The consequences of language proficiency and difficulty of lexical access for translation performance and priming

Repetition priming was used to assess how proficiency and the ease or difficulty of lexical access influence bilingual translation. Two experiments, conducted at different universities with different Spanish–English bilingual populations and materials, showed repetition priming in word translation for same-direction and different-direction repetitions. Experiment 1, conducted in an English-dominant environment, revealed an effect of translation direction but not of direction match, whereas Experiment 2, conducted in a more balanced bilingual environment, showed an effect of direction match but not of translation direction. A combined analysis on the items common to both studies revealed that bilingual proficiency was negatively associated with response time (RT), priming, and the degree of translation asymmetry in RTs and priming. An item analysis showed that item difficulty was positively associated with RTs, priming, and the benefit of same-direction over different-direction repetition. Thus, although both participant accuracy and item accuracy are indices of learning, they have distinct effects on translation RTs and on the learning that is captured by the repetition-priming paradigm.     

Components of competitor priming in task switching

Executing an action in response to a stimulus is thought to result in the creation of an event code that integrates stimulus and action features (Allport, 1987; Hommel in Visual Cognition 5: 183-216, 1998). When switching between tasks, competitor priming occurs if a distractor stimulus cues the retrieval of a previously established event code in which that distractor is bound to a competing task, creating a source of interference with the current task whereby the observer is encouraged to apply the competing task to the distractor. We propose a second aspect of competitor priming: the misapplication of the retrieved competing task to the target stimulus. We report two task-switching experiments in which tasks applied to picture-word compound stimuli were manipulated to create conditions in which this second aspect of competitor priming could be revealed and distinguished from other sources of task- and stimulus-based priming. A substantial increase in competitor priming was observed when subjects switched between tasks that required very different processing operations and the competing task was highly relevant to the target stimulus. These results are consistent with our claim that competitor priming can result from applying the competing task either to the distractor that cued it or to the target stimulus.     

Modulation of additive and interactive effects by trial history revisited

Masson and Kliegl (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 898–914, 2013) reported evidence that the nature of the target stimulus on the previous trial of a lexical decision task modulates the effects of independent variables on the current trial, including additive versus interactive effects of word frequency and stimulus quality. In contrast, recent reanalyses of previously published data from experiments that, unlike the Masson and Kliegl experiments, did not include semantic priming as a factor, found no evidence for modulation of additive effects of frequency and stimulus quality by trial history (Balota, Aschenbrenner, & Yap, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 1563–1571, 2013; O’Malley & Besner, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 1400–1411, 2013). We report two experiments that included semantic priming as a factor and that attempted to replicate the modulatory effects found by Masson and Kliegl. In neither experiment was additivity of frequency and stimulus quality modulated by trial history, converging with the findings reported by Balota et al. and O’Malley and Besner. Other modulatory influences of trial history, however, were replicated in the new experiments and reflect potential trial-by-trial alterations in decision processes.     

Multiple attentional control settings at distinct locations without the confounding of repetition priming

An attentional control setting (ACS), which is based on the task goal, induces involuntary attentional capture by a stimulus possessing a target-defining feature. It is unclear whether ACSs are maintained for multiple targets defined as conjunctions of a color and location. In the present study we examined the possibility of local ACSs for dual targets defined as combinations of color and location, using different paradigms: visual search in Experiment 1, and spatial cueing in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, a distractor captured attention only when its features matched the ACSs. Likewise, in Experiment 2, a significant attentional capture effect was found only with a matching cue, whose color and location were in line with the conjunction of the target definition. Importantly, the identical pattern of attentional capture was also obtained for a neutral-color target, which was unlikely to be primed by any color of the cue. Thus, these findings imply that the attentional bias depending on the match between the cue and target did not result from cue–target repetition priming. The present study highlights that top-down attentional control can be set flexibly to accomplish a complex task goal efficiently.     

Just one look: Direct gaze briefly disrupts visual working memory

Direct gaze is a salient social cue that affords rapid detection. A body of research suggests that direct gaze enhances performance on memory tasks (e.g., Hood, Macrae, Cole-Davies, & Dias, Developmental Science, 1, 67–71, 2003). Nonetheless, other studies highlight the disruptive effect direct gaze has on concurrent cognitive processes (e.g., Conty, Gimmig, Belletier, George, & Huguet, Cognition, 115(1), 133–139, 2010). This discrepancy raises questions about the effects direct gaze may have on concurrent memory tasks. We addressed this topic by employing a change detection paradigm, where participants retained information about the color of small sets of agents. Experiment 1 revealed that, despite the irrelevance of the agents’ eye gaze to the memory task at hand, participants were worse at detecting changes when the agents looked directly at them compared to when the agents looked away. Experiment 2 showed that the disruptive effect was relatively short-lived. Prolonged presentation of direct gaze led to recovery from the initial disruption, rather than a sustained disruption on change detection performance. The present study provides the first evidence that direct gaze impairs visual working memory with a rapidly-developing yet short-lived effect even when there is no need to attend to agents’ gaze.     

Training and the attentional blink: Raising the ceiling does not remove the limits

The attentional blink (AB) is a widely studied deficit in reporting the second of two sequentially presented targets when they occur within 500 milliseconds. The AB often is interpreted to index a structural limit in sequential visual processing. However, this interpretation is challenged by reports that the deficit can be reduced with several hundred trials of specific training (Braun in Nature, 393(6684), 424–425, 1998; Choi et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(30), 12242–12247, 2012; Taatgen et al. in Cognitive Psychology, 59(1), 1–29, 2009) and other reports that some individuals experience very little or no deficit, even without specific training (Martens et al. in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18(9), 1423-1438, 2006). Yet neither of these claims has been studied when the artifact of ceiling effects has been removed. We sent a small number of participants (n = 5) home to practice an AB task on their mobile phones for 3,000-6,000 trials (Experiment 1) and trained a much larger number of participants (n = 48) in a similar way for 1,200-1,800 trials (Experiment 2). Both experiments used adaptive procedures to equate task difficulty throughout training to keep second-target accuracy below ceiling levels. The results showed strong training effects on the rate of processing sequential information. Despite this, there were (a) robust AB effects after training for most participants, (b) no benefit for training on difficult versus easy target tasks, and (c) substantial correlations between the magnitude of the AB before and after extensive training. These findings support the interpretation that the AB is an index of a structural limit in the ability to consciously process rapid visual sequences.     

Categorical templates are more useful when features are consistent: Evidence from eye movements during search for societally important vehicles

Unlike in laboratory visual search tasks—wherein participants are typically presented with a pictorial representation of the item they are asked to seek out—in real-world searches, the observer rarely has veridical knowledge of the visual features that define their target. During categorical search, observers look for any instance of a categorically defined target (e.g., helping a family member look for their mobile phone). In these circumstances, people may not have information about noncritical features (e.g., the phone’s color), and must instead create a broad mental representation using the features that define (or are typical of) the category of objects they are seeking out (e.g., modern phones are typically rectangular and thin). In the current investigation (Experiment 1), using a categorical visual search task, we add to the body of evidence suggesting that categorical templates are effective enough to conduct efficient visual searches. When color information was available (Experiment 1a), attentional guidance, attention restriction, and object identification were enhanced when participants looked for categories with consistent features (e.g., ambulances) relative to categories with more variable features (e.g., sedans). When color information was removed (Experiment 1b), attention benefits disappeared, but object recognition was still better for feature-consistent target categories. In Experiment 2, we empirically validated the relative homogeneity of our societally important vehicle stimuli. Taken together, our results are in line with a category-consistent view of categorical target templates (Yu, Maxfield, & Zelinsky in, Psychological Science, 2016. doi: 10.1177/0956797616640237), and suggest that when features of a category are consistent and predictable, searchers can create mental representations that allow for the efficient guidance and restriction of attention as well as swift object identification.     

Dimension- and space-based intertrial effects in visual pop-out search: modulation by task demands for focal-attentional processing

Two experiments compared reaction times (RTs) in visual search for singleton feature targets defined, variably across trials, in either the color or the orientation dimension. Experiment 1 required observers to simply discern target presence versus absence (simple-detection task); Experiment 2 required them to respond to a detection-irrelevant form attribute of the target (compound-search task). Experiment 1 revealed a marked dimensional intertrial effect of 34 ms for an target defined in a changed versus a repeated dimension, and an intertrial target distance effect, with an 4-ms increase in RTs (per unit of distance) as the separation of the current relative to the preceding target increased. Conversely, in Experiment 2, the dimension change effect was markedly reduced (11 ms), while the intertrial target distance effect was markedly increased (11 ms per unit of distance). The results suggest that dimension change/repetition effects are modulated by the amount of attentional focusing required by the task, with space-based attention altering the integration of dimension-specific feature contrast signals at the level of the overall-saliency map.

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The influence of object similarity and orientation on object-based cueing

Responses to targets that appear at a noncued position within the same object (invalid–same) compared to a noncued position at an equidistant different object (invalid–different) tend to be faster and more accurate. These cueing effects have been taken as evidence that visual attention can be object based (Egly, Driver, & Rafal, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 161–177, 1994). Recent findings, however, have shown that the object-based cueing effect is influenced by object orientation, suggesting that the cueing effect might be due to a more general facilitation of attentional shifts across the horizontal meridian (Al-Janabi & Greenberg, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 1–17, 2016; Pilz, Roggeveen, Creighton, Bennet, & Sekuler, PLOS ONE, 7, e30693, 2012). The aim of this study was to investigate whether the object-based cueing effect is influenced by object similarity and orientation. According to the object-based attention account, objects that are less similar to each other should elicit stronger object-based cueing effects independent of object orientation, whereas the horizontal meridian theory would not predict any effect of object similarity. We manipulated object similarity by using a color (Exp. 1, Exp. 2A) or shape change (Exp. 2B) to distinguish two rectangles in a variation of the classic two-rectangle paradigm (Egly et al., 1994). We found that the object-based cueing effects were influenced by the orientation of the rectangles and strengthened by object dissimilarity. We suggest that object-based cueing effects are strongly affected by the facilitation of attention along the horizontal meridian, but that they also have an object-based attentional component, which is revealed when the dissimilarity between the presented objects is accentuated.     

Why realists must reject normative quietism

The last two decades have seen a surge of support for normative quietism: most notably, from Dworkin (1996, 2011), Nagel (1996, 1997), Parfit (2011a, b) and Scanlon (1998, 2014). Detractors like Enoch (2011) and McPherson (2011) object that quietism is incompatible with realism about normativity. The resulting debate has stagnated somewhat. In this paper I explore and defend a more promising way of developing that objection: I’ll argue that if normative quietism is true, we can create reasons out of thin air, so normative realists must reject normative quietism.     

Rhythm histograms and musical meter: A corpus study of Malian percussion music

Studies of musical corpora have given empirical grounding to the various features that characterize particular musical styles and genres. Palmer & Krumhansl (1990) found that in Western classical music the likeliest places for a note to occur are the most strongly accented beats in a measure, and this was also found in subsequent studies using both Western classical and folk music corpora (Huron & Ommen, 2006; Temperley, 2010). We present a rhythmic analysis of a corpus of 15 performances of percussion music from Bamako, Mali. In our corpus, the relative frequency of note onsets in a given metrical position does not correspond to patterns of metrical accent, though there is a stable relationship between onset frequency and metrical position. The implications of this non-congruence between simple statistical likelihood and metrical structure for the ways in which meter and metrical accent may be learned and understood are discussed, along with importance of cross-cultural studies for psychological research.     

Testing the role of response repetition in spatial priming in visual search

In common “attention” tasks, which require stimulus-identity processing prior to the formation of a speeded key-press response, spatial priming effects depend on response repetition. Typically, the repetition of a stimulus location is advantageous when the prior response repeats, but disadvantageous or inconsequential when the prior response changes. This link between responding and space makes it difficult to draw inferences about attentional bias from two-choice key-press tasks. Instead, the findings are accounted for by episodic retrieval theories, which argue that the response associated with a prior stimulus location is retrieved when a later stimulus occupies its space. This retrieval operation is advantageous if the prior response is needed but not otherwise, which explains typical patterns. This perspective motivated us to evaluate whether spatial priming effects in the visual-search literature depend critically on response repetition. To assess this, we reevaluated a series of experiments recently published by Tower-Richardi, Leber, and Golomb (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78(1), 114–132, 2016). Their goal was to determine the reference frame of spatial priming across visual search displays. Reassessment reveals that spatial priming was strongly dependent on response repetition when spatiotopic, retinotopic, and object-centered reference frames were perfectly confounded. However, when eye movements were made to dissociate the spatiotopic and object-centered reference frame from the retinotopic reference frame, spatial priming was positive and unaffected by response repetition. The findings demonstrate that at least two distinct processes factor into spatial priming across visual searches, which occur at different levels of representation.     

An examination of the processing capacity of features in the Thatcher illusion

Detection of the Thatcher illusion (Thompson, Perception, 9:483–484, 1980) is widely upheld as being dependent on configural processing (e.g., Bartlett & Searcy, Cognitive Psychology, 25:281–316, 1993; Boutsen, Humphreys, Praamstra, & Warbrick, NeuroImage, 32:352–367, 2006; Donnelly & Hadwin, Visual Cognition, 10:1001–1017, 2003; Leder & Bruce, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53A:513–536, 2000; Lewis, Perception, 30:769–774, 2001; Maurer, Grand, & Mondloch, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6:255–260, 2002; Stürzel & Spillmann, Perception, 29:937–942, 2000). Given that supercapacity processing accompanies configural processing (see Wenger & Townsend, 2001), supercapacity processing should occur in the processing of Thatcherised upright faces. The purpose of this study was to test for evidence that the grotesqueness of upright Thatcherised faces results from supercapacity processing. Two tasks were employed: categorisation of a single face as odd or normal, and a same/different task for sequentially presented faces. The stimuli were typical faces, partially Thatcherised faces (either eyes or mouth inverted) and fully Thatcherised faces. All of the faces were presented upright. The data from both experiments were analysed using mean response times and a number of capacity measures (capacity coefficient, the Miller and Grice inequalities, and the proportional-hazards ratio). The results of both experiments demonstrated some evidence of a redundancy gain for the redundant-target condition over the single-target condition, especially in the response times in Experiment 1. However, there was very limited evidence, in either experiment, that the redundancy gains resulted from supercapacity processing. We concluded that the oddity signalled by inversion of eyes and mouths does not arise from positive interdependencies between these features.     

Trapped in a tight spot: Scaling effects occur when,according to the action-specific account,they should not,and fail to occur when they should

The action-specific account of perception claims that what we see is perceptually scaled according to our action capacity. However, it has been argued that this account relies on an overly confirmatory research strategy—predicting the presence of, and then finding, an effect (Firestone & Scholl, 2014). A comprehensive approach should also test disconfirmatory predictions, in which no effect is expected. In two experiments, we tested one such prediction based on the action-specific account, namely that scaling effects should occur only when participants intend to act (Witt, Proffitt, & Epstein, 2005). All participants wore asymmetric gloves in which one glove was padded with extra material, so that one hand was wider than the other. Participants visually estimated the width of apertures. The action-specific account predicts that the apertures should be estimated as being narrower for the wider hand, but only when participants intend to act. We found this scaling effect when it should not have occurred (Exp. 1, for participants who did not intend to act), as well as no effect when it should have occurred (Exp. 2, for participants who intended to act but were given a cover story for the visibility and position of their hands). Thus, the cover story used in Experiment 2 eliminated the scaling effect found in Experiment 1. We suggest that the scaling effect observed in Experiment 1 likely resulted from demand characteristics associated with using a salient, unexplained manipulation (e.g., telling people which hand to use to do the task). Our results suggest that the action-specific account lacks predictive power.     

Do gray wolves (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis lupus</Emphasis>) support pack mates during aggressive inter-pack interactions?

For group-living mammals, social coordination increases success in everything from hunting and foraging (Crofoot and Wrangham in Mind the Gap, Springer, Berlin, 2010; Bailey et al. in Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67:1–17, 2013) to agonism (Mosser and Packer in Anim Behav 78:359–370, 2009; Wilson et al. in Anim Behav 83:277–291, 2012; Cassidy et al. in Behav Ecol 26:1352–1360, 2015). Cooperation is found in many species and, due to its low costs, likely is a determining factor in the evolution of living in social groups (Smith in Anim Behav 92:291–304, 2014). Beyond cooperation, many mammals perform costly behaviors for the benefit of group mates (e.g., parental care, food sharing, grooming). Altruism is considered the most extreme case of cooperation where the altruist increases the fitness of the recipient while decreasing its own fitness (Bell in Selection: the mechanism of evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008). Gray wolf life history requires intra-pack familiarity, communication, and cooperation in order to succeed in hunting (MacNulty et al. in Behav Ecol doi: 10.1093/beheco/arr159 2011) and protecting group resources (Stahler et al. in J Anim Ecol 82: 222–234, 2013; Cassidy et al. in Behav Ecol 26:1352–1360, 2015). Here, we report 121 territorial aggressive inter-pack interactions in Yellowstone National Park between 1 April 1995 and 1 April 2011 (>5300 days of observation) and examine each interaction where one wolf interferes when its pack mate is being attacked by a rival group. This behavior was recorded six times (17.6 % of interactions involving an attack) and often occurred between dyads of closely related individuals. We discuss this behavior as it relates to the evolution of cooperation, sociality, and altruism.     

God’s Melancholia

Donald Capps’s (Capps 1997, 2001, 2002a, b) male melancholia theory has been of interest to me during the past few years (Carlin 2003, 2006, 2007), and Capps (2004, 2007a, b) himself has been publishing more on the topic. In his psychobiographical book on Jesus, Capps (2000) notes that psychologists of religion have been reluctant to psychoanalyze Jesus, and here I note that even fewer have been willing to diagnose God, one recent exception being J. Harold Ellens (2007). In this article, I explore the melancholia issue further, this time applying the theory to God by means of theological concepts that deal with the Trinity and the passion of God. And while this article is playful (Pruyser 1974; cf. Dykstra 2001), the upshot is more serious: If men are incurably religious and melancholic, as Capps argues, and if men, by and large, are the creators of religion, wouldn’t one expect to find traces of this melancholy in religion, particularly in its sacred texts and doctrines? By identifying these tendencies in religion, especially in God, the pastoral psychologist, I believe, is helping contemporary Christian men—especially fathers and sons—recognize their own melancholy selves and, perhaps, helping them get along a little better.     

Does Location Uncertainty Modulate Unconscious Processing Under Continuous Flash Suppression?

Previous research suggests that selective spatial attention is a determining factor for unconscious processing under continuous flash suppression (CFS), and specifically, that inattention toward stimulus location facilitates its unconscious processing by reducing the depth of CFS (Eo et al., 2016). The aim of our study was to further examine this modulation-by-attention model of CFS using a number priming paradigm. Participants (N = 26) performed a number comparison task on a visible target number (“compare target to five”). Prime-target pairs were either congruent (both smaller or larger than five) or incongruent. Spatial attention toward the primes was varied by manipulating the uncertainty of the primes’ location. Based on the modulation-by-attention model, we hypothesized the following: In trials with uncertain prime location, RTs for congruent prime-target pairs should be faster than for incongruent ones. In trials with certain prime location, RTs for congruent versus incongruent prime-target pairs should not differ. We analyzed our data with sequential Bayes factors (BFs). Our data showed no effect of location uncertainty on unconscious priming under CFS (BF0+ = 5.16). However, even visible primes only weakly influenced RTs. Possible reasons for the absence of robust number priming effects in our study are discussed. Based on exploratory analyses, we conclude that the numerical order of prime and target resulted in a response conflict and interfered with the predicted priming effect.     

Glymour and Quine on Theoretical Equivalence

Glymour (1970, 1977, 1980) and Quine (1975) propose two different formal criteria for theoretical equivalence. In this paper we examine the relationships between these criteria.     

Early and late cortical responses to directly gazing faces are task dependent

Gender categorisation of human faces is facilitated when gaze is directed toward the observer (i.e., a direct gaze), compared with situations where gaze is averted or the eyes are closed (Macrae, Hood, Milne, Rowe, & Mason, Psychological Science, 13(5), 460–464, 2002). However, the temporal dynamics underlying this phenomenon remain to some extent unknown. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to assess the neural correlates of this effect, focusing on the event-related potential (ERP) components known to be sensitive to gaze perception (i.e., P1, N170, and P3b). We first replicated the seminal findings of Macrae et al. (2002, Experiment 1) regarding facilitated gender discrimination, and subsequently measured the underlying neural responses. Our data revealed an early preferential processing of direct gaze as compared with averted gaze and closed eyes at the P1, which reverberated at the P3b (Experiment 2). Critically, using the same material, we failed to reproduce these effects when gender categorisation was not required (Experiment 3). Taken together, our data confirm that direct gaze enhances the early P1, as well as later cortical responses to face processing, although the effect appears to be task dependent.     

Mental Illness Publications in Major Pastoral Care Journals from 1950 to 2003

The issue of mental illness has been of considerable interest to both of us over the past several years. The first author has taught a course on the subject for a decade, and his recent publications on the subject include several articles on John Nash (Capps, 2003b, 2004a,b, 2005b), a book on mental illness for pastoral care professionals (2005a), and an article on whether William James was a patient at McLean Hospital (2007). The second author has had experience with the mentally ill through his pastoral work at Trenton Psychiatrist Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, a mental hospital with a rather checkered history (see Scull, 2005), and in Scotland and has also written an article on John Nash (Carlin, 2006). This shared interest, together with evidence that serious mental illness in America has been steadily increasing (Torrey &; Miller, 2001, pp. 295–299), caused us to wonder what sort of attention mental illness has received in our major journals of pastoral care from 1950 to the present. Specifically, has this attention kept pace with the increase in mental illness?