Danegeld remembered: Taxing further the coin head illusion

Abstract

Two experiments studied memory for the appearance of a Danish 20 kroner coin. The coin bears the portrait of Queen Margrethe II in profile, facing to the right. Previous studies have examined memory for British coins, which similarly bear a right-facing portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. They have revealed the occurrence of a mnemonic illusion, in that British people tend to believe the portrait faces left. This finding has been attributed to the occurrence of a joint coin-stamp schema. British stamps bear a left-facing profile of the Queen, and it is possible that information from the stamp predominates in the formation of the schema. In the case of Denmark, however, stamps bear a full-face portrait of the Queen. Nevertheless, the present experiments showed that the Coin Head Illusion is also found in Denmark. That is, the number of participants recalling the Queen's head as facing to the right was significantly below even the chance level of 50%. Further, this result occurred both for residents of Denmark and for visitors to Denmark. These findings suggest that the bias underlying the Coin Head Illusion may be a more general one than that envisaged by the joint coin-stamp schema hypothesis.     

Study repetition and the rejection of conjunction lures

Four experiments were conducted to provide further support for a dual-process approach to conjunction errors in recognition memory over a single-process approach. In Experiments 1, 2a, and 2b study words were repeated once (2 presentations) or several times (8 or 16 presentations), and a response signal delay (RSD) was manipulated (short vs long). Short RSD groups produced lower hit rates but higher conjunction error rates compared to long RSD groups. Repetition effects on conjunction errors occurred for short RSD but not long RSD groups. In Experiment 3, additional judgements on new items were solicited to show that the “null” effects for long RSD groups in the earlier experiments were, in fact, illusory. Together, the experiments provide evidence for recollection-based rejections of conjunction lures and support a dual-process theory of recognition memory over a single-process model.     

What Is This Thing Called Mental Toughness? An Investigation of Elite Sport Performers

The literature on mental toughness is characterized by a general lack of conceptual clarity and consensus as to its definition, as well as a general failure to operationalize the construct in a consistent manner. This study addressed two fundamental issues surrounding mental toughness: how can it be defined? and what are the essential attributes required to be a mentally tough performer? Ten international performers participated in either a focus group or one-toone interviews, from which a definition of mental toughness and the attributes of the ideal mentally tough performer emerged. The resulting definition emphasized both general and specific dimensions, while the 12 attributes covered self-belief, desire/motivation, dealing with pressure and anxiety, focus (performance-related), focus (lifestyle-related), and pain/hardship factors.     

The Failure of Imagined Contact in Reducing Explicit and Implicit Out-Group Prejudice Toward Male Homosexuals

A considerable amount of research has demonstrated the value of imagined contact in reducing social prejudice. The current study investigated the efficacy of imagined intergroup contact in improving attitudes towards male homosexuals on both explicit and implicit measures. Eighty-five heterosexual undergraduate students were randomly allocated to one of three conditions: imagined interaction, prime control or unrelated imagery control. Overall, no significant differences were found between the imagery conditions for either the explicit or implicit attitude measures, even when controlling for prior contact. Accordingly, the present findings, unlike those of Turner et al. (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93: 369–388, 2007b) and (Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 10: 427–441, 2007a), do not offer support for the effectiveness of indirect contact in reducing prejudice toward male homosexuals. Some explanations for the inconsistency of findings are discussed.     

Action Perception and Outcome Valence: Effects on Children's Inferences of Intentionality and Moral and Liking Judgments

The influences of different action-outcome scenarios on children's evaluative judgments and inferences of outcome intentionality were assessed. One hundred forty-five kindergartners, 2nd graders, and 4th graders heard 4 stories about child actors who engaged in 1 action or 3 equifinal actions and caused a positive or negative outcome. The stories made no mention of the actors' anticipated outcome so that we could assess the children's inferences of whether the actors wanted and had tried to cause the outcome. Children also rated their liking for the actors and the actors' morality. Children's moral and liking judgments were not significantly differentiated by action condition. However, actors who caused positive outcomes received favorable liking and moral judgments, and actors who caused negative outcomes received neutral liking and moral judgments. Children's intentionality inferences varied by the actors' actions and were moderated by outcome valence. The authors discuss children's apparent use of the valence rule when inferring intentionality and their reluctance to judge harshly actors who cause negative outcomes when not privy to the actors' intentions.     

A Visual Representation and the Control of Manual Aiming Movements

Three experiments were conducted to determine if a representation of the movement environment is functional in the organization and control of limb movements, when direct visual contact with the environment is prevented. In Experiment 1, a visual rearrangement procedure was employed to show that a representation of the environment that provides inaccurate information about the spatial location of a target can disrupt manual target aiming. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that spatial information about the position of a target can be destroyed by a visual pattern mask, supporting our claim that the representation is visual. A target-cuing procedure was used in Experiment 3 to show that representation of target position can be useful for premovement organization in a targetaiming task. Together our findings suggest that a short-lived visual representation of the movement environment may serve a useful role in the organization and control of limb movements.     

The Relationships among Word Association Test,Objective Personality Test Scores and Ratings of Clinical Behavior in Psychiatric Patients

A 50-item word association test, selected personality scales and behavior ratings on the MACC scale were collected on 46 psychiatric in-patients. The internal structure of the word association test as well as correlations with personality inventories and behavior ratings were studied. Intra-test analysis of the association test indicates two independent dimensions, cognitive-memory disorganization and disturbances in reaction time. The cognitive-memory disturbance indices correlate with the Pa scale of the MMPI but not with the Pt, K, and MAS and only slightly with Hy. The degree of social isolation of a patient is predictable from the word association scores of cognitive-memory disruption while the personality inventory scales are better at predicting patients' arousal or tension level as rated by staff.     

An Introductory Lecture on Personality Assessment

The role of personality assessment is minimized in many introductory psychology presentations for a variety of reasons. Personality assessment is an area of great breadth and is understandably formidable to those whose training has been outside this area of specialization.

The following lecture was designed to digest at least some parts of the area of personality assessment in as non-technical language as possible for use of instructors introducing its basic concepts.     

Toward Modeling and Automating Ethical Decision Making: Design, Implementation, Limitations, and Responsibilities

One recent priority of the U.S. government is developing autonomous robotic systems. The U.S. Army has funded research to design a metric of evil to support military commanders with ethical decision-making and, in the future, allow robotic military systems to make autonomous ethical judgments. We use this particular project as a case study for efforts that seek to frame morality in quantitative terms. We report preliminary results from this research, describing the assumptions and limitations of a program that assesses the relative evil of two courses of action. We compare this program to other attempts to simulate ethical decision-making, assess possibilities for overcoming the trade-off between input simplification and output reliability, and discuss the responsibilities of users and designers in implementing such programs. We conclude by discussing the implications that this project highlights for the successes and challenges of developing automated mechanisms for ethical decision making.