Beyond Idea Generation: The Power of Groups in Developing Ideas

Brainstorming research has claimed that individuals are more creative than groups. However, these conclusions are largely based on measuring creativity by the number of ideas generated, and researchers have tended to neglect other important components of creativity, such as the quality of developed ideas. These studies aim to address this gap in the literature and investigate how well individuals and groups develop ideas. The first study compared collaborative groups, nominal groups (i.e., groups composed of individuals working separately), and individuals on developing an original design for a language-learning game. No differences were revealed between conditions on the game ratings. In the second study, one idea was preselected and given to the participants for further development. Groups received higher ratings in the marketability and overall categories than both nominal groups and individuals, and higher ratings in the fun category than individuals. The qualitative data showed that groups discussed a wider range of topics and topics related to marketability more than individuals did. Thus it appears that there are benefits to developing ideas in a collaborative group rather than individually. Possible explanations for the present findings are explored.     

Trajectories of scholastic well-being: The effect of achievement emotions and instructional quality in the first year of secondary school (fifth grade)

Social Psychology of Education - Due to their connections with positive educational outcomes, the maintenance of good health and scholastic well-being are highly relevant topics. However, to date,...     

Neurocognitive control in dance perception and performance

Dance is a rich source of material for researchers interested in the integration of movement and cognition. The multiple aspects of embodied cognition involved in performing and perceiving dance have inspired scientists to use dance as a means for studying motor control, expertise, and action-perception links. The aim of this review is to present basic research on cognitive and neural processes implicated in the execution, expression, and observation of dance, and to bring into relief contemporary issues and open research questions. The review addresses six topics: 1) dancers' exemplary motor control, in terms of postural control, equilibrium maintenance, and stabilization; 2) how dancers' timing and on-line synchronization are influenced by attention demands and motor experience; 3) the critical roles played by sequence learning and memory; 4) how dancers make strategic use of visual and motor imagery; 5) the insights into the neural coupling between action and perception yielded through exploration of the brain architecture mediating dance observation; and 6) a neuroesthetics perspective that sheds new light on the way audiences perceive and evaluate dance expression. Current and emerging issues are presented regarding future directions that will facilitate the ongoing dialog between science and dance.     

Contrast class cues and performance facilitation in a hypothesis-testing task: evidence for an iterative counterfactual model

Hypothesis-testing performance on Wason’s (Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 12:129–140, 1960) 2–4–6 task is typically poor, with only around 20% of participants announcing the to-be-discovered “ascending numbers” rule on their first attempt. Enhanced solution rates can, however, readily be observed with dual-goal (DG) task variants requiring the discovery of two complementary rules, one labeled “DAX” (the standard “ascending numbers” rule) and the other labeled “MED” (“any other number triples”). Two DG experiments are reported in which we manipulated the usefulness of a presented MED exemplar, where usefulness denotes cues that can establish a helpful “contrast class” that can stand in opposition to the presented 2–4–6 DAX exemplar. The usefulness of MED exemplars had a striking facilitatory effect on DAX rule discovery, which supports the importance of contrast-class information in hypothesis testing. A third experiment ruled out the possibility that the useful MED triple seeded the correct rule from the outset and obviated any need for hypothesis testing. We propose that an extension of Oaksford and Chater’s (European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 6:149–169, 1994) iterative counterfactual model can neatly capture the mechanisms by which DG facilitation arises.     

The convergent and concurrent validity of trait-based prototype assessment of personality disorder categories in homeless persons

The DSM-5 proposal indicates that personality disorders (PDs) be defined as collections of maladaptive traits but does not provide a specific diagnostic method. However, researchers have previously suggested that PD constructs can be assessed by comparing individuals' trait profiles with those prototypic of PDs and evidence from the five-factor model (FFM) suggests that these prototype matching scores converge moderately with traditional PD instruments. The current study investigates the convergence of FFM PD prototypes with interview-assigned PD diagnoses in a sample of 99 homeless individuals. This sample had very high rates of PDs, which extends previous research on samples with more modest prevalence rates. Results indicated that diagnostic agreement between these methods was generally low but consistent with the agreement previously observed between explicit PD measures. Furthermore, trait-based and diagnostic interview scores evinced similar relationships with clinically important indicators such as abuse history and past suicide attempts. These findings demonstrate the validity of prototype methods and suggest their consideration for assessing trait-defined PD types within DSM-5.     

How two word-trained dogs integrate pointing and naming

Two word-trained dogs were presented with acts of reference in which a human pointed, named objects, or simultaneously did both. The question was whether these dogs would assume co-reference of pointing and naming and thus pick the pointed-to object. Results show that the dogs did indeed assume co-reference of pointing and naming in order to determine the reference of a spoken word, but they did so only when pointing was not in conflict with their previous word knowledge. When pointing and a spoken word conflicted, the dogs preferentially fetched the object by name. This is not surprising since they are trained to fetch objects by name. However, interestingly, in these conflict conditions, the dogs fetched the named objects only after they had initially approached the pointed-to object. We suggest that this shows that the word-trained dogs interpret pointing as a spatial directive, which they integrate into the fetching game, presumably assuming that pointing is relevant to finding the requested object.     

Intended and Unintended Reverberation of Traditional and Pro‐age Commercials as a Function of Viewer Age

Pro‐age advertising campaigns feature mature models, at least in part to reduce the depiction of unrealistic body ideals associated with the use of young models. The introduction of mature models into advertising campaigns may have hitherto unexamined effects on viewers' self‐esteem. We therefore compared the impact of mature and young models on women's levels of self‐esteem. Young adult and middle‐aged women were subtly exposed to young or pro‐age female models before completing an affective priming task designed to measure self‐esteem. As predicted, exposure influenced only appearance‐based self‐esteem, but not global self‐esteem. Furthermore, age congruency led to decreased self‐esteem, whereas age incongruency led to increased self‐esteem. Specifically, exposure to young models decreased young women's self‐esteem, just as exposure to mature models decreased middle‐aged women's self‐esteem. By contrast, exposure to mature models increased young women's self‐esteem, and exposure to young models increased middle‐aged women's self‐esteem. The implications for marketing campaigns are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hostility-Related Prejudice Against Turks in Adolescents: Masked Affective Priming Allows for a Differentiation of Automatic Prejudice

The masked affective priming task was used as an unobtrusive measure of intergroup prejudices in a sample of German adolescents (aged 13–15). Pictures of Turks and Germans were used as masked primes that preceded positive and negative target adjectives conveying either other-relevant valence (e.g., honest, evil) or possessor-relevant valence (e.g., talented, dull). Affective priming indices (denoting relative negativity of Turkish primes) were positively correlated with the open expression of prejudices towards Turks and foreigners in general in questionnaires as well as with discriminative interaction behavior in a virtual ball-tossing game. As expected, these correlations were found only for priming indices based on other-relevant targets, thereby emphasizing the differentiation of automatic prejudice into (imputed) hostility and depreciation.     

Subliminal priming of autobiographical memories

The current research examined subliminal priming of autobiographical memories. In Experiment 1 the subliminal primes consisted of affect-associated words (positive vs negative) and were presented just before the participants retrieved specific experiences to cue-words. The subliminal primes produced an inhibitory effect on autobiographical memory retrieval, with significantly lower positive ratings given to the emotional content of experiences retrieved after positive primes than given to experiences retrieved after negative primes. The subliminal primes for the second experiment consisted of words that related to specific lifetime periods (early childhood vs late childhood/early adulthood). A negative priming effect resulted again, with earlier life experiences retrieved after the presentation of late childhood/early adulthood primes. We believe the negative priming effects obtained in both experiments are consistent with predictions based on the self-memory system model of autobiographical memory. The results of this research may also explain mood-incongruent recall.     

Dogs steal in the dark

All current evidence of visual perspective taking in dogs can possibly be explained by dogs reacting to certain stimuli rather than understanding what others see. In the current study, we set up a situation in which contextual information and social cues are in conflict. A human always forbade the dog from taking a piece of food. The part of the room being illuminated was then varied, for example, either the area where the human was seated or the area where the food was located was lit. Results show that dogs steal significantly more food when it is dark compared to when it is light. While stealing forbidden food the dog’s behaviour also depends on the type of illumination in the room. Illumination around the food, but not the human, affected the dogs’ behaviour. This indicates that dogs do not take the sight of the human as a signal to avoid the food. It also cannot be explained by a low-level associative rule of avoiding illuminated food which dogs actually approach faster when they are in private. The current finding therefore raises the possibility that dogs take into account the human’s visual access to the food while making their decision to steal it.