Sequential effects in facial expression categorization

Facial expressions are highly dynamic signals that are rarely categorized as static, isolated displays. However, the role of sequential context in facial expression categorization is poorly understood. This study examines the fine temporal structure of expression-based categorization on a trial-to-trial basis as participants categorized a sequence of facial expressions. The results showed that the local sequential context provided by preceding facial expressions could bias the categorical judgments of current facial expressions. Two types of categorization biases were found: (a) Assimilation effects-current expressions were categorized as close to the category of the preceding expressions, and (b) contrast effects-current expressions were categorized as away from the category of the preceding expressions. The effects of such categorization biases were modulated by the relative distance between the preceding and current expressions, as well as by the different experimental contexts, possibly including the factors of face identity and the range effect. Thus, the present study suggests that facial expression categorization is not a static process. Rather, the temporal relation between the preceding and current expressions could inform categorization, revealing a more dynamic and adaptive aspect of facial expression processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).     

Organizational Innovation Climate and Creative Outcomes: Exploring the Moderating Effect of Time Pressure

Time pressure, one of the factors of organizational innovation climate, has an inconsistent effect on employee creativity. Based on the interactional approach, this study attempted to describe time pressure as a moderator. Data were collected from two surveys of R&D employees at Taiwanese national research institutions in 2007 and 2009. The results showed that time pressure moderated the relationship between organizational innovation climate and creative outcomes. As most theorists had predicted, in a strong organizational innovation climate, time pressure hindered creative outcomes. However, as many practitioners advocate, time pressure enhanced creative outcomes in a weak organizational innovation climate. The implications in a time pressure/organizational innovation climate matrix are discussed.     

Children with Specific Language Impairment are not impaired in the acquisition and retention of Pavlovian delay and trace conditioning of the eyeblink response

Three converging lines of evidence have suggested that cerebellar abnormality is implicated in developmental language and literacy problems. First, some brain imaging studies have linked abnormalities in cerebellar grey matter to dyslexia and specific language impairment (SLI). Second, theoretical accounts of both dyslexia and SLI have postulated impairments of procedural learning and automatisation of skills, functions that are known to be mediated by the cerebellum. Third, motor learning has been shown to be abnormal in some studies of both disorders. We assessed the integrity of face related regions of the cerebellum using Pavlovian eyeblink conditioning in 7–11 year-old children with SLI. We found no relationship between oral language skills or literacy skills with either delay or trace conditioning in the children. We conclude that this elementary form of associative learning is intact in children with impaired language or literacy development.     

The Efficacy of a Group Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) for Chinese Parents with a Child Diagnosed with ADHD in Hong Kong: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Study

The present pilot study evaluated the efficacy of the Level 4 Group Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) with Hong Kong Chinese parents who had a child with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using a randomised controlled trial design. It was a mixed research method involving quantitative measurement and semi‐structured focus group. Participants were randomly assigned to Triple P (n = 8) or control group (n = 9) and completed measures on child disruptive behaviours, sense of parenting efficacy and satisfaction, family stress and service needs. Outcomes were assessed at pre‐, post‐, and 3‐month follow‐up. A focus group was also conducted with the participants in the intervention group upon the programme completion. Compared with the control group, the intervention group reported a significant reduction in intensity of child behaviour problems and a significant increase in parenting efficacy at post‐intervention. The gain in reducing intensity of child disruptive behaviours maintained to 3 months after the completion of programme. Qualitative data suggested the three key elements to help both parents and children get positive changes: understanding and empathy, emotional control, and persistence in applying positive parenting strategies. The results partially provided preliminary evidence supporting the efficacy of Triple P in reducing child behaviour problems for ADHD in Chinese society.     

A threshold theory account of psychometric functions with response confidence under the balance condition

The study of thresholds for discriminability has been of long‐standing interest in psychophysics. While threshold theories embrace the concept of discrete‐state thresholds, signal detection theory discounts such a concept. In this paper we concern ourselves with the concept of thresholds from the discrete‐state modelling viewpoint. In doing so, we find it necessary to clarify some fundamental issues germane to the psychometric function (PF), which is customarily constructed using psychophysical methods with a binary‐response format. We challenge this response format and argue that response confidence also plays an important role in the construction of PFs, and thus should have some impact on threshold estimation. We motivate the discussion by adopting a three‐state threshold theory for response confidence proposed by Krantz (1969, Psychol. Rev., 76, 308–324), which is a modification of Luce's (1963, Psychol. Rev., 70, 61–79) low‐threshold theory. In particular, we discuss the case in which the practice of averaging over order (or position) is enforced in data collection. Finally, we illustrate the fit of the Luce–Krantz model to data from a line‐discrimination task with response confidence.     

Relative salience affects the process of detecting changes in orientation and luminance

This study tests the effect of relative saliency on perceptual comparison and decision processes in the context of change detection in which distinct visual mechanisms process two features (e.g., luminance and orientation). Townsend and Nozawa's (1995) systems factorial technology was used to investigate the process architecture and stopping rule when deciding whether luminance or orientation of a Gabor patch had changed. Experiment 1 found individual differences in decision strategies when we did not control relative saliency. One group of participants adopted co-active processing, and the other group adopted serial self-terminating processing to detect the change signals. When Experiment 2 eliminated the relative saliency, all but one observer adopted parallel processing and followed a self-terminating rule. These results support the relative saliency hypothesis and highlight the fact that observers adopt different change-detection strategies for two features, especially when relative saliency exists between the two feature dimensions.     

The closer the relationship, the more the interaction on facebook? Investigating the case of Taiwan users

This study argues for the necessity of applying offline contexts to social networking site research and the importance of distinguishing the relationship types of users' counterparts when studying Facebook users' behaviors. In an attempt to examine the relationship among users' behaviors, their counterparts' relationship types, and the users' perceived acquaintanceships after using Facebook, this study first investigated users' frequently used tools when interacting with different types of friends. Users tended to use less time- and effort-consuming and less privacy-concerned tools with newly acquired friends. This study further examined users' behaviors in terms of their closeness and intimacy and their perceived acquaintanceships toward four different types of friends. The study found that users gained more perceived acquaintanceships from less close friends with whom users have more frequent interaction but less intimate behaviors. As for closer friends, users tended to use more intimate activities to interact with them. However, these activities did not necessarily occur more frequently than the activities they employed with their less close friends. It was found that perceived acquaintanceships with closer friends were significantly lower than those with less close friends. This implies that Facebook is a mechanism for new friends, rather than close friends, to become more acquainted.     

Measurement of auditory cues in drivers' distraction

A driving simulator was used to examine the effects on driving performance of auditory cues in an in-vehicle information search task. Drivers' distraction by the search tasks was measured on a peripheral detection task. The difficulty of the search task was systematically varied to test the distraction caused by a quantified visual load. 58 participants completed the task. Performance on both search tasks and peripheral detection tasks was measured by mean response time and percent error. Analyses indicated that in-vehicle information search performance can be severely degraded when a target is located within a group of diverse distractors. Inclusion of an auditory cue in the visual search increased the mean response time as a result of a change in modality from auditory to visual. Inclusion of such an auditory cue seemed to influence distraction as measured by performance on the peripheral detection task; accuracy was lower when auditory cues were provided, and responses were slower when no auditory cues were provided. Distraction by the auditory cue varied according to the difficulty of the search task.     

人格特质在人机界面交互研究之应用

人机交互(Human-Computer Interaction,HCI)领域一向和心理学有着密不可分的联系。举凡界面的设计、对使用者的研究、使用偏好和使用绩效(效果)等,都需要应用心理学的理论基础。以往人机界面交互领域多着重于认知方面的研究,但近年来人们渐渐发现,人格特质在人机界面交互上也扮演了举足轻重的角色。本文首先简短介绍其崛起的背景,再回顾从1995年起至2004年中的质化量化研究。最后,归纳出三点未来的研究方向。