Collaboration and prospective memory: comparing nominal and collaborative group performance in strangers and couples

To perform prospective memory (PM) tasks in day-to-day life, we often enlist the help of others. Yet the effects of collaboration on PM are largely unknown. Adopting the methodology of the “collaborative recall paradigm”, we tested whether stranger dyads (Experiment 1) and intimate couples (Experiment 2) would perform better on a “Virtual Week” task when working together or each working separately. In Experiment 1, we found evidence of collaborative inhibition: collaborating strangers did not perform to their pooled individual potential, although the effect was modulated by PM task difficulty. We also found that the overall collaborative inhibition effect was attributable to both the retrospective and prospective components of PM. In Experiment 2 however, there was no collaborative inhibition: there was no significant difference in performance between couples working together or separately. Our findings suggest potential costs of collaboration to PM. Intimate relationships may reduce the usual costs of collaboration, with implications for intervention training programmes and for populations who most need PM support.     

A review of the concurrent-chains arrangement to assess intervention choice: 2018–2023

The purpose of this review is to summarize recent literature on the use of concurrent-chains arrangements in the assessment of preference for interventions (or intervention components) in the applied literature. The types of interventions and participants are described briefly, and procedural variations, ethical considerations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Breed group differences in the unsolvable problem task: herding dogs prefer their owner,while solitary hunting dogs seek stranger proximity

Animal Cognition - The communicating skills of dogs are well documented and especially their contact-seeking behaviours towards humans. The aim of this study was to use the unsolvable problem...     

The premotor theory of attention as an account for the Simon effect

The Simon effect refers to the phenomenon that responses are faster when the irrelevant location of a stimulus corresponds with the response location than when these locations do not correspond. In the current paper we examined the viability of an updated version of the premotor theory of attention (PMTA) as an account for the Simon effect. Two predictions were evaluated. First, in the case of focused attention at the relevant target position a strong reduction of the Simon effect should be observed as the Simon effect according to PMTA crucially depends on attentional orienting. Secondly, if attention is directed towards a location then this orienting by itself should already be sufficient for producing a Simon effect, as stimulus presence is not required. Our data confirmed these predictions thereby supporting the relevance of the PMTA for the Simon effect.     

Training career adaptability to facilitate a successful school-to-work transition

The transition from school to work is one of the most critical steps in graduates' careers, as it can determine vocational outcomes and future career success. Yet, these newcomers to the labor market often take longer than regular job seekers to find a suitable job, are more likely to experience a job mismatch and to suffer from underemployment. In this study, we proposed that career adaptability might help remedy this problem. We therefore developed a training aimed at providing graduates with career adaptability resources, with the assumption that this may foster training-participants' later career adaptability and employment quality. A longitudinal field quasi-experiment compared the development of each career adaptability dimension between a training group (n = 32) and a control group (n = 24) over three points in time (pre-training measurement, post-training measurement and follow-up measurement six months later). Repeated measures analyses showed an overall increase in concern, control and curiosity within the training group, whereas there was no increase (concern) or even an overall decrease (control and curiosity) within the control group. Consequently, the training succeeded in enhancing participants' control and curiosity in the long run. Furthermore, among participants who had found employment half a year later, training participants reported higher employment quality than did members of the control group. In sum, results show that providing graduates with career adaptability resources can raise their chances on finding a qualitatively good job.     

Artifacts and natural kinds: children's judgments about whether objects are owned

People's behavior in relation to objects depends on whether they are owned. But how do people judge whether objects are owned? We propose that people expect human-made objects (artifacts) to be more likely to be owned than naturally occurring objects (natural kinds), and we examine the development of these expectations in young children. Experiment 1 found that when shown pictures of familiar kinds of objects, 3-year-olds expected artifacts to be owned and inanimate natural kinds to be non-owned. In Experiments 2A and 2B, 3-6-year-olds likewise had different expectations about the ownership of unfamiliar artifacts and natural kinds. Children at all ages viewed unfamiliar natural kinds as non-owned, but children younger than 6 years of age only endorsed artifacts as owned at chance rates. In Experiment 3, children saw the same pictures but were also told whether objects were human-made. With this information provided, even 3-year-olds viewed unfamiliar artifacts as owned. Finally, in Experiment 4, 4- and 5-year-olds chose unfamiliar artifacts over natural kinds when judging which object in a pair belongs to a person, but not when judging which the person prefers. These experiments provide first evidence about how children judge whether objects are owned. In contrast to claims that children think about natural kinds as being similar to artifacts, the current findings reveal that children have differing expectations about whether they are owned.     

Old and new ways to study characteristics of reading disability: The case of the nonword-reading deficit

Theoretical and computational models of reading have traditionally been informed by specific characteristics of disabled readers. One of the most frequently studied marker effects of developmental dyslexia is the nonword-reading deficit. Disabled readers are generally believed to show a specific problem in reading nonwords. This study presents a survey of frequently cited methods used to examine this effect by controlling general reading ability in various ways. An extensive analysis, however, shows that the majority of these methods (grade equivalents scores, the reading-level match design, and interactions in a chronological-age match design) actually fail to account for confounding variables such as age and general slowing, potentially affecting the conclusions reached. To alleviate this problem, an alternative method is presented: i.e. state trace analysis. Applying this method in a sample of Dutch disabled and typical readers, the results revealed an absence of a nonword-reading deficit in the disabled readers. Furthermore, after controlling for their decoding ability, disabled readers showed inferior word reading performance, which strongly suggests that the fundamental problem of disabled readers does not relate to the reading of nonwords but concerns their (dis)ability to acquire orthographic (word-specific) knowledge. Further, predictions for disabled readers in an inconsistent orthography like English are formulated. Finally, based on a review of neurobiological studies, implications for theories of reading disability are discussed.     

Boys don't cry: Cognitive load and priming increase stereotypic sex differences in emotion memory

The results of three experiments provide evidence that the relative accessibility of stereotypes about sex difference influences people's memory of very recent emotions. Being under high rather than low cognitive load caused females compared with males to recall experiencing more intense emotional reactions to saddening stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2), and relatively less intense reactions to angering stimuli (Experiment 2). Being directly primed with stereotypes about sex differences and being under high cognitive load both caused females to recall more intense reactions to saddening stimuli compared with females who were neither primed with stereotypes nor under cognitive load (Experiment 3). These results imply that the relative accessibility of stereotypes influences memories of emotion in a manner similar to stereotypes' influence on social perception. Implications of these findings for theories of emotion memory and for self-perpetuating stereotypes about emotional sex differences are discussed.     

Why People Gossip: An Empirical Analysis of Social Motives,Antecedents, and Consequences

In 3 studies with student samples, we advance a social‐motivational approach to gossip. We developed the Motives to Gossip Questionnaire to distinguish negative influence, information gathering and validation, social enjoyment, and group protection as motives underlying gossip. Study 1 demonstrated that these motives can be distinguished empirically, and that the informational motive was the most prevalent reason to instigate gossip. Study 2 showed that group protection was especially important when the opportunity to gossip with a group member about another member's norm‐violating behavior was salient. Study 3 showed that when participants imagined someone gossiped to them about another group member's norm violation, and ascribed this to group protection, they rated the gossip as social and did not disapprove of it.