The effects of perceptual load on semantic processing under inattention

Inattentional blindness refers to a failure to consciously detect an irrelevant object that appears without any expectation when attention is engaged with another task. The perceptual load theory predicts that task-irrelevant stimuli will reach awareness only when the primary task is of low load, which allows processing resources to spill over to processing task-irrelevant stimuli as well. We studied whether perceptual load has an effect on inattentional blindness for a task-irrelevant stimulus whose meaning is or is not relevant to the attentional goals of the observer. In the critical trial, a word appeared without any expectation in the center of a display of attended pictures. The results showed that, under both high and low load, unexpected words belonging to the attended semantic category were detected more often than semantically unrelated words. These results imply that task-irrelevant stimuli, whose meanings are relevant to the observer’s task, enter awareness irrespective of perceptual load.     

Moral psychology of nursing robots: Exploring the role of robots in dilemmas of patient autonomy

Artificial intelligences (AIs) are widely used in tasks ranging from transportation to healthcare and military, but it is not yet known how people prefer them to act in ethically difficult situations. In five studies (an anthropological field study, n = 30, and four experiments, total n = 2150), we presented people with vignettes where a human or an advanced robot nurse is ordered by a doctor to forcefully medicate an unwilling patient. Participants were more accepting of a human nurse's than a robot nurse's forceful medication of the patient, and more accepting of (human or robot) nurses who respected patient autonomy rather than those that followed the orders to forcefully medicate (Study 2). The findings were robust against the perceived competence of the robot (Study 3), moral luck (whether the patient lived or died afterwards; Study 4), and command chain effects (Study 5; fully automated supervision or not). Thus, people prefer robots capable of disobeying orders in favour of abstract moral principles like valuing personal autonomy. Our studies fit in a new era in research, where moral psychological phenomena no longer reflect only interactions between people, but between people and autonomous AIs.     

Lexical access to inflected words as measured by lateralized visual lexical decision

In two lateralized visual lexical decision experiments conducted with normal subjects, we studied hemispheric performance in the recognition of case-inflected Finnish nouns. Previous research employing mainly locative cases has indicated that such noun forms undergo morphological decomposition. The present experiments extend this finding to syntactic cases by showing that nouns with partitive or genitive endings take longer to recognize and elicit more errors than otherwise comparable monomorphemic nominative singular nouns. Morpheme-based recognition of all case-inflected forms would be a particularly appropriate solution for mental lexicon in highly inflecting languages like Finnish: it saves storage space and enables fast recognition of inflected forms not encountered before. In real words, morphological structure did not interact with visual field. However, particularly demanding, morphologically decomposable nonwords elicited more errors in the left visual field/right hemisphere than did nondecomposable nonwords. Our results suggest that at least in Finnish, both hemispheres are capable of morpheme-based access, but this mechanism is more accurate in the left than in the right hemisphere. Received: 21 May 1997 / Accepted: 19 January 1998     

Spatial integration under contextual control in a virtual environment

The role of context was examined in the selection and integration of independently learned spatial relationships. Using a dynamic 3D virtual environment, participants learned one spatial relationship between landmarks A and B which was established in one virtual context (e.g., A is left of B) and a different spatial relationship which was established in another virtual context (e.g., A is in front of B). A spatial relationship between B and a goal was then established, using the same landmark-to-goal relationship in each context. When given A in either context at test, participants were more likely to choose a position in expectation of the goal, based on the relationship of A to B previously established in that context. Thus, context can be used to disambiguate conflicting spatial information. This research is discussed in light of Miller and Escobar's (2002) retrieval model.     

Collective stress and coping in the context of organizational culture

We examined from a cultural perspective how well-being was collectively defined, what were the sources of collective stress, and what kind of collective coping mechanisms were used to alleviate such stress in three divisions of a multinational company. In the first phase of the study we collected data on organizational culture by using individual thematic interviews (N = 63). Applying the grounded theory methodology and an inductive analysis, specific cultures describing the divisions were identified. In terms of co-operation we found the following fundamental cultural recipes: joint focused efforts on money-making, despite the awareness of the common goals employees interested only in fulfilling their own role (jig-saw puzzle), and the awareness of the common goals lacking (scattered islands). In the second phase we conducted group interviews (N = 32) using the critical incident technique to assess collective definitions of well-being, sources of collective stress and respective collective coping mechanisms. These data were complemented with observations at the work site, participant observations at meetings, and analysis of documents. The definitions of well-being varied across cultures as regards their emphasis either on work or on other life domains as sources of well-being. Furthermore, the more hectic the organizational context, the more permissive the collective conception of well-being was. Collective stress emerged as a response to two types of signals: (1) adaptation to the environment of the division or work unit was imperfect (fluctuation, risk of unemployment, continuously changing customer needs, poor client satisfaction, multinational game, group bonus, culture shock due to a merger, work overload, and pressure toward more extensive autonomy), or (2) friction inside the community (undervaluation of a group of employees, and the “penal colony” reputation). Of the corresponding coping mechanisms, a large proportion were found to be collective, learned uniform responses to remove the stressor, to change the interpretation of the situation or to alleviate negative feelings. In conclusion, our results suggest that stress experiences and coping strategies have collective qualities. Culture not only seems to moderate the appraisal of stress, but also contains collective coping responses to stressors, which seem to have their origin either in the organizational environment or inside the community itself.     

Causes of road accidents as perceived by Arabs in Israel: A qualitative study

To investigate beliefs and attitudes of Arabs in Israel regarding causes of road accidents, 12 focus groups were conducted with a total of 104 adult Israeli Arabs. Participants reported major differences between Arab and Jewish towns and villages in terms of individual driving behaviors, social norms of driving, infrastructure, and traffic enforcement. Discrimination was perceived as an indirect cause of traffic accidents, expressed mainly in lower investment in infrastructure and traffic enforcement in Arab villages. Arabs’ defiance of state authorities and low socio-economic status were also perceived as a cause of unsafe driving. A grounded theory model based on the socio-ecological model was developed to explain these factors. Prevention of unsafe driving behaviors in Arab villages and towns requires a socio-ecological approach combining various strategies at multiple levels.     

LGBT Activism and Reflexive Religion: A Case Study from Finland in the Light of Social Movements Theory

In this article we focus on lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender/-sexual (LGBT) activism that is grounded in some form of religious identification. Using the approach of the study of social movements highlights the features that enable such a movement to operate and proliferate in the heterogeneous, fluid, and distinctly non-institutional context of the contemporary religious or spiritual field and also to effect changes in the ranks of a traditional religious institution. Religious LGBT activism is a process-oriented and network-shaped movement that attributes positive value to and takes advantage of—and gains resilience from—an internal diversity in contrast to being institutionally organised and programmatically or dogmatically defined. We suggest that the current public exposure and treatment of the issues around religion and sexuality should be seen as negations of old and legitimation of new religious identities—not only of sexual identities. Rather than mobilisation through collective identity, religious LGBT activism emerges as part of an active process of value production wherein reflexivity and diversity are central features fostered by both individual and collective negotiations of subjective and emotionally challenging and motivating experiences.     

Visuospatial representations used by chess experts: A preliminary study

Blindfold chess is played without the players seeing either the pieces or the board. It is a skill‐related activity, and only very skilled players can construct the mental images required. This is why blindfold chess provides a good task with which to investigate the spatial memory and skilled mental images of expert players. In a PET investigation, we compared memory performance and problem solving in very experienced chess players with their performance in an attention task, in which the subjects classified the names of chess pieces. The memory task predominantly activated the temporal areas, whereas problem solving activated several frontal areas. The relevance of these findings to concepts such as general imagery, skilled imagery, apperception, and long‐term working memory are discussed.     

A focused attention intervention for coping with ostracism

Ostracism—being excluded and ignored—thwarts satisfaction of four fundamental needs: belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. The current study investigated whether training participants to focus their attention on the here-and-now (i.e., focused attention) reduces distress from an ostracism experience. Participants were first trained in either focused or unfocused attention, and then played Cyberball, an online ball-tossing game for which half the participants were included or ostracized. Participants reported their levels of need satisfaction during the game, and after a short delay. Whereas both training groups experienced the same degree of need-threat in the immediate measure, participants who were trained in focused attention showed more recovery for the delayed measure. We reason that focused attention would not reduce the distress during the ostracism experience, but it aided in recovery by preventing participants from reliving the ostracism experience after it concludes.