Organizational Impression Management: Utilizing Anticipatory Tactics

The current pair of studies are the first to empirically show that the proposed tactics/processes (i.e., accommodation, legitimation, intimidation, bureaucratic) of the anticipatory organizational impression management (OIM) model decrease initial challenges to an event and prevent the escalation of an already existing challenge. Moreover, our data showed that variables specified by the model mediated the relationship between the tactics and the respective dependent measures (i.e., initial challenges, escalation of challenges). Our results offer compelling evidence for the OIM model, an empirical case that has been heretofore absent from the literature.     

Who are you looking at? The influence of face gender on visual attention and memory for own- and other-race faces

Previous research suggests that the own-race bias (ORB) in memory for faces is a result of other-race faces receiving less visual attention at encoding. As women typically display an own-gender bias in memory for faces and men do not, we investigated whether face gender and sex of viewer influenced visual attention and memory for own- and other-race faces, and if preferential viewing of own-race faces contributed to the ORB in memory. Participants viewed pairs of female or male own- and other-race faces while their viewing time was recorded. Afterwards, they completed a surprise memory test. We found that (1) other-race males received the initial focus of attention, (2) own-race faces were viewed longer than other-race faces over time, although the difference was larger for female faces, and (3) even though longer viewing time increased the probability of remembering a face, it did not explain the magnified ORB in memory for female faces. Importantly, these findings highlight that face gender moderates attentional responses to and memory for own- and other-race faces.     

Acquired affective associations induce emotion effects in word recognition: An ERP study

The present study examined how contextual learning and in particular emotionality conditioning impacts the neural processing of words, as possible key factors for the acquisition of words’ emotional connotation. 21 participants learned on five consecutive days associations between meaningless pseudowords and unpleasant or neutral pictures using an evaluative conditioning paradigm. Subsequently, event-related potentials were recorded while participants implicitly processed the learned emotional relevance in a lexical decision paradigm. Emotional and neutral words were presented together with the conditioned pseudowords and a set of new pseudowords. Conditioned and new pseudowords differed in the late positive complex. Emotionally and neutrally conditioned stimuli differed in an early time window (80–120 ms) and in the P300. These results replicate ERP effects known from emotion word recognition and indicate that contextual learning and in particular evaluative conditioning is suitable to establish emotional associations in words, and to explain early ERP effects in emotion word recognition.     

Metamemory beliefs and episodic memory in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome

This study assessed metamemory and its role in actual episodic memory performance in 26 patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and 27 healthy controls. Metamemory knowledge and memory beliefs were assessed using the Metamemory Inventory in Adulthood. Episodic memory performance was investigated with the Remember/Know paradigm. Subjective sleepiness was evaluated. Patients underwent a polysomnographic assessment. In contrast to the control group's more stable memory beliefs, patients self-assessed their memory as declining across time, and felt more anxious about their memory. There was only a modest difference between patients' self-perceptions of their memory capacities and those of the control group, but patients' actual memory performance was strongly disturbed. While the latter was significantly correlated with severity of obstructive sleep apnea, scores on the Metamemory Inventory in Adulthood scales were not correlated with physiological measures, subjective sleepiness, or episodic memory performance. Obstructive sleep apnea may affect prefrontal cortex functioning and hence the ability to assess one's own memory impairment.     

Featural selective attention,exemplar representation,and the inverse base-rate effect

Selective attention plays a central role in theories of category learning and representation. In exemplar theory, selective attention has typically been formalized as operating uniformly across entire stimulus dimensions. Selective featural attention operating within dimensions has been recognized as a conceptual possibility, but relatively little research has focused on evaluating it. In the present research, we explored the usefulness of selective featural attention in the context of exemplar representation. We report the results of embedding the feature-to-category relations typically associated with the inverse base-rate effect—a classic and paradoxical category-learning result— perceptual category-learning task using a category structure with three multivalued feature dimensions. An exemplar model incorporating featural selective attention accurately accounted for the inverse base-rate effect that occurred but failed to do so with only dimensional attention.     

Examining patterns suggestive of acquisition during functional analyses: A consecutive controlled series of 116 cases

The functional analysis approach described by Iwata et al. (1982/1994) has been used widely to determine the variables evoking and maintaining challenging behavior. However, one potential concern with conducting functional analyses is that repeated exposure to contingencies may induce a novel functional relation. To examine the likelihood of these potential iatrogenic effects, we evaluated social test conditions of the functional analysis for 116 participants and searched for patterns of responding indicative of acquisition. Patterns suggestive of acquisition occurred in 13.70% of tangible reinforcement conditions; however, the prevalence was only slightly lower in the attention condition (8.75%). Much lower prevalence was observed for the escape condition (2.13%). When grouped by quotient score, a pattern of acquisition was just as likely to be observed in the attention condition as in the tangible condition. Additionally, patterns indicative of acquisition were no more likely to be observed with participants who emitted automatically reinforced challenging behavior.     

Effects of perceived mutual gaze and gender on face processing and recognition memory

Perceived gaze contact in seen faces may convey important social signals. We examined whether gaze perception affects face processing during two tasks: Online gender judgement, and later incidental recognition memory. Individual faces were presented with eyes directed either straight towards the viewer or away, while these faces were seen in either frontal or three-quarters view. Participants were slower to make gender judgements for faces with direct versus averted eye gaze, but this effect was particularly pronounced for faces with opposite gender to the observer, and seen in three-quarters view. During subsequent surprise recognition-memory testing, recognition was better for faces previously seen with direct than averted gaze, again especially for the opposite gender to the observer. The effect of direct gaze was stronger in both tasks when the head was seen in three-quarters rather than in frontal view, consistent with the greater salience of perceived eye contact for deviated faces. However, in the memory test, face recognition was also relatively enhanced for faces of opposite gender in front views when their gaze was averted rather than direct. Together, these results indicate that perceived eye contact can interact with facial processing during gender judgements and recognition memory, even when gaze direction is task-irrelevant, and particularly for faces of opposite gender to the observer (an influence which controls for stimulus factors when considering observers of both genders). These findings appear consistent with recent neuroimaging evidence that social facial cues can modulate visual processing in cortical regions involved in face processing and memory, presumably via interconnections with brain systems specialized for gaze perception and social monitoring.