Prior entry and temporal attention: cueing affects order errors in RSVP

The law of prior entry states that attended objects come to consciousness more quickly than unattended ones. This has been well established in spatial cueing paradigms, where two task-relevant stimuli are presented near-simultaneously at two different locations. Here, we suggest that prior entry also plays a pivotal role in temporal attention paradigms, where stimuli appear at the same location but at distinct moments in time, in rapid serial presentation (RSVP). Specifically, we hypothesize that prior entry can explain temporal order reversals in reporting two targets from RSVP. In support of this, three experiments show that cueing attention toward either of the targets has a strong influence on order errors. We conclude that prior entry provides a viable explanation of the way in which relevant information is prioritized in RSVP.     

Alcohol Availability and Violence among Inner-City Adolescents: A Multi-Level Analysis of the Role of Alcohol Outlet Density

Researchers recognize that the connection between alcohol and peer violence may relate to community level ecological factors, such as the location of businesses that sell alcohol. Building on previous research among adults, this study examines the relationship between alcohol outlet density and violent behaviors among adolescents, taking into account demographic characteristics, individual alcohol use, and neighborhood level socioeconomic indicators. Data drawn from a diverse Emergency Department based sample of 1,050 urban adolescents, combined with tract level data from the state liquor control commission and U.S. Census, were analyzed. Results of multivariate multi-level regression analysis indicate that alcohol outlet density is significantly related to adolescents’ violent behaviors, controlling for demographic characteristics and individual alcohol use. Census tract level socioeconomic indicators were not significantly associated with youth violence. Findings suggest that alcohol outlet density regulation should be considered as part of broader violence prevention strategies for urban adolescents.     

Consciousness as recursive, spatiotemporal self-location

At the phenomenal level, consciousness arises in a consistently coherent fashion as a singular, unified field of recursive self-awareness (subjectivity) with explicitly orientational characteristics—that of a subject located both spatially and temporally in an egocentrically-extended domain. Understanding these twin elements of consciousness begins with the recognition that ultimately (and most primitively), cognitive systems serve the biological self-regulatory regime in which they subsist. The psychological structures supporting self-located subjectivity involve an evolutionary elaboration of the two basic elements necessary for extending self-regulation into behavioral interaction with the environment: an orientative reference frame which consistently structures ongoing interaction in terms of controllable spatiotemporal parameters, and processing architecture that relates behavior to homeostatic needs via feedback. Over time, constant evolutionary pressures for energy efficiency have encouraged the emergence of anticipative feedforward processing mechanisms, and the elaboration, at the apex of the sensorimotor processing hierarchy, of self-activating, highly attenuated recursively-feedforward circuitry processing the basic orientational schema independent of external action output. As the primary reference frame of active waking cognition, this recursive self-locational schema processing generates a zone of subjective self-awareness in terms of which it feels like something to be oneself here and now. This is consciousness-as-subjectivity.     

Judgements of a 2 × 2 contingency table: Sequential processing and the learning curve

Shanks (1985) has used a video game to investigate how subjects estimate the effect of their behaviour in a task defined by a 2×2 contingency table. The subjects were able to distinguish positive and negative contingencies from zero contingencies. In addition, they showed a learning curve and a bias to rate zero contingencies with a high outcome density higher than low-density zero contingencies. He interpreted these data as being consistent with associative models derived from animal learning. In Experiment 1 we replicated these results using a task and instructions similar to his. In a second experiment we showed that the subjects' tendency to overestimate high-density zero contingencies did not arise because the “game” was so difficult that it interfered with processing the events. In this experiment subjects were given tables of the outcome frequencies that had been determined by the earlier subjects. These subjects were, if anything, less accurate in rating the zero contingencies. We point out several logical problems with Shanks's initial task. The task did not represent a true 2×2 contingency, and aspects of it were physically impossible. In Experiment 3 we modified the task to represent a true 2×2 contingency. Using this task, we found a similar pattern of results, except that there was no evidence of the learning curve predicted by the associative models. We conclude that there is little in our data to rule out a “rule-based” analysis of contingency judgements.     

The role of alternative hypotheses in the integration of evidence that disconfirms an acquired belief

Two experiments examined the role of alternative hypotheses in the recognition of belief-incongruent evidence and the consequent attribution of probative value to that evidence. Using a contingency judgement and prediction task, subjects monitored multiple predictor-outcome contingencies. In a subset of three of these contingencies the evidence strongly endorsed a positive contingency in a first phase but strongly endorsed a negative contingency in a second phase. In Experiment 1 the negative evidence was presented, in part, in terms of an alternative contingency involving a new predictor or a new outcome, or in terms of no alternatives. The presence of alternative hypotheses did not influence the recognition of the negative evidence but significantly reduced the subjects' persistence in predicting the outcome in the presence of the predictor. Using the same positive-negative contingencies, Experiment 2 replicated this effect but also demonstrated that error in the feedback during the negative phase strengthened the perseverance in outcome predictions even when subjects acknowledged the negative nature of the evidence. Results from these two experiments indicate that prior beliefs do not bias the recognition of belief-incongruent evidence but the integration of that evidence is determined by the nature of the alternative hypotheses available to the reasoner.     

Addiction as an indicator of vulnerability: The case of indoor tanning

Research concerning the marketing of potentially harmful products to vulnerable consumer segments reveals difficulties in identifying vulnerable consumers. Businesses must be able to identify such segments if they are to avoid regulation and consumer activism. Whether a measure of nonsubstance addiction is an appropriate indicator of vulnerability is examined here in the context of indoor tanning. Three studies of young adult tanners indicate that (a) a modified alcohol addiction scale, the CAGE index, can be used to measure other addictions; (b) addicted indoor tanners have high motivation to meet social appearance norms and to experience the feeling of tanning, which may make them susceptible to marketing cues for indoor tanning; and (3) addicted and nonaddicted indoor tanners are similar in their knowledge of the dangers of indoor tanning, thus supporting the assertion that addicted tanners' decisions to tan indoors are likely more influenced by addiction than by informed decision making.