Multistable perception: when bottom-up and top-down coincide

During prolonged observation of an ambiguous figure sudden perceptual reversals occur, while the stimulus itself stays unchanged. There is a vivid debate about whether bottom-up or top-down mechanisms underlie this phenomenon. In the present study, we investigated the interrelation of two experimental factors: volitional control and discontinuous stimulus presentation. Both factors strongly modulate the rate of perceptual reversals and each is attributed either as top-down or bottom-up. We found that participants can apply specific strategies to volitionally increase and/or decrease the stability duration of each of the possible percepts according to the experimental instructions. When attempts of volitional control are combined with discontinuous stimulus presentation the effects are fully additive. Our results indicate that perceptual reversals can originate from different neural mechanisms on different time scales.     

The “Not Letting Go” phenomenon: accuracy instructions can impair behavioral and metacognitive effects of implicit learning processes

One major assumption in the field of implicit learning is that implicit learning processes directly affect performance without further top-down control (e.g., Destrebecqz and Cleeremans 2003). In three related experiments, the authors tested the so-called “Not Letting Go Phenomenon” (Schneider and Fisk in J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 8:261–278, 1982); that is, the assumption that accuracy instructions might impair the effect of implicit learning processes during skill acquisition. Results of Experiment 1 show that accuracy instructions can impair both, the behavioral and metacognitive effects of implicit learning. Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that this impairment is due more to an impairment of the performance effects of implicit learning processes than to a direct impairment of the learning processes, per se. While these results are in accordance with recent findings in skill acquisition showing that monitoring processes impede experts’ performance, they seem to contradict the above mentioned assumption that implicit learning processes directly affect performance.

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A Qualitative Investigation of Supervisees' Experiences of Triadic Supervision

Although triadic supervision has existed for some time, few studies have focused on this form of supervision or its effectiveness. In this qualitative study, the experiences of 6 master's‐level students from a counselor education program who participated as supervisees in triadic supervision were explored using in‐depth, open‐ended interviews. The data analysis resulted in 5 major categories, which are discussed. Implications of the findings for clinical supervision and further research are also addressed.     

Semantic activation in action planning

Four experiments investigated activation of semantic information in action preparation. Participants either prepared to grasp and use an object (e.g., to drink from a cup) or to lift a finger in association with the object's position following a go/no-go lexical-decision task. Word stimuli were consistent to the action goals of the object use (Experiment 1) or to the finger lifting (Experiment 2). Movement onset times yielded a double dissociation of consistency effects between action preparation and word processing. This effect was also present for semantic categorizations (Experiment 3), but disappeared when introducing a letter identification task (Experiment 4). In sum, our findings indicate that action semantics are activated selectively in accordance with the specific action intention of an actor.     

The generation of conscious awareness in an incidental learning situation

The purpose of the present experiments was to investigate the generation of conscious awareness (i.e., of verbal report) in an incidental learning situation. While the single-system account assumes that all markers of learning, verbal or nonverbal, index the same underlying knowledge representation, multiple-systems accounts grant verbal report a special status as a marker of learning because they assume that the nonverbal and verbal effects of learning rely on different memory representations. We tested these two accounts in two experiments in which we held the amount of learning in the nonverbal memory system constant while manipulating independent variables aimed at affecting learning in the declarative system. The results of both experiments revealed significant differences in verbal report between experimental conditions, but no significant differences in response times. Overall, these results provide clear evidence in favor of the multiple-systems account.     

Are strategy shifts caused by data-driven processes or by voluntary processes?

The present research investigates the role of voluntary, conscious processing in strategy change. In 2 experiments, we address whether the switch to a new strategy is the result of data-driven, automatic processes or of voluntary processes. Experiment 1 demonstrates that participants performing an alphabet verification task are able to (a) transfer a newly adopted strategy to dissimilar information never encountered before, (b) verbally describe the task regularity that allows for the generation and application of the new strategy immediately after the strategy was adopted. Using the same experimental task, Experiment 2 shows that participants, and (c) decide against adopting a new strategy when the available evidence suggests that the new strategy cannot be used for the entire range of problems encountered. Overall, the obtained results support the view that strategy change is mediated by voluntary controlled processing. They do not support the view that strategy change is an inevitable, automatic consequence of task practice. The present research thus highlights a potential function of conscious human processing.     

The Role of Information Reduction in Skill Acquisition

Theories of skill acquisition assume that the effects of practice on task performance are due to either qualitative changes in the task structure, an increased efficiency of performing individual task components, an increased efficiency of performing sequences of task components, or some combination of these mechanisms. We propose an extension to the existing theories by arguing that for many tasks, practice affects which information is processed. More specifically, we argue that people learn, over the course of practice, to separate task-relevant from task-redundant information, and to limit their processing to relevant aspects of the task. In three experiments, subjects verified alphabetic strings, such as M [4] R S T. Strings were correct if they followed the alphabet when the number of letters, given by the digit in parentheses, was skipped. Strings were constructed such that errors occurred only within the initial “letter–digit–letter” triplet. Analyses of subjects’ RTs for strings of varying lengths demonstrated that: (a) subjects were able to distinguish relevant from redundant task information, and to limit their processing to the relevant information, (b) the ability to reduce the amount of information that is processed takes time and develops gradually over the course of practice, and (c) the mechanism underlying this ability appears to be largely stimulus-independent in the sense that structural components of a task are ignored, rather than specific task information. The findings and their implications for general theories of skill acquisition are discussed.     

The Impact of Social Influences in the Context of Attitude,Self-Efficacy,Intention, and Previous Behavior as Predictors of Smoking Onset1

Three different constructs for measuring social influence were utilized in the present study to explain adolescents' present and future smoking behavior at 6 (T2), 12 (T3), and 18 months (T4) after the first test. Social influence was assessed by measuring the social norms, perceived smoking behavior, and direct pressure. The impact of the social influence constructs was also assessed in the context of broader models, including attitudes and self-efficacy expectations, intention, and previous behavior. The three social influence measures correlated significantly with intention and behavior. Stepwise regression analyses showed that perceived behavior and pressure made significant contributions, after entering social norms, in explaining actual and future adolescent smoking behavior. Adding attitudes and self-efficacy increased the predictive power of the model significantly. In agreement with the theory of Fishbein & Ajzen (1975), intention was the most powerful predictor in explaining present and future smoking behavior. Attitudes, self-efficacy, and the social influences also made small unique contributions improving the explanatory power by approximately 5%. Previous behavior, however, had a substantial unique contribution in predicting future behavior after attitudes, social influences, self-efficacy, and intention were entered in the equations. Since social influences may exert their impact via different routes, it is recommended that smoking prevention programs discuss not only overt pressures such as direct pressure from peers, parents, and media, but also address the more covert social pressures such as modeling and the adolescents' ability to cope with these covert influences. Furthermore, norms on nonsmoking should be made explicit.