Spontaneous adaptation explains why people act faster when being imitated

The human ability to perform joint actions is often attributed to high-level cognitive processes. For example, the finding that action leaders act faster when imitated by their partners has been interpreted as evidence for anticipation of the other’s actions (Pfister, Dignath, Hommel, & Kunde, 2013). In two experiments, we showed that a low-level mechanism can account for this finding. Action leaders were faster when imitated than when counterimitated, but only if they could observe their partner’s actions (Exp. 1). Crucially, when due to our manipulation the partner’s imitative actions became slower than the counterimitative actions, leaders also became slower when they were imitated, and faster when counterimitated (Exp. 2). Our results suggest that spontaneous temporal adaptation is a key mechanism in joint action tasks. We argue for a reconsideration of other phenomena that have traditionally been attributed solely to high-level processes.     

Gesture as representational action: A paper about function

A great deal of attention has recently been paid to gesture and its effects on thinking and learning. It is well established that the hand movements that accompany speech are an integral part of communication, ubiquitous across cultures, and a unique feature of human behavior. In an attempt to understand this intriguing phenomenon, researchers have focused on pinpointing the mechanisms that underlie gesture production. One proposal––that gesture arises from simulated action (Hostetter & Alibali Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 495–514, 2008)––has opened up discussions about action, gesture, and the relation between the two. However, there is another side to understanding a phenomenon and that is to understand its function. A phenomenon’s function is its purpose rather than its precipitating cause––the why rather than the how. This paper sets forth a theoretical framework for exploring why gesture serves the functions that it does, and reviews where the current literature fits, and fails to fit, this proposal. Our framework proposes that whether or not gesture is simulated action in terms of its mechanism––it is clearly not reducible to action in terms of its function. Most notably, because gestures are abstracted representations and are not actions tied to particular events and objects, they can play a powerful role in thinking and learning beyond the particular, specifically, in supporting generalization and transfer of knowledge.     

Appraisals of Interparental Conflict and Change in Attention to Emotion after Exposure to Marital Conflict

The goal of this study was to investigate whether exposure to marital conflict changes patterns of attention to anger and happiness, as well as whether those patterns vary based on appraisals of the history of interparental conflict in the home. Emerging adults viewed photo pairs with one emotionally-neutral photo and another photo depicting a happy/angry emotional interaction (while a high-speed camera tracked gaze), were randomly assigned to view a neutral or marital conflict recording, viewed neutral-emotional photo pairs again, and then reported their appraisals of their parents’ conflict. Results indicated that feeling threatened by and to blame for parental conflict predicted avoidance of happy emotions at baseline. Although there were no significant changes in attention to emotion overall based on condition, self-blame for interparental conflict predicted greater increases in time spent looking at anger after watching marital conflict (but not after watching the neutral recording). These results indicate that differences in attention to emotion may be one mechanism linking parental conflict to anxiety that could be the focus of prevention/intervention efforts to reduce anxiety symptoms in those from high-conflict homes.     

What Low-Income,Depressed Mothers Need From Mental Health Care: Overcoming Treatment Barriers From Their Perspective

Maternal depression is a major public health concern, as children of depressed mothers have a substantially increased risk for psychiatric problems into adulthood. Low-income mothers have high rates of depression, yet few receive mental health care. Barriers have been identified, but solutions have been based on what mental health professionals believe is helpful rather than mothers’ own perspectives, or require participation in an existing treatment. The purpose of our study was to learn what low-income, depressed mothers believe they need from mental health care to overcome barriers to mental health care. Twelve mothers with at least one child between the ages of 2 and 17 participated in individual interviews. Using qualitative grounded theory methodology, data were organized into six theoretical constructs. These included: (1) attitudes, expectations, and emotions impact the intention to enter treatment, (2) identifying as self-sufficient inhibits the intention to enter treatment, (3) providing knowledge, skills and environmental resources facilitate treatment entry, (4) habits and life circumstances that make treatment seem unimportant inhibit treatment entry, (5) balancing acceptance, change, and the therapeutic relationship facilitates treatment retention, and (6) sharing similarities with people involved in treatment often, but does not always facilitate treatment retention. A 3-step theory was developed regarding variables that influence mothers’ (a) intentions to enter treatment, (b) treatment entry, and (c) treatment retention. Offering what low-income, depressed mothers believe they need could better engage and retain them in mental health treatment.     

Weight,Perceptions, and Bullying: What Kind of Pounds Matter?

A great deal of research has investigated weight as a predictor for bullying victimization. However, weight is rarely examined in light of its potential role in explaining bullying perpetration, despite the fact that the definition of bullying typically requires a power imbalance, which can refer to either social power or physical size. Using negative binomial regressions, we investigated weight as a predictor of overt and relational bullying behaviors for a sample of 3208 6th–8th graders from 11 schools in a northeastern state. We examined whether this relationship differs by gender, and we explored whether objective size or perception of size is more predictive of perpetration. We also examined whether certain protective factors, like a positive school environment, moderated the effect of weight on bullying perpetration. We found that students who reported a higher BMI engaged in more overt, but not relational, bullying perpetration. Interestingly, students with misperceptions about their weight reported higher levels of both types of bullying perpetration, while students reporting a more positive school climate engaged in less overt and relational bullying. We also found gender differences in that girls are statistically more likely to commit overt bullying if they have a higher BMI. Our results suggest that prevention programs should address weight as a predictor of bullying behaviors, especially for girls, but also that body image and misperception of weight are important topics for prevention programs.     

Psychological Predictors of Health Anxiety in Response to the Zika Virus

The threat of a United States (U.S.) Zika virus pandemic during 2015–2016 was associated with public anxiety. Such threats represent opportunities to examine hypotheses about health anxiety. The present study investigated psychological predictors of Zika-related anxiety during the 2015–2016 outbreak. U.S. adults (N?=?216) completed a battery of measures assessing Zika-related anxiety as well as psychological variables hypothesized to predict anxious responding to the threat of a domestic Zika outbreak. Contrary to hypotheses, regression analyses indicated that only contamination severity overestimates and greater Zika knowledge significantly predicted Zika-related anxiety. Study limitations and clinical implications are discussed.     

Where have all the (ape) gestures gone?

Comparative analysis of the gestural communication of our nearest animal relatives, the great apes, implies that humans should have the biological potential to produce and understand 60–70 gestures, by virtue of shared common descent. These gestures are used intentionally in apes to convey separate requests, rather than as referential items in syntactically structured signals. At present, no such legacy of shared gesture has been described in humans. We suggest that the fate of “ape gestures” in modern human communication is relevant to the debate regarding the evolution of language through a possible intermediate stage of gestural protolanguage.     

Toward the Language-Ready Brain: Biological Evolution and Primate Comparisons

The approach to language evolution suggested here focuses on three questions: How did the human brain evolve so that humans can develop, use, and acquire languages? How can the evolutionary quest be informed by studying brain, behavior, and social interaction in monkeys, apes, and humans? How can computational modeling advance these studies? I hypothesize that the brain is language ready in that the earliest humans had protolanguages but not languages (i.e., communication systems endowed with rich and open-ended lexicons and grammars supporting a compositional semantics), and that it took cultural evolution to yield societies (a cultural constructed niche) in which language-ready brains could become language-using brains. The mirror system hypothesis is a well-developed example of this approach, but I offer it here not as a closed theory but as an evolving framework for the development and analysis of conflicting subhypotheses in the hope of their eventual integration. I also stress that computational modeling helps us understand the evolving role of mirror neurons, not in and of themselves, but only in their interaction with systems “beyond the mirror.” Because a theory of evolution needs a clear characterization of what it is that evolved, I also outline ideas for research in neurolinguistics to complement studies of the evolution of the language-ready brain. A clear challenge is to go beyond models of speech comprehension to include sign language and models of production, and to link language to visuomotor interaction with the physical and social world.     

Algebraic reasoning and bat-and-ball problem variants: Solving isomorphic algebra first facilitates problem solving later

The classic bat-and-ball problem is used widely to measure biased and correct reasoning in decision-making. University students overwhelmingly tend to provide the biased answer to this problem. To what extent might reasoners be led to modify their judgement, and, more specifically, is it possible to facilitate problem solution by prompting participants to consider the problem from an algebraic perspective? One hundred ninety-seven participants were recruited to investigate the effect of algebraic cueing as a debiasing strategy on variants of the bat-and-ball problem. Participants who were cued to consider the problem algebraically were significantly more likely to answer correctly relative to control participants. Most of this cueing effect was confined to a condition that required participants to solve isomorphic algebra equations corresponding to the structure of bat-and-ball question types. On a subsequent critical question with differing item and dollar amounts presented without a cue, participants were able to generalize the learned information to significantly reduce overall bias. Math anxiety was also found to be significantly related to bat-and-ball problem accuracy. These results suggest that, under specific conditions, algebraic reasoning is an effective debiasing strategy on bat-and-ball problem variants, and provide the first documented evidence for the influence of math anxiety on Cognitive Reflection Test performance.     

The Perceptual Basis of Vast Space

“Vast” is a word often applied to environmental terrain that is perceived to have large spatial extent. This judgment is made even at viewing distances where traditional metric depth cues are not useful. This paper explores the perceptual basis of vast experience, including reliability and visual precursors. Experiment 1 demonstrated strong agreement in ratings of the spatial extent of two-dimensional (2D) scene images by participants in two countries under very different viewing conditions. Image categories labeled “vast” often exemplified scene attributes of ruggedness and openness (Oliva & Torralba, 2001). Experiment 2 quantitatively assessed whether these properties predict vastness. High vastness ratings were associated with highly open, or moderately open but rugged, scenes. Experiment 3 provided evidence, consistent with theory, that metric distance perception does not directly mediate the observed vastness ratings. The question remains as to how people perceive vast space when information about environmental scale is unavailable from metric depth cues or associated scene properties. We consider possible answers, including contribution from strong cues to relative depth.