Training and transfer effects in task switching

Performance on task switching, a paradigm commonly used to measure executive function, has been shown to improve with practice. However, no study has tested whether these benefits are specific to the tasks learned or are transferable to new situations. We report evidence of transferable improvement in a cued, randomly switching paradigm as measured by mixing cost, but we report no consistent improvement for switch cost. Improvement in mixing costs arises from a relative reduction in time to perform both switch and nonswitch trials that immediately follow switch trials, implicating the ability to recover from unexpected switches as the source of improvement. These results add to a growing number of studies demonstrating generalizable improvement with training on executive processing.     

Risk avoidance: Graphs versus numbers

There have long been speculations that graphical and numerical presentations of risk statistics differ in their impact on people’s willingness to pursue actions that could harm or even kill them. But research has been unclear about the processes whereby the pictorial character of graphical displays per se might affect those risky decisions or even whether such effects actually occur. In two studies, we demonstrate that the pictorial nature of a graphical risk display can, indeed, increase risk avoidance. This increase is associated with a heightened impression of the riskiness of less safe alternatives. The results suggest that this picture-driven, intensified sense of riskiness, in turn, rests on two kinds of mechanisms: one cognitive, the other affective. Cognitively, pictorial presentations impose weaker upper bounds on people’s internal representations of the chances that riskier alternatives will bring about actual harm. Affectively, pictures ignite stronger, more aversive negative associations with riskier options and their outcomes.     

The motivational looking glass: how significant others implicitly affect goal appraisals

Three studies manipulate the accessibility of significant-other representations to explore how these representations may automatically influence how goals are construed and experienced. Study 1 finds that the perceived attainment expectations of a significant other automatically affect participants' own task-goal expectations and their subsequent task performance and persistence. Study 2 finds that the general perceived value that a significant other places in attaining a task goal automatically affects participants' own attainment value appraisals, their task persistence and performance, and the magnitude of their reaction to success and failure feedback. Finally, Study 3 demonstrates that the regulatory focus prescribed by a significant other may automatically affect participants' own regulatory focus with regards to a task goal, with consequences for their cheerfulness-dejection and relaxation-agitation responses to success and failure feedback. The implications for our understanding of social influence and self-regulation are discussed.     

Forgetting all else: on the antecedents and consequences of goal shielding

Six studies explore the role of goal shielding in self-regulation by examining how the activation of focal goals to which the individual is committed inhibits the accessibility of alternative goals. Consistent evidence was found for such goal shielding, and a number of its moderators were identified: Individuals' level of commitment to the focal goal, their degree of anxiety and depression, their need for cognitive closure, and differences in their goal-related tenacity. Moreover, inhibition of alternative goals was found to be more pronounced when they serve the same overarching purpose as the focal goal, but lessened when the alternative goals facilitate focal goal attainment. Finally, goal shielding was shown to have beneficial consequences for goal pursuit and attainment.     

Bubble sorting in a foam under forced drainage

A highly polydisperse foam is subjected to a constant liquid flow from above. For sufficiently high flow rates, large-scale bubble motion is observed, in the course of which large bubbles rise to the top of the foam until a steady state is reached at which the average bubble size increases smoothly with height.     

The irrelevant sound effect under articulatory suppression is a suffix effect even with five-item lists

The relationship between the suffix effect and the effect of irrelevant sound on serial recall of auditorily presented lists is investigated in this study. Contrary to the predictions of the phonological loop model, Hanley and Hayes (2012) reported that the irrelevant sound effect was abolished under articulatory suppression when a spoken suffix was added at the end of the list. The experiment reported in this paper uses a shorter list length (five items per list) than that employed by Hanley and Hayes. This is because it cannot realistically be argued that participants will abandon the use of phonological codes to retain the list items with sequences as short as this. Results replicated those of Hanley and Hayes (2012). There was a significant effect of irrelevant sound under articulatory suppression when the list items were followed by an auditory tone. Crucially, however, the effect of irrelevant sound under articulatory suppression was abolished when the list items were followed by a spoken suffix.     

Electromechanical behaviour of nanoporous metallic glass

Understanding the electrical and mechanical behaviour of nanoporous materials is critical for their use in energy applications. A palladium-rich nanoporous film, 500 nm thick with pore size ranging from 10 to 50 nm, was obtained by electrochemical dealloying of a Ni–Pd–P–B metallic glass. Nanomechanical and electrical properties were measured simultaneously, as a function of depth, for the nanoporous structure as well as the unaltered metallic glass substrate. The elastic modulus for the nanoporous structure was found to be 22 GPa compared to 131 GPa for the metallic glass substrate. The ratio of moduli scales with the square of the relative density in agreement with linear elasticity models for cellular materials. The electrical resistivity of the nanoporous layer was found to be 2.2 times higher compared to the metallic glass substrate, which was attributed to the tortuosity of current path in cellular structures.