Exploring the hardship of ease: Subjective and objective effort in the ease-of-processing paradigm

Numerous studies examined the role of processing effort in judgments using the “ease-of-processing” paradigm in which participants generate or retrieve few or many issue-relevant thoughts. Because earlier studies only assessed the subjective effort, it is unclear if this paradigm also mobilizes objective effort, and how such effort relates to subjective effort. These questions were addressed in two experiments modeled on standard tasks from the processing effort literature: “ease of argument generation” (Study 1) and “ease of retrieval” (Study 2). In both experiments we simultaneously measured subjective effort (via self-report) and objective effort (via cardiovascular reactivity). The results showed that processing ease manipulations (generation or retrieval of few vs. many exemplars) influence not only subjective effort, but also objective effort, as reflected especially by increases of systolic blood pressure in the many exemplars condition. However, only subjective effort was related to judgment. In the discussion, we consider the role of various forms of effort and other relevant variables in “processing ease” effects.     

Irrational Wanting and Subrational Liking: How Rudimentary Motivational and Affective Processes Shape Preferences and Choices

People's wanting and liking reactions reflect not only high-level beliefs, but also the operation of rudimentary biopsychological processes. Previous studies suggest that the following wanting and liking processes may be relevant to political behavior: irrational wanting (where wanting is triggered by activation of the brain dopamine system and becomes dissociated from liking); unconscious liking and wanting (where evaluative judgments and behavior are modified without awareness of the eliciting affective stimuli or of the underlying affective response); and fluency-based liking (where preferences are influenced by the ease of stimulus processing). This review suggests how conceptual and methodological tools from affective neuroscience and psychophysiology can refine our understanding of basic affective and motivational processes that shape political attitudes and choices.     

Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self‐Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self‐disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N = 560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self‐disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion‐designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner's reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self‐disclosure.     

Do university students really have difficulty in duration judgments? Comment on Okazaki and Matsuda (2008, 2010)

Reinterpretation suggests that low performance of the participants studied by Okazaki and Matsuda (2008, 2010) may have been caused by using a procedure which overloads the cognitive capacities of undergraduate students. The questions asked participants about their reasoning could have led to cognitive overload because they performed two tasks: judgment of movement duration and paying attention to what kind of knowledge should be used (alpha or beta). Some interpretations are offered referring to possible effects of training procedures for applying both kinds of knowledge.     

Need for closure and compensatory rule-based perception: The role of information consistency

When making comparisons, people tend to use routinized standards, rules, and knowledge structures. Compensatory rules (e.g., “if competent, then cold”, “if incompetent, then warm”) allow for the quick and easy evaluation of groups when they are compared. We claim that the application of these rules is especially attractive for people who are motivated to seek quick and firm answers (people high in the need for closure—NFC). However, we assume that when people are confronted with expectancy-inconsistent information, higher levels of NFC lead to a lower reliance on these rules. This is because the inconsistency may serve as a signal that the rules no longer provide guidance on how to act. We demonstrated these effects in three studies set in different group contexts, where we manipulated expectancy-consistent and expectancy-inconsistent information. These findings allow for a more comprehensive view of the dynamic and diverse effects of NFC.     

Expertise in the Game of Go and Levels of Visuospatial and Pattern Recognition Abilities

The results of existing research indicate higher levels of visuospatial and pattern recognition abilities in experts in the game of Go compared to novices. However, the tasks included in the research have been focused only on Go‐game situations. This study aimed to verify the hypothesis that experts in the game of Go would achieve higher scores, compared to novices, on behavioral tests measuring visuospatial abilities and that pattern recognition tests would be a predictor of group membership (experts, low‐skill players, novices). We consider that the game of Go can be treated as a special case of tasks related to visuospatial abilities and pattern recognition. Sixty men participated in the study, including 17 experts in the game of Go, 13 low‐skill players, and 30 novices. The results of behavioral tests—the advanced version of Raven's Progressive Matrices and the APIS‐Z Test's Visuospatial Abilities subscale, which measure pattern recognition and visuospatial abilities, respectively—confirmed the hypotheses.     

Qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious processing? On inverse priming induced by masked arrows

In general, both consciously and unconsciously perceived stimuli facilitate responses to following similar stimuli. However, masked arrows delay responses to following arrows. This inverse priming has been ascribed to inhibition of premature motor activation, more recently even to special processing of nonconsciously perceived material. Here, inverse priming depended on particular masks, was insensitive to contextual requirements for increased inhibition, and was constant across response speeds. Putative signs of motor inhibition in the electroencephalogram may as well reflect activation of the opposite response. Consequently, rather than profiting from inhibition of primed responses, the alternative response is directly primed by perceptual interactions of primes and masks. Thus there is no need to assume separate pathways for nonconscious and conscious processing.     

Traces left on visual selective attention by stimuli that are not consciously identified

Briefly presented information, even if unidentifiable, may speed or delay required responses to following events. It has been assumed that this priming of the motor system may occur without affecting attention to priming and following stimuli. In contrast to this notion, the present study reports that such unidentified stimuli have effects on a physiological indicator of the attentional system. A lateral posterior electroencephalogram component was evoked by laterally presented relevant shapes, reflecting shifts of attention to those shapes. This component was absent, however, when the relevant shape was preceded by a similar shape at the same location, even if this shape was completely masked by metacontrast. The attentional shift evidently became unnecessary in this situation. Thus, unidentifiable information may leave some trace for attention-controlled selection of the following event.     

Being prepared on time: on the importance of the previous foreperiod to current preparation, as reflected in speed, force and preparation-related brain potentials

How do participants adapt to temporal variation of preparatory foreperiods? For reaction times, specific sequential effects have been observed. Responses become slower when the foreperiod is shorter on the current than on the previous trial. If this effect is due to changes in motor activation, it should also be visible in force of responses and in EEG measures of motor preparation, the contingent negative variation (CNV) and the lateralized readiness potential (LRP). These hypotheses were tested in a two-choice reaction task, with targets occurring 500, 1500, or 2500 ms after an acoustic warning signal. The reaction time results showed the expected pattern and were accompanied by similar effects on a fronto-central CNV and the LRP. In contrast, the increase of response force with brief current foreperiods did not depend on previous foreperiods. Thus, EEG measures confirm that sequential effects on RT are at least partially due to changes in motor activation originating from previous trials. Effects found on response force may be related to general response readiness rather than activation of motor-hand areas, which may explain the absence of a sequential effect on force in the current experiment.