An effective attentional set for a specific colour does not prevent capture by infrequently presented motion distractors

An organism's survival depends on the ability to rapidly orient attention to unanticipated events in the world. Yet, the conditions needed to elicit such involuntary capture remain in doubt. Especially puzzling are spatial cueing experiments, which have consistently shown that involuntary shifts of attention to highly salient distractors are not determined by stimulus properties, but instead are contingent on attentional control settings induced by task demands. Do we always need to be set for an event to be captured by it, or is there a class of events that draw attention involuntarily even when unconnected to task goals? Recent results suggest that a task-irrelevant event will capture attention on first presentation, suggesting that salient stimuli that violate contextual expectations might automatically capture attention. Here, we investigated the role of contextual expectation by examining whether an irrelevant motion cue that was presented only rarely (～3–6% of trials) would capture attention when observers had an active set for a specific target colour. The motion cue had no effect when presented frequently, but when rare produced a pattern of interference consistent with attentional capture. The critical dependence on the frequency with which the irrelevant motion singleton was presented is consistent with early theories of involuntary orienting to novel stimuli. We suggest that attention will be captured by salient stimuli that violate expectations, whereas top-down goals appear to modulate capture by stimuli that broadly conform to contextual expectations.     

Rape myths as neutralizing cognitions: evidence for a causal impact of anti-victim attitudes on men's self-reported likelihood of raping

Men's rape myth acceptance (RMA; prejudiced beliefs that serve to exonerate the rapist and blame the victim) has been shown to correlate positively with self-reported rape proclivity (RP). To explore the causal pathway underlying this correlation, two experiments were conducted in which the relative cognitive accessibility of RMA and RP was varied. Male students were asked to report their RP in the context of a scale assessing attraction toward sexual aggression (Experiment 1) or in response to five realistic date-rape scenarios (Experiment 2), either before or after they filled out a 20-item RMA scale. In both studies, the correlation of RMA and RP was significantly greater in the after than in the before condition, suggesting that the belief in rape myths has a causal influence on men's proclivity to rape. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining memory for heterosexual college students' sexual experiences using an electronic mail diary.

To examine memory for sexual expenences, the authors asked 37 sexually active, nonmonogamous, heterosexual college students to complete an e-mail diary every day for 1 month. The diary contained questions about their sexual behaviors. Six to 12 months later, they returned for a surprise memory test, which contained questions about their sexual experiences from the diary phase. They were asked about their sexual partners, the types of sexual experiences they had, and condom use. Participants underreported the number of partners they had, but they overreported both sexual experiences and condom use. The results have implications for both sexual health educators and for people who engage in high-risk sexual behaviors.     

Physical and emotional stresses of technology on employees in the workplace

This article presents how today's technology permeates the planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling functions of human resources management. Certain industries or occupations are more reliant on technology and thus impose more physical and emotional stressors on employees. The effects of physical stressors and the physical manifestations of emotional stressors can expose employers to additional liability. The authors make 8 propositions in this study and provide supporting research with additional information. How employers can be proactive by encouraging task‐focused coping with stress is also discussed.     

The ISI Change phenomenon: When contradicting one stereotype changes another

When a population is perceived to consist of two mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups, the stereotypes that people form of these groups are likely to be interdependent. We predicted that stereotype-incongruent information about members of one group (target group) may then evoke change in the stereotype of another group (alternative group) even in the absence of any stereotype-incongruent information about members of the alternative group. We demonstrated this Indirect Stereotype-Incongruence Induced (ISI) Change phenomenon in two studies using novel groups (Study 1 and 2). The effect occurred when the incongruent information was about a competent target group (changing the stereotype about the less competent alternative group) but not when it was about an incompetent target group (Study 2). The ISI Change phenomenon implies that stereotypes may change even in the absence of directly stereotype-incongruent information.     

The best laid plans: Examining the conditions under which a planning intervention improves learning and reduces attrition

Planning plays an instrumental role in prominent self-regulation theories (e.g., action regulation, control, goal setting), yet as a scientific community we know little about how people carry out their learning plans. Using an experimental field study, we implemented a repeated-measures intervention requiring trainees to create a plan for when, where, and how much time they intended to devote to training before each of 4 online modules and examined the conditions under which the planning intervention improved learning and reduced attrition. Trainees benefited from the planning intervention when it was paired with another intervention-prompting self-regulation-targeting self-regulatory processes that occur subsequent to planning (e.g., monitoring, concentration, learning strategies). Trainees' learning performance was highest and attrition lowest when they received both interventions. The planning intervention was also advantageous for enhancing learning and reducing attrition when trainees followed through on the amount of time that they planned to devote to training. Finally, the relationship between planned study time, time on task, and learning performance was cyclical. Planned study time had a positive effect on time on task, which, in turn, had a positive effect on learning performance. However, trainees planned to devote less time to training following higher rather than lower learning performance. The current study contributes to our theoretical understanding of self-regulated learning by researching one of the most overlooked components of the process-planning-and examining the conditions under which establishing a learning plan enhances training outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Brief owner absence does not induce negative judgement bias in pet dogs

Humans in a negative emotional state are more likely to judge ambiguous stimuli as negative. In recent years, similar judgement biases have been found in some non-human animals that were exposed to long-term or short-term treatments aimed at influencing their affective states. Here we tested pet dogs in the presence and absence of their owners in a judgement bias test with an established go/no-go procedure. Even though owner absence is thought to induce a state of anxiety in dogs that have formed an attachment bond with their primary caretakers, we found no difference between the dogs' responses to ambiguous stimuli in the presence or absence of their owners. This result may be explained by the absence of anxiety in dogs that are accustomed to brief periods of separation from their owners, or by a sensitivity limit of the customary judgement bias tests in non-human animals when only a moderate, short-term state of anxiety is induced. In addition, we found significant differences between individuals and populations in the responses to ambiguous stimuli, which give impetus for further research.