What to expect from your remote eye-tracker when participants are unrestrained

The marketing materials of remote eye-trackers suggest that data quality is invariant to the position and orientation of the participant as long as the eyes of the participant are within the eye-tracker’s headbox, the area where tracking is possible. As such, remote eye-trackers are marketed as allowing the reliable recording of gaze from participant groups that cannot be restrained, such as infants, schoolchildren and patients with muscular or brain disorders. Practical experience and previous research, however, tells us that eye-tracking data quality, e.g. the accuracy of the recorded gaze position and the amount of data loss, deteriorates (compared to well-trained participants in chinrests) when the participant is unrestrained and assumes a non-optimal pose in front of the eye-tracker. How then can researchers working with unrestrained participants choose an eye-tracker? Here we investigated the performance of five popular remote eye-trackers from EyeTribe, SMI, SR Research, and Tobii in a series of tasks where participants took on non-optimal poses. We report that the tested systems varied in the amount of data loss and systematic offsets observed during our tasks. The EyeLink and EyeTribe in particular had large problems. Furthermore, the Tobii eye-trackers reported data for two eyes when only one eye was visible to the eye-tracker. This study provides practical insight into how popular remote eye-trackers perform when recording from unrestrained participants. It furthermore provides a testing method for evaluating whether a tracker is suitable for studying a certain target population, and that manufacturers can use during the development of new eye-trackers.     

Rise time and formant transition duration in the discrimination of speech sounds: the Ba-Wa distinction in developmental dyslexia

Across languages, children with developmental dyslexia have a specific difficulty with the neural representation of the sound structure (phonological structure) of speech. One likely cause of their difficulties with phonology is a perceptual difficulty in auditory temporal processing (Tallal, 1980). Tallal (1980) proposed that basic auditory processing of brief, rapidly successive acoustic changes is compromised in dyslexia, thereby affecting phonetic discrimination (e.g. discriminating /b/ from /d/) via impaired discrimination of formant transitions (rapid acoustic changes in frequency and intensity). However, an alternative auditory temporal hypothesis is that the basic auditory processing of the slower amplitude modulation cues in speech is compromised (Goswami et al., 2002). Here, we contrast children's perception of a synthetic speech contrast (ba/wa) when it is based on the speed of the rate of change of frequency information (formant transition duration) versus the speed of the rate of change of amplitude modulation (rise time). We show that children with dyslexia have excellent phonetic discrimination based on formant transition duration, but poor phonetic discrimination based on envelope cues. The results explain why phonetic discrimination may be allophonic in developmental dyslexia (Serniclaes et al., 2004), and suggest new avenues for the remediation of developmental dyslexia.     

Saved by the blush: being trusted despite defecting

This study examined whether blushing after a sociomoral transgression remediates trustworthiness in an interdependent context. Participants (N = 196) played a computerized prisoner's dilemma game with a virtual opponent who defected in the second round of the game. After the defection, a photograph of the opponent was shown, displaying a blushing or a nonblushing face. In a subsequent Trust Task, the blushing opponent was entrusted with more money than the nonblushing opponent. In further support of the alleged remedial properties of the blush, participants also indicated that they trusted the blushing opponent more, expected a lower probability that she would defect again, and judged the blushing opponent more positively.     

Perspectivism as a Way of Knowing in the Zhuangzi

A perspectivist theory is usually taken to mean that (1) our knowledge of the world is inevitably shaped by our particular perspectives, (2) any one of these perspectives is as good as any other, and (3) any claims to objective or authoritative knowledge are consequently without ground. Recent scholarship on Nietzsche, however, has challenged the prevalent view that the philosopher holds (2) and (3), arguing instead that his perspectivism aims at attaining a greater level of objectivity. In this essay, I attempt a structurally similar reinterpretation of Zhuangzi’s perspectivism. I argue that while the Chinese thinker sees all knowledge as perspective-dependent, he thinks that some perspectives are broader and more accurate than others. He utilizes shifts in perspective precisely in order to attain these superior perspectives, which constitute what he calls da zhi 大知, or “greater knowledge.” Whereas Nietzsche sees his perspectivism as methodologically continuous with the sciences, Zhuangzi’s “greater knowledge” has the goal of ensuring our survival and well-being in the everyday world.     

The effect of foregone outcomes on choices from experience

We examined the relative weight given to obtained and foregone outcomes (i.e., outcomes from the non-chosen options) in repeated choices using cognitive modeling. Previous modeling studies have yielded mixed results. When participants' choices are analyzed by models that predict the next choice ahead in a sequence of decisions, the results imply that people give less weight to foregone than to obtained outcomes. In contrast, in simulation models of n trials ahead, the results imply that, on average, people give equal weight to foregone and obtained outcomes. Using datasets of experience-based binary choices with fixed (stationary) payoff distributions (Erev & Haruvy, in press) and dynamic (nonstationary) payoff distributions (Rakow & Miler, 2009), we employed generalization tests at the individual level to examine whether the findings derived from the one-step-ahead method are due to overfitting. The results of trial-ahead model fitting implied that for the nonstationary tasks only, foregone outcomes received lower weight. However, when this dataset was assessed via generalization criteria at the individual level, equal weighting of foregone and obtained outcomes was the best assumption. This implies that overfitting is implicated in the superior fit of models that assume discounting of foregone outcomes.     

Nostalgia as a Resource for Psychological Health and Well‐Being

Historically, nostalgia has been viewed as a disease of the brain or the mind. However, in recent years, nostalgia has received a conceptual rehabilitation due to a revival of scholarly interest accompanied by the use of contemporary empirical methods. Drawing upon this recent work, we propose that nostalgia is an important resource for psychological health and well‐being. We begin by detailing the characteristics of the nostalgic experience and then discuss a wide range of studies demonstrating that psychological threat triggers nostalgia, nostalgia enhances psychological health and well‐being, and nostalgia promotes adaptive psychological functioning among individuals at risk for poor mental health. We also highlight the need for future research on nostalgia's relation to psychological health.     

Conditions under which function information attenuates name extension via shape

Children often extend names to novel artifacts on the basis of overall shape rather than core properties (e.g., function). This bias is claimed to reflect the fact that nonrandom structure is a reliable cue to an object having a specific designed function. In this article, we show that information about an object's design (i.e., about its creator's intentions) is neither necessary nor sufficient for children to override the shape bias. Children extend names on the basis of any information specifying the artifact's function (e.g., information about design, current use, or possible use), especially when this information is made salient when candidate objects for extension are introduced. Possible mechanisms via which children come to rely less on easily observable cues (e.g., shape) and more on core properties (e.g., function) are discussed.     

Automatic and effortful processing of self-statements in depression

Clark and Beck (1999) and Williams et al. (1997) have come up with quite different conclusions regarding which cognitive processes are most affected by negative self-schemata and negative knowledge structures. In order to increase the understanding of differences in effortful and automatic processing in depression, we compared never depressed (ND), previously depressed (PD) and clinically depressed (CD) individuals on free recall, recognition and fabrication of positive and negative self-statements. The results showed that: (i) overall NDs and PDs recalled more positive self-statements than CDs, whereas CDs correctly recognized more negative self-statements than NDs and PDs; and (ii) CDs and PDs fabricated more negative than positive self-statements, whereas no difference was obtained for NDs. The results seem to be in line with Clark and Beck's suggestions. However, there are several aspects of the present findings that make the picture more complicated.     

Categorical and dimensional reports of experienced affect to emotion-inducing pictures in depression

Self-reported affect to positive and negative emotional pictures was contrasted in people with major depressive disorder (MDD) and never-depressed control participants (n = 25 in each group). The results revealed significant differences in response to positive images (reduced arousal, less pleasant valence, decreased happiness, increased sadness) in MDD but no clear group differences in response to negative stimuli. Extending earlier findings of reduced responsiveness to positive, but not negative, stimuli in MDD (D. M. Sloan, M. E. Strauss, S. W. Quirk, & M. Satajovik, 1997; D. M. Sloan, M. E. Strauss, & K. L. Wisner, 2001), the data indicate that blunted response to positive stimuli is found when both categorical and dimensional ratings are elicited. Further, the data replicate earlier findings of elevated sadness reports to positive stimuli (J. Rottenberg, K. L. Kasch, J. J. Gross, & I. H. Gotlib, 2002), which may reflect broader difficulties in regulating emotions in MDD.