Searching night and day: a dissociation of effects of circadian phase and time awake on visual selective attention and vigilance

How does sleepiness affect selective attention? We studied the effect of circadian phase and time awake on visual search. The generalized-cognitive-slowing hypothesis predicts that search rate will be slower, feature guidance less effective, and response time (RT) lengthened when observers are sleepy. Observers performed spatial-configuration (finding a 5 among 2s) and conjunction (finding red vertical among red horizontal and green vertical) search tasks during 38 hr of wakefulness under constant conditions. Adverse circadian phases and elapsed time awake did lead to increased RT (corrected for errors). However, contrary to the hypothesis, search rates (indexed by RT x Set Size slopes) were constant across the protocol. This was true for conjunction as well as for spatial-configuration search, indicating that feature guidance was also insensitive to sleepiness. The locus of sleepiness effects on search is probably downstream from the bottleneck of attentional selection. Observers did trade accuracy for speed when sleepy. This implicates decision-stage impairments.     

The co-construction of adolescent narrative identity: narrative processing as a function of adolescent age, gender, and maternal scaffolding

The current study aimed to situate the development of adolescent narrative identity in the context of past-event conversations between adolescents and their mothers, extending work on conversational contexts in early childhood to adolescence. We examined a cross-section of 63 adolescents with 2 goals: (1) to examine how adolescent age and gender interacted with mothers' scaffolding behaviors and how those interactions were associated with adolescents' narrative processes of meaning-making, vulnerability, and resolution; (2) to examine mothers' behaviors in conversation and how the interactions between those behaviors and event type (important, sad, and happy themes) were associated with those narrative processes. We found that maternal behavior in the conversation was related to adolescent narrative processes, yet this link varied as a function of characteristics of the adolescent and type of event discussed. Overall results suggest that those with potentially less practice at narrating the self in elaborative ways--younger adolescents and boys--receive more supportive scaffolding, and that for those with likely more practice with elaborative narration--girls and older adolescents--mothers engage in more negation behavior. The role of these scaffolding behaviors in adolescent narrative identity development is discussed.     

What Can Virtual Reality Teach Us About Prosocial Tendencies in Real and Virtual Environments?

As virtual environments (VEs) become increasingly central to people's lives (Terry, 2002 Terry, F. 2002. New Media: An introduction, South Melbourne, , Australia: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]), understanding reactions to VEs may be as important as understanding behavior in the real world (Yee, Bailenson, Urbanek, Chang, & Merget, 2007 Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., Urbanek, M., Chang, F. and Merget, D. 2007. The unbearable likeness of being digital: The persistence of nonverbal social norms in online virtual environments. The Journal of CyberPsychology and Behavior, 10: 115–121. [Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]). Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET), which is now being used in psychological research (Blascovich et al., 2002 Blascovich, J., Loomis, J., Beall, A., Swinth, K., Hoyt, C. and Bailenson, J. 2002. Immersive virtual environment technology as a research tool for social psychology. Psychological Inquiry, 13: 103–125. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), can provide greater experimental control, more precise measurement, ease of replication across participants, and high ecological validity, making it attractive for researchers. It also can create links between researchers who study basic social psychological processes and those who study new media. In two studies we examined people's reactions as they navigated through a virtual world and interacted with virtual people, some of whom needed help. Participants' compassion and tendency to experience personal distress predicted emotional reactions (concern) and proxemic behavior (gaze orientation and degree of interpersonal distance) to a virtual person in need but not to a control person. The results support the use of IVET and proxemic variables to measure compassion unobtrusively and they encourage the use of IVET to advance our understanding of people's behavior in and reactions to virtual worlds and new media.     

Hope over experience: desirability and the persistence of optimism

Many important decisions hinge on expectations of future outcomes. Decisions about health, investments, and relationships all depend on predictions of the future. These expectations are often optimistic: People frequently believe that their preferred outcomes are more likely than is merited. Yet it is unclear whether optimism persists with experience and, surprisingly, whether optimism is truly caused by desire. These are important questions because life's most consequential decisions often feature both strong preferences and the opportunity to learn. We investigated these questions by collecting football predictions from National Football League fans during each week of the 2008 season. Despite accuracy incentives and extensive feedback, predictions about preferred teams remained optimistically biased through the entire season. Optimism was as strong after 4 months as it was after 4 weeks. We exploited variation in preferences and matchups to show that desirability fueled this optimistic bias.     

Humour and creativity*

‘He laughed to free himself from his mind's bondage’ (James Joyce). ‘It is very strange that I never get any encouragement from psychiatric audiences when I want to talk about art or humour’ (Gregory Bateson). ‘Let us not always assume that a sense of humour is always mocking. It could be loving’ (Gregory Bateson).     

Virtual Humans and Persuasion: The Effects of Agency and Behavioral Realism

Two studies examined whether participant attitudes would change toward positions advocated by an ingroup member even if the latter was known to be an embodied agent; that is, a human-like representation of a computer algorithm. While immersed in a virtual environment, participants listened to a persuasive communication from a digital representation of another student. The latter was actually an embodied agent (a computer-controlled digital representation of a human). Study 1 examined the extent to which gender of the virtual human, participant gender, and the agent's behavior affected attitude change. Results revealed gender-based ingroup favoritism in the form of greater attitude change for same gender virtual humans. Study 2 examined behavioral realism and agency beliefs; that is, whether participants believed the other to be an agent or an avatar (an online representation of an actual person). Results supported Blascovich and colleague's model of social influence within immersive virtual environments. Specifically, the prediction that virtual humans high in behavioral realism would be more influential than those low in behavioral realism was supported, but this effect was moderated by the gender of the virtual human and the research participant. Implications of these findings for the model are discussed.     

Affective reactions to facial identity in a prosopagnosic patient

This study probes whether a prosopagnosic patient can make accurate explicit affective judgements towards faces. Patient MJH was shown photographs of faces of well-liked family members and public figures rated as “evil” by opinion polls. MJH was asked to rate each face on two 7-point scales (Likeability and Pleasantness). Since he is unable to explicitly recognise faces, his ratings were based on his evaluative reaction to the faces presented. In a second phase of the experiment, MJH was told the name of the faces previously presented and asked to rate them using the same scales. MJH's Likeability ratings during the picture-viewing phase of the experiment and the explicit phase were highly correlated. Based on these findings, we propose that thought consists of an explicit declarative and an implicit emotional aspect, which may become dissociated in prosopagnosia.     

Developmental environment affects risk-acceptance in the hissing cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa

Consistent individual differences in the tendency to accept risk have been demonstrated in invertebrates, fish, birds, and mammals, including humans. These individual differences have been associated with size, growth rate, survival, and reproductive success. Little research, however, has investigated the effect of developmental environment on individual differences in risk-acceptance. Competing hypotheses offer different explanations of how variation in the quality of the developmental environment affects risk-acceptance in adults. The first hypothesis states that individuals developing in poor quality environments take risks because such behavior is their only means of obtaining adequate fitness returns. The second hypothesis states that individuals developing in poor environments avoid risk because their poor physical condition makes them especially vulnerable to injury or death. We measured several forms of risk-accepting behavior (exploration, foraging, and recovery after disturbance) in male hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) that had developed in nutritional and social environments of varying quality. Individuals raised on poor nutrition diets exhibited lower levels of risk-acceptance than those raised on high nutrition diets. Risk-acceptance among individuals that developed on poor nutrition diets was negatively correlated with body size. We conclude that quality of developmental environment affects risk-acceptance across behavioral contexts in male hissing cockroaches. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that condition-dependent vulnerability mediates the relationship between developmental environment and risk-acceptance.