What is the impact of the explicit knowledge of sequence regularities on both deterministic and probabilistic serial reaction time task performance?

The aim of this study was to explore the role of prior explicit sequence knowledge by comparing its influence on serial reaction time (SRT) performance with either a deterministic or a probabilistic sequence. The results confirm that, with a deterministic sequence, preliminary explicit learning improves SRT performance. On the other hand, with a probabilistic sequence, the results show no advantage for SRT performance in explicit-learning conditions. In addition, by using the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991), we show that performance on a subsequent generation task was more sustained by controlled processes for participants in the explicit-learning conditions than for those in the incidental condition. On the whole, these results, showing that the influence of explicit knowledge can be suppressed in certain specific conditions, are consistent with the intervention of both implicit and explicit mechanisms in SRT tasks, and the results also show that their relative influence can be modulated by the particular demands of the task.     

Stimulus complexity and prospective timing: clues for a parallel process model of time perception

Whereas many studies have considered the role of attention in prospective timing, fewer have established relations between movement complexity and prospective timing. The present study aims at assessing to what extent motion complexity interferes with prospective timing and at delineating a neuropsychophysical plausible model. We have thus designed a visual paradigm presenting stimuli in sequential pairs (reference comparison interval). Stimuli are motionless or moving according to different complexities, and stimulus complexities are intermixed within each pair. To prevent a possible attention-sharing effect, no concurrent task was required. Our study suggests that movement complexity is a key component of duration perception, and that the relative judgement of durations depends on spatio-temporal features of stimuli. In particular, it shows that movement complexity can bias subjects’ perception and performance, and that subjects detect that comparison intervals are longer than reference before their end. In the discussion, we advocate that the classical internal clock model cannot easily account for our results. Consequently, we propose a model for time perception, based on a parallel processing between comparison interval perception and the reconstruction of the reference duration.     

What does the nature of the stimuli tell us about the Global Precedence Effect?

The "Global Precedence Effect" (GPE) is a well-established phenomenon characterised by a global advantage (global response times that are faster than local response times) and an interference effect from global distractors during identification of local targets but not vice versa. In the present study, two experiments were carried out to examine how the GPE is affected by the meaningfulness of the stimuli. Using global/local compound stimuli based on either meaningful or meaningless stimuli, we found, on the one hand, that the global level was always processed faster than the local level, irrespective of the meaningfulness of the material. On the other hand, results show that the interference effect occurred only with meaningful stimuli. We propose that automatic identification of meaningful stimuli plays a role in the interference effect. These results suggest that the GPE involves both "sensory mechanisms" (responsible for the global advantage) and "cognitive mechanisms" (responsible for the interference effect).     

Speaker overestimation of communication effectiveness and fear of negative evaluation: Being realistic is unrealistic

Speakers systematically overestimate their communication effectiveness (Keysar & Henly, 2002). We argue that doing so is adaptive, reducing the risk of social anxiety and withdrawal from social situations. This hypothesis was tested by having speakers who scored low and high for fear of negative evaluation (FNE), a hallmark of social phobia, attempt to convey a specific meaning of ambiguous statements to a listener and then estimate their communication effectiveness. Low-FNE speakers consistently overestimated their effectiveness, expecting the listener to understand their intended meaning more often than listeners actually did. In contrast, high-FNE speakers’ estimates of communication effectiveness were consistent with the listener’s actual understanding. Signal detection analysis revealed that low- and high-FNE speakers were equally able to discriminate communication success from failure, but low-FNE speakers exhibited a stronger positive response bias. In conclusion, overestimating one’s communication effectiveness is adaptive, and accurate estimation is associated with dysfunction.     

Cognitive flexibility in preschoolers: the role of representation activation and maintenance

Preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility has often been attributed to perseverative processing. This study investigates alternative potential sources of difficulty such as deficits in activating previously ignored information and in maintaining currently relevant information. In Experiment 1, a new task tapping attentional switching was designed to isolate the difficulty of overriding an initial representation, that is, perseverative processing ('Perseveration' version), and the difficulty of activating a previously ignored representation, that is, activation deficit ('Activation-deficit' version). Three-year-olds' performance suggested that inflexibility may primarily stem from an activation deficit. Control experiments confirmed that the difficulty of the 'Activation-deficit' version could not be attributed to the effect of attraction to novelty. In Experiment 2, 'distraction' errors, alleged to reflect a failure to maintain a relevant representation, and 'perseverative' errors were distinguished. The results highlighted the important role of representation maintenance in flexibility. The present study indicates that preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility is multi-determined and prompts us to reconsider the role of perseveration.     

Women's eye contact and men's later interest: two field experiments

Previous studies indicated various nonverbal behaviors including eye contact of women are associated with men's approach; however, duration of the eye contact was not tested. In Exp. 1, a female confederate established eye-contact of 3 sec. or 1 sec. with a man when entering a bar. Duration of returned glance was the dependent variable. Analysis showed mean duration of the return glance was statistically shorter in the 1-sec. condition. In Exp. 2, the confederate made eye contact with a man and looked at him less than 1 sec., 2 sec., or 4 sec. The presence versus absence of smile was the dependent variable. Longer duration of eye contact was associated with an increase of smiling.     

Creativity Research Overlooks the Study of Resilience among Young Children: A Bibliometric Network Review

Creativity researchers are increasingly interested in understanding when, how, and for whom creativity can be beneficial. Previous reviews have demonstrated that creativity research largely ignores the study of its impact on factors that promote health, and well-being among populations of adults. It is unclear, in fact, whether this gap in research also extends to creativity research among young children. This paper addresses this issue. Early childhood is a crucial stage for the cognitive development of young children who remain highly sensitive to stress, and adversity. It is therefore essential to identify and promote factors that are beneficial to early childhood resilience, thereby contributing to documenting more of the effects of creative activities on positive outcomes. This paper presents a review with a bibliometric analysis of 1000 randomly selected articles from the Web of Science, without bias towards any specific peer-reviewed journal. The analysis of 454 included articles shows that approximately 80% of the included studies focus on creativity as an outcome (replicating previous findings with a larger sample), with only 3.78% investigating creative activities as predictors among young children. In this small percentage, most of the studies addressed creative activities in young children related to resilience outcomes.     

Sleep-associated changes in the mental representation of spoken words

The integration of a newly learned spoken word form with existing knowledge in the mental lexicon is characterized by the word form's ability to compete with similar-sounding entries during auditory word recognition. Here we show that although the mere acquisition of a spoken form is swift, its engagement in lexical competition requires an incubation-like period that is crucially associated with sleep. Words learned at 8 p.m. do not induce (inhibitory) competition effects immediately, but do so after a 12-hr interval including a night's sleep, and continue to induce such effects after 24 hr. In contrast, words learned at 8 a.m. do not show such effects immediately or after 12 hr of wakefulness, but show the effects only after 24 hr, after sleep has occurred. This time-course dissociation is best accommodated by connectionist and neural models of learning in which sleep provides an opportunity for hippocampal information to be fed into long-term neocortical memory.     

La localisation cérébrale des facultés mentales

Although the word faculty has been criticized by « scientific » psychologists, Fodor used it more recently in his famous book on modularity of mind (1983). During second half of the xixth, the cerebral localization of faculties or mental functions by phrenologists and physiologists interested most researchers which have continued in the same way but with others technologies like functional cerebral imagery. We underlined in the paper the difficulties associated with the discovery of the precise localization of the mental functions and the necessity of reinforcing the dialogue between neurosciences, psychology and philosophy.     

Induced Reminiscence of Love and Chivalrous Helping

This study tested the effect of semantically-induced thoughts of love on chivalrous helping. A field setting of four hundred and one participants was divided into two groups. One group was interviewed and asked to retrieve the memory of a love episode, and the second group, the control group, was asked to retrieve a piece of music that they love. The two groups encountered another confederate, who inadvertently lost a stack of compact discs when they neared each other. The results demonstrated that participants were more helpful when they were male, when the person in need of help was female, and when they were induced to retrieve the memory of a love episode.