Understanding the contribution of target repetition and target expectation to the emergence of the prevalence effect in visual search

Behavior in visual search tasks is influenced by the proportion of trials on which a target is presented (the target prevalence). Previous research has shown that when target prevalence is low (2 % prevalence), participants tend to miss targets, as compared with higher prevalence levels (e.g., 50 % prevalence). There is an ongoing debate regarding the relative contributions of target repetition and the expectation that a target will occur in the emergence of prevalence effects. In order to disentangle these two factors, we went beyond previous studies by directly manipulating participants’ expectations regarding how likely a target was to appear on a given trial. This we achieved without using cues or feedback. Our results indicated that both target repetition and target expectation contribute to the emergence of the prevalence effect.     

Accommodating Presuppositions Is Inappropriate in Implausible Contexts

According to one view of linguistic information (Karttunen, 1974; Stalnaker, 1974), a speaker can convey contextually new information in one of two ways: (a) by asserting the content as new information; or (b) by presupposing the content as given information which would then have to be accommodated. This distinction predicts that it is conversationally more appropriate to assert implausible information rather than presuppose it (e.g., von Fintel, 2008; Heim, 1992; Stalnaker, 2002). A second view rejects the assumption that presuppositions are accommodated; instead, presuppositions are assimilated into asserted content and both are correspondingly open to challenge (e.g., Gazdar, 1979; van der Sandt, 1992). Under this view, we should not expect to find a difference in conversational appropriateness between asserting implausible information and presupposing it. To distinguish between these two views of linguistic information, we performed two self‐paced reading experiments with an on‐line stops‐making‐sense judgment. The results of the two experiments—using the presupposition triggers the and too—show that accommodation is inappropriate (makes less sense) relative to non‐presuppositional controls when the presupposed information is implausible but not when it is plausible. These results provide support for the first view of linguistic information: the contrast in implausible contexts can only be explained if there is a presupposition‐assertion distinction and accommodation is a mechanism dedicated to reasoning about presuppositions.     

Walking through doorways causes forgetting: Event structure or updating disruption?

According to event cognition theory, people segment experience into separate event models. One consequence of this segmentation is that when people transport objects from one location to another, memory is worse than if people move across a large location. In two experiments participants navigated through a virtual environment, and recognition memory was tested in either the presence or the absence of a location shift for objects that were recently interacted with (i.e., just picked up or set down). Of particular concern here is whether this location updating effect is due to (a) differences in retention intervals as a result of the navigation process, (b) a temporary disruption in cognitive processing that may occur as a result of the updating processes, or (c) a need to manage multiple event models, as has been suggested in prior research. Experiment 1 explored whether retention interval is driving this effect by recording travel times from the acquisition of an object and the probe time. The results revealed that travel times were similar, thereby rejecting a retention interval explanation. Experiment 2 explored whether a temporary disruption in processing is producing the effect by introducing a 3-second delay prior to the presentation of a memory probe. The pattern of results was not affected by adding a delay, thereby rejecting a temporary disruption account. These results are interpreted in the context of the event horizon model, which suggests that when there are multiple event models that contain common elements there is interference at retrieval, which compromises performance.     

Walking through doorways causes forgetting: environmental effects

Previous work has shown a decline in memory for objects carried through a doorway versus across a room. The aim of the current study is to extend this work to understand how variations in perceptual experience during these event shifts influence this finding. First a change in procedure to reduce memory load to a single item was assessed. Next we explored whether performance is influenced by spatial distance versus spatial categories, the ability to perceptually preview the next location, and changes in the colour and texture of the walls. The location updating effect was consistently observed for all manipulations, suggesting that such event transformations have a robust influence on human memory. This suggests that event cognition is driven more by the use of perceptual information to infer or impose a categorical shift from one event to another rather than by the nature of perceptual information available at the time.     

What is it like to think about oneself? De Se thought and phenomenal intentionality

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - The topic of the paper is at the intersection of recent debates on de se thought and phenomenal intentionality. An interesting problem for phenomenal...     

Educating Adolescents with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Caregiver Support Needs

The purpose of this study was to identify caregivers’ needs in helping youth with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) succeed in school. Sixteen caregivers raising a youth with FASD participated in telephone interviews that included the question: “What do caregivers need to help youth be successful in school?”. Participants then sorted responses to these questions into piles they believed to be a conceptual fit with one another, and the data was analyzed using multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Five concepts emerged: (1) Working to meet the needs of the individual, (2) educational accommodations, (3) FASD-literate schools, (4) resources, and (5) therapeutic supports. These concepts were compared and contrasted with the existing literature.     

Formal Lessons Improve Informal Educational Experiences: The Influence of Prior Knowledge on Student Engagement

Educational experiences can be influenced by novel experiences, yet educators often overlook the influence novelty exerts on students. This quasi-experimental study manipulated prior knowledge before a zoo field trip for 210 urban 7^th-grade students from 2 schools, 1 comprised mostly of low-socioeconomic status (SES) families and 1 comprised mostly of middle-SES families. Students participated in 1 of 2 preparatory lessons, only 1 of which previewed field trip-related content, thereby increasing prior knowledge for half the students from each school. Prior knowledge significantly increased learner engagement, measured through attentiveness, from both schools, but in different types of behaviors. Students from the low-SES school demonstrated more attentiveness if their preparatory lesson previewed field trip material than if it was unrelated to the field trip. Students from the middle SES school displayed the same level of attentiveness in both conditions (and overall higher than the low-SES students). This study highlights complexities associated with prior knowledge and reveals strategies to help improve engagement levels for students visiting informal learning environments.     

Two kinds of bias in visual comparison illustrate the role of location and holistic/analytic processing differences

A number of studies have shown that two stimuli appearing successively at the same spatial location are more likely to be perceived as the same, even though location is irrelevant to the task. This bias to respond “same” when stimuli are at the same location is termed spatial congruency bias. The experiments reported here demonstrate that the spatial congruency bias extends to letter strings: Participants tend to respond “same” when comparing two strings appearing successively at the same location. This bias may arise because successive stimuli at the same location are more likely to be perceived as a single object. Bias is also affected by the nature of the comparison task. We show that if letters must be compared individually (analytical comparison), there is a bias to respond “different,” but if letter strings are compared as unified wholes (holistic comparison), there is no bias or a bias to respond “same.” This analytical bias is apparently separate from the spatial congruency bias. It appears whether the task requires localization of differences between strings, or counting the number of differences, or ignoring differences in some parts of the stimuli while attending to others. All of these analytical comparison tasks require that letters be selected individually, and the analytical bias may reflect difficulty in preventing interference from neighboring letters in this selection process. Each type of bias reflects a different aspect of visual processing, and both can be measured to probe how processing changes across different tasks.     

Linking Workplace Aggression to Employee Well-Being and Work: The Moderating Role of Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB)

Purpose

The present study examined the moderating effects of family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) on the relationship between two types of workplace aggression (i.e., patient-initiated physical aggression and coworker-initiated psychological aggression) and employee well-being and work outcomes.

Methodology

Data were obtained from a field sample of 417 healthcare workers in two psychiatric hospitals. Hypotheses were tested using moderated multiple regression analyses.

Findings

Psychiatric care providers’ perceptions of FSSB moderated the relationship between patient-initiated physical aggression and physical symptoms, exhaustion and cynicism. In addition, FSSB moderated the relationship between coworker-initiated psychological aggression and physical symptoms and turnover intentions.

Implications

Based on our findings, family-supportive supervision is a plausible boundary condition for the relationship between workplace aggression and well-being and work outcomes. This study suggests that, in addition to directly addressing aggression prevention and reduction, family-supportive supervision is a trainable resource that healthcare organizations should facilitate to improve employee work and well-being in settings with high workplace aggression.

Originality

This is the first study to examine the role of FSSB in influencing the relationship between two forms of workplace aggression: patient-initiated physical and coworker-initiated psychological aggression and employee outcomes.