Associative activation of stimulus representations restores lost salience: implications for perceptual learning

In 3 experiments, rats received preexposure to presentations of a compound flavor BX. The effective salience of B was then tested by assessing its ability to interfere with the aversion controlled by another flavor or the tendency to drink a saline solution after the induction of a salt need. It was found that the effective salience of B was maintained when during preexposure, presentations of BX alternated with presentations of X alone. This was true both when BX was presented as a simultaneous compound (Experiment 1) and as a serial compound (X-->B; Experiments 2 and 3); salience was not maintained when the serial compound took the form B-->X (Experiments 2 and 3a). It was argued that the salience of B declines during preexposure but is restored when presentations of X are able to activate the representation of B by way of the associative X-B link.     

The nature of residual cost in regular switch response factors

Two experiments are presented that compare the residual cost found when switching from one task to another under predictable conditions. The aim of the study was to explore the roles played by the stimulus, the response, or both in the process of the mental set reconfiguration necessary to switch between two tasks. The experiments tested [Rogers, R. D., & Monsell, S. (1995). Cost of a predictable switch between simple cognitive tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124, 207-231] stimulus-cued-completion hypothesis and [Schuch, S., & Koch, I. (2003). The role of response selection for inhibition of task sets in task shifting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 92-105] hypothesis of response selection as the key factor in the nature of switch cost. In the first experiment, two conditions were created that varied in terms of a Go/No-Go signal: The Go trials were a replication of [Tornay, F. J., & Milán, E. G. (2001). A more complete task-set reconfiguration in random than in predictable task switch. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54A, 785-803 Experiment 3]; The No-Go trials were identical to the first condition, except that participants did not execute a response in the trial n-1 (Schuch & Koch, 2003). In addition, the percentage of Go and No-Go trials was manipulated. The results showed that the cost was significant only in the high Go signal-frequency case (Experiment 2), with an abrupt offset in Go trials and a gradual offset in No-Go trials. Based on the results of these experiments, it was concluded that the crucial factor to complete a mental set reconfiguration is response-related and not stimulus-related.     

Generalization of tacting actions in children with autism

This intervention compared the effects of two procedures on the generalization of a tacting repertoire (labeling) in 6 children with autism spectrum disorder. In one procedure the verbal antecedent stimulus “What is she doing?” appeared together with a person performing an action; in the other procedure, the antecedent stimulus was just the presence of the action. In initial tests, children emitted tacts only when the action was presented with the verbal antecedent. Thereafter, they learned to tact an action without the verbal antecedent and received tests to evaluate generalization to another action. Results indicated that in order to obtain generalization of tacting actions, it was necessary to learn to tact other actions without the verbal antecedent as well as learning to tact the action with the verbal antecedent. These findings have relevance for generalization of tacting actions from control by verbal antecedents to natural conditions and the production of spontaneous language.     

Arbitrariness and the death penalty: how the defendant's appearance during trial influences capital jurors' punishment decision

This paper examines the impact of the defendant's appearance during the trial on capital jurors' punishment decision. The data used in this analysis were gathered by the Capital Jury Project (CJP), a national program of research on the decision-making of capital jurors. A series of multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted using four aggravating circumstances related to the killing and eight defendant appearance variables as predictors of jurors' punishment decision at three points during the capital trial: (1) after the punishment phase ended, but before formal deliberation began; (2) when the first vote was taken on punishment at jury deliberations; and (3) at the final vote on punishment. Results indicated that when the defendant appeared emotionally involved during the trial (i.e. sorry and sincere) jurors either favored a life sentence or were undecided about punishment; however, when the defendant appeared emotionally uninvolved during the trial (i.e. bored) jurors either sought a death sentence or remained undecided. Policy implications will be discussed.     

Memory for time: How people date events

The effect of different formats on the accuracy of dating news and the distribution of personal events was examined in four conditions. In the first, participants had to date events in the absolute time format (e.g., "July 2004"), and in the second, they had to date events in the relative time format (e.g., "3 weeks ago"). In the other conditions, they were asked to choose between the two formats. We found a small backward telescoping effect for recent news events and a large forward telescoping effect for remote events. Events dated in the absolute time format were more accurate than those dated in the relative time format. Furthermore, participants preferred to date news events with the relative time format and personal events with the absolute time format, as well as preferring to date remote events in the relative time format and recent events in the absolute time format.     

Assigning Grammatical Gender During Word Production

The present study was designed to examine the processes by which grammatical gender is assigned during word production. French words varied in strength of sublexical cues, based on whether the word ending was typical for one gender rather than neutral about gender, and lexical cues, derived from the associated definite article being uninformative about gender for words beginning with a vowel, but informative for words beginning with a consonant. In Experiment 1, when native French speakers classified the gender of mentally evoked names of pictures, no effects of these cues were obtained. Experiment 2 used an improved methodology, with participants classifying the gender of words translated from English. English-speaking learners of French were influenced strongly by lexical and sublexical cues, while French speakers showed a weaker influence. However, for both speaker groups, words whose gender was classified slowly during recognition were also classified slowly during production, and error rates were similarly correlated across tasks. The conclusion was that gender is not equally available for all words once the associated “lemma” is accessed. Current models of language production may have to incorporate mechanisms allowing differential speed of access to gender information depending on a word’s formal properties.     

Trait emotional intelligence profiles of students from different university faculties

This study investigated the trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or trait emotional self‐efficacy) profiles of 512 students from five university faculties: technical studies, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, it was hypothesised that (a) social sciences would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (b) arts would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (c) arts would score lower than technical studies in Self‐control, and (d) there would be an interaction between gender and faculty, whereby female students would score higher than male students within the social sciences only. Several other exploratory comparisons were also performed. Results supported hypotheses (a), (b), and (d), but not hypothesis (c), although the differences were in the predicted direction.     

Sustained vs. transient cognitive control: Evidence of a behavioral dissociation

This study assessed whether two well known effects associated with cognitive control, conflict adaptation (the Gratton effect) and conflict context (proportion congruent effects), reflect a single common or separate control systems. To test this we examined if these two effects generalized from one kind of conflict to another by using a combined-conflict paradigm (involving the Simon and Spatial Stroop tasks) and manipulating the proportion of congruent to incongruent trials for one conflict (Simon) but not the other (Spatial Stroop). We found that conflict adaptation effects did not generalize, but the effect of conflict context did. This contrasting pattern of results strongly suggests the existence of two separate attentional control systems, one transient and responsible of online regulation of performance (conflict adaptation), the other sustained and responsible for conflict context effects.