On the immunity of perceptual implicit memory to manipulations of attention

In four experiments, we examined the effect of manipulating study phase attention in a Stroop task on the extent of repetition priming in the lexical decision task (LDT). Experiment 1 replicated the immunity of the LDT to division of attention reported by Szymanski and MacLeod (1996), using a standard Stroop configuration. Response times to previously encountered words were identical regardless of whether the participants were required to read the words or name the color in which they were presented. Experiment 2 demonstrated that implementing the Stroop manipulation across separate visual objects reduced but did not eliminate priming of unattended words, provided the words remained in the attended region of the stimulus display. When this constraint was removed in Experiment 3, priming of unattended words disappeared. Experiment 4 demonstrated statistically equivalent priming for attended and unattended words when the Stroop manipulation remained in the same visual object but attention was directed to a single letter of the word. In all four experiments, the Stroop manipulation had a clear effect on recognition. These results qualify claims that the LDT might be immune to manipulations of study phase attention and suggest that the LDT has a lower threshold level of attention at encoding than do other standard implicit tests of memory.     

Integrating personality,context, relationship,and emotion type into a model of display rules

This research sets out to examine individual variations in perceptions of display rules. Based upon Mischel and Shoda’s [Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102, 246–268.] model of the Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS), we proposed that extraversion and neuroticism would serve to explain within-cultural individual differences and within-individual differences in endorsement of display rules. To test this hypothesis, participants reported the expressivity level of the display rule they endorsed by responding to the revised version of the Display Rule Assessment Inventory. Multi-level analyses showed that compared to those of introverts, the display rules of extraverts tended to be more suppressive when the relationship was distant rather than close. Extraversion also enhanced a neurotic’s degree of suppression in public compared to private situations. Processes describing how personality interacts with situations in personalizing display rules were offered in light of the CAPS model to account for these interactions between personality and situation in the operation of display rules for emotional expression.     

Psychoendocrine and physical performance responses in male Tunisian rugby players during an international competitive season

The aim was to investigate a follow-up study based on hormonal, physical, and psychological parameters among rugby players who trained during a whole season interspersed with competitions on an international level. Fitness or reciprocally tiredness as well as competitive anxiety were evaluated, respectively, using the French Society for Sports Medicine (SFMS) and the sport competition anxiety test (SCAT) questionnaires. In this study, SFMS and SCAT scores increased respectively over the competitive season. The SFMS score revealed a state of relative tiredness at the end of the season, highlighted by a slight decrement in physical performances. The SCAT score changes are related to the competition context and therefore increased accordingly to the importance of the competition stake. We analyzed the corticotrope and the gonadotrope axis before (T(1)), and at the end of the national and international rugby season (T(2)). Training did not affect the resting salivary cortisol (Csal) levels, but induced a decrease in resting testosterone (Tsal) values, resulting in a dropped T/C ratio. Competition, in both periods (T(1)-T(2)), provoked a significant increase in Csal levels, but the Tsal responses depended on the match stake. Their concentrations increased when the competition generated an important stress and decreased when the psychological conditions remained relatively stable. SFMS is preferentially correlated with resting Csal levels and T/C values measured at 08:00 hr but not with Tsal. SCAT is highly correlated with competitive Csal and Tsal concentrations measured before and after the matches.     

The cost of question concealment: eye-tracking and MEG evidence

Although natural language appears to be largely compositional, the meanings of certain expressions cannot be straightforwardly recovered from the meanings of their parts. This study examined the online processing of one such class of expressions: concealed questions, in which the meaning of a complex noun phrase (the proof of the theorem) shifts to a covert question (what the proof of the theorem is) when mandated by a sub-class of question-selecting verbs (e.g., guess). Previous behavioral and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) studies have reported a cost associated with converting an entity denotation to an event. Our study tested whether both types of meaning-shift affect the same computational resources by examining the effects elicited by concealed questions in eye-tracking and MEG. Experiment 1 found evidence from eye-movements that verbs requiring the concealed question interpretation require more processing time than verbs that do not support a shift in meaning. Experiment 2 localized the cost of the concealed question interpretation in the left posterior temporal region, an area distinct from that affected by complement coercion. Experiment 3 presented the critical verbs in isolation and found no posterior temporal effect, confirming that the effect of Experiment 2 reflected sentential, and not lexical-level, processing.     

Changes in cue associability across training in human causal learning

A series of experiments studied the amount learned about two food cues (A and B) whose presentation in a meal was followed by an allergy (+) in a fictitious patient. Participants were trained with A+ and C+ in Phase 1 and then with AB+ or AB++ in Phase 2. Subsequent testing revealed that BC was more allergenic than AD, showing that more had been learned about B than A in Phase 2. Participants were also trained with A+, then with AB+, and finally with AB++. The results of interpolating AB+ between A+ and AB++ training were consistent with the hypothesis that pretraining with Cue A selectively suppressed attention to its associate across the AB+ trials and, thereby, reduced the amount subsequently learned about B on AB++ trials.     

Is schizotypy taxonic? Response to

Beauchaine, Lenzenweger, and Waller (2008) criticize our taxometric study of schizotypy (Rawlings, Williams, Haslam, & Claridge, in press) on a variety of methodological and philosophical grounds. We argue that their critique selectively applies more stringent standards to our work than to studies supporting their view that schizotypy is taxonic (i.e., categorical). Many of their criticisms apply at least equally to existing studies that offer support for a schizotypy taxon, and these studies are vulnerable to biases favouring taxonic conclusions that were controlled for in our study. Contrary to their criticisms, we did not claim to have disconfirmed previous taxonic findings about schizotypy, and our findings positively support dimensional models of schizotypy rather than merely being null results. Similarly, our findings are not artefacts of the sampling or measurement decisions that they question. Even well-replicated taxometric findings are not immune to empirical challenge, and evaluation of such challenges must be even-handed.     

Self-affirmation increases acceptance of health-risk information among UK adult smokers with low socioeconomic status.

This study reports an experiment designed to test whether self-affirmation can overcome defensive processing of risk information in a sample of UK adult smokers with low socioeconomic status. Participants (N = 57) were randomized to either a self-affirmation or control condition before reading a government-sponsored antismoking leaflet and completing measures of message acceptance, intention, and self-efficacy. Participants' subsequent behavior (taking leaflets) was recorded surreptitiously. Results showed that the manipulation significantly increased message acceptance, intention and behavior, and that the effects of the manipulation on behavior were mediated through message acceptance and intention. The practical and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the possible use of self-affirmation manipulations to enhance the effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions.     

Children assess informant reliability using bystanders' non-verbal cues

Recent findings show that preschool children are selective with respect to whom they ask for information and whose claims they endorse. In particular, they monitor an informant's record of past accuracy or inaccuracy and use that record to gauge future trustworthiness. We ask if preschoolers also monitor the non-verbal cues of assent or dissent that bystanders display toward an informant's claims and use that information to gauge an informant's trustworthiness. In familiarization trials, 4-year-olds watched as two adult informants made conflicting claims regarding the name of an unfamiliar object. Two adult bystanders consistently signaled assent - via nods and smiles - to the claims of one informant, and dissent - via head shakes and frowns - from the claims of the other informant. When invited to endorse one of the two claims, 4-year-olds mostly agreed with the informant who had received bystander assent. Thus, in the absence of background knowledge about an object's name, children use third-party non-verbal signals to assess the accuracy of conflicting labels. On subsequent test trials, the informants again made conflicting claims about novel object names, but in the absence of the two bystanders. Despite the lack of any informative bystander signals, children with more advanced understanding of mental states continued to display greater trust in the informant who had received bystander assent in the earlier trials.     

Recovering data from scanned graphs: Performance of Frantz’s g3data software

Recovering data points from scanned or photocopied graphs by hand is time consuming, prone to error, and it requires patience and a steady hand. An alternative is to use g3data-a program that reads many common image file types and allows accurate estimation of data point coordinates from the graphs contained in these files. Limits of the software are discussed, and validation of its accuracy using graphs with known data values is presented.     

Necessity and Rigidly Designating Kind Terms

Kripke claims that certainkind terms, particularly natural kind terms,are, like names, rigid designators. However,kind terms are more complicated than names aseach is connected both to a principle ofinclusion and an extension. So, there is aquestion regarding what it is that rigidlydesignating kind terms rigidly designate. Inthis paper, I assume that there are rigidlydesignating kind terms and attempt to answerthe question as to what it is that they rigidlydesignate. I then use this analysis of rigidlydesignating kind terms to show how Kripke'sreasoning regarding the necessity of `Hesperusis Phosphorus' can be extended to statementsinvolving kind terms like `Water is H₂O'and `Tigers are mammals'.