Will Julia Roberts harm Nicole Kidman? Semantic priming effects during face naming

Three experiments are reported, which examine whether face naming is vulnerable to semantic competition in a similar way to object naming. Previous experiments with object naming have shown that a related prime picture presented 3 trials before a target picture results in an increase in error rate and naming latencies when compared to unrelated prime conditions. The experiments here use the same paradigm, with errors as the main dependent variable. In Experiment 1, the prime and target faces were from the same occupational category (e.g., politicians, actors), and in Experiment 2, the primes and target faces were also associated to each other. In Experiment 3, the prime was presented as a name to be read aloud. Unrelated filler stimuli intervened between prime and target. In all experiments, there was a reduction in target-naming errors in the related conditions, and in Experiment 3 this was shown to be largely a reduction in naming failures. The results suggest that related name representations for famous people are not activated in parallel and in competition, and that there is some evidence for a relatively long lasting facilitatory effect. These results require some modification to any serial account of face naming to differentiate it from the generally well-established serial account of object naming.     

Renewal of cue-elicited urge to smoke: implications for cue exposure treatment

The effects of cue exposure therapy are limited, because renewal after extinction is an important source of relapse. In this study, 33 smokers were exposed to a cue predicting smoking availability and a cue predicting smoking unavailability in one context (acquisition context A). Following extinction in another context (extinction context B), a test for renewal took place in the original acquisition context A (i.e. ABA renewal). Urge to smoke was measured using a Visual Analogue Scale. Renewal of differential conditioned urge responding occurred when participants were tested in the acquisition context, while differential urge responding remained extinguished when tested in the extinction context. This experiment provides evidence that ABA renewal occurred in smokers. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Units of visual individuation in rhesus macaques: objects or unbound features?

Vision begins with the processing of unbound visual features, which must eventually be bound together into object representations. Such feature binding is required for coherent visual perception, and accordingly has received a considerable amount of study in several domains. Neurophysiological work, often in monkeys, has revealed the details of how and where feature binding occurs in the brain, but methodological limitations have not allowed this research to elucidate just how feature binding operates spontaneously in real-world situations. In contrast, behavioral work with human infants has demonstrated how we use simpler unbound features to individuate and identify objects over time and occlusion in many types of events, but this work has not typically been able to isolate the role of feature binding in such processing. Here we provide a method for assessing the spontaneity and fidelity of feature binding in non-human primates, as this process is utilized in real-world situations, including simple foraging behaviors. Using both looking-time and manual-search measures in a natural environment, we show that free-ranging rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) spontaneously bind features in order to individuate objects across time and occlusion in dynamic events. This pattern of results demonstrates that feature binding is used in subtle ways to guide ecologically relevant behavior in a non-human animal, spontaneously and reliably, in its natural environment.     

Some Variables in the Blue (Red) Phenomenon

The relation between spontaneous color choices and ratings of the prototypicality, conspicuousness, and pleasantness of colors was studied in a sample of Dutch college students. Pleasantness, not prototypicality or conspicuousness, determined the four most frequent spontaneous choices—red, blue, green, and purple. Subjects considered blue the most pleasant of the 12 colors studied, which suggests a pleasantness explanation for the “blue phenomenon” found in some countries. The predominance of red as a spontaneous choice replicated the results of previous studies in the Netherlands. Red also was rated highest in prototypicality but was not rated higher by red choosers than by choosers of other colors, so that a simple prototypicality explanation was rejected. Further analysis showed that the predominance of red as the spontaneous choice of Dutch subjects can be explained by an interaction between prototypicality and pleasantness: Subjects tended to choose red when they rated it highly on both variables.     

A Dialectic on Validity: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going

It has been suggested that the primary issue in considerations of validity today is the discrepancy between currently accepted theory and the practice of validation. The reason for this discrepancy may be that although considerable discussion has taken place in educational measurement and psychometrics regarding changes in our conceptions of validity, that has not been the case more generally in the social and behavioral sciences. A dialectic on the current status of validity theory for social and behavioral scientists is presented to help bridge this gap.     

A Glimpse into Co-Occupations: Parent/Caregiver's Support of Young Children's Playfulness Scale

Cooperative play between parents/caregivers and children is a positive and significant contributor to the development of children’s emotional, social, and cognitive skills and may set the stage for the formation of co-occupations. This article discusses the rationale for the development of Parent/Caregiver’s Support of Young Children’s Playfulness (PSYCP), an assessment that is based on children’s play and playfulness, adult’s playfulness, and parent–child interaction. The use of the PSYCP to assess co-occupations will allow therapists to identify the specific behaviors that either hinder or support playfulness and mutual play.     

Performance and Perceptions of Brainstormers in an Organizational Setting

Employees of a corporation who had undergone considerable training for effective teamwork were asked to brainstorm about a job-relevant issue in groups of four or alone. One half of the groups brainstormed alone first, and the other half brainstormed as a group before brainstorming alone. Participants were also asked to rate their performance and indicate whether they would perform better in groups or alone on a brainstorming task. Consistent with past laboratory research, groups generated only about half as many ideas as a similar number of individuals (nominal group), and group brainstorming led to more favorable perceptions of individual performance. Participants also believed that they would brainstorm more effectively in a group than alone. These results indicate that productivity losses in brainstorming groups are not restricted to laboratory groups. Such losses occur even in groups who work together on a daily basis, have considerable training in group dynamics, and are dealing with a job-relevant issue. The sequence of alone to group brainstorming did not influence overall productivity. The relation of this research to that of facilitated and electronic brainstorming is discussed.     

Do you see what I see? The effect of members’ cognitive styles on team processes and errors in task execution

This research investigates the effect of members’ cognitive styles on team processes that affect errors in execution tasks. In two laboratory studies, we investigated how a team’s composition (members’ cognitive styles related to object and spatial visualization) affects the team’s strategic focus and strategic consensus, and how those affect the team’s commission of errors. Study 1, conducted with 70 dyads performing a navigation and identification task, established that teams high in spatial visualization are more process-focused than teams high in object visualization. Process focus, which pertains to a team’s attention to the details of conducting a task, is associated with fewer errors. Study 2, conducted with 64 teams performing a building task, established that heterogeneity in cognitive style is negatively associated with the formation of a strategic consensus, which has a direct and mediating relationship with errors.     

The effects of team strategic orientation on team process and information search

We tested the effects of team strategic orientation on team member perceptions, work strategy and information search. In Experiment 1, 80 teams worked on a hidden profile decision-making task. A defensive team strategic orientation increased members’ perceptions of the problem’s scope, leading to a more process-focused work strategy and broader information search compared to an offensive team strategic orientation. When teams needed critical information from the environment, defensive teams outperformed offensive teams; offensive teams performed better when critical information resided within the team. In Experiment 2, these findings were replicated with 92 teams performing a different decision task. When making a second decision, half of the teams were led to change their strategic orientation; teams shifting from offense to defense altered their information search behavior more readily than did teams shifting in the opposite direction, suggesting an asymmetric adaptation effect.