A direct link between gaze perception and social attention

How information is exchanged between the cognitive mechanisms responsible for gaze perception and social attention is unclear. These systems could be independent; the "gaze cueing" effect could emerge from the activation of a general-purpose attentional mechanism that is ignorant of the social nature of the gaze cue. Alternatively, orienting to social gaze direction might be directly determined by the operation of cognitive mechanisms specifically dedicated to gaze perception. This second notion is the dominant assumption in the literature, but there is little direct support for this account. Here, we systematically manipulated observers' perception of gaze direction by implementing a gaze adaptation paradigm. Gaze cueing was reduced only in conditions where perception of specific averted gaze stimuli was impaired (Experiment 1). Adaptation to a pointing stimulus failed to impact gaze cueing (Experiment 2). Overall, these data suggest a direct link between the specific operation of gaze perception mechanisms and the consequential orienting of attention.     

Cognitive predictors of posttraumatic stress symptoms six months following acute coronary syndrome

This study examined patients' illness representations assessed shortly after an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) as predictors of posttraumatic stress symptoms six months later. Illness representations were assessed in ACS patients using standard measures at a home visit three weeks after discharge from hospital. Posttraumatic stress symptoms were assessed at the same time, and again six months later. Patients were aged 61 years on average, the majority being men (89.8%) of white European decent (89%). Greater posttraumatic symptoms at six months were associated with beliefs that the illness would last a long time (timeline), that it had an unpredictable time course (timeline--cyclical), greater consequences, less personal and treatment control, poorer illness coherence and stronger negative emotional representations (emotional upset relating to the illness; p?相似文献   

We'll miss you Steve: how the death of a technology innovator emotionally impacts those who use and love his digital devices

The death of Apple co-founder Steven Jobs was accompanied by a period of public mourning. Reflections shared by both those he knew and those who were connected to him through the devices he pioneered were imbued with expressions of loss. The goal of the present research was to understand the grieving of those who knew Jobs through his devices, as a way of exploring how interpersonal emotions are shaped by relationships with technology. The findings from three studies conducted in the weeks after Jobs' death indicated demographic variability in mourning across the general population, suggesting that many people were more deeply affected by his passing. Latter studies highlighted the motivational factors that are related to the use of the Apple devices which were at play in shaping feelings of sadness and loss.     

Behavioral versus Behavioral and Pharmacological Treatment in ADHD Children Attending a Summer Treatment Program

As part of the behavioral treatment in the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA), children participated in an intensive summer treatment program (STP). This study examined the differences between 57 children in the combined treatment (Comb) group, who were medicated, and 60 children in the behavioral treatment (Beh) group, who were unmedicated throughout the STP. Comb children were significantly better than Beh on 5 measures: rule following, good sportsmanship, peer negative nominations, and STP teacher posttreatment ratings of inattention/overactivity. Groups did not differ on any of the other 30 measures, and responded similarly to the STP over time. Comparisons to normative data revealed that Comb children were more likely to fall within the normative range on 6 measures. The differences between these results and the main MTA results, in which Comb was always superior to Beh, are discussed in terms of the relative intensity of combined treatments. The implications for future studies of pharmacological and behavioral treatment for ADHD are discussed.     

Memory and executive function impairments after frontal or posterior cortex lesions

Free recall and recognition, memory for temporal order, spatial memory and prospective memory were assessed in patients with frontal lobe lesions, patients with posterior cortex lesions and control subjects. Both patient groups showed equivalent memory deficits relative to control subjects on a range of free recall and recognition tasks, on memory for temporal order and on a prospective memory task. The patient groups also performed equivalently on the spatial memory task although only patients with frontal lobe lesions were significantly impaired. However, the patients with frontal lobe lesions showed an increased false alarm rate and made more intrusion errors relative not only to the control subjects, but also to the patients with poster or cortex lesions. These memory problems are discussed in relation to deficits in executive function and basic memory processes.     

The power law repealed: The case for an exponential law of practice

The power function is treated as the law relating response time to practice trials. However, the evidence for a power law is flawed, because it is based on averaged data. We report a survey that assessed the form of the practice function for individual learners and learning conditions in paradigms that have shaped theories of skill acquisition. We fit power and exponential functions to 40 sets of data representing 7,910 learning series from 475 subjects in 24 experiments. The exponential function fit better than the power function in all the unaveraged data sets. Averaging produced a bias in favor of the power function. A new practice function based on the exponential, the APEX function, fit better than a power function with an extra, preexperimental practice parameter. Clearly, the best candidate for the law of practice is the exponential or APEX function, not the generally accepted power function. The theoretical implications are discussed.     

The development of implicit attitudes. Evidence of race evaluations from ages 6 and 10 and adulthood

To understand the origin and development of implicit attitudes, we measured race attitudes in White American 6-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults by first developing a child-oriented version of the Implicit Association Test (Child IAT). Remarkably, implicit pro-White/anti-Black bias was evident even in the youngest group, with self-reported attitudes revealing bias in the same direction. In 10-year-olds and adults, the same magnitude of implicit race bias was observed, although self-reported race attitudes became substantially less biased in older children and vanished entirely in adults, who self-reported equally favorable attitudes toward Whites and Blacks. These data are the first to show an asymmetry in the development of implicit and explicit race attitudes, with explicit attitudes becoming more egalitarian and implicit attitudes remaining stable and favoring the in-group across development. We offer a tentative suggestion that mean levels of implicit and explicit attitudes diverge around age 10.     

Why people underestimate y when extrapolating in linear functions

E. L. DeLosh, J. R. Busemeyer, and M. A. McDaniel (1997) found that when learning a positive, linear relationship between a continuous predictor (x) and a continuous criterion (y), trainees tend to underestimate y on items that ask the trainee to extrapolate. In 3 experiments, the authors examined the phenomenon and found that the tendency to underestimate y is reliable only in the so-called lower extrapolation region--that is, new values of x that lie between zero and the edge of the training region. Existing models of function learning, such as the extrapolation-association model (DeLosh et al., 1997) and the population of linear experts model (M. L. Kalish, S. Lewandowsky, & J. Kruschke, 2004), cannot account for these results. The authors show that with minor changes, both models can predict the correct pattern of results.     

The Contribution of Neuroimaging to the Study of Language and Aphasia

New structural and functional imaging methods continue to be developed at a rapid pace. In the last 25 years, advanced imaging techniques have provided insights into how language is represented and processed in the brain and how it can be disrupted by damage to, or dysfunction of, various parts of the brain. Imaging studies have also yielded new information regarding how individuals recover language after stroke. We briefly review the strengths and weaknesses of the various radiological methods currently used to study language and aphasia.