Effects of head orientation on gaze perception: how positive congruency effects can be reversed

Several past studies have considered how perceived head orientation may be combined with perceived gaze direction in judging where someone else is attending. In three experiments we tested the impact of different sources of information by examining the role of head orientation in gaze-direction judgements when presenting: (a) the whole face; (b) the face with the nose masked; (c) just the eye region, removing all other head-orientation cues apart from some visible part of the nose; or (d) just the eyes, with all parts of the nose masked and no head orientation cues present other than those within the eyes themselves. We also varied time pressure on gaze direction judgements. The results showed that gaze judgements were not solely driven by the eye region. Gaze perception can also be affected by parts of the head and face, but in a manner that depends on the time constraints for gaze direction judgements. While “positive” congruency effects were found with time pressure (i.e., faster left/right judgements of seen gaze when the seen head deviated towards the same side as that gaze), the opposite applied without time pressure.     

Spatial memory and explicit knowledge: an effect of instruction on representational momentum

Freyd (1987; Finke & Freyd, 1985) suggested that representational momentum (i.e., forward displacement in memory for the location of a moving target) is impervious to error feedback (i.e., is modular or cognitively impenetrable), but studies supporting this claim might not have allowed sufficient opportunity for learning to occur. In the experiment reported here, participants were (a) naive regarding representational momentum, (b) informed about representational momentum but not instructed to counteract it, or (c) informed about representational momentum and instructed to counteract it. All participants exhibited significant displacement. However, participants informed about representational momentum exhibited less forward displacement than did naive participants due to a greater tendency to respond same to probes behind the true--same position. Possible mechanisms of compensation and the notion that displacement reflects both modular (cognitively impenetrable) and nonmodular (cognitively penetrable) components are addressed.     

The good-subject effect: investigating participant demand characteristics

Although researchers are often concerned with the presence of participant demand, few have directly examined effects of demand on participant behavior. Before beginning the present study, a confederate informed participants (N = 100) of the study's purported hypothesis. Participants then performed a laboratory task designed to evaluate the extent to which they would respond in ways that may confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis of the study. The authors found that participants tended to respond in ways that confirmed the hypothesis, yet this tendency depended on attitudes toward the experiment or experimenter and other individual differences. In addition, results suggested that suspicion probes may be ineffective in measuring participants' previous knowledge and suspicion. Findings indicate the need for more research and consideration of demand in the design of studies and analysis of data.     

A central circuit of the mind

The methodologies of cognitive architectures and functional magnetic resonance imaging can mutually inform each other. For example, four modules of the ACT-R (adaptive control of thought - rational) cognitive architecture have been associated with four brain regions that are active in complex tasks. Activity in a lateral inferior prefrontal region reflects retrieval of information in a declarative module; activity in a posterior parietal region reflects changes to problem representations in an imaginal module; activity in the anterior cingulate cortex reflects the updates of control information in a goal module; and activity in the caudate nucleus reflects execution of productions in a procedural module. Differential patterns of activation in such central regions can reveal the time course of different components of complex cognition.     

Generalized expectancies for negative mood regulation predict change in anxiety and depression among college students

Negative mood regulation (NMR) expectancies, or the beliefs held by individuals that, when faced with various manifestations of stress and negative affect, they can successfully cope with such mood states, have proven to be a most useful construct in the context of better understanding self-regulatory processes. In the present prospective study, we examined the predictive utility of NMR expectancies with respect to its ability to predict residual change in both depressive and anxiety symptoms over an 8-week timeframe in a sample of 322 college students. Initial correlational analyses revealed that, as anticipated, NMR expectancies were negatively correlated with depressive and anxiety symptomatology, as well as with maladaptive coping style. Conversely, NMR expectancies were positively associated with self-reported adaptive coping. A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that, even when controlling for age, sex, baseline levels of affective distress (depression or anxiety), and coping styles, NMR expectancies predicted change in both depressive and anxiety symptomatology. Implications of the findings pertinent to theory building and testing are discussed.     

Does social exclusion motivate interpersonal reconnection? Resolving the "porcupine problem"

Evidence from 6 experiments supports the social reconnection hypothesis, which posits that the experience of social exclusion increases the motivation to forge social bonds with new sources of potential affiliation. Threat of social exclusion led participants to express greater interest in making new friends, to increase their desire to work with others, to form more positive impressions of novel social targets, and to assign greater rewards to new interaction partners. Findings also suggest potential boundary conditions to the social reconnection hypothesis. Excluded individuals did not seem to seek reconnection with the specific perpetrators of exclusion or with novel partners with whom no face-to-face interaction was anticipated. Furthermore, fear of negative evaluation moderated responses to exclusion such that participants low in fear of negative evaluation responded to new interaction partners in an affiliative fashion, whereas participants high in fear of negative evaluation did not.     

An ecological examination of rapport using a dyadic puzzle task

Previous studies have indicated that situational context impacts the rapport experience (e.g., F. J. Bernieri, J. S. Gillis, J. M. Davis, & J. E. Grahe, 1996; N. M. Puccinelli, L. Tickle-Degnen, & R. Rosenthal, 2003). The authors designed the present study to further document the behavioral and experiential predictors of dyadic rapport and to evaluate dyadic rapport experiences when contributions were required from both interactants. Participants (N = 60) were paired into dyads and instructed to complete children's puzzles. However, the dyadic members were restricted in how they could accomplish this task: Only one interactant was allowed to work on the puzzle and had to do so blindfolded, while the second interactant gave instructions. Results suggested that less attribution of responsibility to the worker and the instructor's experience of enjoyment and frustration were indicative of higher rapport. Other characteristics of dyads reporting higher dyadic rapport included difficulty completing the task and more communicative behavior. The results provide important information for the understanding of the dyadic experience of rapport.     

Anxiety: Proximate Processes and Ultimate Functions

Anxiety is a universal feature of human existence. Anxiety is associated with a range of cognitive processes such as attention to threat, appraisals of uncertainty and lack of control, pessimistic judgments, and risk-avoidant decision making. The current paper presents a framework for understanding these processes as a set of domain-specific mechanisms designed to face specific challenges encountered by humans throughout evolutionary history (e.g., avoiding forms of physical harm and contagious disease, maintaining social acceptance and close romantic relationships, and navigating status hierarchies). Anxiety involves a functionally organized constellation of adaptive processes designed to help people face recurrent psychological, social, and physical threats. The integration of psychological and evolutionary perspectives provides a basis for understanding anxiety's proximate processes, as well as its underlying adaptive functions.     

Adaptation to sensory-motor temporal misalignment: instrumental or perceptual learning?

Sensory-motor delays vary over the course of development and under different environmental conditions. Previous research has shown that humans can compensate for the resulting temporal misalignment while performing sensory-motor tasks (e.g., Cunningham, Billock, & Tsou, 2001a), but remains silent on the question of whether perceptual learning-similar to that involved in adaptation to spatial misalignment (e.g., Redding & Wallace, 1993) and in adaptation to purely intersensory misalignment (e.g., Fujisaki, Shimojo, Kashino, & Nishida, 2004)-is also involved in this adaptive response. Following an attempted replication of Cunningham et al.'s (2001a) study in a preliminary experiment, we present in this paper two experiments that demonstrate that after-effects of adaptation to temporal misalignment do not spontaneously decay. The literature on adaptation to spatial misalignment suggests that, while instrumental learning spontaneously decays in the absence of reinforcement, perceptual learning persists. Therefore our results are consistent with adaptation being effected through perceptual learning.