The role of relational information in contingent capture

On the contingent capture account, top-down attentional control settings restrict involuntary attentional capture to items that match the features of the search target. Attention capture is involuntary, but contingent on goals and intentions. The observation that only target-similar items can capture attention has usually been taken to show that the content of the attentional control settings consists of specific feature values. In contrast, the present study demonstrates that the top-down target template can include information about the relationship between the target and nontarget features (e.g., redder, darker, larger). Several spatial cuing experiments show that a singleton cue that is less similar to the target but that shares the same relational property that distinguishes targets from nontargets can capture attention to the same extent as cues that are similar to the target. Moreover, less similar cues can even capture attention more than cues that are identical to the target when they are relationally better than identical cues. The implications for current theories of attentional capture and attentional guidance are discussed.     

Priming in interpersonal contexts: implications for affect and behavior

Priming stereotypes can lead to a variety of behavioral outcomes, including assimilation, contrast, and response behaviors. However, the conditions that give rise to each of these outcomes are unspecified. Furthermore, theoretical accounts posit that prime-to-behavior effects are either direct (i.e., unmediated) or mediated by cognitive processes, whereas the role of affective processes has been largely unexplored. The present research directly investigated both of these issues. Three experiments demonstrated that priming a threatening social group ("hoodies") influences both affect and behavior in an interpersonal context. Hoodie priming produced both behavioral avoidance and several affective changes (including social apprehension, threat sensitivity, and self-reported anxiety and hostility). Importantly, avoidance following hoodie priming was mediated by anxiety and occurred only under conditions of other- (but not self-) focus. These results highlight multiple routes through which primes influence affect and behavior, and suggest that attention to self or others determine the nature of priming effects.     

Action plans produce separate Simon effects for picking up and transporting objects

A common type of interaction with the environment is reaching to move an object from one location to another. We investigated the influence of spatial stimulus–response (S–R) compatibility effects on the planning of such multi-reach actions. Participants responded to a cue on their left or right side by picking up a bean (initial reach) and then placing it in a container (goal reach). In three experiments, the initial reach and the goal reach were varied so that both reaches were to opposite sides (Exp 1), the initial reach was neutral (Exp 2), and both the initial and goal reaches were on the same side (Exp 3). The participants’ reaction time to begin the initial reach was measured. Results showed that the spatial compatibility between the cue and both the initial and goal reaches contribute to the reaction time, with the relation between the cue and the initial reach playing a dominant role.     

A perceptual discrimination investigation of the own‐race effect and intergroup experience

Research over the past two decades has demonstrated that individuals are better at the recognition and discrimination of own‐ versus other‐race faces. Recent evidence, however, supports an own‐race effect at the level of perceptual encoding in adults. The current study examines the perceptual basis of the own‐race effect in secondary students from two racially segregated communities (White and South Asian). The contact hypothesis is investigated, as other‐race experience may influence other‐race face perception. Face stimuli were generated by morphing together South Asian and White faces along a linear continuum. In a same/different perceptual discrimination task participants judged whether face stimuli were physically identical to, or different from, the original faces. Results revealed a significant own‐race effect for the White participants only, wherein they were better at discriminating White relative to South Asian faces. Other‐race individuating experience was found to predict the own‐race effect, indicating that other‐race experience influences other‐race face perceptual expertise. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neighborhood Disadvantage, Parent–Child Conflict, Neighborhood Peer Relationships, and Early Antisocial Behavior Problem Trajectories

  This study examined relations among neighborhood disadvantage, parent–child conflict, deviant peer involvement in the neighborhood, and early-starting antisocial trajectories. Antisocial group patterns were identified in 218 low-income boys followed from ages 5 to 11, and neighborhood and family variables were evaluated as predictors in early and middle childhood. Four trajectory groups emerged: one increasing pattern that corresponded with developmental theories of early-starting antisocial behavior; one with initially high and decreasing problems over time; and two low antisocial groups. Parent–child conflict and neighborhood disadvantage were significantly associated with trajectory patterns, with youth in the 2 higher antisocial behavior groups characterized by more neighborhood problems and parent–child conflict than other groups. The results suggest that in early childhood, neighborhood disadvantage and family conflict place children at risk for early-starting trajectories, and that involvement with deviant peers in the neighborhood takes on an increasingly important role in patterns of antisocial behavior over middle childhood.     

Evaluating methods for approximating stochastic differential equations

Models of decision making and response time (RT) are often formulated using stochastic differential equations (SDEs). Researchers often investigate these models using a simple Monte Carlo method based on Euler's method for solving ordinary differential equations. The accuracy of Euler's method is investigated and compared to the performance of more complex simulation methods. The more complex methods for solving SDEs yielded no improvement in accuracy over the Euler method. However, the matrix method proposed by Diederich and Busemeyer (2003) yielded significant improvements. The accuracy of all methods depended critically on the size of the approximating time step. The large (∼10 ms) step sizes often used by psychological researchers resulted in large and systematic errors in evaluating RT distributions.     

Categorization Deficit in Old Age: Reality or Artefact?

When categorization behaviour is compared between young and elderly adults, results usually show a decrease in taxonomic choices along with an increase in thematic choices. This can be interpreted in two ways: a decline in the ability to perceive and use taxonomic relations, or a modification of conceptual preferences with aging related to a bias stemming from material which favours young adults. We evaluated the second hypothesis by studying whether the salience of categorical associations could explain the differences generally observed between young and elderly adults. This hypothesis was tested on 25 young subjects (M = 45.3 years, SD =5.6 years) and 30 elderly subjects (M = 71.5 years, SD = 7.1 years) using a matching task: individual judgments were used to build triads in which a target was presented along with a strong and a weak associate. In line with our hypothesis, both age groups were influenced by associative strength and type of relation in the same way. Results are interpreted with Baltes’s [1987, Developmental Psychology, 23, 611–626] model.     

Life-Satisfaction in Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine

This paper fills a gap in the literature by looking at influences on the well-being of the citizens of Russia and Ukraine in the context of the triple shock – economic, political and social – that they experienced after 1991. The paper argues that lived experience – how people evaluate their living conditions – is as significant an influence on the welfare of citizens as are the actual conditions in which they live. The majority of the populations perceive the post-1991 economic and political changes negatively, and levels of general satisfaction and happiness are comparatively low. The findings suggest that objective economic factors, geographical/social location, health status and social context influence well-being, but also personal control and satisfaction with material circumstances, with health having a greater influence on happiness, while material circumstances and the evaluation of them have a greater influence on general satisfaction. The paper concludes by arguing for a model of reciprocal causation in which material factors provide the partially determining context for actions and are themselves influenced by happiness and satisfaction.