Semantic interference in the picture-word interference task: Is there a pre-lexical,conceptual contribution to the effect?

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Picture naming takes longer in the presence of a semantic-categorically related distractor word compared to an unrelated distractor word. This semantic...     

Irrelevant‐action imitation is short‐term and contextual: Evidence from two under‐studied populations

Across the lifespan and across populations, humans ‘overimitate’ causally unnecessary behaviors. Such irrelevant‐action imitation facilitates faithful cultural transmission, but its immediate benefits to the imitator are controversial. Over short time scales, irrelevant‐action imitation may bootstrap artifact exploration or interpersonal affiliation, and over longer time scales it may facilitate acquisition of either causal models or social conventions. To investigate these putative functions, we recruited community samples from two under‐studied populations: Yasawa, Fiji, and Huatasani, Peru. We use a two‐action puzzle box: first after a video demonstration, and again one month later. Treating age as a continuous variable, we reveal divergent developmental trajectories across sites. Yasawans (44 adults, M = 39.9 years, 23 women; 42 children, M = 9.8 years, 26 girls) resemble documented patterns, with irrelevant‐action imitation increasing across childhood and plateauing in adulthood. In contrast, Huatasaneños (48 adults, M = 37.6 years, 33 women; 47 children, M = 9.3 years, 13 girls) evince a parabolic trajectory: adults at the site show the lowest irrelevant‐action imitation of any demographic set in our sample. In addition, all age sets in both populations reduce their irrelevant actions at Time 2, but do not reduce their relevant‐action imitation or goal attainment. Taken together, and considering the local cultural contexts, our results suggest that irrelevant‐action imitation serves a short‐term function and is sensitive to the social context of the demonstration.     

An enactivist approach to treating depression: cultivating online intelligence through dance and music

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - This paper utilizes the enactivist notion of ‘sense-making’ to discuss the nature of depression and examine some implications for treatment....     

Profiling Korean sex crimes: Offender characteristics and crime scene actions

The present study aimed to examine the demographic information of sex offenders in South Korea and explore whether a U.K. thematic model of criminal behaviour could be replicated in the Korean context. The 27 variables of crime scene actions derived from 50 Korean sexual offences through a content analysis were analysed with smallest space analysis. Chi‐square was also administered to explore the differences in offender characteristics among behavioural themes. Consequently, three separate action themes, hostility–involvement, theft, and control, were revealed. Next, each case was assigned to one of the dominant or hybrid themes, with 84% of the total cases being classified to the dominant themes. Moreover, there were significant differences in four offender characteristics between the themes: “previous conviction of robbery,” “previous conviction of sexual crime,” “knowing the victim,” and “vehicle use.” These outcomes have implications for the development of the Korean profiling system.     

Mathematics of forgiveness

This study was aimed at determining the integration rule--summation or averaging--underlying the forgiveness schema. The main reason for distinguishing between these structures is that they have very different practical implications regarding the influence of various factors specific to each case on the propensity to forgive. In a summative model, the impact of the different factors and the direction of the effects are constant. For example, the presence of apologies always is a positive element even when these apologies assume a very weak form. By contrast, in an averaging model, the apologies can be a positive or a negative element depending on the current level of propensity to forgive and the form of the apologies. Two experiments were conducted using the functional theory of cognition framework. Experiment 1 applied the missing information test. Experiment 2 applied the credibility of information test. In both experiments, clear evidence favored a summative rule for judging willingness to forgive from circumstantial information such as presence or absence of intent, presence of absence of apologies, and degree of cancellation of consequences.     

Are high school students accurate or clueless in estimating substance use among peers?

The purpose of this study was to assess adolescents' estimations of the prevalence of alcohol and other drug use and to examine the consistency between these estimations and reported use. A survey was administered to 223 students in three northwestern U.S. high schools. Results showed that students in each of the three high schools grossly overestimated the prevalence of substance use when compared to self-reports of use. Still, students were not entirely clueless about the relative normativeness of substance use when comparing estimates and rates of use among the three schools. The school with the highest estimated prevalence of a particular substance use behavior generally also had the highest self-reported use of that same substance. These findings imply the need for high school personnel to provide students with accurate information about the actual prevalence of substance use within each school.     

Strategic attention deployment for delay of gratification in working and waiting situations

Two studies examined whether the detrimental effects of attention to rewards on delay of gratification in waiting situations holds-or reverses-in working situations. In Study 1, preschoolers waited or worked for desired delayed rewards. Delay times increased when children worked in the presence of rewards but, as predicted, this increase was due to the distraction provided by the work itself. not because attention to rewards motivated children to sustain work. Analysis of spontaneous attention deployment showed that attending to rewards reduces delay time regardless of the working or waiting nature of the task. Fixing attention on rewards was a particularly detrimental strategy regardless of the type of task. Study 2 showed that when the work is not engaging, however, attention to rewards can motivate instrumental work and facilitate delay of gratification as long as attention deployment does not become fixed on the rewards.     

Dual-task attention deficits in dysphoric mood

The attentional functioning of nondysphoric, mildly dysphoric, and moderately to severely dysphoric college students was tested using the attentional blink (AB) paradigm. These groups performed equally well at reporting a single target appearing in a rapidly presented stream of stimuli. All groups showed an AB, with report sensitivity for a 2nd target being reduced when the 2 targets were presented less than 0.5 s apart. Nondysphoric and mildly dysphoric participants showed the same size ABs, but the ABs for moderately to severely dysphoric participants were larger and longer. As predicted, the results showed that moderately to severely dysphoric individuals have attentional impairments. These impairments, however, were evident only in the more demanding dual-task condition.     

The impact of cross-training on team effectiveness

The authors examined the role of cross-training in developing shared team-interaction mental models, coordination, and performance in a 2-experiment study using computer simulation methodology (for Experiment 1, N = 45 teams; for Experiment 2, N = 49 teams). Similar findings emerged across the 2 experiments. First, cross-training enhanced the development of shared team-interaction models. Second, coordination mediated the relationship between shared mental models and team performance. However, there was some inconsistency in the findings concerning the depth of cross-training necessary for improving shared mental models. Results are discussed in terms of the impact of different levels of cross-training on team effectiveness.