Should you Sleep on it? The Effects of Overnight Sleep on Subjective Preference‐based Choice

Conventional wisdom and studies of unconscious processing suggest that sleeping on a choice may improve decision making. Although sleep has been shown to benefit several cognitive tasks, including problem solving, its impact on everyday choices remains unclear. Here we explore the effects of ‘sleeping on it’ on preference‐based decisions among multiple options. In two studies, individuals viewed several attributes describing a set of items and were asked to select their preferred item after a 12‐hour interval that either contained sleep or was spent fully awake. After an overnight period including sleep, individuals showed increases in positive perceptions of the choice set. This finding contrasts with previous research showing that sleep selectively enhances recall for negative information. In addition, this increase in positive recall did not translate into a greater desire to purchase their preferred item or into an overall benefit for choice satisfaction. Time‐of‐day controls were used to confirm that the observed effects could not be explained by circadian influences. Thus, we show that people may feel more positive about the choice options but not more confident about the choice after ‘sleeping on’ a subjective decision. We discuss how the valence of recalled choice set information may be important in understanding the effects of sleep on multi‐attribute decision making and suggest several avenues for future research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Brand Personality Structures in the United States and Korea: Common and Culture‐Specific Factors

The symbolic meaning of commercial brands (often called brand personality) can represent the values and beliefs of a culture. When a set of global brands were rated on the same personality attributes in the United States and Korea, 6 common dimensions of brand personality and 2 factors unique to each culture were observed. The 2 culture‐specific factors in Korea (Passive Likeableness and Ascendancy) support our general hypothesis that Korean brand personality structure carries cultural meaning, reflecting the importance of Confucian values in Korea's social and economic systems. Although their cultural meaning is less clear, the 2 unique factors (White Collar and Androgyny) that emerged in the U.S. sample suggest changing cultural values associated with occupational status and gender roles.     

The glucocorticoid contribution to obesity

Obesity is fast becoming the scourge of our time. It is one of the biggest causes of death and disease in the industrialized world, and affects as many as 32% of adults and 17% of children in the USA, considered one of the world's fattest nations. It can also cost countries billions of dollars per annum in direct and indirect care, latest estimates putting the USA bill for obesity-related costs at $147 billion in 2008. It is becoming clear that the pathophysiology of obesity is vastly more complicated than the simple equation of energy in minus energy out. A combination of genetics, sex, perinatal environment and life-style factors can influence diet and energy metabolism. In this regard, psychological stress can have significant long-term impact upon the propensity to gain and maintain weight. In this review, we will discuss the ability of psychological stress and ultimately glucocorticoids (GCs) to alter appetite regulation and metabolism. We will specifically focus on (i) GC regulation of appetite and adiposity, (ii) the apparent sexual dimorphism in stress effects on obesity and (iii) the ability of early life stress to programme obesity in the long term.     

Stronger neural dynamics capture changes in infants' visual working memory capacity over development

Visual working memory (VWM) capacity has been studied extensively in adults, and methodological advances have enabled researchers to probe capacity limits in infancy using a preferential looking paradigm. Evidence suggests that capacity increases rapidly between 6 and 10 months of age. To understand how the VWM system develops, we must understand the relationship between the looking behavior used to study VWM and underlying cognitive processes. We present a dynamic neural field model that captures both real-time and developmental processes underlying performance. Three simulation experiments show how looking is linked to VWM processes during infancy and how developmental changes in performance could arise through increasing neural connectivity. These results provide insight into the sources of capacity limits and VWM development more generally.     

Corresponding delay-dependent biases in spatial language and spatial memory

The present study addresses the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic spatial representations. In three experiments we probe spatial language and spatial memory at the same time points in the task sequence. Experiments 1 and 2 show analogous delay-dependent biases in spatial language and spatial memory. Experiment 3 extends this correspondence, showing that additional perceptual structure along the vertical axis reduces delay-dependent effects in both tasks. These results indicate that linguistic and non-linguistic spatial systems depend on shared underlying representational processes. In addition, we also address how these delay-dependent biases can arise within a single theoretical framework without positing differing prototypes for linguistic and non-linguistic spatial systems.     

Feedforward, -backward,and neutral transparency measures for Grade 1 and Grade 2 Greek readers

In the present study, orthographic metrics for Greek children’s Grade 1 and Grade 2 reading materials were presented. Data for five transparency metrics—three of which being neither feedforward nor feedbackward— were presented and offered for use in the research of children’s reading and spelling acquisition. The analysis demonstrated the complex relationships between metrics and compared the results with those obtained for the English language. The structure of these metrics from a variety of corpus sizes was investigated, and we concluded that large corpus sizes do not necessarily make a substantial contribution to the value of such metrics when compared with smaller samples.     

The Effects of Incentives on Visual–Spatial Working Memory in Children with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Working memory is one of several putative core neurocognitive processes in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The present work seeks to determine whether visual–spatial working memory is sensitive to motivational incentives, a laboratory analogue of behavioral treatment. Participants were 21 children (ages 7–10) with a diagnosis of ADHD-combined type. Participants completed a computerized spatial span task designed to assess storage of visual–spatial information (forward span) and manipulation of the stored information (backward span). The spatial span task was completed twice on the same day, once with a performance-based incentive (trial-wise feedback and points redeemable for prizes) and once without incentives. Participants performed significantly better on the backward span when rewarded for correct responses, compared to the no incentive condition. However, incentives had no effect on performance during the forward span. These findings may suggest the use of motivational incentives improved manipulation, but not storage, of visual–spatial information among children with ADHD. Possible explanations for the differential incentive effects are discussed, including the possibility that incentives prevented a vigilance decrement as task difficulty and time on task increased.     

The temporal representation of in-phase and anti-phase movements

We have proposed that the stability of bimanual coordination is influenced by the complexity of the representation of the task goals. Here, we present two experiments to explore this hypothesis. First, we examined whether a temporal event structure is present in continuous movements by having participants vocalize while producing bimanual circling movements. Participants tended to vocalize once per movement cycle when moving in-phase. In contrast, vocalizations were not synchronized with anti-phase movements. While the in-phase result is unexpected, the latter would suggest anti-phase continuous movements lack an event structure. Second, we examined the event structure of movements marked by salient turn-around points. Participants made bimanual wrist flexion movements and were instructed to move 'in synchrony' with a metronome, without specifying how they should couple the movements to the metronome. During in-phase movements, participants synchronized one hand cycle with every metronome beat; during anti-phase movements, participants synchronized flexion of one hand with one metronome beat and extension of the other hand with the next beat. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the instability of anti-phase movements is related to their more complex (or absent) event representation relative to that associated with in-phase movements.     

Feedforward, -backward, and neutral transparency measures for British English

Orthographic transparency metrics for opaque or deep languages, such as French and English, have tended to focus on feedforward and/or feedback directions, with claims made for the influence of both on reading. In the present study, data for five transparency metrics for southern British English, three of which are neither feedforward nor feedback, are presented, demonstrating the complex relationships between the metrics and offering an explanation for feedback effects in children’s reading accuracy. The structure of such metrics from a variety of corpus sizes and origins is investigated, and it is concluded that large corpus sizes do not make a substantial contribution to the value of such metrics, when compared with smaller samples, and that adult and child corpuses have very similar profiles. Probabilities of occurrence for the phonemes, graphemes, and sonographs in this study may be downloaded from brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.