Undetected changes in visible stimuli influence subsequent decisions

Change blindness-our inability to detect changes in a stimulus-occurs even when the change takes place gradually, without any disruption [Simons, D. J., Franconeri, S. L., & Reimer, R. L. (2000). Change blindness in the absence of a visual disruption. Perception, 29(10), 1143-1154]. Such gradual changes are more difficult to detect than changes that involve a disruption. Using this method, David et al. [David, E., Laloyaux, C., Devue, C., & Cleeremans, A. (in press). Change blindness to gradual changes in facial expressions. Psychologica Belgica] recently showed substantial blindness to changes that involve facial expressions of emotion. In this experiment, we show that people who failed to detect any change in the displays were (1) nevertheless influenced by the changing information in subsequent recognition decisions about which facial expression they had seen, and (2) that their confidence in their decisions was lower after exposure to changing vs. static displays. The findings therefore support the notion that undetected changes that occur in highly salient stimuli may be causally efficacious and influence subsequent behavior. Implications concerning the nature of the representations associated with undetected changes are discussed.     

Why are some people with neurological illness more resilient than others?

The current qualitative study was designed to evaluate the coping strategies of people living with a chronic progressive neurological illness and their carers. The neurological illnesses were Huntington's disease, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. Participants included 15 people who showed high levels of adjustment and 15 who showed low levels of adjustment. Participants were selected from an earlier study, to ensure that they satisfied the inclusion criteria for the current study. Interviews were completed to determine the strategies used to cope with the demands of the illness. Participants who demonstrated good adjustment were more likely to draw on social support to provide them with the resources to deal with the illness. In contrast, those who evidenced poor adjustment were more likely to draw on external supports to complete tasks for them. The implications of these findings for people with chronic neurological illnesses and their families are discussed.     

Environmentalism at home: The process of ecological resocialization by teenagers

Both family decision making and consumer socialization studies have been focused largely on the influence of parents on children. However, because family communication is not unidirectional, studying teenagers' influence on their parents can provide a fuller understanding of consumers' resocialization processes. This study reports on 26 depth interviews conducted with teenagers and their mothers, designed to investigate how parental styles and frequency of communication between a teenager and parent affect parental ecological resocialization. Parental styles and the frequency of communication both have notable impacts on teenagers' influence on their mothers' pro‐environmental behaviors. Moreover, whereas bilateral strategies (bargaining and reasoning) are the most effective strategies used with warmer mothers, unilateral strategies (persuasion and nagging) are the least effective strategies used with cooler mothers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Automated testing of cognitive performance in monkeys: Use of a battery of computerized test systems by a troop of semi-free-ranging baboons (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Papio papio</Emphasis>)

Fagot and Paleressompoulle (2009) published an automated learning device for monkeys (ALDM) to test the cognitive functions of nonhuman primates within their social groups, but the efficiency of the ALDM procedure with large groups remains unknown. In the present study, 10 ALDM systems were provided ad lib to a troop of 26 semi-free-ranging baboons that were initially naive with computerized testing. The test program taught baboons to solve two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) and matching-to-sample (MTS) tasks. A million trials were recorded for the group during a period of 85 days (Experiment 1). Their analysis shows that 75% of the baboons participated at high frequencies and quickly learned the 2AFC and MTS tasks. In Experiment 2, we compared the baboons’ behavior when the ADLM systems were either accessible or closed. ALDM reduced frequencies of object-directed behaviors, but had no overt consequence on social conflicts. In Experiment 3, we tested the process of the global or local attributes of visual stimuli in MTS-trained baboons in order to illustrate the efficiency of ALDM for behavioral studies requiring complex experimental designs. Altogether, the results of the present study validate the use of ALDM to efficiently test monkeys in large social groups. ALDM has a strong potential for a variety of scientific disciplines, including for biomedical research. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Stereotypic horses (Equus caballus) are not cognitively impaired

Animal Cognition - Stereotypies in animals are thought to&nbsp;arise from an interaction between genetic predisposition and sub-optimal housing conditions. In domestic horses, a well-studied...     

A Comparison of Mood and Quality of Life Among People with Progressive Neurological Illnesses and Their Caregivers

The current study was designed to investigate differences in mood and a range of QOL domains among 423 patients and 335 caregivers of people with motor neurone disease (MND), Huntington’s disease (HD), Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis (MS). Patients and caregivers completed an anonymous questionnaire that evaluated their mood (anxiety, depression, fatigue, confusion) and QOL (physical, psychological, social, environment). The results demonstrated that caregivers of people with MND and HD experienced most problems with their mood and QOL compared to caregivers of people in the other illness groups. There were few differences in mood or QOL between patients and caregivers. Patients generally showed greater confusion, physical impairment, and psychological maladjustment. The findings suggest that educational and intervention programs need to be developed to help both patients and their caregivers to adjust and cope with these illnesses, particularly caregivers of people with MND and HD.     

Does Adolescent Popularity Mediate Relationships between Both Theory of Mind and Love of Money and Consumer Ethics?

We develop a dual‐impact theory, treat popularity (peer nominations) as a common mediator between both theory of mind and love of money and consumer ethics (deceptive/misleading/harmful shopping practices). We theorise our direct and indirect paths as follows: Directly, love of money is more strongly related to consumer unethical beliefs than theory of mind. Indirectly, theory of mind attracts popularity that fuels consumer unethical beliefs. Our data from multiple sources (survey of 769 French teenagers and peer nominations of popularity) support our theory. Multi‐group analyses across gender, age, school, and money reveal new discoveries: Theory of mind directly excites consumer unethical beliefs for teens with money from work only. Love of money is related to consumer unethical beliefs—much stronger for senior high school (HS) students than for junior HS teens and much stronger for males than for females. Without money (from work and from parents), teenagers with high theory of mind become popular, but have no consumer unethical beliefs. Theory of mind is not related to girls' popularity, but popular girls have consumer unethical beliefs. Our alarming insights illustrate: Increasing work experience and age induces consumer unethical beliefs. Our theory provides implications for retail managers and to the fields of behavioural economics, monetary intelligence, and business ethics.     

Horses are sensitive to baby talk: pet-directed speech facilitates communication with humans in a pointing task and during grooming

Animal Cognition - Pet-directed speech (PDS) is a type of speech humans spontaneously use with their companion animals. It is very similar to speech commonly used when talking to babies. A survey...     

Gender stereotypes associated with vehicle driving among French preadolescents and adolescents

Gender differences in accidentology, notably on roads, are well documented and current research in social psychology tends to explain these differences by gender stereotypes, notably the association of risk-taking with social expectations concerning masculinity. To date, however, little research has explored gender stereotypes associated with vehicle driving. Beliefs about driving by men and women, as well as the effect of the age and gender of the perceiver, were explored using the free association method with 599 preadolescents and adolescents between 10 and 16 years of age. The results show that gender stereotypes are indeed associated with driving from the age of 10. While the representation of male drivers is already stable at this age, the representation of female drivers appears to develop with age. Furthermore, there is a notable in-group serving bias, but only among girls. The results are discussed in terms of an essentialist representation of genders, in-group/out-group relations, age differences in gender stereotypes associated with driving, and practical consequences on driver’s training and socialization to risk-taking.     

Kea cooperate better with sharing affiliates

Controlled studies that focus on intraspecific cooperation tasks have revealed striking similarities, but also differences, in abilities across taxa as diverse as primates, fish, and birds. Such comparisons may provide insight into the specific socio-ecological selection pressures that led to the evolution of cooperation. Unfortunately, however, compared to primates data on birds remain relatively scarce. We tested a New Zealand psittaciform, the kea, in a dyadic cooperation task using the loose-string design. During trials our subjects were in separate compartments, but obtained a common reward that could be divided multiple ways, allowing the examination of reward division effects. Ten individuals were tested twice in 44 combinations of partners. Dyads with a high affiliation score attempted to cooperate more often and were also more often successful in doing so. Furthermore, dyads that shared rewards more equally seemed to be more likely to attempt cooperation in the next trial. Like other bird and some monkey species, but unlike, for example, chimpanzees, kea did not spontaneously show understanding of either the role of the partner or the mechanism behind the cooperation task. This may point to true disparities between species, but may also be due to differences in task design and/or the amount of exposure to similar tasks and individual skills of the subjects.