The Role of Parenthood and College Education in the Self-Concept of College Students: Explicit and Implicit Assessments of Gendered Aspirations

This research examined the extent to which parenthood and college education are incorporated into the self-concept of college students. A US sample of undergraduates (90 men, 87 women) attending a large and ethnically diverse university completed explicit and implicit measures of identification with “parenthood” and “college education,” associations between these concepts and gender categories, and gender identification. Explicitly, men and women identified strongly with college education. Implicitly, women identified equally with parenthood and college education, whereas men identified more strongly with college education. In addition, implicit measures revealed that traditional gender roles accounted for a stronger identification with parenthood for participants who displayed a female identity and a stronger identification with college education for participants who displayed a male identity.     

Verbal, visual, and spatial working memory in written language production

College students wrote definitions of either abstract or concrete nouns in longhand while performing a concurrent working memory (WM) task. They detected either a verbal (syllable), visual (shape), or spatial (location) stimulus and decided whether it matched the last one presented 15-45s earlier. Writing definitions of both noun types elevated the response time to verbal targets above baseline. Such interference was observed for visual targets only when defining concrete nouns and was eliminated entirely with spatial targets. The interference effect for verbal targets was the same whether they were read or heard, implicating phonological storage. The findings suggest that language production requires phonological or verbal WM. Visual WM is selectively engaged when imaging the referents of concrete nouns.     

Following and joining the informed individual in semifree-ranging tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana)

The authors investigated whether Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) can distinguish between 2 group mates with different knowledge and improve their foraging performance. The subjects were 8 young individuals belonging to a group raised in a 2-acre park. The authors carried out 192 tests in which subgroups of 3 individuals were released in a food search situation. Two leaders could be informed about 2 different food sites. A naive follower could choose to follow 1 leader or another. The follower could find the correct site when 1 leader was informed about food location. There was no evidence that the follower identified the best leader, however. The less well-informed leader generally joined the other leader, prompting the follower to follow them. The followers' pathways were mainly determined by the interactions of leaders.     

Implicit learning of complex information in amnesia

Implicit learning abilities of nine amnesic patients were explored by using an artificial grammar learning task in which the test strings were constructed in such a way that grammaticality judgments could not be based on a simple knowledge of bigrams and trigrams (chunks). Results show that amnesic patients and controls performed at the same level during the classification task, whereas amnesic patients performed worse than controls in an explicit generation task. Moreover, there was no correlation between the implicit and explicit measures. These results are compatible with the existence of two kinds of representation intervening in artificial grammar learning. The first one based on processes leading to fragment-specific knowledge (the chunks, which can be accessed explicitly), and the second based on the learning of simple associations and more complex conditional relations between elements.     

Sequential compatibility effects and cognitive control: does conflict really matter?

Although it is widely accepted that control mechanisms are necessary for human behavior to be adapted, very little is known about how such mechanisms are recruited. A suggestion to fill the gap was put forward by M. M. Botvinick, T. S. Braver, C. S. Carter, D. M. Barch, and J. D. Cohen (2001), who proposed the conflict-loop theory. This theory has been successful in accounting for the reduction of compatibility effects after an incompatible trial: The level of conflict being, on average, higher during an incompatible trial, more control occurs after such a trial. The authors have tested this prediction by sorting the trials on the basis of amount of conflict (quantified by the electromyographic activity) they presented. A reduction of the compatibility effect was observed after incompatible trials, but it was independent of the level of conflict on previous trials, suggesting that the conflict does not trigger changes in executive control. Consequences for the conflict monitoring model are discussed.     

Partial advance information,number of alternatives,and motor processes: an electromyographic study

We present evidence that advance information reducing the number of stimulus-response alternatives in a choice reaction time (RT) task can shorten the very latest motoric stages of RT. Effects of such advance information on late stages of RT have been demonstrated recently by Osman, Moore, and Ulrich (Acta Psychol. 90 (1995) 111), Leuthold, Sommer, and Ulrich (J. Exp. Psychol: Gen. 125 (1996) 307), Müller-Gethmann, Rinkenauer, Stahl, and Ulrich (Psychophysiology 37 (2000) 507). These studies found that advance information shortens the portion of the RT interval following onset of a movement-related brain potential (lateralized readiness potential). Osman et al. and Müller-Gethmann et al. also examined the portion of the RT interval following the start of electromyographic (EMG) activity and found no effect of advance information. Based on Osman et al.'s null result, Leuthold et al. speculated that advance information may shorten only the RT stages preceding EMG activity. This conclusion, however, is questionable because of limitations in the EMG measures employed by both Osman et al. and Müller-Gethmann et al. We have reanalyzed the results of a previously reported experiment (Acta Psychol. 101 (1999) 243) to show that advance information can in fact affect the rate of recruitment of motor units in the prime mover of the responding limb.     

Culture of honour theory and social anxiety: Cross-regional and sex differences in relationships among honour-concerns,social anxiety and reactive aggression

According to the Appraisal-Tendency Framework (Han, Lerner, & Keltner, 2007), certainty-associated emotions increase risk taking compared with uncertainty-associated emotions. To date, this general effect has only been shown in static judgement and decision-making paradigms; therefore, the present study tested the effect of certainty on risk taking in a sequential decision-making task. We hypothesised that the effect would be reversed due to the kind of processing involved, as certainty is considered to encourage heuristic processing that takes into account the emotional cues arising from previous decisions, whereas uncertainty leads to more systematic processing. One hundred and one female participants were induced to feel one of three emotions (film clips) before performing a decision-making task involving risk (Game of Dice Task; Brand et al., 2005). As expected, the angry and happy participants (certainty-associated emotions) were more likely than the fearful participants (uncertainty-associated emotion) to make safe decisions (vs. risky decisions).     

fMRI evidence for dorsal stream processing abnormality in adults born preterm

We investigated the consequences of premature birth on the functional neuroanatomy of the dorsal stream of visual processing. fMRI was recorded while sixteen healthy participants, 8 (two men) adults (19 years 6 months old, SD 10 months) born premature (mean gestational age 30 weeks), referred to as Premas, and 8 (two men) matched controls (20 years 1 month old, SD 13 months), performed a 1-back memory task of Object or Grip information using a hand grasping a drinking vessel as stimulus. While history of prematurity did not significantly affect task performance, Group by Task analysis of variance in regions of interest spanning the occipital, temporal and parietal lobes revealed main effects of Task and interactions between the two factors. Object processing activated the left inferior occipital cortex and bilateral ventral temporal regions, belonging to the ventral stream, with no effect of Group. Grip processing across groups activated the early visual cortex and the left supramarginal gyrus belonging to the dorsal stream. Group effect on the brain activity during Grip suggested that Controls represented the actions’ goal while Premas relied more on low-level visual information. This shift from higher- to lower-order visual processing between Controls and Premas may reflect a more general trend, in which Premas inadequately recruit higher-order visual functions for dorsal stream task performance, and rely more on lower-level functions.     

Methods for comparing scanpaths and saliency maps: strengths and weaknesses

In this article, we are interested in the computational modeling of visual attention. We report methods commonly used to assess the performance of these kinds of models. We survey the strengths and weaknesses of common assessment methods based on diachronic eye-tracking data. We then illustrate the use of some methods to benchmark computational models of visual attention.     

Is Human Enhancement also a Personal Matter?

Emerging technologies are increasingly used in an attempt to “enhance the human body and/or mind” beyond the contemporary standards that characterize human beings. Yet, such standards are deeply controversial and it is not an easy task to determine whether the application of a given technology to an individual and its outcome can be defined as a human enhancement or not. Despite much debate on its potential or actual ethical and social impacts, human enhancement is not subject to any consensual definition. This paper proposes a timely and much needed examination of the various definitions found in the literature. We classify these definitions into four main categories: the implicit approach, the therapy-enhancement distinction, the improvement of general human capacities and the increase of well-being. After commenting on these different approaches and their limitations, we propose a definition of human enhancement that focuses on individual perceptions. While acknowledging that a definition that mainly depends on personal and subjective individual perceptions raises many challenges, we suggest that a comprehensive approach to define human enhancement could constitute a useful premise to appropriately address the complexity of the ethical and social issues it generates.