On The Trail of Little Albert

The Psychological Record - In 1920, John Watson and Rosalie Rayner published a study of the emotional conditioning of an 11-month old infant, “Albert B,” which was to become a textbook...     

Cognitive masking in rapid sequential processing: The effect of an emotional picture on preceding and succeeding pictures

This experiment assessed the effect of an emotional pictorial input on the processing of preceding and succeeding pictorial inputs. Thirty-nine individual pictures were successively presented for 165 msec, with a 500-msec dark interval between each item. The 20th input item was either an emotional or a neutral picture; the remaining 38 items were neutral sketches. Postinput recognition data indicated a processing disruption of several pictorial items following the emotional as compared to the neutral input and a possible processing disruption of the item immediately preceding the emotional stimulus. The outcome suggests nonindependence in the processing of separate picture inputs in rapid sequential presentations.     

Exogenous influences on task set activation in task switching

To explore the effect of exogenous processes on cognitive control, we used a cueing task-switching paradigm with two spatial judgement tasks and added an irrelevant colour attribute to the task-relevant spatial attribute of the target. The colour was not related to any specific Stimulus–Response relation in the tasks. A correlation was created between stimulus colour and task identity. This correlation was strong but imperfect in Experiment 1 and perfect in Experiment 2. As a result of the colour–task correlation, stimuli contained redundant information about task identity. By changing the correlation pattern every few blocks we caused this information to be sometimes invalid. In both experiments, performance was worse when the information carried by the target was invalid than when it was valid. However, this effect was exclusive to conditions with short task preparation time. By comparing performance with a control group, which had no colour–task correlation (in Experiment 2) we established that the colour manipulation did not cause a qualitative change in preparation strategy, and that the exogenous effect was stronger in switch trials than in repetition trials. We conclude that exogenous processes that are related to task set affect performance primarily if they are presented before endogenous processes of task set preparation have been launched.     

Inaction Inertia in the Stock Market1

Based on the inaction inertia effect, it was hypothesized that investors who missed an opportunity to leave a “bear market” will be less likely to sell the stock at a later opportunity when facing a grave loss. Participants in a stock‐market computer game were given an opportunity to sell their stock for a moderate gain. Having missed this initial opportunity and now facing a grave loss, these participants were less likely to sell their stock compared to participants whose potential loss was not as grave, or compared to participants facing the same magnitude of loss who had no previous opportunity to leave the market. Analysis of the time spent by participants on reading relevant information concerning the stock market suggests that this tendency toward continued inaction was not the result of careful deliberation over market trends. The results are discussed in terms of counterfac‐tual thinking and anticipated regret.     

Effects of aerobic exercise training, age, and physical fitness on memory-search performance

We investigated the effects of exercise training on memory performance. One group of 13 men (M = 42.92 years of age) participated in supervised aerobic exercise (jogging) three times a week for 12 weeks. A second group of 15 men (M = 43.67 years of age) performed anaerobic exercise (strength training) for the same period of time. Subjects' reaction time (RT) performance in a memory-search task was assessed both before (Time 1) and after (Time 2) the 12 weeks of exercise training. Results indicated that there was no significant change in memory-search performance over time as a function of exercise training. Analyses of the Time 2 RTs demonstrated that aspects of memory-search performance were related significantly both to subjects' initial (Time 1) level of fitness and to age, but not to the amount of change in fitness associated with aerobic exercise training over this 12-week duration in this age group.     

On the origins of the task mixing cost in the cuing task-switching paradigm

Poorer performance in conditions involving task repetition within blocks of mixed tasks relative to task repetition within blocks of single task is called mixing cost (MC). In 2 experiments exploring 2 hypotheses regarding the origins of MC, participants either switched between cued shape and color tasks, or they performed them as single tasks. Experiment 1 supported the hypothesis that mixed-tasks trials require the resolution of task ambiguity by showing that MC existed only with ambiguous stimuli that afforded both tasks and not with unambiguous stimuli affording only 1 task. Experiment 2 failed to support the hypothesis that holding multiple task sets in working memory (WM) generates MC by showing that systematic manipulation of the number of stimulus-response rules in WM did not affect MC. The results emphasize the role of competition management between task sets during task control.     

Analysis and analogy in the perception of vowels

In two experiments, we investigated the creation of conceptual analogies to a contrast between vowels. An ordering procedure was used to determine the reliability of simple sensory and abstract analogies to vowel contrasts composed by naive volunteers. The results indicate that test subjects compose stable and consistent analogies to a meaningless segmental linguistic contrast, some invoking simple and complex relational properties. Although in the literature of psychophysics such facility has been explained as an effect of sensory analysis, the present studies indicate the action of a far subtler and more versatile cognitive function akin to the creation of meaning in figurative language.     

Exercise therapy for depression in middle-aged and older adults: predictors of early dropout and treatment failure.

Psychosocial factors predicting treatment dropout or failure to benefit from treatment were identified in a randomized trial of exercise therapy and pharmacotherapy for major depression. One hundred fifty-six men and women over age 50 diagnosed with major depressive disorder were assigned to a 16-week program of aerobic exercise, medication (sertraline), or a combination of exercise and medication. Thirty-two patients (21%) failed to complete the program and were considered treatment "dropouts." At the end of 16 weeks, 83 patients (53%) were in remission; the remaining patients not in remission were considered treatment "failures." Baseline levels of self-reported anxiety and lift satisfaction were the best predictors of both patient dropout and treatment success or failure across all treatment conditions.