Inhibition of return for expected and unexpected targets

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to slower reaction times (RTs) to targets that occur in the same, rather than in a different, location as a preceding onset cue. The present study examined IOR for expected (likely) and unexpected (unlikely) targets under conditions in which stimulus-response (S-R) expectancies were generated on a trial-by-trial basis or maintained across a block of trials. Three boxes were aligned along the vertical midline. In Experiments 1 and 2, the appearance of a cue in the upper or lower box was a signal to generate an expectancy about the most likely color of an impending discrimination target. In Experiment 3, one target color was more likely than another across a block of trials. In all cases, cue location did not predict target location. When S-R expectancies were generated on a trial-by-trial basis, IOR occurred for Unlikely targets but not for Likely targets; this was true across a range of cue-target stimulus onset asynchronies. In contrast, when S-R expectancies were maintained over a block of trials, IOR was larger for Likely than for Unlikely targets. These findings reveal a critical interaction of S-R expectancies with IOR. This interaction not only demonstrates the modulation of IOR by cognitive expectancies, but in doing so also provides evidence that is consistent with the view that IOR reflects a conservative response bias.     

Getting groups to develop good strategies: Effects of reflexivity interventions on team process,team performance,and shared mental models

This study examines the effect of guided reflection on team processes and performance, based on West’s (1996, 2000) concept of reflexivity. Communicating via e-mail, 49 hierarchically structured teams (one commander and two specialists) performed seven 15 min shifts of a simulated team-based military air-surveillance task (TAST) in two meetings, a week apart. At the beginning of the second meeting, teams were assigned either to a reflexivity (individual or group) or to a control condition. Results show that reflexivity enhanced performance, the link between reflexivity and team performance being mediated by communication and implementation of strategies as well as by similarity of mental models. Contrary to expectations, individual reflexivity was superior to group reflexivity. Additional analyses suggested that group reflexivity decreased the commanders’ active behavior and increased discussion of strategies that were too general to be helpful. Results point to the usefulness of reflexivity as a generic intervention but underscore the importance of focusing on strategies that are task-specific.     

Driving after use of alcohol and marijuana in college students.

Driving after use of marijuana is almost as common as driving after use of alcohol in youth (P. M. O'Malley & L. D. Johnston, 2003). The authors compared college students' attitudes, normative beliefs and perceived negative consequences of driving after use of either alcohol or marijuana and tested these cognitive factors as risk factors for substance-related driving. Results indicated that youth perceived driving after marijuana use as more acceptable to peers and the negative consequences as less likely than driving after alcohol use, even after controlling for substance use. Results of zero-inflated Poisson regression analyses indicated that lower perceived dangerousness and greater perceived peer acceptance were associated with increased engagement in, and frequency of, driving after use of either substance. Lower perceived likelihood of negative consequences was associated with increased frequency for those who engage in substance-related driving. These results provide a basis for comparing how youth perceive driving after use of alcohol and marijuana, as well as similarities in the risk factors for driving after use of these substances.     

Coping styles and personality: a biometric analysis

Previous research suggests that coping styles are modestly heritable and that this genetic influence is shared in large part with genetic influences on personality. To test this hypothesis, we estimated the heritable basis of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations in a sample of 91 monozygotic and 80 dizygotic twin pairs. Task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and social diversion coping styles were modestly heritable (h(2)=.17 to .20), whereas the use of distraction appeared to be influenced solely by environmental factors. Multivariate analyses showed that genetic contributions to coping styles were, at best, only modestly related to genetic contributions to personality (r=-.03 to .35). Environmental contributions to personality were unrelated to environmental factors in coping style. These results suggest that coping style is not merely a manifestation of basic personality traits but does support the possibility that the genetic factors in personality influences have a modest influence on an individual's preferred coping style or strength (e.g., rigidity vs flexibility).     

Family Emotional Climate and Sibling Relationship Quality: Influences on Behavioral Problems and Adaptation in Preschool-Aged Children

We examined the impact of family emotional climate and sibling relationship quality on behavioral problems and adaptation in preschool-aged children. Participants were 63 mothers with a preschool-aged child enrolled in a Southern Arizona Head Start Program. Siblings were identified as children closest in age to target child. Mothers of predominantly Mexican descent (95%) participated in home interviews during the Fall and Spring of the year children entered center-based programs. Sibling relationship quality (warmth, agonism/competition) was proposed to predict children’s adjustment (behavioral problems and adaptation) longitudinally. Results indicate that after controlling for child characteristics (temperament, child gender, birth order) and after accounting for family characteristics (family emotional expressiveness, child exposure to interparental conflict, and parental agreement on childrearing), sibling warmth made a significant and unique contribution to child adjustment as reported by mothers and teachers six months later. Findings are consistent with existing research indicating that sibling relationships impact children’s adjustment and shape young children’s lives in meaningful and marked ways. Moreover, these associations were found with an understudied sample of young children of predominantly Mexican descent in low-income families, and thus make an important contribution to knowledge in the field.     

Glucocorticoid administration into the dorsal striatum [corrected] facilitates memory consolidation of inhibitory avoidance training but not of the context or footshock components

It is well established that glucocorticoid administration into a variety of brain regions facilitates memory consolidation of fear-conditioning tasks, including inhibitory avoidance. The present findings indicate that the natural glucocorticoid corticosterone administered into the dorsal striatum (i.e., caudate nucleus) of male Wistar rats produced dose- and time-dependent enhancement of inhibitory avoidance memory consolidation. However, as assessed with a modified inhibitory avoidance procedure that took place on two sequential days to separate context training from footshock training, corticosterone administration into the dorsal striatum did not enhance memory of either the contextual or aversively motivational aspects of the task.     

Haptic face processing.

We present an overview of a new multidisciplinary research program that focuses on haptic processing of human facial identity and facial expressions of emotion. A series of perceptual and neuroscience experiments with live faces and/or rigid three-dimensional facemasks is outlined. To date, several converging methodologies have been adopted: behavioural experimental studies with neurologically intact participants, neuropsychological behavioural research with prosopagnosic individuals, and neuroimaging studies using fMRI techniques. In each case, we have asked what would happen if the hands were substituted for the eyes. We confirm that humans can haptically determine both identity and facial expressions of emotion in facial displays at levels well above chance. Clearly, face processing is a bimodal phenomenon. The processes and representations that underlie such patterns of behaviour are also considered.     

The role of type and token frequency in using past tense morphemes correctly

Type and token frequency have been thought to be important in the acquisition of past tense morphology, particularly in differentiating regular and irregular forms. In this study we tested the role of frequency in two ways: (1) in bilingual children, who typically use and hear either language less often than monolingual children and (2) cross-linguistically: French and English have different patterns of frequency of regular/irregular verbs. Ten French-English bilingual children, 10 French monolingual and 10 English monolingual children between 4 and 6 years watched a cartoon and re-told the story. The results demonstrated that the bilingual children were less accurate than the monolingual children. Their accuracy in both French and English regular and irregular verbs corresponded to frequency in the input language. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that children learn past tense morphemes by analogy with other words in their vocabularies. We propose a developmental sequence based on conservative generalization across a growing set of verbs.     

Conditions for young infants' failure to perceive trajectory continuity

When viewing an event in which an object moves behind an occluder on part of its trajectory, 4-month-old infants perceive the trajectory as continuous only when time or distance out of sight is short. Little is known, however, about the conditions under which young infants perceive trajectories to be discontinuous. In the present studies we focus first on infants' perception of trajectories that change during a period of occlusion. Four-month-olds perceive discontinuity in trajectories that change in height or orientation while behind an occluder, and this is true even when a change in direction could be due to an invisible bouncing collision with a surface. Further experiments reveal that infants do not perceive diagonal linear trajectories as continuous across an occlusion unless the occluding and revealing edges are orthogonal to the path of movement. Implications for theories of perceptual and cognitive development are discussed.