On the limits of statistical learning: Intertrial contextual cueing is confined to temporally close contingencies

Since the seminal study by Chun and Jiang (Cognitive Psychology, 36, 28–71, 1998), a large body of research based on the contextual-cueing paradigm has shown that the cognitive system is capable of extracting statistical contingencies from visual environments. Most of these studies have focused on how individuals learn regularities found within an intratrial temporal window: A context predicts the target position within a given trial. However, Ono, Jiang, and Kawahara (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 31, 703–712, 2005) provided evidence of an intertrial implicit-learning effect when a distractor configuration in preceding trials N ? 1 predicted the target location in trials N. The aim of the present study was to gain further insight into this effect by examining whether it occurs when predictive relationships are impeded by interfering task-relevant noise (Experiments 2 and 3) or by a long delay (Experiments 1, 4, and 5). Our results replicated the intertrial contextual-cueing effect, which occurred in the condition of temporally close contingencies. However, there was no evidence of integration across long-range spatiotemporal contingencies, suggesting a temporal limitation of statistical learning.     

Dual-task automatization: The key role of sensory–motor modality compatibility

How do people automatize their dual-task performance through bottleneck bypassing (i.e., accomplish parallel processing of the central stages of two tasks)? In the present work we addressed this question, evaluating the impact of sensory–motor modality compatibility—the similarity in modality between the stimulus and the consequences of the response. We hypothesized that incompatible sensory–motor modalities (e.g., visual–vocal) create conflicts within modality-specific working memory subsystems, and therefore predicted that tasks producing such conflicts would be performed less automatically after practice. To probe for automaticity, we used a transfer psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure: Participants were first trained on a visual task (Exp. 1) or an auditory task (Exp. 2) by itself, which was later presented as Task 2, along with an unpracticed Task 1. The Task 1–Task 2 sensory–motor modality pairings were either compatible (visual–manual and auditory–vocal) or incompatible (visual–vocal and auditory–manual). In both experiments we found converging indicators of bottleneck bypassing (small dual-task interference and a high rate of response reversals) for compatible sensory–motor modalities, but indicators of bottlenecking (large dual-task interference and few response reversals) for incompatible sensory–motor modalities. Relatedly, the proportion of individuals able to bypass the bottleneck was high for compatible modalities but very low for incompatible modalities. We propose that dual-task automatization is within reach when the tasks rely on codes that do not compete within a working memory subsystem.

     

The relationship between visual search and categorization of own- and other-age faces

Young adult participants are faster to detect young adult faces in crowds of infant and child faces than vice versa. These findings have been interpreted as evidence for more efficient attentional capture by own-age than other-age faces, but could alternatively reflect faster rejection of other-age than own-age distractors, consistent with the previously reported other-age categorization advantage: faster categorization of other-age than own-age faces. Participants searched for own-age faces in other-age backgrounds or vice versa. Extending the finding to different other-age groups, young adult participants were faster to detect young adult faces in both early adolescent (Experiment 1) and older adult backgrounds (Experiment 2). To investigate whether the own-age detection advantage could be explained by faster categorization and rejection of other-age background faces, participants in experiments 3 and 4 also completed an age categorization task. Relatively faster categorization of other-age faces was related to relatively faster search through other-age backgrounds on target absent trials but not target present trials. These results confirm that other-age faces are more quickly categorized and searched through and that categorization and search processes are related; however, this correlational approach could not confirm or reject the contribution of background face processing to the own-age detection advantage.     

Examining the Spatiotemporal Disruption to Gaze When Using a Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand

The aim of this study was to provide a detailed account of the spatial and temporal disruptions to eye-hand coordination when using a prosthetic hand during a sequential fine motor skill. Twenty-one able-bodied participants performed 15 trials of the picking up coins task derived from the Southampton Hand Assessment Procedure with their anatomic hand and with a prosthesis simulator while wearing eye-tracking equipment. Gaze behavior results revealed that when using the prosthesis, performance detriments were accompanied by significantly greater hand-focused gaze and a significantly longer time to disengage gaze from manipulations to plan upcoming movements. The study findings highlight key metrics that distinguish disruptions to eye-hand coordination that may have implications for the training of prosthesis use.     

Understanding the Association Between Spirituality,Religiosity, and Feelings of Happiness and Sadness Among HIV-Positive Indian Adults: Examining Stress-Related Growth as a Mediator

This study examined the role of stress-related growth as a mediator of the associations between spirituality, religiosity, and feelings of happiness and sadness in a sample of 178 HIV-positive Indian adults. Results indicated that spirituality, but not religiosity, was associated with feelings of happiness and sadness. Subsequent mediation analyses indicated that stress-related growth fully mediated the relationships involving spirituality and feelings of happiness and sadness. Overall, our findings point to the importance of facilitating greater spiritual development among HIV-positive Indians, as well as promoting strategies that help them develop and apply stress-related growth coping methods in their lives.     

An evaluation of a visual–visual successive matching‐to‐sample procedure to establish equivalence classes in adults

Traditionally, behavior analysts have studied stimulus equivalence using a matching‐to‐sample (MTS) preparation. Although researchers have shown the utility of MTS to yield equivalence classes, the procedure requires several prerequisite skills for a learner to accurately respond. Previous research with humans and nonhumans has shown that relational responding can be produced via compound stimulus discrimination and successive matching‐to‐sample (S‐MTS). We conducted four experiments with college students to further evaluate the effectiveness of S‐MTS in the establishment of stimulus relations. S‐MTS trials consisted of the presentation of a single sample stimulus followed by one comparison in a fixed location on a computer screen. Depending upon the sample–comparison relation, participants touched (i.e., go) or did not touch (i.e., no‐go) the comparison stimulus. Following training of the baseline relations (AB/BC), we assessed the emergence of symmetry, transitivity, and equivalence performances (i.e., BA/CB and AC/CA). Results support the utility of the S‐MTS procedure as a possible alternative to traditional MTS. This study has direct implications for participants for whom traditional three‐array MTS procedures may be challenging.     

Academic goals and learning strategies in secondary education Spanish students with social anxiety / Metas académicas y estrategias de aprendizaje en estudiantes españoles de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria con ansiedad social

The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between high social anxiety, academic goals and learning strategies in a sample of 2,022 (51.1% male) Spanish adolescents aged 12–16. The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI), Achievement Goal Tendencies Questionnaire (AGTQ) and Learning and Studies Skills Strategies Inventory — High School Version (LASSI-HS) were used to assess the variables. The results showed no statistically significant differences in goal orientations between students with and without high social anxiety. However, students with high social anxiety used learning strategies significantly less. In addition, the logistic regression results indicated that high social anxiety acts as a significant predictor for setting social reinforcement goals and learning and study strategies.     

Event Semantics: A Husserlian Critique

Event semantics is concerned with the formal structure of sentences which appear to describe an event of some kind, e.g. ‘Brutus kills Caesar,’ or ‘My tooth fell out.’ Phenomenologists should be interested in work in this field, if they hope to rescue Husserl’s phenomenology of judgment from its narrow focus on copular judgments of the form ‘S is p.’ An adequate phenomenology of judgment must ultimately develop an account of judgments whose intentional correlates seem to be events, rather than states of affairs, since such judgments are ubiquitous. For this endeavor, existing work on the formal structure of event sentences provides a crucial foothold. However, phenomenologists cannot simply import semantic theories for their own use, without first evaluating them for phenomenological plausibility. This concern is particularly acute in the case of the widely-adopted “Davidsonian” approach, according to which the logical structure of event sentences diverges radically from natural language syntax. The Davidsonian form introduces a “covert” variable, which stands in for an event. Thus, the sentence ‘Brutus kills Caesar’ becomes, ‘There is an event e that is a killing of Caesar by Brutus.’ Such a theory, if correct, would have decisive consequences for the phenomenology of event sentences, and even of events themselves. Yet the introduction of covert variables in turn introduces—I argue—a covert intentional object, without assessing this idea for phenomenological plausibility. Building on Husserl’s phenomenology of predication, I develop a criterion for evaluating this hypothesis, and argue that the Davidsonian approach, as it stands, is phenomenologically untenable.     

Why Engage in Collective Action? The Conditional Effect of Social Support and Efficacy on Protest Participation

Why do people engage in collective actions, such as demonstrations? We suggest that intentions to engage in protest activities come from the perception that the action is an efficient way to affect policy but is also dependent upon the level of others’ engagement. Specifically, lower support should spur intentions to engage if the individual believes that the collective act is an efficient means to bring about social change. In two experiments, manipulating social support, efficacy increased intentions to participate in collective actions but mainly for participants with low social support (Experiments 1 and 2). In Experiment 3, manipulating efficacy, high social support was related to decreased intentions to engage. However, in this study, social support did not interact with efficacy.