were removed from the task and stimulus repetitions were deleted to control for stimulus bindings. This eliminated the Gratton effect in the response times in both experiments, supporting a non-conflict explanation of the Gratton effect. A Gratton effect did persist in the errors of Experiment 1; however, this effect was not produced by the type of errors (word reading errors) that a conflict adaptation account should predict. Instead, tentative support was found for a congruency switch cost hypothesis. In all, the conflict adaptation account failed to account for any of the reported data. Implications for future work on cognitive control are discussed.     

Response-level probability effects on reaction time: Now you see them,now you don't

Many reaction time (RT) experiments have tested for response-level probability effects. Their results have been mixed, which is surprising because psychophysiological studies provide clear evidence of motor-level changes associated with an anticipated response. A survey of the designs used in the RT studies reveals many potential problems that could conceal the effects of response probability. We report five new RT experiments testing for response-level probability effects with the most promising of the previous designs—that of Blackman (1972 Blackman, A. R. 1972. Influence of stimulus and response probability on decision and movement latency in a discrete choice reaction task. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 92: 128–133. doi:10.1037/h0032169[Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar])—and with new designs. Some of these experiments yield evidence of response-level probability effects, but others do not. It appears that response-level probability effects are present primarily in simple tasks with a strong emphasis on response preparation, possibly because participants only expend effort on response preparation in these tasks.     

Now you see it, now you don't: explicit versus implicit measures of the personal/group discrimination discrepancy

When making explicit self-report ratings, members of status- and racial-minority groups report less personal experience with discrimination than that encountered by their group—a phenomenon called the personal/group discrimination discrepancy (PGDD). This study provides evidence, for the first time, that the PGDD may be, in part, a product of the procedure used to measure it. White women and men completed explicit and implicit measures of personal and group discrimination based on sex. The PGDD surfaced among women in the explicit measures, but not in the implicit measures. These findings suggest that explicit and implicit measures might provide different assessments of experience with discrimination.     

The interaction of word frequency and stimulus quality in the lexical decision task: Now you see it, now you don't

Two experiments are reported that examined the joint effects of word frequency and stimulus quality in the context of a lexical decision task. In the first experiment the interval between response to a stimulus and onset of the next stimulus was 0.8 sec, and the effect of the two factors was additive. In the second this interval was 3.3 sec, and the effect of reducing stimulus quality was greater for infrequent words than for frequent words. This is similar to the result of Norris (1984). The inability of current models of word recognition to explain this finding is discussed.     

Developmental reversals in false memory: now you see them, now you don't!

A developmental reversal in false memory is the counterintuitive phenomenon of higher levels of false memory in older children, adolescents, and adults than in younger children. The ability of verbatim memory to suppress this age trend in false memory was evaluated using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Seven and 11-year-old children studied DRM lists either in a standard condition (whole words) that normally produces high levels of false memory or in an alternative condition that should enhance verbatim memory (word fragments). Half the children took 1 recognition test, and the other half took 3 recognition tests. In the single-test condition, the typical age difference in false memory was found for the word condition (higher false memory for 11-year-olds than for 7-year-olds), but in the word fragment condition false memory was lower in the older children. In the word condition, false memory increased over successive recognition tests. Our findings are consistent with 2 principles of fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of false memories: (a) reliance on verbatim rather than gist memory causes such errors to decline with age, and (b) repeated testing increases reliance on gist memory in older children and adults who spontaneously connect meaning across events.     

On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don’t

We report two experiments exploring more in detail the bilingual advantage in conflict resolution tasks. In particular, we focus on the origin of the bilingual advantage on overall reaction times in the flanker task. Bilingual and monolingual participants were asked to perform a flanker task under different task versions. In Experiment 1, we used two low-monitoring versions where most of the trials were of just one type (either congruent or incongruent). In Experiment 2, we used two high-monitoring versions where congruent and incongruent trials were more evenly distributed. An effect of bilingualism in overall reaction times was only present in the high-monitoring condition. These results reveal that when the task at hand recruits a good deal of monitoring resources, bilinguals outperform monolinguals. This observation suggests that bilingualism may affect the monitoring processes involved in executive control.     

Now you see me,now you don't: evidence that chimpanzees understand the role of the eyes in attention

Chimpanzees appear to understand something about the attentional states of others; in the present experiment, we investigated whether they understand that the attentional state of a human is based on eye gaze. In all, 116 adult chimpanzees were offered food by an experimenter who engaged in one of the four experimental manipulations: eyes closed, eyes open, hand over eyes, and hand over mouth. The communicative behavior of the chimpanzees was observed. More visible behaviors were produced when the experimenter's eyes were visible than when the experimenter's eyes were not visible. More vocalizations were produced when the experimenter's eyes were closed than when they were open, but there were no differences in other attention getting behaviors. There was no effect of age or rearing history. The results suggest that chimpanzees use the presence of the eyes as a cue that their visual gestures will be effective.     

Response-level probability effects on reaction time: now you see them, now you don't

Many reaction time (RT) experiments have tested for response-level probability effects. Their results have been mixed, which is surprising because psychophysiological studies provide clear evidence of motor-level changes associated with an anticipated response. A survey of the designs used in the RT studies reveals many potential problems that could conceal the effects of response probability. We report five new RT experiments testing for response-level probability effects with the most promising of the previous designs-that of Blackman ( 1972 )-and with new designs. Some of these experiments yield evidence of response-level probability effects, but others do not. It appears that response-level probability effects are present primarily in simple tasks with a strong emphasis on response preparation, possibly because participants only expend effort on response preparation in these tasks.     

Now you feel it, now you don't: frontal brain electrical asymmetry and individual differences in emotion regulation

Recent theoretical accounts of emotion regulation assign an important role in this process to the prefrontal cortex, yet there is little relevant data available to support this hypothesis. The current study assessed the relation between individual differences in asymmetric prefrontal activation and an objective measure of uninstructed emotion regulation. Forty-seven participants 57 to 60 years old viewed emotionally arousing and neutral visual stimuli while eyeblink startle data were collected. Startle probes were also presented after picture presentation to capture the persistence or attenuation of affect following the offset of an emotional stimulus. Subjects with greater relative left-sided anterior activation in scalp-recorded brain electrical signals displayed attenuated startle magnitude after the offset of negative stimuli. This relation between resting frontal activation and recovery following an aversive event supports the idea of a frontally mediated mechanism involved in one form of automatic emotion regulation.     

Instructional manipulations and age differences in memory: now you see them, now you don't.

The instructions for most explicit memory tests use language that emphasizes the memorial component of the task. This language may put older adults at a disadvantage relative to younger adults because older adults believe that their memories have deteriorated. Consequently, typical explicit memory tests may overestimate age-related decline in cognitive performance. In 2 experiments, older and younger adults performed a memory test on newly learned trivia. In both experiments, age differences were obtained when the instructions emphasized the memory component of the task (memory emphasis) but not when the instructions did not emphasize memory (memory neutral). These findings suggest that aspects of the testing situation. such as experimental instructions, may exaggerate age differences in memory performance and need to be considered when designing studies investigating age differences in memory.     

Now I see it but you don't: 14-month-olds can represent another person's visual perspective

Twelve- and 14-month-old infants' ability to represent another person's visual perspective (Level-1 visual perspective taking) was studied in a looking-time paradigm. Fourteen-month-olds looked longer at a person reaching for and grasping a new object when the old goal-object was visible than when it was invisible to the person (but visible to the infant). These findings are consistent with the interpretation that infants 'rationalized' the person's reach for a new object when the old goal-object was out of sight. Twelve-month-olds did not distinguish between test conditions. The present findings are consistent with recent research on infants' developing understanding of seeing.     

Now you see it,now you don't--the confusing case of confusion as an emotion: commentary on Rozin and Cohen (2003)

P. Rozin and A. B. Cohen (2003) contend that confusion is an emotion because it is valenced, it has a distinct facial expression, and it has a distinct internal state. On the basis of these criteria, they call for further study of this unstudied stateand challenge emotion researchers to consider "confusion" to be an emotion. The author agrees with Rozin and Cohen (2003) that confusion is an affective state, is valenced, has an (internal) object, may be expressed facially, and that laypersons may, under certain circumstances, consider it an emotion. However, its expression is likely to be an expressive component of emotions for which goal obstruction is central. Further, confusion may also not be as commonly considered an emotion by laypersons, as Rozin and Cohen contend. Finally, confusion is not unstudied, only most of the time it is not emotion researchers who do the researching.