Cognitive load causes people to react ineffectively to others' norm transgressions

We examined whether cognitive resources are necessary to react effectively to norm transgressions of others. In Study 1, we showed that a polite verbal expression of disapproval was the most effective form of social control because perpetrators were least likely to engage in the same norm transgression again in the future. In Study 2, we manipulated cognitive load and asked participants how they would react when witnessing different uncivil behaviors. Compared to participants in the cognitive load condition, participants in the control condition were more likely to use effective forms of social control and less likely to use ineffective forms of social control. The findings are integrated with recent theorizing about normative pressures and people's reactions to deviance.     

Impact of phonology on the generation of handwritten responses: Evidence from picture-word interference tasks

State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China The degree to which phonological codes constrain handwriting is at present controversial. Two experiments used a picture-word interference paradigm in which participants wrote down the names of pictures while attempting to ignore visual distractor words presented at various time intervals (SOAs). Distractors could be orthographically and phonologically related, orthographically related only, or unrelated. We found an exclusive effect of phonology at an early SOA, and orthographic priming at a later SOA. In a second experiment, we showed that the effect of phonology was diminished when writers engaged in concurrent articulatory suppression. The results suggest a role of phonology in the generation of handwritten words that is to some extent dependent on situational circumstances.     

Evaluating the contribution of different item features to the effect size of the gender difference in three-dimensional mental rotation using automatic item generation

In complex three-dimensional mental rotation tasks males have been reported to score up to one standard deviation higher than females. However, this effect size estimate could be compromised by the presence of gender bias at the item level, which calls the validity of purely quantitative performance comparisons into question. We hypothesized that the effect of gender bias at the level of distinct item design features could lead to either an over- or underestimation of reported effect sizes of the gender difference in three-dimensional mental rotation. Using automatic item generation we conducted a series of psychometric experiments in which we independently manipulated one out of four different item design features that have exhibited a gender bias in the previous studies (study 1). This was done in a between-subjects design. The results indicated that gender bias caused by item design features linked to the perceptual stadium of mental rotation led to an overestimation of the effect size of the gender difference while item design features associated with the encoding and transformational stadium resulted in an underestimation of the effect size of the gender difference. In study 2 we tested the hypothesis that the gender difference still remains while controlling for the item design features causing gender bias. The results suggest that a significant portion of the gender difference may be attributable to perceptual and encoding processes involved in mental rotation.     

Decision making under risk condition in patients with Parkinson's disease: a behavioural and fMRI study

We aimed to study whether previously described impairment in decision making under risky conditions in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) is affected by deficits in using information about potential incentives or by processing feedback (in terms of fictitious gains and losses following each decision). Additionally, we studied whether the neural correlates of using explicit information in decision making under risk differ between PD patients and healthy subjects. We investigated ten cognitively intact PD patients and twelve healthy subjects with the Game of Dice Task (GDT) to assess risky decision making, and with an fMRI paradigm to analyse the neural correlates of information integration in the deliberative decision phase. Behaviourally, PD patients showed selective impairment in the GDT but not on the fMRI task that did not include a feedback component. Healthy subjects exhibited lateral prefrontal, anterior cingulate and parietal activations when integrating decision-relevant information. Despite similar behavioural patterns on the fMRI task, patients exhibited reduced parietal activation. Behavioural results suggest that PD patients' deficits in risky decision making are dominated by impaired feedback utilization not compensable by intact cognitive functions. Our fMRI results suggest similarities but also differences in neural correlates when using explicit information for the decision process, potentially indicating different strategy application even if the interfering feedback component is excluded.     

Grounded spatial belief revision

Beliefs frequently undergo revisions, especially when new pieces of information are true but inconsistent with current beliefs. In previous studies, we showed that linguistic asymmetries provided by relational statements, play a crucial role in spatial belief revision. Located objects (LO) are preferably revised compared to reference objects (RO), known as the LO-principle. Here we establish a connection between spatial belief revision and grounded cognition. In three experiments, we explored whether imagined physical object properties influence which object is relocated and which remains at its initial position. Participants mentally revised beliefs about the arrangements of objects which could be envisaged as light and heavy (Experiment 1), small and large (Experiment 2), or movable and immovable (Experiment 3). The results show that intrinsic object properties are differently taken into account during spatial belief revision. Object weight did not alter the LO-principle (Experiment 1), whereas object size was found to influence which object was preferably relocated (Experiment 2). Object movability did not affect relocation preferences but had an effect on relocation durations (Experiment 3). The findings support the simulation hypothesis within the grounded cognition approach and create new connections between the spatial mental model theory of reasoning and the idea of grounded cognition.     

Assessing the role of orthography in speech perception and production: Evidence from picture–word interference tasks

The effects of orthographic and phonological relatedness between distractor word and object name in a picture–word interference task were investigated. In Experiment 1 distractors were presented visually, and consistent with previous findings, priming effects arising from phonological overlap were modulated by the presence or absence of orthographic similarity between distractor and picture name. This pattern is interpreted as providing evidence for cascaded processing in visual word recognition. In Experiment 2 distractors were presented auditorily, and here priming was not affected by orthographic match or mismatch. These findings provide no evidence for orthographic effects in speech perception and production, contrary to a number of previous reports.     

Book reviews

Over the last 30 years or so, various findings have been reported which suggest that the perception of spoken words may involve the automatic coactivation of orthographic properties. Here we assessed this possibility in auditory rhyme judgement tasks and replicated a classic finding reported by Seidenberg and Tanenhaus (1979), showing that orthographic similarity between stimuli facilitated responses on rhyming pairs, but had the opposite effect on nonrhyming pairs. However, Experiments 2 and 3 showed that manipulating the nature of the nonrhymes, or adding a large proportion of filler items, eliminated the effects of orthographic match or mismatch. These findings suggest the involvement of strategic factors in the emergence of orthographic effects in rhyme judgement tasks.     

Manipulating number generation: Loud + long = large?

Humans make numerous choices every day and tend to perceive these choices as free. The present study shows how simple free choices are biased by experiencing unrelated auditory information. In two experiments, participants categorized tones according to their intensity on the dimensions volume and duration on the majority of trials. On some trials, however, they were to randomly generate a number, and we found these choices to be influenced by tone intensity. Particularly, if participants were cued toward volume, loud tones clearly biased participants to generate larger numbers. For tone duration, a similar effect only emerged if spatial information was reinforced by the motor context of the task. The findings extend previous findings relating to the ATOM framework (A Theory of Magnitude) by an explicit focus on auditory magnitude processing. As such, they also constrain ATOM by showing that the connections between different magnitude dimensions vary to a considerable degree.     

Visual target detection is impaired at event boundaries

Boundaries between meaningful events are key moments in comprehending human action. At these points, viewers may focus on the event's contents at the expense of other information. We tested whether visual detection was impaired at those moments perceivers judged to be boundaries between events. Short animated football clips were used as stimulus material, and event boundaries were imposed by having the ball change possession. In a first experiment, we found that possession changes were perceived to be event boundaries. In a second experiment, participants were asked to keep track of 4 of 10 players and to watch for 120 ms probes appearing either at an event boundary or a nonboundary. Probe detection was less accurate at event boundaries. This result suggests that the segmentation of ongoing activity into events corresponds with the regulation of attention over time.