繁衍线索对风险信息加工的影响

进化理论认为风险行为与求偶有关。研究通过比较求偶信息(异性照片或描述异性的词语)、养育后代(孕妇照片)及奖赏信息(金牌照片等)试图进一步探讨繁衍线索对两性知觉和判断风险信息的影响。研究1中, 被试描述理想约会对象后求偶动机得到激发, 相对于描述晴朗天气的控制组, 求偶动机让两性更慢地从高风险信息(如滑雪、冲浪等)转移注意力, 且两性对风险信息的注意转移与社群性向无关。研究2显示, 相对于养育后代和奖赏信息, 求偶信息更为迅速地促使男性对高风险信息做出判断, 但求偶信息让女性比男性更慢地对高风险信息做出判断。研究结果进一步证实了自然选择理论及性选择理论对两性加工风险信息的认知机制具有预测作用。     

限制性饮食者对食物线索的认知偏向：行为和脑机制的证据

限制饮食是为了控制体重, 长期严格地控制进食的倾向。大量研究表明相对于非限制性饮食者, 限制性饮食者对食物线索尤其是高能量或高美味食物线索存在认知偏向。这种偏向是基于一定的脑神经基础的如前额叶背内侧, 小脑等区域。未来研究应设置严格的筛选标准, 运用视觉odd-one-out和学习-再认实验范式, 重视认知神经机制的探讨, 开展中国限制性饮食者对食物线索加工的认知机制和主要影响因素模型的系统研究。     

The smell of cooperativeness: Do human body odours advertise cooperative behaviours?

Several physical features influence the perception of how cooperative a potential partner is. While previous work focused on face and voice, it remains unknown whether body odours influence judgements of cooperativeness and if odour-based judgements are accurate. Here, we first collected axillary odours of cooperative and uncooperative male donors through a public good game and used them as olfactory stimuli in a series of tasks examining whether and how they influence cooperative decision-making in an incentivized economic game and ratings of cooperativeness. Our results show that having access to the donor's body odours provided a strategic advantage to women during economic decisions (but not to men): with age, women were more likely to cooperate with cooperative men and to avoid interacting with uncooperative men. Ratings of cooperativeness were nonetheless unrelated to the donors’ actual cooperativeness. Finally, while men with masculine and intense body odours were judged less cooperative, we found no evidence that donors’ actual cooperativeness was associated with less masculine or less intense body odour. Overall, our findings suggest that, as faces and voices, body odours influence perceived cooperativeness and might be used accurately and in a non-aware manner as olfactory cues of cooperativeness, at least by women.     

Inferring agency from sound

In three experiments we investigated how people determine whether or not they are in control of sounds they hear. The sounds were either triggered by participants’ taps or controlled by a computer. The task was to distinguish between self-control and external control during active tapping, and during passive listening to a playback of the sounds recorded during the active condition. Experiment 1 required detection of a change in control mode within trials. Experiments 2 and 3 introduced a simple rhythm reproduction task that requires discrimination of control modes between trials. The results demonstrate that both sensorimotor cues and perceptual cues are used to infer agency. In addition, there may be further influences of cognitive expectation and/or multimodal integration. In accordance with hierarchical models of intention [e.g., Pacherie, E. (2008). The phenomenology of action: A conceptual framework. Cognition, 107, 179-217] this suggests that the sense of agency is not situated on one specific level of action control but subject to multiple influences.     

Preference for impossible figures in 4-month-olds

Can infants use interposition and line junction cues to infer three-dimensional (3D) structure? Previous work has shown that in a task that required 4-month-olds to discriminate between static two-dimensional (2D) pictures of possible and impossible cubes, infants exhibited a spontaneous preference for displays of the impossible cube but left open the question of whether they did so on the basis of purely local “critical regions” or whether they were able to employ more global clues. Here infants were presented with possible and impossible cubes in which the strictly local cues that could have derived from exterior binding contours were deleted. Results showed that infants were still able to discriminate possible cubes from impossible cubes, suggesting that longer looking infants are sensitive to global properties and that the capacity to integrate pictorial information to perceive aspects of global 3D shape may develop earlier than demonstrated previously using reaching tasks.     

Visual search by chimpanzees (Pan): assessment of controlling relations.

Three experimentally sophisticated chimpanzees (Pan), Akira, Chloe, and Ai, were trained on visual search performance using a modified multiple-alternative matching-to-sample task in which a sample stimulus was followed by the search display containing one target identical to the sample and several uniform distractors (i.e., negative comparison stimuli were identical to each other). After they acquired this task, they were tested for transfer of visual search performance to trials in which the sample was not followed by the uniform search display (odd-item search). Akira showed positive transfer of visual search performance to odd-item search even when the display size (the number of stimulus items in the search display) was small, whereas Chloe and Ai showed a transfer only when the display size was large. Chloe and Ai used some nonrelational cues such as perceptual isolation of the target among uniform distractors (so-called pop-out). In addition to the odd-item search test, various types of probe trials were presented to clarify the controlling relations in multiple-alternative matching to sample. Akira showed a decrement of accuracy as a function of the display size when the search display was nonuniform (i.e., each "distractor" stimulus was not the same), whereas Chloe and Ai showed perfect performance. Furthermore, when the sample was identical to the uniform distractors in the search display, Chloe and Ai never selected an odd-item target, but Akira selected it when the display size was large. These results indicated that Akira's behavior was controlled mainly by relational cues of target-distractor oddity, whereas an identity relation between the sample and the target strongly controlled the performance of Chloe and Ai.     

TEACHING MENTALLY RETARDED ADULTS TO TIME-MANAGE IN A VOCATIONAL SETTING

Three retarded adults who had minimal ability to tell time were trained to “time-manage.” Each was given a card with clock face representations on which the hands of the clock were drawn, representing each trainee's assigned lunch and break times. Instruction was given before work to perform each of the required behaviors when the “real” clock matched the clock faces. Praise was given following correct responses, and reprimands, instruction, and, in some instances, delay or omission of the scheduled activity followed incorrect responses. Pre-instruction and instructional feedback were then sequentially withdrawn. Results indicated that the package consisting of pre-instruction, instructional feedback, and picture cues was effective in producing independent time management responding. When the first two components were withdrawn, two trainees maintained high levels of correct responding. Correct responding decreased for one trainee when pre-instruction was withdrawn. Reintroduction and subsequent withdrawal of the components resulted in maintenance by this trainee. Little improvement in time-telling ability resulted.     

Verbal cues flexibly transform spatial representations in human memory

ABSTRACT

Humans possess a unique ability to communicate spatially-relevant information, yet the intersection between language and navigation remains largely unexplored. One possibility is that verbal cues accentuate heuristics useful for coding spatial layouts, yet this idea remains largely untested. We test the idea that verbal cues flexibly accentuate the coding of heuristics to remember spatial layouts via spatial boundaries or landmarks. The alternative hypothesis instead conceives of encoding during navigation as a step-wise process involving binding lower-level features, and thus subsequently formed spatial representations should not be modified by verbal cues. Across three experiments, we found that verbal cues significantly affected pointing error patterns at axes that were aligned with the verbally cued heuristic, suggesting that verbal cues influenced the heuristics employed to remember object positions. Further analyses suggested evidence for a hybrid model, in which boundaries were encoded more obligatorily than landmarks, but both were accessed flexibly with verbal instruction. These findings could not be accounted for by a tendency to spend more time facing the instructed component during navigation, ruling out an attentional-encoding mechanism. Our findings argue that verbal cues influence the heuristics employed to code environments, suggesting a mechanism for how humans use language to communicate navigationally-relevant information.     

Response Selection Contributes to the Preparation Cost for Bimanual Asymmetric Movements

Movement preparation of bimanual asymmetric movements takes more time than bimanual symmetric movements in choice reaction-time conditions. This bimanual asymmetric cost may be caused by increased processing demands on any stage of movement preparation. The authors tested the contributions of each stage of movement preparation to the asymmetric cost by using the additive factors method. This involved altering the stimulus contrast, response compatibility, and response complexity. These manipulations changed the processing demands on stimulus identification, response selection, and response programming, respectively. Any manipulation with a larger reaction time cost than control suggests that stage contributes to the bimanual asymmetric cost. The bimanual asymmetric cost was larger for incompatible stimuli, which supports that response selection contributes to the bimanual asymmetric cost.     

The role of the oath in credibility assessment

Based on the adaptive lie detector theory, this study is an examination of whether taking an oath, as context‐general information, increases the credibility of a suspect. The consistency of the testimonies of 6 eyewitnesses was manipulated so that it could be used as individuating information. There were 2 sets of testimonies: one that was consistent and one that was inconsistent. The results supported the adaptive lie detector theory. The participants judged those persons who took an oath to be more credible than those who did not, but this only happened in situations where the testimonies of the eyewitnesses were inconsistent. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings and future directions are then discussed.