How Does Explicit Versus Implicit Risk Information Influence Adolescent Risk‐Taking Engagement?

Adolescents have been shown to be more likely to engage in risky behaviors in daily life. Many studies have indicated that adolescents could make advantageous choices when they receive explicit information but could fail to choose advantageously when they are not informed about risks. The current study aimed to examine the influence of explicit risk information (i.e., when risk information is directly available) versus implicit risk information (i.e., when risk information has to be learned from feedback) on risk‐taking engagement, in order to clarify whether the enhanced risk‐taking observed in decision making under ambiguity in adolescents results from either a greater exploration of ambiguous situations (i.e., a higher ambiguity tolerance) or a specific difficulty associated with learning based on previous choices' outcomes. Adolescents and young adults completed a new adaptation of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. They were required to accumulate as many points as possible by inflating balloons associated with variable break points and avoiding explosions. This adaptation involved a manipulation of the information level with two conditions, an “informed” condition and a “noninformed” condition, in which the participants had to learn the matching of colors with balloons' resistances based on feedback. The results demonstrated that providing explicit risk information allows adolescents to be as efficient as adults at the end of the game. In contrast, adolescents failed to adjust risk‐taking to the balloon resistance in the noninformed condition. These findings critically suggest that this failure reflects a specific impairment of feedback‐based learning ability but not a global excess of risk‐taking during adolescence. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of natural contour and face size on the spatial frequency tuning for identifying upright and inverted faces

Psychological Research - It has previously been proposed that holistic face processing is based on low spatial frequencies (SFs) whereas featural processing relies on higher SFs, a hypothesis still...     

Examining the sex- and circadian dependency of a learning phenotype in mice with glycine transporter 1 deletion in two Pavlovian conditioning paradigms

Behavioural characterisation of transgenic mice has been instrumental in search of therapeutic targets for the modulation of cognitive function. However, little effort has been devoted to phenotypic characterisation across environmental conditions and genomic differences such as sex and strain, which is essential to translational research. The present study is an effort in this direction. It scrutinised the stability and robustness of the phenotype of enhanced Pavlovian conditioning reported in mice with forebrain neuronal deletion of glycine transporter 1 by evaluating the possible presence of sex and circadian dependency, and its consistency across aversive and appetitive conditioning paradigms. The Pavlovian phenotype was essentially unaffected by the time of testing between the two circadian phases, but it was modified by sex in both conditioning paradigms. We observed that the effect size of the phenotype was strongest in female mice tested during the dark phase in the aversive paradigm. Critically, the presence of the phenotype in female mutants was accompanied by an increase in resistance to extinction. Similarly, enhanced conditioned responding once again emerged solely in female mutants in the appetitive conditioning experiment, which was again associated with an increased resistance to extinction across days, but male mutants exhibited an opposite trend towards facilitation of extinction. The present study has thus added hitherto unknown qualifications and specifications of a previously reported memory enhancing phenotype in this mouse line by identifying the determinants of the magnitude and direction of the expressed phenotype. This in-depth comparative approach is of value to the interpretation of behavioural findings in general.     

Driving in dangerous territory: Complexity and road-characteristics influence attentional demand

Car driving related attentional demands fluctuate according to route complexity and are found to be highly associated with motor-vehicle collisions (MVCs). The purpose of the current study was to explore the inherent attentional demands of scenarios that approximate common crash configurations. Sixty drivers completed a series of 20 simulated driving scenarios incorporating either rear-end or crossing path situations. For each scenario, the complexity of the driving environment was systematically manipulated in terms of vehicle handling and information processing elements. The attentional demands of each scenario were assessed by means of a peripheral detection task (PDT) as well as through a subjective measure of overall difficulty. Our results showed a reduction in PDT performance at intersections where information processing is increased as well as when handling maneuvers behind a lead vehicle were required. The results point to the appropriateness of the PDT as a sensitive measure of cognitive workload. The implications of these findings for future research and safety initiatives are discussed.     

Effect of imagined movement speed on subsequent motor performance

Researchers realize that motor imagery (MI) duration is closely linked to actual motor action duration. In 2 experiments, the authors investigated the effect of changing MI speed on actual movement duration over a 3-week training period. Experiment 1 involved 2 series of body movements that 24 participants mentally performed faster or slower than their actual execution speeds. The fast MI group's actual times decreased on subsequent performance. Participants in Experiment 2 were 21 skilled athletes who increased (decreased) their well-rehearsed actual movement times after MI training at a slow (fast) speed. The effect was task-related, however: MI affected only self-initiated movement. The effect of MI on actual speed execution supports the ideomotor theory because anticipation of sensory consequences of actions is mentally represented.     

Are unsupervised neural networks ignorant? Sizing the effect of environmental distributions on unsupervised learning

Learning environmental biases is a rational behavior: by using prior odds, Bayesian networks rapidly became a benchmark in machine learning. Moreover, a growing body of evidence now suggests that humans are using base rate information. Unsupervised connectionist networks are used in computer science for machine learning and in psychology to model human cognition, but it is unclear whether they are sensitive to prior odds. In this paper, we show that hard competitive learners are unable to use environmental biases while recurrent associative memories use frequency of exemplars and categories independently. Hence, it is concluded that recurrent associative memories are more useful than hard competitive networks to model human cognition and have a higher potential in machine learning.     

Learning to perceive with a visuo-auditory substitution system: localisation and object recognition with 'the vOICe'

We investigated to what extent participants can acquire the mastery of an auditory-substitution-of-vision device ('The vOICe') using dynamic tasks in a three-dimensional environment. After extensive training, participants took part in four experiments. In the first experiment we explored locomotion and localisation abilities. Participants, blindfolded and equipped with the device, had to localise a target by moving a hand-held camera, walk towards the target, and point at it. In the second experiment, we studied the localisation ability in a constrained pointing task. In the third experiment we explored participants' ability to recognise natural objects via their auditory rendering. In the fourth experiment we tested the ability of participants to discriminate objects belonging to the same category. We analysed participants' performance from both an objective and a subjective point of view. The results showed that participants, through sensorimotor interactions with the perceptual scene while using the hand-held camera, were able to make use of the auditory stimulation to obtain the information necessary for locomotor guidance, localisation, and pointing, as well as for object recognition. Furthermore, analysis from a subjective perspective yielded insights into participants' qualitative experience and into the strategies they used to master the device, and thus to pass from a kind of deductive reasoning to a form of immediate apprehension of what is being perceived.     

CORRECTION DES VERBALISATIONS IRRATIONNELLES CHEZ DES JOUEURS DE POKER-VIDEO*

Earlier studies have shown that irrational thinking dominates rational thinking during gambling. The present study evaluated the effects of cognitive restructuring on gambling behaviors among video poker players. Within a single case experimental design across subjects, the results showed that irrational verbalizations decreased during treatment while rational verbalizations increased. Three out of four players reduced their frequency of gambling following treatment. The theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed.     

A Dynamic Version of Hylomorphism

This paper presents a version of hylomorphism that intends to solve problems faced by contemporary hylomorphism. After showing that attempts to understand form as sets or relation of essential properties fail at taking into account the dynamic development of substances, the paper suggests another version of hylomorphism able to solve these difficulties. A functionalist version of hylomorphism is then defended: the best way to understand how form can be present throughout all the developmental stages of a substance is to understand it as a certain kind of function.     

Spatial encoding of hidden objects in dogs (Canis familiaris)

The authors investigated the type of spatial information that controls domestic dogs' (Canis familiaris) search behavior in a situation in which they have to locate a spatial position where they saw an object move and disappear. In Experiments 1 and 2, the authors manipulated all local and global sources of allocentric spatial information surrounding the hiding location. The results revealed that dogs relied on an egocentric frame of reference. Experiment 3 showed that dogs also encoded allocentric information when egocentric information was irrelevant. The authors conclude that dogs simultaneously encode both egocentric and allocentric spatial information to locate a spatial position, but they primarily base their search behavior on an egocentric frame of reference. The authors discuss under which natural conditions dogs might use these 2 sources of spatial information and detail the nature of spatial egocentric information and the circumstances underlying its use by dogs.