Getting what you want: Power increases the accessibility of active goals

Power facilitates goal-directed behavior. Two studies, using different types of goals, examined the cognitive mechanisms that underlie this tendency. Participants, primed with power or powerlessness, performed lexical decision tasks that assessed the relative facilitation of goal-relevant constructs during goal striving and after goal attainment. Results showed that during goal striving powerful participants manifested an increased facilitation of goal-relevant constructs compared to other constructs, and this facilitation decreased immediately after goal completion. In contrast, their powerless counterparts showed less facilitation of goal constructs during goal striving and maintained goal accessibility after completion. These results are consistent with the effects of power on goal-directed behavior found in past research.     

A high-loaded hemisphere successfully ignores distractors

We used a response competition paradigm to investigate whether a distractor is effectively rejected under conditions where it is projected to a highly-loaded hemisphere. In two experiments we asked right-handed participants to identify a target among five task-relevant letters while they ignored a distractor. We manipulated both the distractor visual-field (low-load/high-load) and the compatibility of the target and the distractor. In the low-loaded visual-field, we presented a distractor with one task-relevant stimulus to one visual-field and the remaining task-relevant stimuli to the opposite visual-field. In the high-loaded visual-field, we presented a distractor and task-relevant stimuli in reverse. In Experiment 1 (left/right), we found a compatibility effect for the low-loaded, but not for the high-loaded visual-field. In Experiment 2, this modulation of the compatibility effect did not appear when the upper/lower visual-field was manipulated. These findings demonstrate that a distractor is successfully ignored when it is presented to a highly-loaded hemisphere.     

Limits of control: The effects of uncontrollability experiences on the efficiency of attentional control

Two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of experiencing uncontrollability on the efficiency of attentional control. The experience of uncontrollability was induced either by unsolvable tasks (Experiment 1) or by tasks in which non-contingent feedback was provided (Experiment 2). A version of the Attentional Network Test-Interactions with an additional measure of vigilance (ANTI-V) was used to evaluate the efficiency of the attentional networks (i.e., alerting, orienting, and executive). Results of both experiments revealed a decreased efficiency of executive attention in participants who experienced stable control deprivation but no negative effects in participants who were able to restore their sense of previously deprived control. Additionally, when participants were asked to perform unsolvable tasks and did not receive feedback (Experiment 1), detrimental effects on the orienting network and vigilance were observed. The motivational and cognitive mechanisms underlying the effects of various uncontrollability experiences on conflict resolution and attentional control are discussed.     

Examining the relationships between self‐efficacy,task‐relevant attentional control,and task performance: Evidence from event‐related brain potentials

Self‐efficacy (SE) is a modifiable psychosocial factor related to individuals’ beliefs in their capabilities to successfully complete courses of action and has been shown to be positively associated with task performance. The authors hypothesized that one means through which SE is related with improved performance is through enhanced task‐relevant attentional control during task execution. To assess this hypothesis, we examined the relationships between SE and behavioural and neural indices of task performance and task‐relevant attentional control for 76 young adults during the completion of a flanker task. Results showed that greater SE was associated with greater response accuracy and P3b amplitude across task conditions, and faster RT under more difficult task conditions. Additionally, P3b amplitude was found to mediate the relationship between SE and task performance in the difficult condition. These findings suggest that greater attentional allocation to task‐relevant processes, including monitoring stimulus‐response relationships and focusing attention on working memory operations, may help explain the association between SE and improved task performance.     

Valuable orientations capture attention

Visual attention has long been known to be drawn to stimuli that are physically salient or congruent with task-specific goals. Several recent studies have shown that attention is also captured by stimuli that are neither salient nor task relevant, but that are rendered in a colour that has previously been associated with reward. We investigated whether another feature dimension—orientation—can be associated with reward via learning and thereby elicit value-driven attentional capture. In a training phase, participants received a monetary reward for identifying the colour of Gabor patches exhibiting one of two target orientations. A subsequent test phase in which no reward was delivered required participants to search for Gabor patches exhibiting one of two spatial frequencies (orientation was now irrelevant to the task). Previously rewarded orientations robustly captured attention. We conclude that reward learning can imbue features other than colour—in this case, specific orientations—with persistent value.     

Language Shift and the Inclusion of Indigenous Populations in Large-Scale Assessment Programs

Indicators of academic achievement for bilingual students can be inaccurate due to linguistic heterogeneity. For indigenous populations, language shift (the gradual replacement of one language by another) is a factor that can increase this heterogeneity and poses an additional challenge for valid testing. We investigated whether and how indigenous populations can be validly included in a large-scale assessment program. We gave Mexican preschool Mayan students aged 5 to 6 years the same set of mathematics items in three versions: (1) original in Spanish, (2) Mayan translation, and (3) content equivalent, developed from scratch in Mayan. Also, we collected information on the students’ and the teachers’ use of Spanish and Mayan, and on the communities’ support of the two languages. Students performed poorly on the three versions. Generalizability theory-based analyses revealed considerable performance inconsistency across items and language versions and low generalizability and dependability coefficients. This performance instability appears to stem from a dwindling support of the Mayan language in Mayan schools and communities. Fair, valid assessment of indigenous populations in either their languages or their countries’ dominant languages appears to be difficult to accomplish with current testing models and policies.     

Postnatal mental health and mothers’ processing of infant emotion: an eye-tracking study

ABSTRACT

Background

Postnatal mental illnesses are associated with less maternal sensitivity. Differences in how mothers with and without mental illness process infant emotions could explain this. People with mental illness in non-perinatal populations show certain processing patterns when viewing emotional faces, but it is not clear whether these patterns are present in mothers.     

Upshifted decision criteria in attentional blink and repetition blindness

A large number of “unawareness” phenomena have been explained and quantified in terms of sensitivity (d′) fluctuations, with very few attempts at addressing an alternative putative cause, i.e., fluctuations of subjects’ response criteria (c). Response criteria fluctuations are particularly likely under dual-task paradigms with unbalanced sensitivities (Gorea & Sagi, 2000) such as those used in evidencing attentional blink (AB) and repetition blindness (RB) phenomena. The present study inquires into whether AB and RB are indeed prone to a deviant decisional behaviour. AB and RB were studied with a yes/no task allowing the assessment of d′ and c for the detection (presence/absence) of a target letter T2 as a function of its temporal lag relative to the presentation of another (AB) or of the same (RB) letter, T1 (Experiment 1). A significant criterion increase was observed in both cases. Additional experiments demonstrate that this criterion effect is typical of these dual-task AB and RB paradigms as it is not observed in a standard contrast detection task with mixed contrasts (Experiment 2), in a “control” AB design stripped off its first task T1 (Experiment 3), or in a metacontrast experiment (Experiment 4). We propose that the observed criterion shifts are the consequence of the inherent dual-task AB and RB designs (where observers have to judge two events of unequal saliencies) and that they entail an enhancement of the AB and RB effects as long as these effects are assessed via subjective (yes/no or matching) procedures.     

Individual differences in anxiety and executive functioning: A multidimensional view

The relationship between individual differences in anxiety and executive functioning was investigated in a sample of young adults. Verbal and spatial working memory, resistance to interference, negative priming, and task‐switching measures were used to assess three executive functioning dimensions: updating, inhibition, and shifting. An additional index of basic psychomotor speed was added to this cognitive battery. According to the multidimensional interaction model of anxiety proposed by Endler (1997), state (cognitive–worry and autonomic–emotional) and trait (related to social evaluation, physical danger, ambiguous situations, and daily routines) anxiety were assessed in this evaluation context. Results indicated that shifting and inhibition (negative priming) efficiency were negatively related to state (cognitive–worry) and trait (related to social evaluation) anxiety. However, there was a relative advantage of subjects higher in social evaluation apprehensions in their memory updating performance. The results are consistent with several predictions of the attentional control theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), and are relevant for research regarding the interaction of situational, personality, and cognitive functioning dimensions.     

Attentional Bias,Self-consciousness and Perfectionism in Social Phobia Before and After Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy

Attentional bias for threat words (as measured by the emotional Stroop task), selfconsciousness and perfectionism was studied in 24 patients with social phobia before and after cognitive-behaviour treatment. A total of 18 (75%) of the patients were classified as treatment responders on the basis of reduced scores for social anxiety. The treatment responders showed a significant reduction in attentional bias for social threat words, in public self-consciousness and in perfectionism. The non-responders showed an equal reduction in perfectionism; as they had a much higher level of perfectionism before treatment, however, their change only amounted to a lowering of their level of perfectionism to the level that characterized the treatment responders before treatment. The treatment responders, on the other hand, reduced their level of perfectionism to that of non-clinical samples.