A Match Made in Heaven or Down Under? The Effectiveness of Matching Visual and Verbal Horizons in Advertising

According to construal level theory, consumers’ processing styles become more abstract as psychological distance increases, but they grow more concrete when psychological distance decreases. This study provides evidence that panoramic pictures in which the horizon appears in the lower versus upper part of the frame trigger a different level of construal. As such, this study raises a novel source of construal. In addition, this study shows that when both visual (e.g., horizon height) and verbal (e.g., temporal benefit) advertising elements induce the same level of construal, advertising effectiveness increases. This work differs from previous research in that it focuses on the construal fit evoked by two advertisement features rather than a fit in construal between an external stimulus and the internal mindset of the consumer.     

Two types of serial dependence in visual working memory

Stimulus representations in working memory depend on memory traces of past stimuli both from previous trials and from the current trial. However, it is unclear whether the same or different mechanisms underlie this serial dependence across and within trials. We directly contrasted estimates of bias for pairs of immediately successive stimuli across and within trials. In each trial, participants memorized two consecutive motion direction stimuli (S1 and S2) and after a short delay were cued to report one of them. We found serial dependence across trials: The current S1 was attracted towards the preceding S2 when the latter had been cued for report. In contrast, within the same trial S2 was repulsed from S1. In addition, repulsion within a trial occurred for a broader range of motion direction differences between stimuli than attraction across trials. A second experiment in which 25% of trials did not require a response demonstrated that across‐trial attraction did not depend on whether the previous S2 actually had to be reported. Our findings provide evidence for two types of serial dependence operating across and within trials. They support the notion of different mechanisms integrating or segregating current from similar past memory contents depending on their task relevance.     

Driven from distraction: how infants respond to parents' attempts to elicit and re-direct their attention

This experiment examined how parents' verbal and non-verbal behavioral cues cause infants to shift and share attention within environments where many objects compete for infants' attention. Fifteen- and 21-month-old infants played with toys while their parent periodically shifted attention to a distal object within a larger array. Parents' attention-shifts were indicated by a change in direction of gaze, a pointing gesture, and/or verbalizations. Verbalizations were either attention-eliciting or attention-directing. In some trials parents covered their eyes to occlude line-of-gaze. Both ages seldom followed simple gaze shifts, but frequently followed gaze with-points or gaze-with-directing verbalizations. Attention-eliciting verbalizations increased infants' looks to the parent. Gaze occlusion reduced infants' responses to directing verbalizations. Responses to eliciting verbalizations increased with age. Infant receptive vocabulary did not predict attention-sharing, even when parents named objects (i.e., directing verbalizations). Implications for development of attention-sharing, language and understanding of visual attention are discussed.     

Leadership, followership, and evolution: some lessons from the past

This article analyzes the topic of leadership from an evolutionary perspective and proposes three conclusions that are not part of mainstream theory. First, leading and following are strategies that evolved for solving social coordination problems in ancestral environments, including in particular the problems of group movement, intragroup peacekeeping, and intergroup competition. Second, the relationship between leaders and followers is inherently ambivalent because of the potential for exploitation of followers by leaders. Third, modern organizational structures are sometimes inconsistent with aspects of our evolved leadership psychology, which might explain the alienation and frustration of many citizens and employees. The authors draw several implications of this evolutionary analysis for leadership theory, research, and practice.     

Preservation of mouth region processing in two cases of prosopagnosia

Although most adults are considered experts in face recognition, brain trauma can produce a selective loss in this ability, a condition referred to as prosopagnosia. This study examined the processing strategies of prosopagnosic patients LR and HH using the Face Dimensions Test. In this test, featural and configural information in the upper and lower halves of the face was parametrically varied and sensitivity to these changes measured. We found that relative to age‐matched control participants, LR and HH exhibited an impaired ability to discriminate differences in the eye region, but a preserved ability to detect featural and configural differences in the mouth region. This pattern of impairment and sparing was demonstrated in tests of direct perception and immediate memory. The obtained findings demonstrate that prosopagnosia does not necessarily cause a global impairment to face perception, but a selective impairment to the perception of information in the upper half of the face.     

Weiterbildungsmöglichkeiten in der Verhaltensmedizin

Die Psychotherapie - Die Verhaltensmedizin ist das Arbeits- und Forschungsgebiet, in dem empirisch geprüfte Methoden der Verhaltenstherapie in unterschiedlichsten medizinischen Disziplinen...     

Processing of facial and non‐facial visual stimuli in 2–5‐year‐old children

The present experiments examined the degree to which analytic and holistic modes of processing play a role in the way 2–5‐year‐old children process facial and non‐facial visual stimuli. Children between 2 and 5 years of age were instructed to categorize faces (in Experiment 1) and non‐facial visual stimuli, such as birds and planes (in Experiment 2), into two categories. The categories were so constructed as to allow the children to categorize the facial and non‐facial stimuli either analytically (by focusing on a single attribute) or holistically (in terms of overall similarity). The results demonstrated that the previous conclusions concerning older children's (from 6 years onwards) holistic mode of facial processing could not be generalized to younger children because most of the 2–5‐year olds processed the faces by taking single facial attributes into account. A similar pattern of results emerged for the processing of objects, showing that the majority of the children focused on single attributes. Thus, for both visual domains, holistic processing was the exception rather than the rule. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The visual perception of motion by observers with autism spectrum disorders: A review and synthesis

Traditionally, psychological research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has focused on social and cognitive abilities. Vision provides an important input channel to both of these processes, and, increasingly, researchers are investigating whether observers with ASD differ from typical observers in their visual percepts. Recently, significant controversies have arisen over whether observers with ASD differ from typical observers in their visual analyses of movement. Initial studies suggested that observers with ASD experience significant deficits in their visual sensitivity to coherent motion in random dot displays but not to point-light displays of human motion. More recent evidence suggests exactly the opposite: that observers with ASD do not differ from typical observers in their visual sensitivity to coherent motion in random dot displays, but do differ from typical observers in their visual sensitivity to human motion. This review examines these apparently conflicting results, notes gaps in previous findings, suggests a potentially unifying hypothesis, and identifies areas ripe for future research.     

The Attitude–Behavior Relationship: A Test of Three Models of the Moderating Role of Behavioral Difficulty1

The moderating role of behavioral difficulty in the attitude–behavior relationship remains a controversial topic in social psychology. Previous research has been unclear in establishing the direction of this moderation, and 3 theoretical models have been proposed: positive and linear; negative and monotonic; and quadratic. The current paper reports analyses of survey data from 5 different studies that afford measures of environmental attitude, behavior, and behavioral difficulty. Across these studies, we found a substantial and unmoderated average attitude–behavior relationship (r = .54). The data also show that the attitude–behavior relationship is weaker for extremely easy and extremely difficult behaviors. Additional analyses suggest, however, that these reductions in the attitude–behavior relationship are probably because of methodological reasons.