Tell me sweet little lies: An event-related potentials study on the processing of social lies

In reading tasks, words that convey a false statement elicit an enhanced N400 brainwave response, relative to words that convey a true statement. N400 amplitude reductions are generally linked to the online expectancy of upcoming words in discourse. White lies, contrary to false statements, may not be unexpected in social scenarios. We used the event-related potential (ERP) technique to determine whether there is an impact of social context on sentence processing. We measured ERP responses to target words that either conveyed a social “white” lie or a socially impolite blunt truth, relative to semantic violations. Word expectancy was controlled for by equating the cloze probabilities of white lying and blunt true targets, as measured in previous paper-and-pencil tests. We obtained a classic semantic violation effect (a larger N400 for semantic incongruities relative to sense making statements). White lies, in contrast to false statements, did not enhance the amplitude of the N400 component. Interestingly, blunt true statements yielded both a late frontal positivity and an N400 response in those scenarios particularly biased to white lying. Thus, white lies do not interfere with online semantic processing, and they do not engage further reanalysis processes, which are typically indexed by subsequent late positivity ERP effects. Instead, an N400 and a late frontal positivity obtained in response to blunt true statements indicate that they were treated as unexpected events. In conclusion, unwritten rules of social communicative behavior influence the electrical brain response to locally coherent but socially inappropriate statements.     

Belief in a zero-sum game and subjective well-being across 35 countries

Current Psychology - This article presents a short research report on the relationship between perceived antagonism in social relations measured using the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG) scale,...     

The influence of facial blushing and paling on emotion perception and memory

Motivation and Emotion - Emotion expressions facilitate interpersonal communication by conveying information about a person’s affective state. The current work investigates how facial...     

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of an Item Bank for Computerized Adaptive Testing of the EORTC Insomnia Dimension in Cancer Patients (EORTC CAT-SL)

To further advance assessment of patient-reported outcomes, the European Organisation of Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group has developed computerized adaptive test (CAT) versions of all EORTC Quality of Life Core Questionnaire (QLQ-C30) scales/items. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate an item bank for CAT measurement of insomnia (CAT-SL). In line with the EORTC guidelines, the developmental process comprised four phases: (I) defining the concept insomnia and literature search, (II) selection and formulation of new items, (III) pre-testing and (IV) field-testing, including psychometric analyses of the final item bank. In phase I, the literature search identified 155 items that were compatible with our conceptualisation of insomnia, including both quantity and quality of sleep. In phase II, following a multistep-approach, this number was reduced to 15 candidate items. Pre-testing of these items in cancer patients (phase III) resulted in an item list of 14 items, which were field-tested among 1094 patients in phase IV. Psychometric evaluations showed that eight items could be retained in a unidimensional model. The final item bank yielded greater measurement precision than the original QLQ-C30 insomnia item. It was estimated that administering two or more items from the insomnia item bank with CAT results in a saving in sample size between approximately 15–25%. The 8-item EORTC CAT-SL item bank facilitates precise and efficient measurement of insomnia as part of the EORTC CAT system of health-related quality life assessment in both clinical research and practice.

     

Antisocial Process Screening Device Subscales Predict Recidivism in an Australian Juvenile Offender Sample

The present study is the first to examine the psychometric properties of the self-report Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD-SR), and the predictive utility of its subscales for reoffending, among Australian juvenile offenders (N?= 308, M age = 17.00, SD?=?1.49). Exploratory factor analysis supported a modified three-factor structure in which four items loaded differently to prior studies. Total APSD-SR and modified subscale scores were positively associated with criminal history and mental health problems (e.g., internalizing and externalizing problems, alcohol and substance abuse/dependence). Survival analyses indicated that youth scoring high on the APSD-SR total score were faster to reoffend nonviolently (Hazard Ratio [HR]?= 1.31, p?=?.0003) and violently (HR?=?1.42, p?=?.0003) than those scoring low. Whereas the modified grandiose-manipulative subscale predicted faster time to nonviolent recidivism (HR?=?1.18, p?=?.026) as a single predictor, when all subscales were simultaneously entered into the model only callous-unemotional (CU) traits and impulsivity predicted nonviolent recidivism (HR?=?1.19, p?=?.026 and 1.22, p?=?.015, respectively), and only impulsivity predicted violent recidivism (HR?=?1.26, p?=?.014). Findings inform current understanding of the relative contribution of adolescent psychopathy dimensions to designating a particularly high-risk group of Australian youth in custody.     

Journalism as Model for Civic and Information Literacies

Journalism can serve as a generative disciplinary context for developing civic and information literacies needed to meaningfully participate in an increasingly networked and mediated public sphere. Using interviews with journalists, we developed a cognitive task analysis model, identifying an iterative sequence of production and domain-specific cognitive constructs of journalism expertise. We diagnose common discrepancies between professional practices and typical youth journalism pedagogies, and offer suggestions for teaching participatory politics and civic literacies through journalism.     

Parent–offspring conflict over mate choice: An experimental study in China

Both parents and offspring have evolved mating preferences that enable them to select mates and children-in-law to maximize their inclusive fitness. The theory of parent–offspring conflict predicts that preferences for potential mates may differ between parents and offspring: individuals are expected to value biological quality more in their own mates than in their offspring's mates and to value investment potential more in their offspring's mates than in their own mates. We tested this hypothesis in China using a naturalistic ‘marriage market’ where parents actively search for marital partners for their offspring. Parents gather at a public park to advertise the characteristics of their adult children, looking for a potential son or daughter-in-law. We presented 589 parents and young adults from the city of Kunming (Yunnan, China) with hypothetical mating candidates varying in their levels of income (proxy for investment potential) and physical attractiveness (proxy for biological quality). We found some evidence of a parent–offspring conflict over mate choice, but only in the case of daughters, who evaluated physical attractiveness as more important than parents. We also found an effect of the mating candidate's sex, as physical attractiveness was deemed more valuable in a female potential mate by parents and offspring alike.     

Cognitive control deployment is flexibly modulated by social value in early adolescence

Recent mechanistic models of cognitive control define the normative level of control deployment as a function of the effort cost of exerting control balanced against the reward that can be attained by exerting control. Despite these models explaining empirical findings in adults, prior literature has suggested that adolescents may not adaptively integrate value into estimates of how much cognitive control they should deploy. Moreover, much work in adolescent neurodevelopment casts social valuation processes as competing with, and in many cases overwhelming, cognitive control in adolescence. Here, we test whether social incentives can adaptively increase cognitive control. Adolescents (M_age = 14.64, 44 male, N = 87) completed an incentivized cognitive control task in which they could exert cognitive control to receive rewards on behalf of real peers who were rated by all peers in their school grade as being of either high- or low-status. Using Bayesian modeling, we find robust evidence that adolescents exert more cognitive control for high- relative to low-status peers. Moreover, we demonstrate that social incentives, irrespective of their high- or low-status, boost adolescent cognitive control above baseline control where no incentives are offered. Findings support the hypothesis that the cognitive control system in early adolescence is flexibly modulated by social value.     

Active hippocampus during nonconscious memories

The hippocampal formation is known for its importance in conscious, declarative memory. Here, we report neuroimaging evidence in humans for an additional role of the hippocampal formation in nonconscious memory. We maskedly presented combinations of faces and written professions such that subjects were not aware of them. Nevertheless, the masked presentations activated many of the brain regions that unmasked presentations of these stimuli did. To induce a nonconscious retrieval of the faces and face-associated occupational information, subjects were instructed to view the previously masked faces and to guess the professional category of each person--academic, artist, and workman. Guessing the professional category of previously masked versus new faces activated the left and right hippocampal formation and right perirhinal cortex as well as bilateral fusiform areas and fronto-temporal areas known to mediate the retrieval of semantic information. These activations within the semantic processing system suggest that conceptual knowledge acquired during masking was nonconsciously retrieved. Our data provide clues to an analogous role of the hippocampus in conscious and nonconscious memory.     

What do memory data tell us about the role of contingency awareness in evaluative conditioning?

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to the effect that pairings of a conditioned stimulus (CS) with a valenced unconditioned stimulus (US) lead to changes in the evaluation of the CS. There have been recurring debates about whether EC requires awareness of the contingency between CSs and USs during learning. We argue that the memory performance data obtained in the standard paradigm remain ambiguous about the role of contingency awareness during the encoding of CS–US pairings. First, memory performance data are unable to distinguish between encoding-related versus retrieval-related effects. Second, the relation between memory performance and evaluation is correlational, which limits conclusions about causal relations between memory performance and EC effects. These ambiguities imply that any possible data pattern can be interpreted in at least two different ways. It is concluded that a resolution of the current debate requires alternative approaches in which contingency awareness is experimentally manipulated during the encoding of CS–US pairings.