When seeing what's wrong makes you right: The effect of erroneous examples on 3D diagram learning

Comprehending 3D diagrams is critical for success in scientific practice and research demonstrates that understanding of 3D geology diagrams can be improved by making predictive sketches. In mathematics, explaining erroneous examples can support learning. This study combined these approaches to better understand how to effectively support 3D geologic diagram understanding. Participants generated sketches, explained erroneous example sketches, or copied and explained correct sketches. It was hypothesized that generating sketches or explaining erroneous cases would improve understanding, but an open question was whether these conditions would differ from each other. Explaining erroneous examples and sketching improved understanding whereas explaining correct sketches did not. Further, explaining erroneous examples was a more efficient strategy than sketching. These results indicate that erroneous examples can be effective for supporting 3D diagram comprehension and may be a practical substitute for some traditional sketching activities in the context of real classrooms where class time is limited.     

Contingent capture in cueing: the role of color search templates and cue-target color relations

Visual search studies have shown that attention can be top-down biased to a specific target color, so that only items with this color or a similar color can capture attention. According to some theories of attention, colors from different categories (i.e., red, green, blue, yellow) are represented independently. However, other accounts have proposed that these are related—either because color is filtered through broad overlapping channels (4-channel view), or because colors are represented in one continuous feature space (e.g., CIE space) and search is governed by specific principles (e.g., linear separability between colors, or top-down tuning to relative colors). The present study tested these different views using a cueing experiment in which observers had to select one target color (e.g., red) and ignore two or four differently colored distractors that were presented prior to the target (cues). The results showed clear evidence for top-down contingent capture by colors, as a target-colored cue captured attention more strongly than differently colored cues. However, the results failed to support any of the proposed views that different color categories are related to one another by overlapping channels, linear separability, or relational guidance (N = 96).     

Persuasive Mechanisms of Nostalgic Brand Packages

Two studies investigate the relationships between consumers' involuntary autobiographical memories evoked by visual cues on brand packages, their judgments of authenticity, emotion, and behavioral intention. Study 1 employs actual brand packages to show that two forms of authenticity, indexicality (a genuine historic link to the past), and iconicity (a symbolic link) influence behavioral intention through the diverging emotion elicited by nostalgic memories and perceived persuasive intent. Study 2 replicates effect with more abstract package stimuli from another product category and demonstrates an attenuating effect of cognitive load on consumer perception of persuasive intent. These findings contribute to the literature by the following: (i) disentangling the knotted emotional and mnemonic structure of nostalgia in commercial contexts; (ii) providing convergent empirical evidence for the divergent roles of indexicality and iconicity as two previously under‐researched visual properties; and (iii) highlighting autobiographical memories and perceived persuasive intent as important mediators of effects on emotion. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who Belongs to Me? Social Relationship and Personality Characteristics in the Transition to Young Adulthood

Not much is known about how social network characteristics change in the transition out of school and what role Big Five personality plays in this context. The aim of this paper was twofold. First, we explored changes in social network and relationship characteristics across the transition out of secondary school. Second, we examined within‐person and between‐person effects of personality on these social network changes. Results based on a series of multilevel models to a longitudinal sample of 2287 young adults revealed four main findings. First, social networks increased in size, and this increase was mainly due to a larger number of nonkin. Stable social networks during the transition consisted mainly of family ties but were generally characterized by high closeness. Second, extraversion and openness consistently predicted network size, whereas agreeableness predicted network overlap. Third, increases in emotional closeness were found only for kin; closeness was generally lower for unstable relationships. Fourth, changes in emotional closeness were related to personality, particularly neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness for stable relationships; for unstable relationships, however, closeness was related to extraversion and openness. The article concludes by discussing the role of personality for social relationship development and the active moulding of social networks in young adulthood. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Why Do Members of Disadvantaged Groups Strike Back at Perceived Negativity Towards the In‐group?

Against the background of riots in communities across London in 2011, this paper examines the implications of negative meta‐stereotypes on stigmatized group members' reactions towards members of privileged out‐groups within their communities. We hypothesized that concerns over negative opinions that the dominant out‐group is expected to hold of the in‐group (i.e. meta‐stereotypes) would be negatively associated with group members' perceptions of societal fairness and that this relationship would be mediated by members' recall of personal experiences with discrimination. We further hypothesized that views about societal fairness that are challenged in this way would lower an inclination to express discontent with the status quo via normative means while at the same time, increase nonnormative expressions. Results from two surveys (study 1, N = 50; study 2, N = 132) provided support for these hypotheses and are discussed in terms of their meaning for community relations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Response mode does not modulate the space–time congruency effect: Evidence for a space–time mapping at a conceptual level

Previous studies reported a space–time congruency effect on response time, supporting the notion that people's thinking about time is grounded in their spatial sensorimotor experience. According to a strong view of metaphoric mapping, the congruency effect should be larger for responses that differ in their spatial features than for responses that lack such differences. In contrast, a weaker version of this account posits that the grounding of time is based on higher-level spatial concepts. In this case, response mode should not modulate the size of the space–time congruency effect. In order to assess these predictions, participants in this study responded to temporal stimuli either manually or vocally. Response mode did not modulate the space–time congruency effect which supports the weaker view of metaphoric mapping suggesting that this effect emerges at a higher cognitive level.     

Psychopathologie und Aufenthaltsstatus

This study compared the mental health status of various groups of people living in Switzerland. A total of 65 asylum seekers, 34 refugees, 21 illegal migrants, 26 migrant laborers and 56 Swiss citizens were assessed for psychopathological symptoms of posttraumatic stress, anxiety and depression. Specifically, it was tested if the residence permit status was associated with psychopathology if potentially confounding factors, such as social desirability, trauma history and integration were statistically controlled. The results showed that the majority of the asylum seekers, refugees and illegal migrants included in the study suffered from substantial psychopathological symptoms. An association between residence permit status and psychopathology was found even after controlling for other influencing factors. The results imply that not only trauma experiences lead to psychopathology in specific population groups with a migration background but also factors related to an insecure residence permit can contribute to psychopathological symptoms.