Information Integration in an Area Judgment Task: Effect of Aids on Children's Perceptual Judgments

This study was designed to examine the cognitive processes involved in perceptual judgments of area with the methodology and concepts of Anderson's (1981) information integration theory. The Area = Height + Width rule, which Anderson and Cuneo (1978) showed to be operant in children's judgments, can in fact cover two different processes. Children may make a height judgment and then a length judgment and apply an additive integration operation to both. Alternatively, children may base themselves on the figure outline and estimate total length directly as a function of the distance scanned. Similarly, the multiplicatory integration pattern can result either from applying a multiplicatory operation to separate estimates or from visual exploration of the area bounded by the figure. In the present experiment, the characteristics of the areas of the test figures were modified (perimeter marking, rows of Xs covering the area, etc.) to elicit additive or multiplicatory integration patterns as a function of condition. The findings demonstrate that the second interpretation of both rules is more likely.     

Motor influences on judgment: Motor and cognitive integration

Performing motor behaviours (arm flexion vs. extension) that correspond also to lateralized peripheral activations (left vs. right side) of the motivational systems of approach versus avoidance have been previously shown to impact cognitive performance and judgment. Three experiments are reported that examined the combined effect of these variables, as a kind of motor integration, on the implementation of information integration rules in various judgment tasks: judging of a person's attractiveness from personality information, judging of the severity of health risk from alcohol and tobacco intake, and attributing blame to a perpetrator from information as to intent and severity of harm done. It was found that the congruence between these motivational activations consistently influenced the use of interactive information integration rules, compared to additive ones. This set of findings showed that cognitive rules might also be embodied. Motor integration affects cognitive integration in judgment.     

Prospective memory: Effects of divided attention on spontaneous retrieval

We examined the effects of divided attention on the spontaneous retrieval of a prospective memory intention. Participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task with an embedded prospective memory demand, and also performed a divided-attention task during some segments of lexical decision trials. In all experiments, monitoring was highly discouraged, and we observed no evidence that participants engaged monitoring processes. In Experiment 1, performing a moderately demanding divided-attention task (a digit detection task) did not affect prospective memory performance. In Experiment 2, performing a more challenging divided-attention task (random number generation) impaired prospective memory. Experiment 3 showed that this impairment was eliminated when the prospective memory cue was perceptually salient. Taken together, the results indicate that spontaneous retrieval is not automatic and that challenging divided-attention tasks interfere with spontaneous retrieval and not with the execution of a retrieved intention.     

Golden hamsters on the eight-arm maze in light and darkness: The role of dead reckoning

This paper examines whether golden hamsters can rely on dead reckoning (getting positional information from updated signals generated during locomotion) on an eight-arm maze. Two groups of hamsters were tested: Group L under ordinary room light, Group D in darkness. To enhance the role of dead reckoning, each subject could climb from its own home cage onto the central platform of the maze. In a first experimental phase (15 trials), the L subjects learned to master the maze through developing a locomotor rule (arm chaining) after three to four trials. The D subjects developed arm chaining less readily and fluctuated more in their performance than did the L subjects. In a second experimental phase (15 trials), four arms were blocked at the beginning of each trial. In both experimental groups the performance decreased, yet remained well above chance level. Success and arm chaining were positively correlated in Phase 1 and negatively correlated with success in Phase 2. We assume that in Phase 2 the L subjects switched to the predominant use of visual cues, and the D subjects to dead reckoning.     

Disclosing Fathers’ HIV Infection to their Sons in Togo

This study examined the views of parents living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and healthcare providers in Togo, on the appropriateness of HIV-infected fathers disclosing their serostatus to their sons. In early 2016, 177 PLWHA (95 mothers and 82 fathers) and 123 healthcare providers (20 physicians, 24 nurses, 41 nurse’s aides, 13 health counsellors, and 25 psychologists) judged the appropriateness of disclosure in 48 scenarios. These scenarios were composed by systematically varying the levels of four factors derived from previous studies on disclosure of bad news: the visibility of symptoms, the son’s level of psychological robustness, the son’s age, and whether the mother was involved in the decision. Seven qualitatively different positions were found: Depends on Son’s Maturity (20%), Depends on Mother’s Involvement in the Decision and Son’s Maturity (19%), Always Quite Appropriate (16%), Depends on Visibility of Symptoms and Son’s Maturity (15%), Depends on Mother’s Involvement in the Decision (14%), Depends on Son’s Age (9%), and Don’t Tell to Adult Son (7%). Healthcare providers (59% of nurses and 25% of physicians) were more likely than PLWHA (10%) to endorse the view that disclosure is Always Quite Appropriate. These findings suggest that interventions to encourage and support parental HIV disclosure in Togo, and possibly in other sub-Saharan African countries, must not be “one size fits all”, but must be tailored in design and implementation to address parents’ differing views, fears, and needs.     

The effects of happy and angry expressions on identity and expression memory for unfamiliar faces

We investigated the influence of happy and angry expressions on memory for new faces. Participants were presented with happy and angry faces in an intentional or incidental learning condition and were later asked to recognise the same faces displaying a neutral expression. They also had to remember what the initial expressions of the faces had been. Remember/know/guess judgements were made both for identity and expression memory. Results showed that faces were better recognised when presented with a happy rather than an angry expression, but only when learning was intentional. This was mainly due to an increase of the "remember" responses for happy faces when encoding was intentional rather than incidental. In contrast, memory for emotional expressions was not different for happy and angry faces whatever the encoding conditions. We interpret these findings according to the social meaning of emotional expressions for the self.