Guiding drivers towards safer driving speed: Exploiting visual dominance in speed adaptation

Inappropriate speed is a main cause of accidents. Drivers are often unaware of potential risks due to inadequate speed. To prevent dangerous situations, we need to understand perceptual factors influencing human speed perception. Due to the prominent role of vision in driving, we examined the effect of visuo-spatial stimuli on speed based on the optic flow. While developing an adaptive infrastructure measure to reduce speed, we conducted two consecutive studies, a driving simulator study and a field test to investigate findings further. In both studies, we placed lights on two sides of a highway exit and either illuminated them statically or activated them in a way that they appeared to be moving towards the driver. We expected drivers to slow down more when seeing static light stimuli compared to a baseline without lights. We also expected drivers to decrease speed more in conditions with oncoming lights compared to a baseline, and to static lights, due to distorted speed perception. The first study in a static driving simulator revealed no difference between conditions. In the field test, both static lights and lights moving towards the driver led to a speed reduction compared to a baseline but did not differ from one another. Lights in general led to lower driving speed, potentially due to their warning character, but we found no difference between the light conditions, suggesting that the effect might not be based on the optic flow. Future research should investigate the relationship between driven and perceived speed more closely.     

Short article one's own face is hard to ignore

One's own face possesses two properties that make it prone to grab attention: It is a face, and, in addition, it is a self-referential stimulus. The question of whether the self-face is actually an especially attention-grabbing stimulus was addressed by using a face–name interference paradigm. We investigated whether interference from a flanking self-face on the processing of a target classmate's name was stronger than interference from a classmate's flanking face on the processing of one's own name as the target. In a control condition a third familiar face served as the flanker for both decisions from the participant's own name and from the classmate's name. The presentation of the self-face as a flanker produced significantly more interference on the identification of a classmate's name than the presentation of that classmate's face did on the identification of one's own name. This result was due to the interfering power of the self-face and not to a particular resistance of one's name to interfering facial stimuli. We argue that the emotional value or the high familiarity of one's own face may explain its attention-grabbing property.     

Does the thought of death contribute to the memory benefit of encoding with a survival scenario?

Four studies tested whether the thought of death contributes to the survival processing advantage found in memory tests (i.e., the survival effect). In the first study, we replicated the “Dying To Remember” (DTR) effect identified by Burns and colleagues whereby activation of death thoughts led to better retention than an aversive control situation. In Study 2, we compared an ancestral survival scenario, a modern survival scenario and a “life-after-death” scenario. The modern survival scenario and the dying scenario led to higher levels of recall than the ancestral scenario. In Study 3, we used a more salient death-thought scenario in which people imagine themselves on death row. Results showed that the “death-row” scenario yielded a level of recall similar to that of the ancestral survival condition. We also collected ratings of death-related thoughts (Studies 3 and 4) and of survival-related and planning thoughts (Study 4). The ratings indicated that death-related thoughts were induced more by the dying scenarios than by the survival scenarios, whereas the reverse was observed for both survival-related and planning thoughts. The findings are discussed in the light of two contrasting views of the influence of mortality salience in the survival effect.     

Adaptive memory: The survival scenario enhances item-specific processing relative to a moving scenario

Nairne, Thompson, and Pandeirada (2007) found that retention of words rated for their relevance to survival is superior to that of words encoded under numerous other deep processing conditions. They suggested that our memory systems might have evolved to confer an advantage for survival-relevant information. Burns, Burns, and Hwang (2011) suggested a two-process explanation of the proximate mechanisms responsible for the survival advantage. Whereas most control tasks encourage only one type of processing, the survival task encourages both item-specific and relational processing. They found that when control tasks encouraged both types of processing, the survival processing advantage was eliminated. However, none of their control conditions included non-survival scenarios (e.g., moving, vacation, etc.), so it is not clear how this two-process explanation would explain the survival advantage when scenarios are used as control conditions. The present experiments replicated the finding that the survival scenario improves recall relative to a moving scenario in both a between-lists and within-list design and also provided evidence that this difference was accompanied by an item-specific processing difference, not a difference in relational processing. The implications of these results for several existing accounts of the survival processing effect are discussed.     

Parent Report of Attention Problems Predicts Later Adaptive Functioning in Children with Brain Tumors

Children with brain tumors are at risk for psychological and behavioral difficulties. This study examined the ability of parent report of attention problems, withdrawal, anxiety, and depression, as well as IQ, to predict later adaptive functioning in 42 children treated for brain tumors. Age at diagnosis, SES, gender, and scores on the Neurological Predictor Scale (NPS) also were examined as predictors. Parent report of attention problems, SES, and NPS were significant predictors of later adaptive functioning across domains. This finding highlights the ability of parent report of attention problems to predict later adaptive functioning in children treated for brain tumors.     

多级评分计算机化自适应测验动态综合选题策略

多级评分可以提供更多关于被试的信息, 是计算机化自适应测验的一个发展方向, 选题策略是计算机化自适应测验的研究重点。对于多级评分的等级反应模型, 本文拟用区间估计的思想改进近期提出的几种选题策略, 并且将两级评分b-STR和a-STR推广到多级评分以改进最大信息量选题策略。Monte Carlo模拟实验表明在达到或接近原有选题策略测验精度的基础上, 本文提出的几种新选题策略有的能够有效降低测验长度, 有的可以极大降低项目曝光率。     

“In your head,zombie”: zombies,predation and memory

ABSTRACT

Imagining fictional creatures like zombies in survival situations boosts long-term memory for words encoded in these situations more than rating words for pleasantness (zombie effect). Study 1 required word-ratings in a zombie-survival scenario; participants were told they had to protect against either possible zombie attack or contamination. The zombie-survival situations yielded identical recall levels but higher recall rates than pleasantness. Study 2 matched a zombie-survival scenario on perceived fear with scenarios involving ghosts or predators. Perceived disgust in the zombie scenario was higher than in these other survival conditions. Words were remembered better when processed in survival scenarios than when rated for pleasantness, but there was no reliable difference in recall between the scenarios. In neither study did the number of death-related words produced in a word-fragment completion task fit the mortality salience account of the zombie memory effect. Overall findings suggest that this effect relates to the fear system.     

Sex differences and lifestyle-dependent shifts in the attunement of self-esteem to self-perceived mate value: Hints to an adaptive mechanism?

It has been suggested that self-esteem is reactive to signs of social rejection, and that this “sociometer” mechanism becomes attuned to those personal attributes that affect social acceptance by significant others. Based on evolutionary models of human mating, we predicted that self-esteem should be more attuned to self-perceived mate value in men (when compared to women) who pursue short-term mating tactics, especially if they are unsuccessful therein. In a web-based study (N = 2670), we found that mate value self-perceptions had a stronger effect on self-esteem on those who had less short-term mating success in the past. However, being in a committed relationship or parenthood reduced the impact of mate value self-perceptions. As expected, these effects were specific to men. These results are suggestive of a psychological mechanism based on adaptive sociometer attunements that could help men to choose their optimal mating tactic and might thus partly explain intrasexual differences in sociosexuality.     

A procedural criterion for final derivability in inconsistency-adaptive logics

This paper concerns a (prospective) goal directed proof procedure for the propositional fragment of the inconsistency-adaptive logic ACLuN1. At the propositional level, the procedure forms an algorithm for final derivability. If extended to the predicative level, it provides a criterion for final derivability. This is essential in view of the absence of a positive test. The procedure may be generalized to all flat adaptive logics.