Cognitive control and socially desirable behavior: The role of interpersonal impact

The current research reconciles two contradicting sets of findings on the role of cognitive control in socially desirable behaviors. One set of findings suggests that people are tempted by self-serving impulses and have to rely on cognitive control overriding such impulses to act in socially desirable ways. Another set of findings suggests people are guided by other-regarding impulses and cognitive control is not necessary to motivate socially desirable behaviors. We theorize that the dominant impulse is to behave in a socially desirable manner when the interpersonal impact of an action is salient, and that the dominant impulse is to behave in a self-serving manner when the interpersonal impact of an action is not salient. Studies 1–3 found that impairing participants’ cognitive control led to less socially desirable behavior when interpersonal impact was not salient, but more socially desirable behavior when interpersonal impact was salient. Study 4 demonstrates that behaving in a socially desirable manner causes cognitive control impairment when interpersonal impact is not salient. But, when interpersonal impact is salient, behaving in a self-serving manner impairs cognitive control. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding and managing socially desirable behaviors.     

Avoiding the problem state bottleneck by strategic use of the environment

We investigated whether environmental support can be used to circumvent the problem state bottleneck in human multitasking. Previously, it was shown that people can only maintain a single chunk of information in their problem state resource, the central part of working memory. Consequently, when the problem state resource was required by multiple tasks concurrently, performance decreased. This phenomenon was termed the problem state bottleneck. To investigate whether the environment can be used to circumvent this bottleneck, we conducted an experiment with two main conditions. In the No-Support condition we replicated an earlier experiment that indicated the existence of the problem state bottleneck. In the Support condition we presented external cues, reducing the load on the problem state resource. To support the results of the experiment we present a computational cognitive model. The experiment and model indicated that the problem state bottleneck can be avoided by using external cues. However, subjects only used external cues when this led to faster behavior. These results were interpreted in the light of the Soft Constraints Hypothesis, which states that humans always follow the fastest strategy possible, as opposed to the most accurate strategy.     

Event-method directed forgetting: Forgetting a video segment is more effortful than remembering it

Videos were presented depicting events such as baking cookies or cleaning a fish tank. Periodically, the video paused and an instruction to Remember (R) or Forget (F) the preceding video segment was presented; the video then resumed. Participants later responded more accurately to cued-recall questions (E1) and to true/false statements (E2–5) regarding R segments than F segments. This difference was larger for specific information (the woman added 3 cups of flour) than for general information (the woman added flour). Participants were also slower to detect visual probes presented following F instructions compared to those presented following R instructions. These findings suggest that intentional forgetting is an effortful process that can be performed even on segments of otherwise continuous events and that the result is a relatively impoverished representation of the unwanted information in memory.     

The time course of temporal preparation in an applied setting: A study of gaming behavior

We examined the time course of temporal preparation in the practice of computer gaming. Participants held an infrared rifle to shoot animated figures (“terrorists”) that appeared from an elevator that opened briefly after the sound of a bell. The sound was either loud or soft and the interval between the sound and the opening of the elevator varied between 100 and 600 ms. We found that shooting latency decreased exponentially as a function of interval, reflecting growing temporal preparation towards an optimum. When the sound was soft, this function was shifted to the right as compared to when the sound was loud. These findings are consistent with a model assuming that preparation starts upon the detection of a warning (i.e., later for the soft than for the loud sound) and continues until the detection of a target (i.e., longer as the interval increases). These results signify a successful application of a theoretical model in an applied setting.     

Differences in the acuity of the Approximate Number System in adults: The effect of mathematical ability

It is largely admitted that processing numerosity relies on an innate Approximate Number System (ANS), and recent research consistently observed a relationship between ANS acuity and mathematical ability in childhood. However, studies assessing this relationship in adults led to contradictory results. In this study, adults with different levels of mathematical expertise performed two tasks on the same pairs of dot collections, based either on numerosity comparison or on cumulative area comparison. Number of dots and cumulative area were congruent in half of the stimuli, and incongruent in the other half. The results showed that adults with higher mathematical ability obtained lower Weber fractions in the numerical condition than participants with lower mathematical ability. Further, adults with lower mathematical ability were more affected by the interference of the continuous dimension in the numerical comparison task, whereas conversely higher-expertise adults showed stronger interference of the numerical dimension in the continuous comparison task. Finally, ANS acuity correlated with arithmetic performance. Taken together, the data suggest that individual differences in ANS acuity subsist in adulthood, and that they are related to mathematical ability.     

Manipulating recall vantage perspective of intrusive memories in dysphoria

The current study attempted to experimentally manipulate mode of recall (field, observer perspective) in a sample of mildly dysphoric participants (N=134) who reported a distressing intrusive memory of negative autobiographical event. Specifically, the current study sought to ascertain whether shifting participants into a converse perspective would have differential effects on the reported experience of their memory. Results indicated that shifting participants from a field to an observer perspective resulted in decreased experiential ratings: specifically, reduced distress and vividness. Also, as anticipated, the converse shift in perspective (from observer to field) did not lead to a corresponding increase in experiential ratings, but did result in reduced ratings of observation and a trend was observed for decreased levels of detachment. The findings support the notion that recall perspective has a functional role in the regulation of intrusion-related distress and represents a cognitive avoidance mechanism.     

Invariance of cognitive triage in the development of recall in adulthood

Past research has demonstrated that cognitive triage (weak-strong-weak recall pattern) is a robust effect that optimises children's recall. The aim of the current research was to determine whether adults’ free recall also exhibits triage and whether cognitive triage is less marked with older than younger adults’ recall. Younger and older adults memorised 16 unrelated words until all items were recalled perfectly. The triage pattern existed for both the younger and older adults’ recall and there was evidence for age differences in triage. Our results are consistent with claims of greater verbatim forgetting and increased susceptibility to output interference with age in adulthood. Further research is needed to determine whether fuzzy-trace theory adequately explains the ageing of triage and what factors play a role in the development of this pattern of recall in adulthood.     

A Study of low scores in Canadian children and adolescents on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children,Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)

Knowing the prevalence of low neurocognitive scores for the WISC-IV Canadian normative sample (WISC-IV^CDN) is an important supplement for clinical interpretation of test performance. On the WISC-IV^CDN, it is uncommon for children and adolescents to have 4 or more subtest scores or 2 or more Index scores ≤ 9th percentile when all scores on the battery are considered simultaneously. As the level of the child's intelligence increases or the number of years of parental education increases, the prevalence of low scores decreases. These results are consistent with existing studies of the base rates of low scores in children and adolescents on pediatric cognitive batteries, including the WISC-IV American normative sample. Tables provided are ready for clinical use.     

The influence of partial‐match cues on event‐based prospective memory

In event‐based prospective memory tasks people form an intention to respond when an environmental cue signals that conditions are appropriate to fulfil an intended activity. In the ongoing activity the authors embedded partial‐match cues that only partially, but not completely, satisfied the conditions required to make a prospective response. The consequence of encountering these partial‐match cues was to increase responses to appropriate prospective memory cues encountered later. This outcome occurred both with semantic and orthographic cues, but only the former led to longer processing latencies of the partial‐match cues. This asymmetry suggests that partial‐match cues may not need to be processed consciously in order to benefit event‐based prospective memory. A parametric manipulation of the number of partial‐match cues resulted in numerically but not statistically better prospective memory. Consequently, partial‐match cues may function as overt reminders of the intention to respond or they may serve to engage participants in self‐initiated remindings of the intention.     

Individual differences in false memory from misinformation: Cognitive factors

This research investigated the cognitive correlates of false memories that are induced by the misinformation paradigm. A large sample of Chinese college students (N=436) participated in a misinformation procedure and also took a battery of cognitive tests. Results revealed sizable and systematic individual differences in false memory arising from exposure to misinformation. False memories were significantly and negatively correlated with measures of intelligence (measured with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), perception (Motor-Free Visual Perception Test, Change Blindness, and Tone Discrimination), memory (Wechsler Memory Scales and 2-back Working Memory tasks), and face judgement (Face Recognition and Facial Expression Recognition). These findings suggest that people with relatively low intelligence and poor perceptual abilities might be more susceptible to the misinformation effect.