Out with the new,in with the old: Exogenous orienting to locations with physically constant stimulation

Dominant methods of investigating exogenous orienting presume that attention is captured most effectively at locations containing new events. This is evidenced by the ubiquitous use of transient stimuli as cues in the literature on exogenous orienting. In the present study, we showed that attention can be oriented exogenously toward a location containing a completely unchanging stimulus by modifying Posner’s landmark exogenous spatial-cueing paradigm. Observers searched a six-element array of placeholder stimuli for an onset target. The target was preceded by a decrement in luminance to five of the six placeholders, such that one location remained physically constant. This “nonset” stimulus (so named to distinguish it from a traditional onsetting transient) acted as an exogenous cue, eliciting patterns of facilitation and inhibition at the nonset location and demonstrating that exogenous orienting is not always evident at the location of a visual transient. This method eliminates the decades-long confounding of orienting to a location with the processing of new events at that location, permitting alternative considerations of the nature of attentional selection.     

Identity Processing Styles and Psychosocial Balance during Early and Middle Adulthood: The Role of Identity in Intimacy and Generativity

Identity styles and Eriksonian psychosocial balance were examined in young adults (N = 163; 64.4% women) and middle-aged adults (N = 132; 51.5% women). Participants completed self-report measures of identity styles (informational, normative, and diffuse-avoidant), identity commitment, and psychosocial balance (identity, intimacy, and generativity). Different patterns of psychosocial balance were found for each identity style, with largely consistent findings across age groups. The diffuse-avoidant style was negatively associated with all forms of psychosocial balance, the normative style was positively associated with identity and intimacy balance, and the informational style was positively associated with intimacy and generativity. Structural equation modeling revealed that identity balance predicted both intimacy and generativity for the diffuse-avoidant style (negative prediction) and normative style (positive prediction), whereas the informational style provided direct positive prediction of intimacy and generativity. The importance of an informational identity style for psychosocial balance during both early and middle adulthood is discussed.     

Disengaging the negative priming mechanism in location tasks

In a location-based negative priming task, targets that appear at locations that were previously occupied by distractors are typically responded to more slowly than are targets that appear at formerly unoccupied positions. In the present study, we attempted to disengage the location-based negative priming mechanism by presenting visual cues indicating the most likely location of the upcoming target. The first experiment showed that 75% cue-target validity was not sufficient to affect the negative priming mechanism. However, the second experiment demonstrated that a much reduced, but not eliminated, negative priming effect occurred with 100%cue-target validity. These findings are similar to those found with inhibition of return, suggesting that location-based inhibition of return effects and location-based negative priming effects may share a common inhibition mechanism.     

Continuous hand movement induces a far-hand bias in attentional priority

Previous research on the interaction between manual action and visual perception has focused on discrete movements or static postures and discovered better performance near the hands (the near-hand effect). However, in everyday behaviors, the hands are usually moving continuously between possible targets. Therefore, the current study explored the effects of continuous hand motion on the allocation of visual attention. Eleven healthy adults performed a visual discrimination task during cyclical concealed hand movements underneath a display. Both the current hand position and its movement direction systematically contributed to participants’ visual sensitivity. Discrimination performance increased substantially when the hand was distant from but moving toward the visual probe location (a far-hand effect). Implications of this novel observation are discussed.     

Sex crimes and the new punitiveness

In the last few years, new ways of punishing sex offenders have been introduced in many modern societies. However, these sanctions have a broader significance than this: they are part of a broader set of penal arrangements-directed at the criminal population as a whole-which represents a new punitiveness. This seems to be moving the direction of legal punishment beyond the established parameters that had hitherto been set for it in modern society. This had involved punishment becoming increasingly administered by penal bureaucracies, to the exclusion of the general public, being influenced by the opinion of penal experts, and becoming more tempered, consistent and purposeful in form. Sanctions that did not fit these criteria faded out of modern penality. The indeterminate prison sentence was introduced at its outer limits as a residual measure of control to be used against those offenders-frequently sex criminals-for whom the existing penal framework was thought inappropriate. Even so, by the 1970s, these special penal measures were falling into disuse. However, the new punitiveness has not only given new life to them, but has also led to the introduction of measures which seem to reverse or move beyond modernpenal parameters. The article argues that the reasons for these shifts lie in the profound economic and social changes that have taken place in Western societies over the course of the last two decades or so.     

Attending to eye movements and retinal eccentricity: evidence for the activity distribution model of attention reconsidered

When testing between spotlight and activity distribution models of visual attention, D. LaBerge, R. L. Carlson, J. K. Williams, and B. G. Bunney (1997) used an experimental paradigm in which targets are embedded in 3 brief displays. This paradigm, however, may be confounded by retinal eccentricity effects and saccadic eye movements. When the retinal eccentricities of the targets are equated and eye position is monitored, the pattern of results reported by LaBerge et al., which supported the activity distribution model, is not found. This result underscores the importance of considering targets' eccentricity and people's inclination to make saccadic eye movements in certain types of visual cognition tasks. ((c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).     

Inhibition of return with rapid serial shifts of attention: implications for memory and visual search

Horowitz and Wolfe (2001) suggested that inhibition of return (IOR) should not be observed in tasks that involve rapid deployments of attention. To examine this issue, five of six possible locations were sequentially cued with either short-duration peripheral cues (50 msec) or long-duration peripheral cues (500 msec). As was expected, IOR was observed in the first two experiments at every cued location with the long-duration cues, with the magnitude of IOR decreasing for earlier cued locations relative to later cued locations. In the short-cue condition, IOR was observed at only one cued location (the second to last). The pattern of results for the short-duration cues was found regardless of whether the fixation cue was of a short (Experiment 1) or a long (Experiment 2) duration. In Experiment 3, the final fixation cue was removed, and IOR was again observed at virtually all locations in both the short- and the long-cue conditions. These findings indicate that IOR can be observed at multiple locations when attention is shifted rapidly between locations.     

The role of spatial working memory in inhibition of return: evidence from divided attention tasks

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a bias against returning attention to a location that has been recently attended. In the present experiments, we examined the role of working memory in IOR by introducing secondary tasks (in the temporal interval between the cue and the target) that involved a working memory component. When the secondary task was nonspatial in nature (monitoring odd digits or adding digits), IOR was present, although overall reaction times were greater in the presence of the secondary task. When the task involved a spatial working memory load (remembering the directionality of arrows or the orientation of objects), IOR was eliminated. However, when the participants had incentive to process the directionality of an arrow but did not have to use any memory system, IOR persisted at peripheral locations. Overall, the results suggest that IOR is partially mediated by a spatial working memory system.     

Generativity and moral development as predictors of value-socialization narratives for young persons across the adult life span: from lessons learned to stories shared.

Little research so far has examined storytelling as a channel of value socialization. In the present study, 129 adults from 3 age groups (18-26, 28-50, 60-75) were asked to tell stories for adolescents about 2 of their past value-learning experiences. Generative concern (D. P. McAdams & E. de St. Aubin, 1992) and moral reasoning stage level were also assessed. Stronger generative concern was predictive of a greater sense of having learned important lessons from these past events, of stronger adult value socialization investment, and of more engaging narratives for adolescents as judged by a panel of uninstructed raters. Higher levels of moral reasoning were positively related to generative concern and to a stronger sense of past lessons learned. Generativity appears important to the project of value socialization across the adult life span.