Is pressure stressful? The impact of pressure on the stress response and category learning

We examined the basic question of whether pressure is stressful. We proposed that when examining the role of stress or pressure in cognitive performance, it is important to consider the type of pressure, the stress response, and the aspect of cognition assessed. In Experiment 1, outcome pressure was not experienced as stressful but did lead to impaired performance on a rule-based (RB) category-learning task, but not on a more procedural information-integration (II) task. In Experiment 2, the addition of monitoring pressure resulted in a modest stress response to combined pressure and impairment on both tasks. Across experiments, higher stress appraisals were associated with decreased performance on the RB, but not on the II, task. In turn, higher stress reactivity (i.e., heart rate) was associated with enhanced performance on the II, but not on the RB, task. This work represents an initial step toward integrating the stress cognition and pressure cognition literatures and suggests that integrating these fields may require consideration of the type of pressure, the stress response, and the cognitive system mediating performance.     

Using the Networked Fire Chief for Ego-Depletion Research: Measuring Dynamic Decision-Making Effort and Performance

This study replicated ego-depletion predictions from the self-control literature in a computer simulation task that requires ongoing decision-making in relation to constantly changing environmental information: the Network Fire Chief (NFC). Ego-depletion led to decreased self-regulatory effort, but not performance, on the NFC task. These effects were also buffered by task enjoyment so that individuals who enjoyed the dynamic decision-making task did not experience ego-depletion effects. These findings confirm that past ego-depletion effects on decision-making are not limited to static or isolated decision-making tasks and can be extended to dynamic, naturalistic decision-making processes more common to naturalistic settings. Furthermore, the NFC simulation provides a methodological mechanism for independently measuring effort and performance when studying ego-depletion.     

When the Going Gets Tough: The “Why” of Goal Striving Matters

No prior research has examined how motivation for goal striving influences persistence in the face of increasing goal difficulty. This research examined the role of self‐reported (Study 1) and primed (Study 2) autonomous and controlled motives in predicting objectively assessed persistence during the pursuit of an increasingly difficult goal. In Study 1, 100 British athletes (64 males; M_age = 19.89 years, SD_age = 2.43) pursued a goal of increasing difficulty on a cycle ergometer. In Study 2, 90 British athletes (43 males; M_age = 19.63 years, SD_age = 1.14) engaged in the same task, but their motivation was primed by asking them to observe a video of an actor describing her or his involvement in an unrelated study. In Study 1, self‐reported autonomous goal motives predicted goal persistence via challenge appraisals and task‐based coping. In contrast, controlled goal motives predicted threat appraisals and disengagement coping, which, in turn, was a negative predictor of persistence. In Study 2, primed autonomous (compared to controlled) goal motives predicted greater persistence, positive affect, and future interest for task engagement. The findings underscore the importance of autonomous motivation for behavioral investment in the face of increased goal difficulty.     

The Normative Significance of Forgiveness

P.F. Strawson claimed that forgiveness is such an essential part of our moral practices that we could not extricate it from our form of life even if we so desired. But what is it about forgiveness that would make it such a central feature of our moral experience? In this paper, I suggest that the answer has to do with what I will call the normative significance of forgiveness. Forgiveness is normatively significant in the sense that, in its paradigmatic instances, forgiving alters the operative norms bearing on the interaction between the victim and the wrongdoer in certain characteristic ways. My project here is, first, to clarify the ways that paradigmatic cases of forgiveness alter the norms of interaction between victim and wrongdoer and to argue that it is in this respect that forgiveness is a normatively significant feature of our moral responsibility practices. Second, I show that most extant theories of forgiveness fail to explain the characteristic ways in which forgiving alters norms. Third, I offer a theory of forgiveness that accounts for this significant normative feature. I conclude by addressing two objections to my proposal.     

COVID-19 Impact Battery: Development and Validation

In addition to impacting the physical health of millions of Americans, the novel-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a significant psychological stressor due to both the threat of the illness itself and the mitigation strategies used to contain the spread. To facilitate understanding of the impact of COVID-19, validated measures are needed. Using a stepwise procedure in line with best-practice measurement procedures, the current report summarizes the procedures employed to create the COVID-19 Impact Battery (CIB). Two independent samples recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (N?=?175, N?=?642) and a third community sample (N?=?259) were used for reliability and validity testing. Validation procedures yielded a battery consisting of three scales assessing COVID-19 related behaviors, worry, and disability. The behaviors scale contains three subscales assessing stockpiling, cleaning, and avoidance. The worry subscale also contains three subscales assessing health, financial and catastrophic concerns. In addition, we created a short version of the battery (CIB-S) to allow for more flexibility in data collection. In summary, we have provided reliability and validity information for the CIB and CIB-S, demonstrating that these measures can facilitate evaluation of the broad impact of COVID-19 on mental health functioning.

     

Domestic cats (Felis catus) prefer freely available food over food that requires effort

Animal Cognition - Contrafreeloading is the willingness of animals to work for food when equivalent food is freely available. This behavior is observed in laboratory, domesticated, and captive...     

Children's 5-HTTLPR genotype moderates the link between maternal criticism and attentional biases specifically for facial displays of anger

Theorists have proposed that negative experiences in childhood may contribute to the development of experience-specific information-processing biases, including attentional biases. There are also clear genetic influences on cognitive processes, with evidence that polymorphisms in specific candidate genes may moderate the impact of environmental stress on attentional biases (e.g., a functional polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene; 5-HTTLPR). In the current study, we tested a gene×environment (G×E) model of risk for attentional biases. We hypothesised that children whose mothers exhibit high levels of expressed emotion criticism (EE-Crit) would display attentional biases specifically for angry, but not happy or sad, faces, and that this link would be stronger among children carrying one or two copies of the 5-HTTLPR short allele than among those homozygous for the long allele. Results generally supported these hypotheses, though we found that carriers of the 5-HTTLPR short allele who also had a critical mother exhibited attentional avoidance of angry faces rather than preferential attention.     

Impairments in tactile search following superior parietal damage

The superior parietal cortex is critical for the control of visually guided actions. Research suggests that visual stimuli relevant to actions are preferentially processed when they are in peripersonal space. One recent study demonstrated that visually guided movements towards the body were more impaired in a patient with damage to superior parietal cortex. Whereas past studies have explored disordered movement in optic ataxic patients, there has been less exploration of space perception in terms of search capacity in this population. In addition, there is some debate concerning the relationship between deficits of visuomotor control and impaired attention/perception in optic ataxia. Given that the dorsal stream has been implicated in the spatial processing of stimuli in peripersonal space, and damage to this region is known to cause optic ataxia, we felt that further investigation was warranted. We examined tactile search behavior in the fronto-parallel and radial planes in a patient with right superior parietal damage and optic ataxia. We used a pegboard with removable cylindrical pegs that allowed for the reorganization of targets between trials. To better characterize three-dimensional search behavior, we included both horizontal and vertical search conditions. Results showed that the patient spent more time searching, was more accurate and revisited more targets in right versus left space. Interestingly, the patient spent the majority of her time specifically searching the lower right quadrant of the stimulus array. Further analysis revealed lower target detection rates along the outer borders of the pegboard on all sides. The search pattern observed here is unusual considering that all targets were within arm's reach. The present experiment demonstrates that damage to superior parietal cortex impairs tactile search and biases exploration towards lower right peripersonal space.