Toward a cognitive view of trait mindfulness: distinct cognitive skills predict its observing and nonreactivity facets

Dispositional variations in mindfulness and its facets have garnered considerable recent interest in the clinical and personality literatures. Theoretically, high mindful individuals have been characterized as more attuned to momentary sensations and perceptions and/or better able to execute behavior in a controlled manner, yet data of this relatively cognitive type have not been reported. In addition, perceptual attunement and executive control are distinct skills that may underlie, or at least correlate with, distinct facets of mindfulness. In 3 studies involving college students (N = 297), support for the latter idea was found. Individuals high in the observing (but not nonreactivity) facet of mindfulness demonstrated superior perceptual abilities in visual working memory (Study 1) and temporal order (Study 2) tasks. On the other hand, individuals high in the nonreactivity (but not observing) facet of mindfulness exhibited greater cognitive control flexibility (Study 3). Implications for understanding the cognitive basis of mindfulness facets are discussed.     

Assessing the Role of the Self‐Concept on the Destructive Impact of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder in Managers

Managers can have personal afflictions that may interfere with their role as managers in an organization. One of these maladies is obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD), a condition frequently identified with excessive patterns of seemingly unnecessary behavior. OCD compels individuals to seek “perfection” in the accomplishment of primarily routine tasks. This overt routine of behaviors distracts individuals from accomplishing their goals and those they manage. This paper examines the role of self‐concept as being central in identifying and understanding the characteristics of the behavioral disorder OCD and how to modify the self‐concept to prevent disruption in the workplace. In addition, the paper explores how to measure OCD and the impact of maladies on peers, subordinates, and superiors in the organization. I've learned . . . that we should be glad God doesn't give us everything we pray for. —My father     

To carry or not to carry — Is this the question? Disentangling the carry effect in multi-digit addition

Recent research has suggested addition performance to be determined by both the need for a carry operation and problem size. Nevertheless, it has remained debatable, how these two factors are interrelated. In the current study, this question was pursued by orthogonally manipulating carry and problem size in two-digit addition verification. As the two factors interacted reliably, our results indicate that the carry effect is moderated by number magnitude processing rather than representing a purely procedural, asemantic sequence of processing steps. Moreover, it was found that the carry effect may not be a purely categorical effect but may be driven by continuous characteristics of the sum of the unit digits as well. Since the correct result of a carry problem can only be derived by integrating and updating the magnitudes of tens and units within the place-value structure of the Arabic number system, the present study provides evidence for the idea that decomposed processing of tens and units also transfers to mental arithmetic.     

Eye fixation behaviour in the number bisection task: Evidence for temporal specificity

Together with magnitude representations, knowledge about multiplicativity and parity contributes to numerical problem solving. In the present study, we used eye tracking to document how and when multiplicativity and parity are recruited in the number bisection task. Fourteen healthy adults evaluated whether the central number of a triplet (e.g., 21_24_27) corresponds to the arithmetic integer mean of the interval defined by the two outer numbers. We observed multiplicativity to specifically affect gaze duration on numbers, indicating that the information of multiplicative relatedness is activated at early processing stages. In contrast, parity only affected total reading time, suggesting involvement in later processing stages. We conclude that different representational features of numbers are available and integrated at different processing stages within the same task and outline a processing model for these temporal dynamics of numerical cognition.     

Children’s early mental number line: Logarithmic or decomposed linear?

Recently, the nature of children’s mental number line has received much investigation. In the number line task, children are required to mark a presented number on a physical number line with fixed endpoints. Typically, it was observed that the estimations of younger/inexperienced children were accounted for best by a logarithmic function, whereas those of older/more experienced children were reflected best by a linear function. This led to the conclusion that children’s mental number line transforms from logarithmic to linear with age and experience. In this study, we outline an alternative interpretation of children’s performance in a number line task. We suggest that two separate linear representations for one- and two-digit numbers may exist in young children and that initially the integration of these two representations into the place value structure of the Arabic number system is not fully mastered. When testing this assumption in a sample of more than 120 first graders, we observed that the two-linear model consistently provided better fit indexes. We conclude that instead of assuming a transition from logarithmic to linear coding, performance differences could also be accounted for by an improvement in integrating tens and units into the Arabic place value system.     

Sequential or parallel decomposed processing of two-digit numbers? Evidence from eye-tracking

While reaction time data have shown that decomposed processing of two-digit numbers occurs, there is little evidence about how decomposed processing functions. Poltrock and Schwartz (1984) argued that multi-digit numbers are compared in a sequential digit-by-digit fashion starting at the leftmost digit pair. In contrast, Nuerk and Willmes (2005) favoured parallel processing of the digits constituting a number. These models (i.e., sequential decomposition, parallel decomposition) make different predictions regarding the fixation pattern in a two-digit number magnitude comparison task and can therefore be differentiated by eye fixation data. We tested these models by evaluating participants' eye fixation behaviour while selecting the larger of two numbers. The stimulus set consisted of within-decade comparisons (e.g., 53_57) and between-decade comparisons (e.g., 42_57). The between-decade comparisons were further divided into compatible and incompatible trials (cf. Nuerk, Weger, & Willmes, 2001) and trials with different decade and unit distances. The observed fixation pattern implies that the comparison of two-digit numbers is not executed by sequentially comparing decade and unit digits as proposed by Poltrock and Schwartz (1984) but rather in a decomposed but parallel fashion. Moreover, the present fixation data provide first evidence that digit processing in multi-digit numbers is not a pure bottom-up effect, but is also influenced by top-down factors. Finally, implications for multi-digit number processing beyond the range of two-digit numbers are discussed.     

Playing dice with criminal sentences: the influence of irrelevant anchors on experts' judicial decision making

Judicial sentencing decisions should be guided by facts, not by chance. The present research however demonstrates that the sentencing decisions of experienced legal professionals are influenced by irrelevant sentencing demands even if they are blatantly determined at random. Participating legal experts anchored their sentencing decisions on a given sentencing demand and assimilated toward it even if this demand came from an irrelevant source (Study 1), they were informed that this demand was randomly determined (Study 2), or they randomly determined this demand themselves by throwing dice (Study 3). Expertise and experience did not reduce this effect. This sentencing bias appears to be produced by a selective increase in the accessibility of arguments that are consistent with the random sentencing demand: The accessibility of incriminating arguments was higher if participants were confronted with a high rather than a low anchor (Study 4). Practical and theoretical implications of this research are discussed.     

Multi-digit number processing beyond the two-digit number range: a combination of sequential and parallel processes

Investigations of multi-digit number processing typically focus on two-digit numbers. Here, we aim to investigate the generality of results from two-digit numbers for four- and six-digit numbers. Previous studies on two-digit numbers mostly suggested a parallel processing of tens and units. In contrast, the few studies examining the processing of larger numbers suggest sequential processing of the individual constituting digits. In this study, we combined the methodological approaches of studies implying either parallel or sequential processing. Participants completed a number magnitude comparison task on two-, four-, and six-digit numbers including unit-decade compatible and incompatible differing digit pairs (e.g., 32_47, 3<4 and 2<7 vs. 37_52, 3<5 but 7>2, respectively) at all possible digit positions. Response latencies and fixation behavior indicated that sequential and parallel decomposition is not exclusive in multi-digit number processing. Instead, our results clearly suggested that sequential and parallel processing strategies seem to be combined when processing multi-digit numbers beyond the two-digit number range. To account for the results, we propose a chunking hypothesis claiming that multi-digit numbers are separated into chunks of shorter digit strings. While the different chunks are processed sequentially digits within these chunks are processed in parallel.