Changing counterproductive beliefs about attention,memory, and multitasking: Impacts of a brief,fully online module

Ubiquitous mobile technology is part of contemporary life, bringing with it the potential for distraction and reduction in performance associated with multitasking. The predisposition toward dysfunctional multitasking may be shaped in part by beliefs that individuals hold about memory and attention. The issue is particularly pressing for college students, given established links between distraction, multitasking, and learning. This project assessed the impact of an online learning module on beliefs about attention, memory, and learning in college students. It also contrasted these beliefs in a college and non-college community sample. Significant reductions in counterproductive beliefs were associated with completing the module; counterproductive beliefs were also no more prevalent in the college vs. the non-college sample. Our findings suggest that brief online modules are a practical way to address counterproductive beliefs related to multitasking with technology, and add to the literature on metacognition, attention, and multitasking in college and non-college populations.     

To Challenge the Morning Lark and the Night Owl: Using Smartphone Sensing Data to Investigate Day–Night Behaviour Patterns

For decades, day–night patterns in behaviour have been investigated by asking people about their sleep–wake timing, their diurnal activity patterns, and their sleep duration. We demonstrate that the increasing digitalization of lifestyle offers new possibilities for research to investigate day–night patterns and related traits with the help of behavioural data. Using smartphone sensing, we collected in vivo data from 597 participants across several weeks and extracted behavioural day–night pattern indicators. Using this data, we explored three popular research topics. First, we focused on individual differences in day–night patterns by investigating whether ‘morning larks’ and ‘night owls’ manifest in smartphone-sensed behavioural indicators. Second, we examined whether personality traits are related to day–night patterns. Finally, exploring social jetlag, we investigated whether traits and work weekly day–night behaviours influence day–night patterns on weekends. Our findings highlight that behavioural data play an essential role in understanding daily routines and their relations to personality traits. We discuss how psychological research can integrate new behavioural approaches to study personality.     

Decision-makers use social information to update their preferences but choose for others as they do for themselves

People's risky decisions are susceptible to the social context in which they take place. Across three experiments using different paradigms, we investigated the influence of three social factors upon participants' decisions: the recipient of the decision-making outcome (self, other, or joint), the nature of the relationship with the other agent (friend, stranger, or teammate), and the type of information that participants received about others' preferences: none at all, general information about how previous participants had decided, or information about a specific partner's preference. We found that participants' decisions about risk did not differ according to whether the outcome at stake was their own, another agent's, or a joint outcome, nor according to the type of information available. Participants did, however, adjust their preferences for risky options in light of social information.     

Correction to: Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive Deficits in Absence Epilepsy: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Due to an error during the editorial phase, a correction regarding Fig. 2 is added to the original article: “Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive...     

Pre‐service teacher‐delivered behavioral skills training: A pyramidal training approach

This study evaluated the effectiveness of using a university‐based pyramidal approach (i.e., train the trainer) to teach four pre‐service teachers to train another person. These pre‐service teachers were taught to use behavioral skills training (BST) techniques to train other professionals to use an evidence‐based practice. Transfer to a generalization trainee was probed and three participants maintenance of BST fidelity was probed one year later, after the participants had begun teaching. Results indicate that the participants quickly acquired and maintained a high degree of fidelity with BST. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Welcoming Robots into the Moral Circle: A Defence of Ethical Behaviourism

Science and Engineering Ethics - Can robots have significant moral status? This is an emerging topic of debate among roboticists and ethicists. This paper makes three contributions to this debate....     

Face detection in 2‐ to 6‐month‐old infants is influenced by gaze direction and species

Humans detect faces efficiently from a young age. Face detection is critical for infants to identify and learn from relevant social stimuli in their environments. Faces with eye contact are an especially salient stimulus, and attention to the eyes in infancy is linked to the emergence of later sociality. Despite the importance of both of these early social skills—attending to faces and attending to the eyes—surprisingly little is known about how they interact. We used eye tracking to explore whether eye contact influences infants' face detection. Longitudinally, we examined 2‐, 4‐, and 6‐month‐olds' (N = 65) visual scanning of complex image arrays with human and animal faces varying in eye contact and head orientation. Across all ages, infants displayed superior detection of faces with eye contact; however, this effect varied as a function of species and head orientation. Infants were more attentive to human than animal faces and were more sensitive to eye and head orientation for human faces compared to animal faces. Unexpectedly, human faces with both averted heads and eyes received the most attention. This pattern may reflect the early emergence of gaze following—the ability to look where another individual looks—which begins to develop around this age. Infants may be especially interested in averted gaze faces, providing early scaffolding for joint attention. This study represents the first investigation to document infants' attention patterns to faces systematically varying in their attentional states. Together, these findings suggest that infants develop early, specialized functional conspecific face detection.     

Why leave the teaching profession? A longitudinal approach to the prevalence and persistence of teacher turnover intentions

Social Psychology of Education - Teacher turnover has been recognized as a significant problem in the education worldwide. This study focuses on exploring reasons behind the turnover intentions,...     

Roles and Representations of Women in Early Chinese Philosophy: A Survey

An understanding of the roles and representations of women in classical Chinese philosophy is here derived from central texts such as the Analects, the Lienü Zhuan, and the I Ching. We argue that the roles of women during the classical period of Chinese philosophy tended to be as part of the “inner,” working domestically as a housewife and mother. This will be shown from three passages from the Analects. Women were represented as submissive and passive, as with the qualities ascribed to yin energy, and therefore as rightfully subordinate to men. However, despite representations of women in philosophy being thus at this time, there were exceptions, specific women who could take a male “outer” political role. The story of Jing Jiang from the Lienü Zhuan suggests that although women being involved in “outer” affairs were looked down on, there were still women who would be and who would occasionally get praised for doing so. This shows that it was realized, explicitly or otherwise, that women were capable of taking those roles, but also that they were not allowed to take such roles at that time.