助推目标实现：时间标记的动力效应

时间标记是指日常生活中所有突出的独特性事件。个体在经历当下的时间标记或期待未来的时间标记时, 其追求目标的动机水平得到提高, 并表现出更多的目标相关行为, 即时间标记具有一种动力效应。时间标记可能增加了个体对不同时间自我之间的分离感, 继而通过自我效能感、保持一致的自我形象、损失规避及缩小差距等心理过程提高追求目标的动机。未来研究应进一步探讨时间标记在动力效应中的角色定位及动力效应的持续时间、探究时间标记动力效应的普适性、检验可能的心理机制并在实践领域开展时间标记助推行为决策的应用研究。     

Making judgments in a two‐sequence cue environment: The effects of differential cue strengths,order sequence,and distraction

Consumers frequently evaluate multiple sequential cues of varying strengths in order to draw inferences about a product's quality. The results of three experiments show that when consumers are not distracted, they judge a product's quality more favorably following a strong–weak cue sequence relative to a weak–strong sequence (a primacy effect). However once consumers are distracted from the evaluation task, the primacy effect reverses to a recency effect, whereby consumers judge a product's quality more favorably following a weak–strong cue sequence. Process tests suggest that distraction crowds consumers' short-term working memory and inhibits the spontaneous rehearsal and the subsequent recall of the cue presented first in the information sequence.     

Single-letter recognition accuracy and position information: Benefits with a symbolic cue

Summary This study reports two experiments designed to test a model that has as a basic assumption that position information is at the basis of the cueing benefits observed in single-item recognition tasks with accuracy as the dependent variable. In the experiments, two cueing conditions were used; a 100%-valid symbolic-cue condition and a neutral-cue condition. In Experiment 1, in which position information was sometimes missing, the symbolic cue brought a significant benefit. In Experiment 2, in which position information was always available, no benefit was obtained. These results are consistent with, and support, the model. Improved knowledge of position is at the basis of the cueing benefits observed in this type of task.     

Long-delay and selective association in food aversion learning: The role of cue location

Cue location has been an uncontrolled variable in food-aversion studies. While tastes are always attributes of the ingested object, visual, auditory and olfactory cues are often attributes of the food container or are located elsewhere in the conditioning chamber. A review of experimental studies indicates that cues which are attributes of the ingested object are almost invariably associated with both immediate and delayed illness, regardless of the sense modality of the cue and of the animal species involved. Cues which are attributes of the food container or conditioning chamber are associated with immediate but not delayed illness, again regardless of the sense modality and animal subject. Within the limits of present evidence, the same effects of cue location appear to occur when shock is the reinforcer. It is suggested that the association of attribute cues across delays is mediated by the conditioned behaviour, which is directed at the object of which they are attributes and which is biologically related to the subsequent reinforcement.     

The effects of a discriminative cue and an incompatible activity on generalized imitation

Four noncompliant retardates were observed in a generalized imitation study. Two variables were studied: provision of a competing reinforced activity, and use of a cue to aid discrimination between reinforced and nonreinforced imitations. Both variables were found to increase the rate of discrimination between the two sets of stimuli. Greatest discrimination occurred when both cue and alternative task were present. Discrimination decreased when the variables were removed. Results are interpreted as implying that imitation of nonreinforced cues in generalized imitation procedures varies with the degree to which reinforcement is available for other activity, as well as with the complexity of the discrimination problem. These results help indicate conditions under which the generalized imitation effect may be observed in more naturalistic settings.     

Auditory food cue conditioning: Effects of spatial contiguity and taste quality

The effects of spatial location of an auditory stimulus and quality of a potentiating taste on the aversive conditioning of an auditory food cue were investigated. In Experiment 1 rats ate salty food activating a tone from a speaker either in (spatially contiguous with) or displaced from the food and were then made ill. It was found that spatial contiguity during conditioning resulted in avoidance of food with a contiguous or a displaced tone in testing, and spatial displacement during conditioning resulted in avoidance of food only if the tone was also displaced in testing. Experiment 2 was identical, except rats ate salty, bitter, or sweet food with a displaced tone during conditioning and testing. The salty and bitter food groups demonstrated an avoidance of noisy food relative to the sweet food group. These results indicate that spatial contiguity interacts with taste quality in the conditioning of nongustatory food cues.     

The development of prospective memory in young schoolchildren: The impact of ongoing task absorption,cue salience,and cue centrality

This study presents evidence that 9- and 10-year-old children outperform 6- and 7-year-old children on a measure of event-based prospective memory and that retrieval-based factors systematically influence performance and age differences. All experiments revealed significant age effects in prospective memory even after controlling for ongoing task performance. In addition, the provision of a less absorbing ongoing task (Experiment 1), higher cue salience (Experiment 2), and cues appearing in the center of attention (Experiment 3) were each associated with better performance. Of particular developmental importance was an age by cue centrality (in or outside of the center of attention) interaction that emerged in Experiment 3. Thus, age effects were restricted to prospective memory cues appearing outside of the center of attention, suggesting that the development of prospective memory across early school years may be modulated by whether a cue requires overt monitoring beyond the immediate attentional context. Because whether a cue is in or outside of the center of attention might determine the amount of executive control needed in a prospective memory task, findings suggest that developing executive control resources may drive prospective memory development across primary school age.     

The Fruitless Pursuit of Nudging Healthy Behavior: Comment on Lin,Osman, and Ashcroft

The premise of Lin, Osman, and Ashcroft (this issue) is that nudge theory can be applied in all aspects of public life to improve people’s health and well-being. Unfortunately, the literature they present shows only a dismal empirical record of the effectiveness of nudging healthy behavior. In spite of the overwhelmingly positive tone of the authors, the successes attributed to nudge-based interventions in other domains cannot yet be made in the area of health and wellness. In fact, Lin et al.’s review suggests quite the opposite: nudging healthy behavior bears no fruit.     

The effects of cue distinctiveness on odor-based context-dependent memory

The distinctiveness of an ambient odor was examined in relation to its success as a cue in contextdependent memory. Distinctiveness was examined in terms of both cue novelty and contextual appropriateness. Two experiments were conducted in which three different ambient odors that varied in familiarity and contextual appropriateness were manipulated at an incidental word learning encoding session and at a free recall retrieval session 48 h later. Experiment 1 revealed that when a novel ambient odor (osmanthus) was the available context cue, word recall was better than in any other condition. Further, among familiar odor cues, recall was better with a contextually inappropriate odor (peppermint) than with a contextually appropriate odor (clean fresh pine). Experiment 2 confirmed that superior word recall with osmanthus and peppermint depended on the odor cue’s being available at both encoding and retrieval, and that the relation of an odor to the situational context is a key factor for predicting its effectiveness as a retrieval cue.     

The norm of self-interest and its effects on social action

Four studies investigated whether people feel inhibited from engaging in social action incongruent with their apparent self-interest. Participants in Study 1 predicted that they would be evaluated negatively were they to take action on behalf of a cause in which they had no stake or in which they had a stake but held stake-incongruent attitudes. Participants in Study 2 reported both surprise and anger when a target person took action on behalf of a cause in which he or she had no stake or in which he or she held stake-incongruent attitudes. In Study 3, individuals felt more comfortable engaging in social action and expected others to respond more favorably toward their actions if the issue was described as more relevant to their own sex than to the opposite sex. In Study 4, the authors found that providing nonvested individuals with psychological standing rendered them as likely as vested individuals to undertake social action. The authors discuss the implications of these results for the relationship between vested interest, social action, and attitude-behavior consistency.     

The effects of cue reliability on infants' manual search.

Nine-month-old babies were presented a manual search problem in which toys were hidden in one of two containers, and then the containers were transposed. Over a series of training trials either two, one, or no cues were perfectly correlated with the location of the toy. The infants' first searches became more accurate over training trials in conditions with consistent container and/or position cues. In the final training trial block search performance was best with two cues, intermediate with one cue, and least accurate in the no-cue condition. In a subsequent reversal procedure, in which the toy was placed in the previously unused hiding place, the number of correct first searches also differed according to the nature of cues available across hidings. The implications for learning the concept of object permanence are discussed.     

Levels-of-processing effects on Chinese character completion: The importance of lexical processing and test cue

The levels of processing (LoP) effect was studied in Chinese character completion tasks. The same stem cue, either graphemically or semantically related to the target character, was used to generate either a perceptual or a conceptual test. Participants received either direct or indirect instructions, so that the same stem cue also produced either an explicit or an implicit test of memory. This allowed us to examine simultaneously the roles of perceptual versus conceptual test and retrieval intentionality in the LoP effect. No LoP effects were found when the memory test was implicit. LoP effects were also not found for stems and characters related graphemically (perceptually), but were found for stems and characters related semantically (conceptually) when the memory test was explicit. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of lexical processing for character completion tests and the importance of reinstatement of the study process during retrieval for explicit memory tests.