Effort during visual search and counting: insights from pupillometry

We investigated the processing effort during visual search and counting tasks using a pupil dilation measure. Search difficulty was manipulated by varying the number of distractors as well as the heterogeneity of the distractors. More difficult visual search resulted in more pupil dilation than did less difficult search. These results confirm a link between effort and increased pupil dilation. The pupil dilated more during the counting task than during target-absent search, even though the displays were identical, and the two tasks were matched for reaction time. The moment-to-moment dilation pattern during search suggests little effort in the early stages, but increasingly more effort towards response, whereas the counting task involved an increased initial effort, which was sustained throughout the trial. These patterns can be interpreted in terms of the differential memory load for item locations in each task. In an additional experiment, increasing the spatial memory requirements of the search evoked a corresponding increase in pupil dilation.These results support the view that search tasks involve some, but limited, memory for item locations, and the effort associated with this memory load increases during the trials. In contrast, counting involves a heavy locational memory component from the start.     

Opposite aftereffects for Chinese and Caucasian faces are selective for social category information and not just physical face differences

Opposite changes in perception (aftereffects) can be simultaneously induced for faces from different social categories—for example, Chinese and Caucasian faces. We investigated whether these aftereffects are generated in high-level face coding that is sensitive to the social category information in faces, or in earlier visual coding sensitive to simple physical differences between faces. We caricatured the race of face stimuli and created face continua ranging from caricatured Caucasian faces (SuperCaucasian) to caricatured Chinese faces (SuperChinese). Participants were adapted to oppositely distorted faces that were a fixed physical distance apart on the morph continua. Larger opposite aftereffects were found following adaptation to faces from different race categories (e.g., contracted Chinese and expanded Caucasian faces), than for faces that were the same physical distance apart on the morph continua, but were within a race category (e.g., contracted SuperChinese and expanded Chinese faces). These results suggest that opposite aftereffects for Chinese and Caucasian faces reflect the recalibration of face neurons tuned to high-level social category information.     

The probabilistic import of illatives

It is not only overtly probabilistic illatives like makes it certain that but also apparently non-probabilistic ones like therefore that have probabilistic import. Illatives like therefore convey the meaning that the premise confers on the conclusion a probability not only greater than 0 but also greater than 1/2. But because they do not say whether that probability is equal to or less than 1, these illatives are appropriately called neutral.     

Mastery approach and performance approach: the differential prediction of organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance,beyond HEXACO personality

Goal orientation has become one of the most studied motivational constructs in the psychology literature. However, in organizational contexts, the research focus to date has largely centered on the relationship between goal orientation and task performance—neglecting the valuable contribution of non-task work behaviors, such as workplace deviance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to organization functioning. In this paper, we addressed this gap in the literature by investigating the differential prediction of performance approach and mastery approach goal orientation on workplace deviance and OCB, beyond personality correlates. We hypothesize that performance approach orientation is positively associated with workplace deviance and mastery approach orientation is positively associated with OCB. A sample of employed participants (n = 114) provided self-reports of goal orientation, workplace deviance, OCB and personality. Additionally, participants nominated a well-acquainted peer to provide peer-reports of their personalities. When controlling for personality, performance approach orientation positively predicted workplace deviance whereas mastery approach orientation positively predicted organizational citizenship behavior. This study is the first to our knowledge to explore the relationships between goal orientation and non-task work behaviors and to show that goal orientation adds to the understanding of workplace deviance and OCB, beyond personality. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Exposure as a treatment for social phobia: Some instructive difficulties

The main rules guiding the application of exposure to the treatment of simple phobias and agoraphobia are described, together with the four principal difficulties that came to attention when these rules were applied to the treatment of social phobia. These difficulties were: (i) specifying graduated and repeatable tasks; (ii) prolonging exposure; (iii) securing adequate engagement during exposure; and (iv) dealing with the cognitive aspects of social phobia. Solutions to these difficulties are described and illustrated from case material collected during the treatment of 45 socially-phobic out-patients. The discussion considers the implications of these solutions both for the treatment of other conditions and for understanding the processes involved in exposure.     

Believe in yourself: Manipulating beliefs about memory causes checking

One of the most common compulsions in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is repeated checking. Although individuals often report that they check to become more certain, checking has been shown to have the opposite effect – increased checking causes increased uncertainty. However, checking may also be thought of as beginning because of memory uncertainty. Beliefs about responsibility, over-estimation of threat, intolerance of uncertainty, perfectionism, and importance of and control of thoughts are already known to affect different aspects of OCD symptomatology. Beliefs about memory, however, are not currently considered to influence compulsive behaviour. In the current study, beliefs about memory were manipulated to test whether or not they affected urges to check. Ninety-one undergraduate participants received (positive or negative) false feedback about their performance on aspects of a standardized memory test, and then completed two additional memory tasks. Their urges to check following these tasks were assessed. Consistent with our hypotheses, individuals in the low memory confidence condition had greater urges to check following the memory tasks than those in the high memory confidence condition, demonstrating that manipulations of beliefs about memory can influence checking. Results and implications are discussed in terms of cognitive-behavioural models of and treatments for OCD.     

The impact of psychological distress on absence from work

The aims of this study were to examine the impact of psychological distress on absence from work; to compare psychological distress and job satisfaction as predictors of absence; and to compare the relative effects of 2 components of psychological distress, depression and anxiety, on absence. Organizational records of absence over a 3-year period were obtained for 323 health service staff in the United Kingdom, who also completed self-report measures of psychological distress and job satisfaction at the beginning of the study and 2 years later. Psychological distress, particularly depression, was found to predict absence, with higher levels of distress predicting a greater number of days and number of times absent. Job satisfaction and psychological distress independently predicted levels of absence. The psychological distress-absence relationship was not moderated by demographic variables.     

Scientific Meeting of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -