The relationship between stimulus processing and response selection in the Simon task: Evidence for a temporal overlap

Summary As is indicated by the Simon effect, choice reactions can be carried out faster when the response corresponds spatially to the stimulus, even if the stimulus location is irrelevant to the task. In Experiments 1–4 the relationships between the Simon effect and stimulus eccentricity, signal quality, and signal-background contrast are investigated. The Simon effect was found to interact with all of these factors, at least when manipulated blockwise. These results are at odds with previous results and are difficult to interpret from an additive-factor-method view. An alternative interpretation is suggested that attributes the results to the temporal relationship between the processing of the relevant stimulus information and stimulus location. The assumption is that a decrease in the Simon effect is caused by every experimental manipulation that markedly increases the temporal distance between the coding of the relevant stimulus information and that of the irrelevant stimulus location. This assumption was tested in Experiment 5 in a more direct way. The stimuli were built up on a screen over time, so that the temporal distance between the presence of location and identity information could be controlled experimentally. The results provide further support for a temporal-delay interpretation of interactions between irrelevant stimulus-response correspondence and factors that affect early stages of information processing.     

The effect of fMRI (noise) on cognitive control

Stressful situations, the aversiveness of events, or increases in task difficulty (e.g., conflict) have repeatedly been shown to be capable of triggering attentional control adjustments. In the present study we tested whether the particularity of an fMRI testing environment (i.e., EPI noise) might result in such increases of the cognitive control exerted. We found that participants were more effective in controlling episodic retrieval of previous stimulus-response bindings (Experiment 1), in switching to a new task (Experiment 2), and shielding a current goal from distracting response tendencies (Experiment 3) if they were exposed to challenging task situations, such as 70 dB echo planar imaging noise sampled from an fMRI scanner. These findings have considerable theoretical implications in questioning the widespread assumption that people are equally devoted to easy and more challenging tasks, and methodological implications in raising the possibility that experiments carried out in fMRI scanners or under otherwise challenging conditions systematically overestimate contributions from cognitive control processes.     

Perspectives and the World

In this paper I consider metaphysical positions which I label as ‘perspectival’. A perspectivalist believes that some portion of reality cannot extend beyond what an appropriately characterised investigator or investigators can (in some sense) reveal about it. So a perspectivalist will be drawn to claim that a portion of reality is, in some sense, knowable. Many such positions appear to founder on the paradox of knowability. I aim to offer a solution to that paradox which can be adopted by any perspectivalist, which involves no restriction on the claim of knowability and which allows certain sentences to be unknowable. The solution hinges on recognising that what is meant by ‘knowable’ will vary from one type of proposition to another and thus that characterising the modality involved in the notion in terms of possible worlds will be impossible. I thus offer a subjunctive conditional reading of that modality, a reading which, I claim, has the virtues just recounted.     

Men’s personality and women’s perception of their dance quality

Recent research shows that women judge men who show variability in their body movements as good dancers. Here we report data on women’s perception of dance quality in 48 men, aged 18-42 years, and relate them to men’s self-reported personality traits. Male participants completed a standardised personality inventory (the NEO-FFI) and then danced to a basic rhythm while their body movements were tracked with optical 3D motion-capture technology. Dance movements were applied to a featureless virtual humanoid character and judged on their dance quality by 53 women, aged 17-57 years, who viewed 15 s of the rendered video clips of each male dancer. Conscientiousness and social agreeableness was correlated positively and significantly with women’s perception of men’s dance quality. Extraversion showed a positive correlation and neuroticism and openness were associated negatively with women’s perception of men’s dance quality, though these correlations failed to reach significance. We suggest that male dance movements may convey aspects of their personality, though possible consequences in terms of female mate preferences and selection remain to be explored.     

The T?lz Temporal Topography Study: Mapping the visual field across the life span. Part II: Cognitive factors shaping visual field maps

Part I described the topography of visual performance over the life span. Performance decline was explained only partly by deterioration of the optical apparatus. Part II therefore examines the influence of higher visual and cognitive functions. Visual field maps for 95 healthy observers of static perimetry, double-pulse resolution (DPR), reaction times, and contrast thresholds, were correlated with measures of visual attention (alertness, divided attention, spatial cueing), visual search, and the size of the attention focus. Correlations with the attentional variables were substantial, particularly for variables of temporal processing. DPR thresholds depended on the size of the attention focus. The extraction of cognitive variables from the correlations between topographical variables and participant age substantially reduced those correlations. There is a systematic top-down influence on the aging of visual functions, particularly of temporal variables, that largely explains performance decline and the change of the topography over the life span.     

Resource-Building Processes Across Life Domains: Father-Child Interactions as Starting Points for Resource Caravans

Journal of Happiness Studies - In two studies, we examined preconditions of resource-building processes between family and work. Focusing on positive father-child interactions, we investigated...     

Cognitive control and the COMT Val158Met polymorphism: genetic modulation of videogame training and transfer to task-switching efficiency

The study investigated whether successful transfer of game-based cognitive improvements to untrained tasks might be modulated by preexisting neuro-developmental factors, such as genetic variability related to the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT)—an enzyme responsible for the degradation of dopamine. The COMT Val¹⁵⁸Met genotype may differentially affect cognitive stability and flexibility, and we hypothesized that Val/Val homozygous individuals (who possess low prefrontal dopamine levels) show more pronounced cognitive flexibility than Met/-carriers (who possess high prefrontal dopamine levels). We trained participants, genotyped for the COMT Val¹⁵⁸Met polymorphism on playing “Half-Life 2”, a first-person shooter game which has been shown to improve cognitive flexibility. Pre-training (baseline) and post-training measures of cognitive flexibility were acquired by means of a task-switching paradigm. As expected, Val/Val homozygous individuals showed larger beneficial transfer effects than Met/-carriers. Our findings support the idea that genetic predisposition modulates transfer effects and that playing first-person shooter games promotes cognitive flexibility in individuals with a suitable genetic predisposition.     

The joint flanker effect: Less social than previously thought

Research on joint action has been taken to suggest that actors automatically co-represent the tasks and/or actions of co-actors. However, recent findings on the joint Simon effect have provided evidence for a nonsocial account, which renders automatic co-representation unlikely. In the present study, we aimed to test whether a nonsocial account is also feasible for the joint version of the flanker task. In particular, we manipulated the social nature of the “co-actor” who could be another human or a Japanese waving cat. Contrary to the social interpretation of the joint flanker effect, the results demonstrated a “joint” flanker effect, irrespective of whether participants shared the task with another person or with the Japanese waving cat.     

The role of human body movements in mate selection

It is common scientific knowledge, that most of what we say within a conversation is not only expressed by the words' meaning alone, but also through our gestures, postures, and body movements. This non-verbal mode is possibly rooted firmly in our human evolutionary heritage, and as such, some scientists argue that it serves as a fundamental assessment and expression tool for our inner qualities. Studies of nonverbal communication have established that a universal, culture-free, non-verbal sign system exists, that is available to all individuals for negotiating social encounters. Thus, it is not only the kind of gestures and expressions humans use in social communication, but also the way these movements are performed, as this seems to convey key information about an individual's quality. Dance, for example, is a special form of movement, which can be observed in human courtship displays. Recent research suggests that people are sensitive to the variation in dance movements, and that dance performance provides information about an individual's mate quality in terms of health and strength. This article reviews the role of body movement in human non-verbal communication, and highlights its significance in human mate preferences in order to promote future work in this research area within the evolutionary psychology framework.