Relations between mental performance and reaction time: New aspects of an old problem

The relation between simple and complex reaction time and psychometrically determined mental performance was reexamined with 486 subjects of above-average intelligence. Various standardized tests measuring aspects of cognitive ability, memory and ability to concentrate were used. Simple and complex reaction times were measured using the Klebelsberg modification of the Mierke apparatus. Correlations between complex reaction time and mental performance as observed by other investigators were mostly confirmed. We found, however, the strongest and most consistent correlations with tests measuring short-term memory; ability to concentrate and spatial ability. On the other hand, tests known and shown again in this paper to load highly on Spearman's general factor g, such as verbal abilities; combinatoric thinking; abstraction; or calculation gave only trivial, and, in most cases, nonsignificant correlations with complex reaction time. We even observed a negative (though, for our data, not significant) correlation between g-loadings of subtests and their correlations with complex reaction time for the only complete standardized intelligence test used in this study, the “Intelligenz-Strukturtest (Amthauer).” Therefore, this study does not support the hypothesis that fast processing of complex information as measured by complex reaction time is the decisive component of the general factor of intelligence g.     

Text-speak processing impairs tactile location

Dual task experiments have highlighted that driving while having a conversation on a cell phone can have negative impacts on driving (Strayer & Drews, 2007). It has also been noted that this negative impact is greater when reading a text-message (Lee, 2007). Commonly used in text-messaging are shortening devices collectively known as text-speak (e.g.,Ys I wll ttyl 2nite, Yes I will talk to you later tonight). To the authors' knowledge, there has been no investigation into the potential negative impacts of reading text-speak on concurrent performance on other tasks. Forty participants read a correctly spelled story and a story presented in text-speak while concurrently monitoring for a vibration around their waist. Slower reaction times and fewer correct vibration detections occurred while reading text-speak than while reading a correctly spelled story. The results suggest that reading text-speak imposes greater cognitive load than reading correctly spelled text. These findings suggest that the negative impact of text messaging on driving may be compounded by the messages being in text-speak, instead of orthographically correct text.     

Priming the activation of fear and disgust: evidence for semantic processing

Given that semantic processes mediate early processes in the elicitation of emotions, we expect that already activated emotion-specific information can influence the elicitation of an emotion. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to masked International Affective Picture System (IAPS) pictures that elicited either disgust or fear. Following the presentation of the primes, other IAPS pictures were presented as targets that elicited either disgust or fear. The participants' task was to classify the target picture as either disgust or fear evoking. In Experiment 2, we substituted the IAPS primes with facial expressions of either disgust or fear. In Experiment 3, we substituted the IAPS primes with the words disgust or fear. In all three experiments, we found that prime-target combinations of the same emotion were responded to faster than prime-target combinations of different emotions. Our findings suggest that the influence of primes on the elicitation of emotion is mediated by activated schemata or appraisal processes.     

The Development of Adolescent Generalized Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in the Context of Adolescent Mood Variability and Parent-Adolescent Negative Interactions

This study explored the influence of adolescent mood variability on the symptom development of generalized anxiety and depression in the context of parent-adolescent negative interactions. Participants were 456 adolescents (55.7 % male) from a community sample, who were followed from age 13 to 16 years. During 4 annual assessments, adolescents reported on their generalized anxiety and depressive symptoms, and both parents and adolescents on levels of negative interactions with each other. Within each study year, adolescents rated their daily mood states during 5 consecutive days for 3 times per year (total of 9 weeks). The absolute differences between mood states on consecutive days were summed to construct a mood variability score. Results showed that high levels of adolescent mood variability predicted increases in generalized anxiety and depressive symptoms across the studied period. No influence of negative interactions on anxiety and depression development was found, but positive predictive links from mood variability to negative interactions at age 14 and 15 appeared. The study underscores the role of adolescent mood variability in the development of symptoms of generalized anxiety and depression during adolescence, but found little evidence for an influence of parent-adolescent negative interactions on internalizing problem development.     

Feeling we’re biased: Autonomic arousal and reasoning conflict

Human reasoning is often biased by intuitive beliefs. A key question is whether the bias results from a failure to detect that the intuitions conflict with logical considerations or from a failure to discard these tempting intuitions. The present study addressed this unresolved debate by focusing on conflict-related autonomic nervous system modulation during biased reasoning. Participants’ skin conductance responses (SCRs) were monitored while they solved classic syllogisms in which a cued intuitive response could be inconsistent or consistent with the logical correct response. Results indicated that all reasoners showed increased SCRs when solving the inconsistent conflict problems. Experiment 2 validated that this autonomic arousal boost was absent when people were not engaged in an active reasoning task. The presence of a clear autonomic conflict response during reasoning lends credence to the idea that reasoners have a “gut” feeling that signals that their intuitive response is not logically warranted. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Feeling body dissatisfied after viewing thin-ideal pictures is mediated by self-activation

The present study sought to investigate the influence of self-activation on body and weight satisfaction in restrained and unrestrained eaters, after exposure to thin-ideal images. Restrained eaters (n = 39) and unrestrained eaters (n = 40) were randomly assigned to a self-activation manipulation versus a control manipulation. After the manipulation, all participants were exposed to eight thin-ideal images. Measures of state body and weight satisfaction and of social comparison tendencies were assessed throughout the experiment. Self-activated restrained eaters showed a significant decrease in body and weight satisfaction after exposure to thin-ideal images, compared to restrained eaters who were not self-activated. In unrestrained eaters, the self-activation manipulation did not have any effect on body or weight dissatisfaction. In conclusion, exposure to fashion models only had a negative influence on women's self-evaluations when two conditions were met: (1) the participant was ‘self-activated’ and (2) the participant classified as a restrained eater.     

Utopia and its Enemies by George Kateb

Continued population growth and its effect on rural and urban areas in less developed countries is explored by explaining various causes of migration patterns. Presented are some possible solutions to the problems encountered in the current rural‐to‐urban migration pattern.     

Gender-Role Differences in Spatial Ability: A Meta-Analytic Review

Although gender-related differences in highly gender typed cognitive abilities are of considerable interest to educators and cognitive researchers alike, relatively little progress has been made in understanding the psychological processes that lead to them. Nash (1979) proposed a gender-role mediation hypothesis for such differences, with particular emphasis on spatial ability. However, changes in gender equality and gender stereotypes in the decades since merit a re-examination of whether a gender-role association still holds (Feingold 1988). A meta-analysis of 12 studies that examined gender-role identity and mental rotation performance was conducted. These included studies from the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Croatia, and the United States of America. The mean effect size for masculinity was r = .30 for men and r = .23 for women; no association was found between femininity and mental rotation. This effect size was slightly larger than that found previously by Signorella and Jamison (1986), and exceeds many other factors known to influence spatial ability. The implications of gender-role mediation of gender differences are discussed and future research directions are identified.     

Overwriting of phonemic features in serial recall

We tested two explanations of the phonological similarity effect in verbal short‐term memory: The confusion hypothesis assumes that serial positions of similar items are confused. The overwriting hypothesis states that similar items share feature representations, which are overwritten. Participants memorised a phonologically dissimilar list of CVC‐trigrams (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2 and 3) for serial recall. In the retention interval they read aloud other items. The material of the distractor task jointly overlapped one item of the memory list. The recall of this item was impaired, and the effect was not based on intrusions from the distractor task alone. The results provide evidence for feature overwriting as one potential mechanism contributing to the phonological similarity effect.