目光注视线索对客体注意的影响及作用机制

目光注视在人类社交以及捕获和维持注意方面发挥重要作用。但是, 目光注视如何与客体交互以引导注意分配至今尚不明确。因此, 本研究采用双框线索范式, 以具有两种注视方向(直视或回避)的面孔或实物作为客体, 通过操纵线索到目标间的SOA来考察目光注视对客体注意的影响及作用机制。实验1发现, 目光注视对客体效应的影响只出现在300 ms SOA时; 进一步分析发现, 客体效应的差异来自于直视条件下被试对无效相同客体位置上的目标比回避条件下反应更快。这表明与回避目光相比, 直视更能捕获我们的注意, 从而产生更大的客体效应。实验2将面孔对比度反转, 排除了低水平物理特征对实验1结果的影响。实验3使用两种注视方向的眼睛叠加杯子作为客体, 以探究目光注视效应是否能扩展到其他客体中, 结果与实验1相同。本研究结果表明, 目光注视能够与客体交互共同引导注意分配, 直视更能捕获注意, 但受SOA的影响, 上述结果支持了感觉增强理论。     

Life Satisfaction and Incumbent Voting: Examining the Mediating Effect of Trust in Government

Journal of Happiness Studies - An emerging body of evidence suggests a causal relationship between wellbeing and incumbent voting. However, the evidence is primarily founded upon established...     

Learning from human tutoring

Human one-to-one tutoring has been shown to be a very effective form of instruction. Three contrasting hypotheses, a tutor-centered one, a student-centered one, and an interactive one could all potentially explain the effectiveness of tutoring. To test these hypotheses, analyses focused not only on the effectiveness of the tutors' moves, but also on the effectiveness of the students' construction on learning, as well as their interaction. The interaction hypothesis is further tested in the second study by manipulating the kind of tutoring tactics tutors were permitted to use. In order to promote a more interactive style of dialogue, rather than a didactic style, tutors were suppressed from giving explanations and feedback. Instead, tutors were encouraged to prompt the students. Surprisingly, students learned just as effectively even when tutors were suppressed from giving explanations and feedback. Their learning in the interactive style of tutoring is attributed to construction from deeper and a greater amount of scaffolding episodes, as well as their greater effort to take control of their own learning by reading more. What they learned from reading was limited, however, by their reading abilities.     

The cognitive underpinnings of emerging mathematical skills: Executive functioning,patterns, numeracy,and arithmetic

Background: Exposure to mathematical pattern tasks is often deemed important for developing children's algebraic thinking skills. Yet, there is a dearth of evidence on the cognitive underpinnings of pattern tasks and how early competencies on these tasks are related to later development. Aims: We examined the domain‐specific and domain‐general determinants of performances on pattern tasks by using (a) a standardized test of numerical and arithmetic proficiency and (b) measures of executive functioning, respectively. Sample: Participants were 163 6‐year‐olds enrolled in primary schools that typically serve families from low to middle socioeconomic backgrounds. Method: Children were administered a battery of executive functioning (inhibitory, switching, updating), numerical and arithmetic proficiency (the Numerical Operations task from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test‐II), and three types of pattern tasks. Results: Contrary to findings from the adult literature, we found all the executive functioning measures coalesced into two factors: updating and an inhibition/switch factor. Only the updating factor predicted performances on the pattern tasks. Although performance on the pattern tasks were correlated with numerical and arithmetic proficiency, findings from structural equation modelling showed that there were no direct or independent relationships between them. Conclusions: The findings suggest that the bivariate relationships between pattern, numeracy, and arithmetic tasks are likely due to their shared demands on updating resources. Unlike older children, these findings suggest that for 6‐year‐olds, better numerical and arithmetic proficiency, without accompanying advantages in updating capacities, will no more likely lead to better performance on the pattern tasks.     

Evaluating Six Common Stereotypes About Older Workers with Meta‐Analytical Data

This study evaluates the cumulated empirical evidence on 6 common age stereotypes. These stereotypes suggest that older workers are: (a) less motivated, (b) generally less willing to participate in training and career development, (c) more resistant and less willing to change, (d) less trusting, (e) less healthy, and (f) more vulnerable to work‐family imbalance. The meta‐analysis included 418 empirical studies (N= 208,204) and examined the relationships of age to 39 variables representing the content domain of age stereotypes. The only stereotype consistent with empirical evidence is that older workers are less willing to participate in training and career development activities. The paper concludes with implications for future theory development and management practice.     

The emotive neuroscience of embodiment

Embodiment in psychological research and theory often refers to the idea that the body plays a crucial role in emotive, motivational, and cognitive processes. We review past and recent embodiment research, focusing on neuroscientific work. In particular, we review a growing body of evidence supporting the notion that manipulated facial expressions, hand contractions, and changes in physical posture influence physiological activity related to approach motivation or the inclination to move toward a stimulus. Several other perspectives are also considered, such as work related to facial-feedback theories of emotion, theories of grounded or embodied cognition, and mirror neuron research. Ultimately, we conclude that bi-directionality may exist between certain bodily movements and other components of approach- or avoidance-related emotions. Avenues for new research are considered given these implications.     

Nourishing or suppressing? The contradictory influences of perception of organizational politics on organizational citizenship behaviour

Drawing on both social exchange theory and impression management theory, this study sought to explain how perception of organizational politics (POP) influences organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) through two contrary psychological processes. We proposed that through the mediation of job satisfaction, POP has an inhibiting effect on OCB; through the mediation of careerism, POP has a nourishing effect on OCB. Data were obtained from 393 police officers and their colleagues from a city police department in northern Taiwan. Results from structural equation modelling (SEM) revealed that the relationship between POP and OCB was negatively mediated by job satisfaction and positively mediated by careerism. Such antithetical psychological processes imply that employees may experience psychological dilemmas over the performance of OCB when they perceive their organization as political. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.     

Anger and testosterone: Evidence that situationally-induced anger relates to situationally-induced testosterone

Testosterone has been shown to relate to power, dominance, social status, and aggression. However, no research has related situationally induced changes in testosterone to subjective emotional experience. Based on the fact that anger relates to power, dominance, social status, and aggression, we predicted that testosterone would be uniquely related to the subjective experience of anger. In this study, salivary testosterone and cortisol were measured both prior to and following an anger-inducing event. In line with predictions, anger was associated with increased testosterone but not cortisol. These results provide the first evidence of a subjective emotional experience linked with changes in testosterone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

The orienting of spatial attention to backward masked fearful faces is associated with variation in the serotonin transporter gene

Threat signals facilitate spatial attention, even when awareness of these signals has been restricted through the use of backward masking. However, unrestricted/unmasked threat cues tend to delay the disengagement of attention, whereas restricted/masked threat facilitates orienting, suggesting different underlying mechanisms. Within the general population, the serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (5HTTLPR) is associated with one's allocation of attention to unmasked threat signals. However, it is unclear to what extent the 5HTTLPR gene may be involved in nonconscious biases to masked threat, and whether or not such biases are driven by facilitated orienting or delayed disengagement. Participants were genotyped and performed a dot-probe task with backward masked fearful and neutral faces. Results indicate that short-allele carriers of the 5HTTLPR gene nonconsciously orient spatial attention to masked fearful faces. On the other hand, homozygous long-allele individuals tended to direct attention away from masked fearful faces. All participants' performance was at chance in a posttask assessment of awareness for the masked faces. The results add to current literature on the 5HTTLPR and attention biases, and suggest that threat signals facilitate the orienting of attention in short-allele carriers of the 5HTTLPR gene even under restricted processing conditions.     

Dissociating effects of subclinical anxiety and depression on cognitive control

Even at subclinical levels, anxiety and depression are associated with impaired cognitive control. It is unclear, though, to what extent these deficits reflect a common underlying dysfunction. Using a non-affective hybrid masked prime-Simon task, we obtained several measures of within- and between- trial inhibitory behavioral control in 80 young, healthy volunteers, together with measures of their anxiety and depression levels. Neither depression nor anxiety affected low-level within-trial control, or any of the between-trial control measures. However, increased levels of depression, but not of anxiety, were associated with impaired high-level within-trial control (increased Simon effect). Results indicate that depression, but not anxiety, impairs voluntary online response-control mechanisms independent of affective content.