Wandering eyes: Eye movements during mind wandering in video lectures

Video lectures are increasingly prevalent, but they present challenges to learners. Students' minds often wander, yet we know little about how mind wandering affects attention during video lectures. This paper presents two studies that examined eye movement patterns of mind wandering during video lectures. In the studies, mind wandering reports were collected by either self-caught reports or thought probes. Results were similar across the studies: mind wandering was associated with an increased allocation of fixations to the instructor's image. For fixations on the slides, the average duration increased but the dispersion decreased. Moreover, preliminary evidence suggested that fixation duration and dispersion can diminish soon after self-caught reports of mind wandering. Overall, these findings help advance our understanding of how learners' attention is affected during mind wandering and may facilitate efforts in objectively identifying mind wandering. Future research is needed to determine if these findings can extend to other instructional formats.     

分心抑制和关系整合对学前儿童类比推理的影响

为探究分心抑制和关系整合对学前儿童类比推理的影响,实验一先初步探究分心抑制和关系整合对25名3~4岁和26名5~6岁儿童完成含有知觉分心的类比情景任务的影响。其次,揭示知觉分心与关系整合在类比推理中的具体作用模式。实验二先初步探究分心抑制和关系整合对30名3~4岁和28名5~6岁儿童完成含有语义分心的类比情景任务的影响。其次,揭示语义分心与关系整合在类比推理中的具体作用模式。结果表明,抑制控制能显著预测儿童完成各种类型类比推理成绩,工作记忆能显著预测儿童完成含有语义分心的类比推理成绩而不能显著预测含有知觉分心的类比推理成绩。儿童完成类比情景中的分心抑制是在关系整合中完成的,当类比情景中的关系整合没有超过儿童的工作记忆容量时,知觉或语义分心才能造成对儿童类比推理的影响。     

Word‐of‐mouth transmission in settings with multiple opinions: The impact of other opinions on WOM likelihood and valence

Scholars in social psychology and marketing have traditionally examined word-of-mouth (WOM) interactions in a dyadic setting, comprised of a WOM-opinion provider and its recipient. Yet, social interactions also often occur in larger settings, and group-based research has shown group sizes to affect its member behavior. To this end, we set out to examine WOM transmission in a larger context by introducing a WOM responder, whose role is to provide a second opinion to the WOM recipient. In Experiment 1, we find that social relations in the triad play a key role in WOM transmission. For strong ties, the WOM responder showed little difference in willingness to offer a second opinion irrespective of its congruency with the first opinion. Incongruency with the first opinion, however, reduced the valence of the second opinion. For weak ties, the presence (vs. absence) of first opinion—irrespective of its congruency—increased the likelihood of offering a second opinion and also its valence. We demonstrate that the effects could be attributable to different accessibility of needs for assimilation and differentiation as well as of motivational orientations toward other parties of WOM. Experiment 2 takes a closer look at the conflicting motivations of social influence (normative vs. informational) associated with strong ties, and finds both in operation but to a differing degree. Finally, a follow-up study addresses the current findings in the context of satisfied/dissatisfied consumers.     

Grounding as a facilitator in Anglo-Canadian and Mainland Chinese conversations

This study examined whether a short training in grounding strategies could improve intercultural communication. Forty intercultural dyads (Anglo-Canadians and Mainland Chinese) were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Prior to their conversations the experimental groups received 10–15 min training on grounding while the control groups received no training. The trained dyads performed significantly better than the untrained dyads in grounding, speaker presentation and listener recall, thus documenting that the 10–15 min training on grounding was fruitful in improving intercultural communication. Grounding training may open a new avenue for reducing intercultural miscommunication, thus improving information transmission.     

Maybe There Are No Subject-Predicate Sentences in Chinese

In this essay, I argue for the conclusion that the Chinese sentences that are regularly translated into subject-predicate sentences in English may be understood as all non-subject-predicate sentences. My argument is based on the premise that some grammatical features are crucial to yield the sense of contrast between the completeness of subject and the incompleteness of predicate. The absence of such grammatical features in Chinese makes it impossible to establish any criterion for the distinction between subject and predicate in Chinese.     

5·12地震前后灾区大学生生命价值观比较

采用自编大学生生命价值观问卷（LVS）分别三次对灾区大学生进行测试：5·12地震前1年、震后2周、震后5个月。结果表明:（1）自编的大学生生命价值观问卷（LVS）包括存在价值、目标价值、规则价值三个维度,探索性与验证性因素分析证明问卷具有良好的信效度。（2）在LVS总分和其存在价值维度上,震后2周得分均高于震前1年和震后5个月。（3）在存在价值取向维度上,女生震后2周和震后5个月得分显著高于男生;理科生震后2周得分高于震后5个月和震前1年,理科生震后2周得分显著高于文科生。（4）在规则价值取向维度上,文科生震后2周得分显著低于震后5个月,文科生震后2周得分显著低于理科生     

Conceptualizing Personal and Extrapersonal Associations

We recently introduced the term ‘extrapersonal associations’ and defined them as information that is available in memory but that does not contribute to one's attitudes toward a given object ( Olson & Fazio, 2004 ). Here, we review our conceptualization of the term, contrast it to our conceptualization of attitudes as personal associations, and briefly summarize evidence that the Implicit Association Test, as it is traditionally employed, is influenced by extrapersonal associations. We discuss recent critiques of the concept and in so doing, elaborate upon the essence of the personal versus extrapersonal distinction. We conclude with speculations on the nature of extrapersonal associations, their origins, and relationship to attitudes.     

Self-construal priming modulates the scope of visual attention

Although it is well documented that cultures influence basic cognitive processes such as attention, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We tested the hypothesis that self-concepts that characterize people from different cultures mediate the variation of visual attention. After being primed with self-construals that emphasize the Eastern interdependent self or the Western independent self, Chinese participants were asked to discriminate a central target letter flanked by compatible or incompatible stimuli (Experiment 1) or global/local letters in a compound stimulus (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that, while responses were slower to the incompatible than to the compatible stimuli, this flanker compatibility effect was increased by the interdependent relative to the independent self-construal priming. Experiment 2 showed that the interdependent-self priming resulted in faster responses to the global than to the local targets in compound letters whereas a reverse pattern was observed in the independent-self priming condition. The results provide evidence for dynamics of the scope of visual attention as a function of self-construal priming that switches self-concept toward the interdependent or independent styles in Chinese.     

Attentional capture is contingent on the interaction between task demand and stimulus salience

The aim of this research was to investigate the potential impacts of task demand and stimulus salience on the stimulus-driven attentional capture effect. The participants performed an inefficient visual search task while an irrelevant luminance singleton was present. In Experiment 1, the task demand was manipulated while the stimulus salience of the irrelevant singleton was fixed. With the same salient singleton, the attentional capture effect was observed in the low-difficulty condition but disappeared in the high-difficulty condition. In Experiment 2, the stimulus salience was manipulated while the task demand was fixed. With the same task, the highly salient singleton captured attention, whereas the relatively lowly salient singleton could not. In Experiment 3, both task demand and stimulus salience were manipulated simultaneously. The stimulus-driven attentional capture effect by the irrelevant singleton increased not only as the task demand decreased but also as the stimulus salience increased. The present study might provide a way to reconcile conflicting findings in the attentional capture literature; the underlying neural mechanism is discussed. 2009 The Psychonomic Society, Inc.