Resolving conflicting social categories: the role of age-related executive ability

We investigated the effect of age-related decline in executive ability on the application of emergent features to incongruent social category conjunctions (e.g., male midwife). When forming an impression of an incongruent conjunction, older adults used more emergent attributes (attributes associated exclusively with the category conjunction and not the constituents), relative to younger adults. Moreover, this relationship was mediated by a reduction in inhibitory ability (measured using a Stroop task) and processing speed (measured using a Digit Symbol Substitution Test, DSST). These findings are consistent with the notion that executive ability is pivotal in understanding social functioning in older adults. We discuss the implications of these findings for the continuing development of models outlining the processes and stages involved in perceiving social category conjunctions.     

Interpretation bias in preschool children at risk for anxiety: a prospective study

A story-stem paradigm was used to assess interpretation bias in preschool children. Data were available for 131 children. Interpretation bias, behavioral inhibition (BI), and anxiety were assessed when children were aged between 3 years 2 months and 4 years 5 months. Anxiety was subsequently assessed 12 months, 2 years, and 5 years later. A significant difference in interpretation bias was found between participants who met criteria for an anxiety diagnosis at baseline, with clinically anxious participants more likely to complete the ambiguous story-stems in a threat-related way. Threat interpretations significantly predicted anxiety symptoms at 12-month follow-up, after controlling for baseline symptoms, but did not predict anxiety symptoms or diagnoses at either 2-year or 5-year follow-up. There was little evidence for a relationship between BI and interpretation bias. Overall, the pattern of results was not consistent with the hypothesis that interpretation bias plays a role in the development of anxiety. Instead, some evidence for a role in the maintenance of anxiety over relatively short periods of time was found. The use of a story-stem methodology to assess interpretation bias in young children is discussed along with the theoretical and clinical implications of the findings.     

Training attention: Interactions between central cues and reflexive attention

Three experiments are reported in which we investigate whether the recently reported interactions between central cues (e.g., arrows) and reflexive attention are attributable to the overlearned spatial properties of certain central cues. In all three experiments, a nonpredictive cue with arbitrary spatial properties (a colour patch) is presented prior to a detection target in the left or right visual field. Reaction times to detect targets are compared before and after a training session in which participants are trained to associate each colour patch with left and right space, either via a target detection task in which colour predicts target location 100% of the time (Experiments 1 and 3), or via a left/right motor movement as a function of colour (Experiments 2 and 3). In the first two experiments, a small but highly significant training effect is observed. Participants are approximately 10 ms faster to detect targets at congruent locations relative to incongruent locations after training relative to before training, despite the fact that cue colour was nonpredictive during the test sessions. In Experiment 3, the length of the training session is increased and the magnitude of the training effect also increases as a result. Implications for the interaction between central cues and reflexive attention, as well as premotor theory of attention, are discussed.     

Moving thoughts make for moving targets: Capturing time-sensitive effects in global/local processing

ABSTRACT

We examined the time-course of global/local processing with the goal of describing average change over time and individual differences in that change, namely, variability in level (intercept) and magnitude (slope) of change. To do so, we probed global/local processing across a broad time-course so that effects of time may be estimated from a randomly sampled set of time-points from the “true” population of time-points. Results showed that, on average, processing transitioned from global to local dominance; variation around this average, however, pointed to an ebb-and-flow in dominance rather than strict linear change.     

Lip reading in infants: Attention to speech presented in- and out-of-synchrony

Twelve 10- to 16-week-old infants were presented with nursery rhymes spoken with speech sounds and lip movements in-synchrony and out-of-synchrony by 400 msec. Two observers measured the amount of time the infants did not attend to the two types of stimuli. The results showed that the infants attended significantly less to the out-of-synchrony presentation than to the in-synchrony presentation. This finding was interpreted as an indication that young infants are aware of the congruence between lip movements and speech sounds.     

A program for the analysis of intragroup interaction based on spatial dynamics

This paper describes the salient features of a computer program used in the analysis of the activity of a group of long-tail macaques. The principal feature concerns the time variation of the separation of selected dyads, although individual activity is also summarized. The program has been written such that it is adaptable to any enclosed group of Ss.     

Applying the Flanker Task to Political Psychology: A Research Note

One of the two stated objectives of the new “Research Note” section of Political Psychology is to present short reports that highlight novel methodological approaches. Toward that end, we call readers' attention to the “flanker task,” a research protocol widely employed in the study of the cognitive processes involved with detection, recognition, and distraction. The flanker task has increasingly been modified to study social traits, and we believe it has untapped value in the area of political psychology. Here we describe the flanker task—discussing its potential for political psychology—and illustrate this potential by presenting results from a study correlating political ideology to flanker effects.