Only “efficient” emotional stimuli affect the content of working memory during free-recollection from natural scenes

Emotional events are thought to have privileged access to attention and memory, consuming resources needed to encode competing emotionally neutral stimuli. However, it is not clear whether this detrimental effect is automatic or depends on the successful maintenance of the specific emotional object within working memory. Here, participants viewed everyday scenes including an emotional object among other neutral objects followed by a free-recollection task. Results showed that emotional objects—irrespective of their perceptual saliency—were recollected more often than neutral objects. The probability of being recollected increased as a function of the arousal of the emotional objects, specifically for negative objects. Successful recollection of emotional objects (positive or negative) from a scene reduced the overall number of recollected neutral objects from the same scene. This indicates that only emotional stimuli that are efficient in grabbing (and then consuming) available attentional resources play a crucial role during the encoding of competing information, with a subsequent bias in the recollection of neutral representations.     

Are crossmodal correspondences relative or absolute? Sequential effects on speeded classification

Crossmodal correspondences have often been demonstrated using congruency effects between pairs of stimuli in different sensory modalities that vary along separate dimensions. To date, however, it is still unclear the extent to which these correspondences are relative versus absolute in nature: that is, whether they result from pre-defined values that rigidly link the two dimensions or rather result from flexible values related to the previous occurrence of the crossmodal stimuli. Here, we investigated this issue in a speeded classification task featuring the correspondence between auditory pitch and visual size (e.g., congruent correspondence between high pitch/small disc and low pitch/large disc). Participants classified the size of the visual stimuli (large vs. small) while hearing concurrent high- or low-pitched task-irrelevant sounds. On some trials, visual stimuli were paired instead with “intermediate” pitch, that could be interpreted differently according to the auditory stimulus on the preceding trial (i.e., as “lower” following the presentation of a high pitch tone, but as “higher” following the presentation of a low pitch tone). Performance on sequence-congruent trials (e.g., when a small disc paired with the intermediate-pitched tone was preceded by a low pitch tone) was compared to sequence-incongruent trials (e.g., when a small disc paired with the intermediate-pitch tone was by a high-pitched tone). The results revealed faster classification responses on sequence-congruent than on sequence-incongruent trials. This demonstrates that the effect of the pitch/size correspondence is relative in nature, and subjected to trial-by-trial interpretation of the stimulus pair.     

Multisensory integration affects visuo-spatial working memory

In the present study, we investigate how spatial attention, driven by unisensory and multisensory cues, can bias the access of information into visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM). In a series of four experiments, we compared the effectiveness of spatially-nonpredictive visual, auditory, or audiovisual cues in capturing participants' spatial attention towards a location where to-be-remembered visual stimuli were or were not presented (cued/uncued trials, respectively). The results suggest that the effect of peripheral visual cues in biasing the access of information into VSWM depend on the size of the attentional focus, while auditory cues did not have direct effects in biasing VSWM. Finally, spatially congruent multisensory cues showed an enlarged attentional effect in VSWM as compared to unimodal visual cues, as a likely consequence of multisensory integration. This latter result sheds new light on the interplay between spatial attention and VSWM, pointing to the special role exerted by multisensory (audiovisual) cues.     

Effects of an iPad-Supported Phonics Intervention on Decoding Performance and Time On-Task

Despite their recent popularity in schools, there is minimal consensus in the educational literature regarding the use of mobile devices for reading intervention. The word box intervention (Joseph Read Teach 52:348–356, 1998) has been consistently associated with improvements in student decoding performance. This early efficacy study examined an iPad-supported approach to the word box intervention. The participants were three students from the same first grade classroom, all of whom lacked basic decoding skills and two of which were English language learners. The research question was evaluated with a multielement single-case experimental design that compared the standard materials to an equivalent iPad application. Results did not reveal a clear pattern on measures of decoding across the participants. Time on-task was high for both conditions for all three participants. Results indicated a need for future study of mobile-supported reading interventions in similar contexts.     

Measuring racial essentialism in the genomic era: The genetic essentialism scale for race (GESR)

Current Psychology - Racial essentialism is the belief that races are biologically distinct groups with defining core “essences,” a notion associated with increased social distance and...     

Weekly Fluctuations in Nonjudging Predict Borderline Personality Disorder Feature Expression in Women

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) features have been linked to deficits in mindfulness, or nonjudgmental attention to present-moment stimuli. However, no previous work has examined the role of fluctuations in mindfulness over time in predicting BPD features. The present study examines the impact of both between-person differences and within-person changes in mindfulness. 40 women recruited to achieve a flat distribution of BPD features completed 4 weekly assessments of mindfulness (Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; FFMQ) and BPD features. Multilevel models predicted each outcome from both 1) a person’s average levels of each facet and 2) weekly deviations from a person’s average for each facet. Average acting with awareness, nonjudging, and nonreactivity predicted lower BPD features at the between-person level, and weekly deviations above one’s average (i.e., higher-than-usual) nonjudging predicted lower BPD feature expression at the within-person level. Within-person fluctuations in the nonjudging facet of mindfulness may be relevant to the daily expression of BPD features over and above dispositional mindfulness.     

Motivation and self‐regulation: The role of want‐to motivation in the processes underlying self‐regulation and self‐control

Research on self‐regulation has largely focused on the idea of effortful self‐control, which assumes that exerting willpower will lead to greater success. However, in recent years, research has challenged this perspective and instead proposes that effortless self‐regulation is more adaptive for long‐term goal pursuit. Taking into consideration the burgeoning literature on effortless self‐regulation, here we propose that motivation—or the reasons why we pursue our goals—plays an integral role in this process. The objective of the present paper is to highlight how motivation can play a role in how self‐regulation unfolds. Specifically, we propose that pursuing goals because you want‐to (vs. have‐to) is associated with better goal attainment as a function of experiencing less temptations and obstacles. While the reason why want‐to motivation relates to experiencing fewer obstacles has yet to be thoroughly explored, here we propose some potential mechanisms drawing from recent research on self‐regulation. We also provide recommendations for future research, highlighting the importance of considering motivation in the study of self‐regulatory processes.     

Is the exogenous orienting of spatial attention truly automatic? Evidence from unimodal and multisensory studies

The last decade has seen great progress in the study of the nature of crossmodal links in exogenous and endogenous spatial attention (see [Spence, C., McDonald, J., & Driver, J. (2004). Exogenous spatial cuing studies of human crossmodal attention and multisensory integration. In C. Spence, & J. Driver (Eds.), Crossmodal space and crossmodal attention (pp. 277-320). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.], for a recent review). A growing body of research now highlights the existence of robust crossmodal links between auditory, visual, and tactile spatial attention. However, until recently, studies of exogenous and endogenous attention have proceeded relatively independently. In daily life, however, these two forms of attentional orienting continuously compete for the control of our attentional resources, and ultimately, our awareness. It is therefore critical to try and understand how exogenous and endogenous attention interact in both the unimodal context of the laboratory and the multisensory contexts that are more representative of everyday life. To date, progress in understanding the interaction between these two forms of orienting has primarily come from unimodal studies of visual attention. We therefore start by summarizing what has been learned from this large body of empirical research, before going on to review more recent studies that have started to investigate the interaction between endogenous and exogenous orienting in a multisensory setting. We also discuss the evidence suggesting that exogenous spatial orienting is not truly automatic, at least when assessed in a crossmodal context. Several possible models describing the interaction between endogenous and exogenous orienting are outlined and then evaluated in terms of the extant data.     

Capturing spatial attention with multisensory cues

We assessed the influence of multisensory interactions on the exogenous orienting of spatial attention by comparing the ability of auditory, tactile, and audiotactile exogenous cues to capture visuospatial attention under conditions of no perceptual load versus high perceptual load. In Experiment 1, participants discriminated the elevation of visual targets preceded by either unimodal or bimodal cues under conditions of either a high perceptual load (involving the monitoring of a rapidly presented central stream of visual letters for occasionally presented target digits) or no perceptual load (when the central stream was replaced by a fixation point). All of the cues captured spatial attention in the no-load condition, whereas only the bimodal cues captured visuospatial attention in the highload condition. In Experiment 2, we ruled out the possibility that the presentation of any changing stimulus at fixation (i.e., a passively monitored stream of letters) would eliminate exogenous orienting, which instead appears to be a consequence of high perceptual load conditions (Experiment 1). These results demonstrate that multisensory cues capture spatial attention more effectively than unimodal cues under conditions of concurrent perceptual load.