Motor Imagery Shapes Abstract Concepts

The concepts of “good” and “bad” are associated with right and left space. Individuals tend to associate good things with the side of their dominant hand, where they experience greater motor fluency, and bad things with their nondominant side. This mapping has been shown to be flexible: Changing the relative fluency of the hands, or even observing a change in someone else's motor fluency, results in a reversal of the conceptual mapping, such that good things become associated with the side of the nondominant hand. Yet, based on prior studies, it is unclear whether space–valence associations were determined by the experience of fluent versus disfluent actions, or by the mere expectation of fluency. Here, we tested the role of expected fluency by removing motor execution and perceptual feedback altogether. Participants were asked to imagine themselves performing a psychomotor task with one of their hands impaired, after which their implicit space–valence mapping was measured. After imagining that their right hand was impaired, right‐handed participants showed the “good is left” association typical of left‐handers. Motor imagery can change people's implicit associations between space and emotional valence. Although asymmetric motor experience may be necessary to establish body‐specific associations between space and valence initially, neither motoric nor perceptual experience is needed to change these associations subsequently. The mere expectation of fluent versus disfluenct actions can drive fluency‐based effects on people's implicit spatialization of “good” and “bad.” These results suggest a reconsideration of the mechanisms and boundary conditions of fluency effects.     

“右好左坏”和“左好右坏”——利手与左右空间情感效价的关联性

人们会将“右”和“左”与积极或消极的事物相关联,这称为左右空间的情感效价.以具身认知理论和躯体特异性假设为基础的研究发现,右利手会将右侧空间与积极事物相关联,而左利手则会将左侧空间与积极事物相关连;左右空间情感效价是由利手与非利手的运动经验塑造的;利手与非利手运动经验的改变则会反转左右空间情感效价;趋近动机脑功能偏侧化与利手是一致的.未来的研究应进一步澄清利手运动与趋近动机在神经机制上的关联性,并探索文化因素与身体经验如何共同塑造左右空间情感效价.     

公正世界信念对记忆偏差的影响

公正世界信念指人们需要相信他们所处的世界是一个公正有序的世界。本研究考察的是公正世界信念是否影响人们的记忆,让人产生记忆偏差。实验一中,被试首先阅读一则彩票中奖的新闻,然后阅读关于中奖者人品的描述,最后被试需要回忆中奖金额。结果发现,中奖者的个性品质影响对奖金数额的记忆。实验二中,两组被试分别阅读一则维护公正世界信念或威胁公正世界信念的无关故事,接下来程序与实验一相同。结果发现,预先激活的公正世界信念状态与中奖者个性品质在记忆结果上存在显著的交互效应。结果表明,公正世界信念能够导致记忆偏差。     

Action Perception and Outcome Valence: Effects on Children's Inferences of Intentionality and Moral and Liking Judgments

The influences of different action-outcome scenarios on children's evaluative judgments and inferences of outcome intentionality were assessed. One hundred forty-five kindergartners, 2nd graders, and 4th graders heard 4 stories about child actors who engaged in 1 action or 3 equifinal actions and caused a positive or negative outcome. The stories made no mention of the actors' anticipated outcome so that we could assess the children's inferences of whether the actors wanted and had tried to cause the outcome. Children also rated their liking for the actors and the actors' morality. Children's moral and liking judgments were not significantly differentiated by action condition. However, actors who caused positive outcomes received favorable liking and moral judgments, and actors who caused negative outcomes received neutral liking and moral judgments. Children's intentionality inferences varied by the actors' actions and were moderated by outcome valence. The authors discuss children's apparent use of the valence rule when inferring intentionality and their reluctance to judge harshly actors who cause negative outcomes when not privy to the actors' intentions.     

The effect of feedback training on distance estimation in virtual environments

It is often noted that distances are significantly underestimated in computer‐simulated (virtual) environments. Two experiments examine observers' ability to use error corrective feedback to improve the accuracy of judgments of egocentric and exocentric distances. In Experiment 1, observers viewed objects in an immersive virtual environment and estimated their distance through a blindfolded walking task. Different groups received feedback on either egocentric, exocentric or none of these judgments. Receiving feedback improved observers' ability to estimate only those distances for which feedback was provided. These effects persisted for at least 1 week. In Experiment 2, observers estimated egocentric distance by means of both a direct and indirect walking task. Receiving feedback on the direct walking task predominantly improved direct estimates and not indirect estimates. These findings suggest that although feedback training offers a relatively straightforward and immediate way of overcoming problems of distance estimation, its effects are specific to both the type of judgment and the type of response. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Human Function Compunction: Teleological explanation in adults

Research has found that children possess a broad bias in favor of teleological - or purpose-based - explanations of natural phenomena. The current two experiments explored whether adults implicitly possess a similar bias. In Study 1, undergraduates judged a series of statements as “good” (i.e., correct) or “bad” (i.e., incorrect) explanations for why different phenomena occur. Judgments occurred in one of three conditions: fast speeded, moderately speeded, or unspeeded. Participants in speeded conditions judged significantly more scientifically unwarranted teleological explanations as correct (e.g., “the sun radiates heat because warmth nurtures life”), but were not more error-prone on control items (e.g., unwarranted physical explanations such as “hills form because floodwater freezes”). Study 2 extended these findings by examining the relationship between different aspects of adults’ “promiscuous teleology” and other variables such as scientific knowledge, religious beliefs, and inhibitory control. Implications of these findings for scientific literacy are discussed.     

Pigeons can discriminate “good” and “bad” paintings by children

Humans have the unique ability to create art, but non-human animals may be able to discriminate “good” art from “bad” art. In this study, I investigated whether pigeons could be trained to discriminate between paintings that had been judged by humans as either “bad” or “good”. To do this, adult human observers first classified several children’s paintings as either “good” (beautiful) or “bad” (ugly). Using operant conditioning procedures, pigeons were then reinforced for pecking at “good” paintings. After the pigeons learned the discrimination task, they were presented with novel pictures of both “good” and “bad” children’s paintings to test whether they had successfully learned to discriminate between these two stimulus categories. The results showed that pigeons could discriminate novel “good” and “bad” paintings. Then, to determine which cues the subjects used for the discrimination, I conducted tests of the stimuli when the paintings were of reduced size or grayscale. In addition, I tested their ability to discriminate when the painting stimuli were mosaic and partial occluded. The pigeons maintained discrimination performance when the paintings were reduced in size. However, discrimination performance decreased when stimuli were presented as grayscale images or when a mosaic effect was applied to the original stimuli in order to disrupt spatial frequency. Thus, the pigeons used both color and pattern cues for their discrimination. The partial occlusion did not disrupt the discriminative behavior suggesting that the pigeons did not attend to particular parts, namely upper, lower, left or right half, of the paintings. These results suggest that the pigeons are capable of learning the concept of a stimulus class that humans name “good” pictures. The second experiment showed that pigeons learned to discriminate watercolor paintings from pastel paintings. The subjects showed generalization to novel paintings. Then, as the first experiment, size reduction test, grayscale test, mosaic processing test and partial occlusion test were carried out. The results suggest that the pigeons used both color and pattern cues for the discrimination and show that non-human animals, such as pigeons, can be trained to discriminate abstract visual stimuli, such as pictures and may also have the ability to learn the concept of “beauty” as defined by humans.     

The happy cyclist: Examining the association between generalized authoritarianism and subjective well-being

Although authoritarianism can negatively impact others (e.g., by predicting prejudiced intergroup attitudes), implications for the self are mixed and require clarification. Extending previous research, we examined the association between generalized authoritarianism (GA, indicated by right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) and subjective well-being (SWB, indicated by positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction) by testing simultaneously the general-level association between GA and SWB as well as specific residual associations between GA and SWB components, independent of basic personality dimensions. We observed a significant general-level association between GA and SWB whereby heightened authoritarianism predicted greater SWB. No residual associations were found between specific GA and SWB components. Despite being “bad” for others, generalized authoritarianism may be “good” for the self.     

THE MANAGEMENT OF FAILURE EVENTS: SOME CONTEXTUAL DETERMINANTS OF ACCOUNTING BEHAVIOR

This study sought to examine the impact upon actors' selection of strategies to manage failure events of several contextual factors: characteristics of the reproacher/actor relationship, communicative goal-orientation of the actors, severity of the failure event, character of the reproach for the failure event, and the actors' degree of expressed guilt. Results indicated that actors elected to make no response when they felt less guilt, when there was no overt reproach, when their instrumental goal (securing honoring) was unimportant, and when the failure event was a severe offense. Concessions were used when the reproachers said nothing or projected a concession, when the offense was severe, when the actors' instrumental goal was important, and when they felt guilty. Actors chose to justify their behavior in high intimate situations where their instrumental goal was less important. Refusal to account was most likely to occur when reproachers used an aggravating reproach form, when actors felt unjustly accused, and when reproachers were dominant. Excuses were fairly uniformly distributed across all contexts.     

Fostering Analytic Metacognitive Processes and Reducing Overconfidence by Disfluency: The Role of Contrast Effects

Overconfidence leads to premature termination of study and, thus, to decreased performance. The aim of the present study is to improve students' monitoring and control. We assume that disfluency fosters analytic metacognitive processes and thus reduces overconfidence. However, we expect that contrast effects moderate the fluency effects on metacognitive processes because disfluency activates analytic metacognitive processes not only for disfluent but also for succeeding fluent learning material. To test our hypotheses, university students (N = 75) learned either with a fluent text first and afterward a disfluent text or with a disfluent text first and afterward a fluent text. The results show fluency effects on control, monitoring, and monitoring accuracy only when students learned with a fluent and afterward a disfluent text. Performance was worse for disfluent than for fluent texts in both conditions. Therefore, instructional settings that help students to implement accurate monitoring into better control and better performance are required. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of justice motivation on memory for self- and other-relevant events

We examined whether people might distort and selectively remember the past in ways that enable them to sustain a belief in a just world (BJW; Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum Press). In Study 1, recall of a lottery prize reflected participants’ justice concerns, such that the average lottery amount recalled was lowest when a “bad” versus “good” person won. In Study 2, an unrelated experience of just world threat (versus affirmation) enhanced biased recall of the lottery prize when the winner was undeserving. In Study 3, participants who experienced a fortuitous bad break selectively remembered more bad deeds from their recent past, whereas participants who experienced a good break selectively remembered more good deeds. Study 4 demonstrates that such selective memory biases specifically serve to portray chance outcomes as more fair. Taken together, these findings offer support for the notion that reconstructing and selectively recalling the past can serve to sustain a BJW.     

College Students' Perceptions of a Psychotherapist's Treatment of a Religious Issue: Partial Replication and Extension

A study of the influence of a counselor's treatment of a client's religious values, observers' religiosity, and their interaction on observers' perceptions of counseling (Morrow, Worthington, & McCullough, 1992) was partially replicated and extended. Religious beliefs were differentiated from religious values as determinants of observers' perceptions of counseling. Student observers (N = 148) viewed one of two videotaped counseling interactions in which a counselor either supported or challenged a client's religious values. Dividing observers into high and low levels of Christian belief did not result in their perceiving religiously supportive or challenging counseling differently. Dividing observers into high and low levels of religious values produced consistent differences in how they perceived religiously supportive and challenging counseling. Findings supported the theory that people with strong religious values perceive counseling differently than people with weaker religious values.     

视觉观点采择中自我中心性偏差的抑制和归因之争

自我中心性偏差是社交失败的重要原因, 但其产生机制还存在争议。以往研究存在抑制性选择模型与流利性错误归因两种理论观点：前者认为对自身观点的抑制失败会导致自我中心性偏差; 后者则认为错误地选择自身更为流畅的信息会导致自我中心性偏差。为整合上述争论, 提出抑制-归因协同作用模型, 认为抑制和归因两种加工或可共同导致自我中心性偏差。未来研究应借助精巧的研究范式和特殊被试群体, 进一步验证该模型。     

Strength of Preference and Effects of Valence in the Domains of Gains and Losses

In comparative judgments that follow binary choices, judgments of “How much better is a preferred option?” and “How much worse is a less preferred option?” may differ in their magnitudes (“valence effects”). This paper analyzed cognitive processes that underlie positive valence effects (“Better” exceeding “Worse”) and negative valence effects (Worse exceeding Better). My analyses used a “focus shift model.” The focus shift model postulates that choice options are represented as sets of desirable and undesirable features. Difference judgments are reached by assigning subjective weights onto such features and integrating weighted feature contributions. Positive and negative valence effects reflect the differences in subjective weighting depending on valence of judgments. Experiments 1 through 3 showed that systematic positive valence effects were observed in the domain of gains, whereas negative valence effects were observed in the domain of losses. Estimates of subjective weights showed that valence effects occurred when participants heavily weighted desirable features in preferred options and undesirable features in less preferred options. These patterns of subjective weighting for positive and negative valence effects were consistent with the focus shift model. Data were more consistent with the focus shift model over alternative explanations of valence effects. Relationship with relevant economic and psychological phenomena are discussed.     

A Rich Landscape of Affordances

Mark (1987) reported that observers, whose sitting capabilities had been altered by having them wear 10-cm blocks, were able to discover their own maximum height of a surface that afforded sitting on (SHmax), in the absence of an opportunity to practice sitting while wearing blocks. The current investigation attempted to identify conditions under which returning of an observer's SHmax, occurred. Returning of SH@, judgments readily occurred when observers were able to locomote between trials (Experiment 1), and rotate their heads, lean forward and to the side while making their judgments (Experiments I-2). However, they were unable to retune their SHmax, when the viewing conditions restricted all but the most basic actions (Experiments 3-5). Observers' actions during and between trials also were critical to the accuracy of their judgments when they did not wear the blocks. Overall, these findings strongly implicate observers' own activities as crucial for revealing information about their own S@ under both conditions when they are and are not familiar with their own sitting capabilities. Experiment 6 bolstered this conclusion by showing that prior practice with the act of sitting was not sufficient to enable observers to retune their own SHmax, (block condition) or to perceive their own SHmax under familiar circumstances (no block).     

A pull versus push framework for reputation

Reputation is a powerful driver of human behavior. Reputation systems incentivize 'actors' to take reputation-enhancing actions, and 'evaluators' to reward actors with positive reputations by preferentially cooperating with them. This article proposes a reputation framework that centers the perspective of evaluators by suggesting that reputation systems can create two fundamentally different incentives for evaluators to reward positive reputations. Evaluators may be pulled towards 'good' actors to benefit directly from their reciprocal cooperation, or pushed to cooperate with such actors by normative pressure. I discuss how psychology and behavior might diverge under pull versus push mechanisms, and use this framework to deepen our understanding of the empirical reputation literature and suggest ways that we may better leverage reputation for social good.     

Focus of attention and causal attributions of actors and observers

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that actors' and observers' causal attributions are a function of their focus of attention. In the presence of observer-subjects, actor-subjects made a choice among several art works in a supposed decision-making study. The experiment was a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design with the factors (1) source of attribution (actors, observers); (2) camera (actor videotaped, actor not videotaped); and (3) situational stability (stable, dynamic environment). As predicted by the focus of attention-causal attribution notion, it was found that actors attributed more causality to the situation than observers under normal circumstances, when the camera was not operative, but that videotaping the actor reversed the usual actor-observer pattern such that actors attributed less causality to the situation than did observers. Further, when the environment was stable, actors attributed more causality to the situation in the no camera condition than in the camera condition, while observers attributed less to the situation in the no camera conditions than in the camera conditions. Additionally, both actors and observers attributed more causality to the situation when the environment was dynamic than when the environment was stable.     

Egocentric versus Allocentric Spatial Ability in Dentistry and Haptic Virtual Reality Training

The current study investigates the role of egocentric and allocentric spatial abilities in the field of dentistry. Whereas allocentric ability requires spatial transformation from a stationary point of reference, egocentric spatial ability is tied to the sensory‐motor system, and it requires changing one's imagined perspective in space. Experiment 1 investigates the role of different spatial abilities in a tooth preparation exercise. Experiment 2 investigates the interaction of allocentric and egocentric spatial abilities with the effectiveness of haptic virtual reality training. The results show that only egocentric spatial ability was a significant predictor of success in tooth preparation. In addition, an egocentric spatial ability test was the reliable predictor of success in more complex (indirect vision) tasks during haptic virtual reality training. Our results indicate the need for the development of finer measures of the specific spatial skills that might be needed for different dental specializations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lecturer fluency can impact students' judgments of learning and actual learning performance

The way in which information is presented can influence students' judgments of learning (JOLs). Carpenter, Wilford, Kornell, and Mullaney (2013) found that students reported higher JOLs after viewing a fluent lecturer (good speaker) versus a disfluent lecturer, whereas actual learning performance was unaffected by lecturer fluency. The current research sought to replicate Carpenter et al. (2013) and examine whether students could improve calibration of their JOLs if provided a second opportunity to do so over a different video. In three experiments, participants watched a video of a fluent or disfluent lecturer, made a JOL, completed a free-recall test, and then repeated this procedure with a second video. The fluent lecturer generally produced higher JOLs than the disfluent lecturer (for both videos) across all three experiments. However, fluency also had a positive impact on actual learning performance. These diverging results further illuminate the impact lecturer fluency can have on student learning.