The need for closure and the spontaneous use of complex and simple cognitive structures

The authors performed 2 experiments that explored the causal role of need for closure in producing the use of simple structures. In particular, the authors gave the participants a cue that called for a complex or a simple solution on a cognitive complexity task. The authors created the participants' need for closure through the use of time pressure. The results of both experiments revealed that participants only generated complex solutions in the complex cue-no time pressure condition. The discussion is focused on the effects of need for closure in tasks calling for adaptive and spontaneous flexibility.     

A new set of 299 pictures for psycholinguistic studies: French norms for name agreement,image agreement,conceptual familiarity,visual complexity,image variability,age of acquisition,and naming latencies

Pictures are often used as stimuli in studies of perception, language, and memory. Since performances on different sets of pictures are generally contrasted, stimulus selection requires the use of standardized material to match pictures across different variables. Unfortunately, the number of standardized pictures available for empirical research is rather limited. The aim of the present study is to provide French normative data for a new set of 299 black-and-white drawings. Alario and Ferrand (1999) were closely followed in that the pictures were standardized on six variables: name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, visual complexity, image variability, and age of acquisition. Objective frequency measures are also provided for the most common names associated with the pictures. Comparative analyses between our results and the norms obtained in other, similar studies are reported. Finally, naming latencies corresponding to the set of pictures were also collected from French native speakers, and correlational/multiple-regression analyses were performed on naming latencies. This new set of standardized pictures is available on the Internet (http://leadserv.u-bourgogne.fr/bases/pictures/) and should be of great use to researchers when they select pictorial stimuli.     

Bottom-up and top-down influences on auditory scene analysis: evidence from event-related brain potentials

The physiological processes underlying the segregation of concurrent sounds were investigated through the use of event-related brain potentials. The stimuli were complex sounds containing multiple harmonics, one of which could be mistuned so that it was no longer an integer multiple of the fundamental. Perception of concurrent auditory objects increased with degree of mistuning and was accompanied by negative and positive waves that peaked at 180 and 400 ms poststimulus, respectively. The negative wave, referred to as object-related negativity, was present during passive listening, but the positive wave was not. These findings indicate bottom-up and top-down influences during auditory scene analysis. Brain electrical source analyses showed that distinguishing simultaneous auditory objects involved a widely distributed neural network that included auditory cortices, the medial temporal lobe, and posterior association cortices.     

Association between quality of life of adolescents with type 1 diabetes and parents’ illness perception as evaluated by adolescents

Children and adolescents account for half of all cases of type 1 diabetes, which is one of the most common pediatric chronic diseases. The disease’s effects and the treatment/disease-management protocols patients must follow can lead to a marked deterioration in quality of life, especially for adolescents. Patients’ illness perceptions have been shown to impact their quality of life, but do other people’s illness perceptions also have an effect? The present study addressed this question by investigating possible links between the quality of life of adolescent patients with type 1 diabetes and illness perceptions, measured in terms of the adolescents’ self-perceptions, parents’ self-perceptions, and the adolescents’ evaluations of their parents’ perceptions. We asked 41 adolescents (M = 13.9 years; SD = 1.9) who had been undergoing treatment for type 1 diabetes for at least a year (M = 6.6 years; SD = 3.7) to complete the Diabetes Quality of Life for Youth Questionnaire-Short Form (DQOLY-SF) and the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R). They completed the IPQ-R twice, once to state their own opinions (self-report) and once to give their evaluations of their parents’ perceptions. At the same time, but in a different room, their parents (N = 47) completed the IPQ-R (self-report). Quality of life was predicted by gender (p < .05) and by the parents’ emotional representations (p < .01) and perceptions of consequences (p < .01) as evaluated by the adolescents. This new approach provides new insights into the impact of parents’ perceptions on the quality of life of adolescents with type 1 diabetes.     

Is regulatory focus related to minimal and maximal standards? Depends on how you ask!

Regulatory focus theory suggests that hopes and aspirations (promotion focus) function like maximal goals, whereas duties and responsibilities (prevention focus) function like minimal goals. However, past research has not always reliably found such a link between regulatory focus and maximal–minimal goals or standards. In the present research, we hypothesised that this inconsistency can be explained, at least in part, by conceptual differences resulting in the use of different, specific wording. In four studies, we compared wording in terms of the relative magnitude of the goals to wording in terms of their absolute versus gradual perception. Results showed that regulatory focus (manipulated or measured) consistently relates to maximal versus minimal standards framed as goals of different magnitudes, but not to the goals framed according to an absolute–gradual perception. Implication of the results for regulatory focus research is discussed.     

The Relationship Between Right‐wing Attitudes and Cognitive Style: A Comparison of Self‐report and Behavioural Measures of Rigidity and Intolerance of Ambiguity

Two recent meta‐analytic studies addressing the relationship between cognitive style and right‐wing attitudes yielded some discrepancies. We argue that these discrepancies can be accounted for when one considers the types of cognitive style measures included in those analyses. One of these analyses primarily relied on self‐report measures, whereas the other relied on behavioural measures of cognitive style. Based on a new meta‐analysis of 103 samples (total N = 12 714) focussing on behavioural and self‐report measures of rigidity and intolerance of ambiguity, we confirmed the hypothesis that self‐report scales yield stronger relationships with right‐wing attitudes than behavioural measures. We point out potential conceptual and validity issues with both types of cognitive style measures and call for cautiousness when interpreting the magnitude of their relationships with ideology. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Eye position affects audio-visual fusion in darkness

We investigated the frame of reference involved in audio-visual (AV) fusion over space. This multisensory phenomenon refers to the perception of unity resulting from visual and auditory stimuli despite their potential spatial disparity. The extent of this illusion depends on the eccentricity in azimuth of the bimodal stimulus (Godfroy et al, 2003 Perception 32 1233-1245). In a previous study, conducted in a luminous environment, Roumes et al 2004 (Perception 33 Supplement, 142) have shown that variation of AV fusion is gaze-dependent. Here we examine the contribution of ego- or allocentric visual cues by conducting the experiment in total darkness. Auditory and visual stimuli were displayed in synchrony with various spatial disparities. Subjects had to judge their unity ('fusion' or 'no fusion'). Results showed that AV fusion in darkness remains gaze-dependent despite the lack of any allocentric cues and confirmed the hypothesis that the reference frame of the bimodal space is neither head-centred nor eye-centred.     

Contemporary attitudes and their ideological representation in Flanders (Belgium), Poland,and the Ukraine

The present research tests the validity of a two‐dimensional cultural and economic right‐wing model of ideology, as well as the relationships between these dimensions and attitudes toward recent political issues. Opinions about environmentalism, war on terror, and European Union enlargement were selected as representative contemporary attitudes. The present research questions were investigated in a Flemish (N = 176), Polish (N = 93), and Ukrainian (N = 93) sample. The results revealed that two dimensions underlie the ideological spectrum in all samples, one referring to cultural conservatism and right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA), and one referring to economic conservatism and social dominance orientation (SDO). Although the validity of differentiating between these ideological dimensions has been amply illustrated in studies on Western samples, the replication of these dimensions in former communist countries add to their validity and generality, because these countries have a specific political culture and history. However, important cross‐cultural differences with respect to the representation of the contemporary attitudes in this two‐dimensional ideological space were obtained as well. Whereas the war on terror attitude was meaningfully related to the cultural right‐wing dimension in all samples, the relationships for the environmentalism and EU enlargement attitudes were sample dependent. These cross‐cultural differences were explained in terms of saliency of the issue (nonsignificant versus significant relationships in the case of environmentalism) and pragmatic concerns in terms of profits and costs (in the case of EU enlargement). In the discussion it is also argued that the closer correspondence between the ideological representation of these attitudes in Polish and Western society may be caused by the fact that communism was less successful in penetrating political mentality in Poland than in the Ukraine.     

Herding by attribution of privileged information

We study a situation where agents take extreme actions and how these actions are imitated by others. First, Experiment 1 showed that an expert first mover had an advantage in obtaining herding by others on his investment decision, when compared to a non‐expert first mover. Experiment 2 showed that this advantage only appeared when the first mover's investment was out‐of‐the‐ordinary (in fact, highly aberrant). We obtained the same level of herding in Experiment 3 when the first mover had privileged information, instead of being an expert. Second, Experiment 4 showed that when people observed the same out‐of‐the‐ordinary investment and did not know whether the first mover had privileged information or not, they herded on him as if he had privileged information. In fact, our data revealed that participants thought that the unknown first mover had privileged information. Furthermore, herding was statistically indistinguishable from the condition where observers knew unambiguously that the first mover had privileged information. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subjective frequency and imageability ratings for 3,600 French nouns

Subjective frequency and imageability estimates for a sample of 3,600 French nouns were collected from two independent groups of 72 young adults each. Both groups received standard instructions and provided their ratings on a 7-point scale. The timing, sequencing, presentation of lexical stimuli, and recording of responses were controlled by a computer. All estimates of internal consistency and test—retest reliability (≥.98) confirm the high level of precision and reliability of the ratings. Correlations with ratings drawn from similar studies were found to be positive and significant for subjective frequency (r ≥ .85) and for imageability (r ≥ .69). Subjective frequency was positively and significantly correlated with objective frequency estimates drawn from 10 different sources (r ≥ .42). Subjective frequency and imageability were significantly correlated (r=.26), a relationship that was driven primarily by a sudden drop in imageability ratings for words with a subjective frequency rating below 2.5. The methodological implications of these findings are discussed. The ratings can be downloaded as supplemental materials from brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.