The psychological refractory period of stopping

The author examined whether the act of control of stopping is subject to the psychological refractory period (PRP) and whether stopping causes a PRP for the processing of subsequent stimuli. The task was to execute or to stop a rapid finger tapping. PRP interference was predicted for double-stimulation trials, in which 2 signals to tap or stop were presented in rapid succession. The experiments showed that stopping ongoing action is subject to and produces PRP interference similar to starting. Responses to signals to continue an ongoing action do not produce PRP interference. The results suggest that selection or initiation of new responses, but not mere response choice, constituted the processing bottleneck that caused the PRP in the present task. Further results indicate that the inhibition of not-yet-executed actions, in contrast to action termination, does not suffer PRP interference and that response inhibitions and terminations should be distinguished. ((c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)     

What do facial expressions convey: feeling states,behavioral intentions,or action requests?

Emotion theorists assume certain facial displays to convey information about the expresser's emotional state. In contrast, behavioral ecologists assume them to indicate behavioral intentions or action requests. To test these contrasting positions, over 2,000 online participants were presented with facial expressions and asked what they revealed-feeling states, behavioral intentions, or action requests. The majority of the observers chose feeling states as the message of facial expressions of disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, and surprise, supporting the emotions view. Only the anger display tended to elicit more choices of behavioral intention or action request, partially supporting the behavioral ecology view. The results support the view that facial expressions communicate emotions, with emotions being multicomponential phenomena that comprise feelings, intentions, and wishes.     

Help from faculty: Findings from the acadia institute graduate education study

Doctoral students receive many kinds of assistance from faculty members, but much of this support falls short of mentoring. This paper takes the perspective that it is more important to find out what kinds of help students receive from faculty than to assume that students are taken care of by mentors, as distinct from advisors or role models. The findings here are based on both survey and interview data collected through the Acadia Institute's project on Professional Values and Ethical Issues in the Graduate Education of Scientists and Engineers. The paper describes various kinds of assistance that students receive (or do not receive) from faculty members in their roles as teacher/coach, sponsor, and counselor, It concludes with a section on advisors assigned to doctoral students, notably the extent of their contact with and influence on students.     

An Investigation of the Determinants of Stigmatization and Prejudice Toward People Living With HIV/AIDS

The components and determinants of HIV/AIDS stigma and prejudice were investigated in an online‐questionnaire study. The results show that the components of the attitude toward people with HIV/AIDS consist of social distance, demands for political measures, negative stereotypes, and attribution of responsibility to people living with HIV/AIDS. Besides antigay attitudes and false beliefs about ways of infection, the HIV/AIDS attitude is connected to and depends on social dominance orientation (SDO) and right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA). Structural equation modeling indicated that antigay attitudes and false beliefs function as mediator variables for SDO and RWA. Implications of the results are discussed.     

A process model of the understanding of uncertain conditionals

To build a process model of the understanding of conditionals we extract a common core of three semantics of if-then sentences: (a) the conditional event interpretation in the coherencebased probability logic, (b) the discourse processingtheory of Hans Kamp, and (c) the game-theoretical approach of Jaakko Hintikka. The empirical part reports three experiments in which each participant assessed the probability of 52 if-then sentencesin a truth table task. Each experiment included a second task: An n-back task relating the interpretation of conditionals to working memory, a Bayesian bookbag and poker chip task relating the interpretation of conditionals to probability updating, and a probabilistic modus ponens task relating the interpretation of conditionals to a classical inference task. Data analysis shows that the way in which the conditionals are interpreted correlates with each of the supplementary tasks. The results are discussed within the process model proposed in the introduction.     

Perceptual grouping, not emotion, accounts for search asymmetries with schematic faces

Several different explanations have been proposed to account for the search asymmetry (SA) for angry schematic faces (i.e., the fact that an angry face target among friendly faces can be found faster than vice versa). The present study critically tested the perceptual grouping account, (a) that the SA is not due to emotional factors, but to perceptual differences that render angry faces more salient than friendly faces, and (b) that the SA is mainly attributable to differences in distractor grouping, with angry faces being more difficult to group than friendly faces. In visual search for angry and friendly faces, the number of distractors visible during each fixation was systematically manipulated using the gaze-contingent window technique. The results showed that the SA emerged only when multiple distractors were visible during a fixation, supporting the grouping account. To distinguish between emotional and perceptual factors in the SA, we altered the perceptual properties of the faces (dented-chin face) so that the friendly face became more salient. In line with the perceptual account, the SA was reversed for these faces, showing faster search for a friendly face target. These results indicate that the SA reflects feature-level perceptual grouping, not emotional valence.     

Action–effect associations revealed by eye movements

We move our eyes not only to get information, but also to supply information to our fellows. The latter eye movements can be considered as goal-directed actions to elicit changes in our counterparts. In two eye-tracking experiments, participants looked at neutral faces that changed facial expression 100 ms after the gaze fell upon them. We show that participants anticipate a change in facial expression and direct their first saccade more often to the mouth region of a neutral face about to change into a happy one and to the eyebrows region of a neutral face about to change into an angry expression. Moreover, saccades in response to facial expressions are initiated more quickly to the position where the expression was previously triggered. Saccade–effect associations are easily acquired and are used to guide the eyes if participants freely select where to look next (Experiment 1), but not if saccades are triggered by external stimuli (Experiment 2).     

Creativity and schizotypy from the neuroscience perspective

Behavioral research has revealed that some cognitive features may be similar between creative and psychotic/schizophrenic-like thoughts. In this study, we addressed the potential link between creativity and schizotypy at the level of the brain by investigating functional patterns of brain activity (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) during creative cognition in preselected groups with low versus high psychometrically determined schizotypy. Our findings revealed an association between the originality component of creativity and reduced deactivation of right parietal brain regions and the precuneus during creative cognition, congruent with the idea that more-creative people may include many more events/stimuli in their mental processes than do less-creative people. Similarly, the high-schizotypy group showed weaker deactivation of the right precuneus during creative cognition. The fact that originality and schizotypy show similar functional brain activity patterns during creative ideation (i.e., reduced deactivation of the right precuneus) strongly supports the contention that similar mental processes may be implicated in creativity and in psychosis proneness.     

Probability Propagation in Generalized Inference Forms

Probabilistic inference forms lead from point probabilities of the premises to interval probabilities of the conclusion. The probabilistic version of Modus Ponens, for example, licenses the inference from \({P(A) = \alpha}\) and \({P(B|A) = \beta}\) to \({P(B)\in [\alpha\beta, \alpha\beta + 1 - \alpha]}\) . We study generalized inference forms with three or more premises. The generalized Modus Ponens, for example, leads from \({P(A_{1}) = \alpha_{1}, \ldots, P(A_{n})= \alpha_{n}}\) and \({P(B|A_{1} \wedge \cdots \wedge A_{n}) = \beta}\) to an according interval for P(B). We present the probability intervals for the conclusions of the generalized versions of Cut, Cautious Monotonicity, Modus Tollens, Bayes’ Theorem, and some SYSTEM O rules. Recently, Gilio has shown that generalized inference forms “degrade”—more premises lead to less precise conclusions, i.e., to wider probability intervals of the conclusion. We also study Adam’s probability preservation properties in generalized inference forms. Special attention is devoted to zero probabilities of the conditioning events. These zero probabilities often lead to different intervals in the coherence and the Kolmogorov approach.