How the bimodal format of presentation affects working memory: an overview

The best format in which information that has to be recalled is presented has been investigated in several studies, which focused on the impact of bimodal stimulation on working memory performance. An enhancement of participant’s performance in terms of correct recall has been repeatedly found, when bimodal formats of presentation (i.e., audiovisual) were compared to unimodal formats (i.e, either visual or auditory), in providing implications for multimedial learning. Several theoretical frameworks have been suggested in order to account for the bimodal advantage, ranging from those emphasizing early stages of processing (such as automatic alerting effects or multisensory integration processes) to those centred on late stages of processing (as postulated by the dual coding theory). The aim of this paper is to review previous contributions to this topic, providing a comprehensive theoretical framework, which is updated by the latest empirical studies.     

Ubiquity of Whiteness in majority group national imagination: Australian = White,but New Zealander does not

This research examined cross‐national differences in the extent to which majority ethnic group members (White Europeans) in Australia and New Zealand automatically privileged members of their ingroup, relative to Indigenous targets, in cognitive representations of nationhood. As predicted, European Australian undergraduates implicitly associated their own ethnic group with the concept of “Australian”, relative to Aboriginal Australian targets (N = 50), but the implicit preferencing of Whiteness in representations of nationhood (relative to Maori targets) was absent in a comparable sample of New Zealand European undergraduates (N = 50). These results indicate that the extent to which representations of minority groups are interwoven with non‐conscious cognitive representations of nationhood and national identity are not immutably fixed. Instead, it is argued that this cross‐national difference is due to underlying systemic differences in the extent to which symbolic markers of Indigenous culture, identity, and values are consensually represented in majority group (White) national culture.     

Contexts and control operations used in accessing list-specific, generalized, and semantic memories

The human ability to focus memory retrieval operations on a particular list, episode or memory structure has not been fully appreciated or documented. In Experiment 1-3, we make it increasingly difficult for participants to switch between a less recent list (multiple study opportunities), and a more recent list (single study opportunity). Task performance was good, although there was a cost associated with switching. In Experiment 4, list-specific learning experiences were used to create a generalized memory as a step towards semantic memory. List-specific memories intruded during attempts to retrieve the generalized memory and the generalized memory enhanced list-specific performance. The generalized memory also intruded in a free-association task. We propose that a hierarchy of contexts and control operations underlie the human ability to access different memory structures and that there is no sharp discontinuity in the control operations needed to access list-specific, generalized, and semantic memories.     

A behavior-analytic account of cognitive bias in clinical populations

Cognitive bias refers to a well-established finding that individuals who suffer from certain clinical problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, etc.) selectively attend to, remember, and interpret events relevant to their condition. Although a body of literature exists that has tried to examine this phenomenon, most existing explanations are mentalistic and mediational. In this paper we offer a behavior-analytic account of cognitive bias, its development, and how it may contribute to maintenance of clinical problems. This account is based on establishing operations or motivating events, verbal processes, and relational responding. Clinical and future research implications are also discussed.     

Absent minds and absent agents: Attention-lapse induced alienation of agency

We report a novel task designed to elicit transient attention-lapse induced alienation (ALIA) of agency experiences in normal participants. When attention-related action slips occur during the task, participants reported substantially decreased self control as well as a high degree of perceived agency attributed to the errant hand. In addition, participants reported being surprised by, and annoyed with, the actions of the errant hand. We argue that ALIA experiences occur because of constraints imposed by the close and precise temporal relations between intention formation and a contrary action employed in this paradigm. We note similarities between ALIA experiences and anarchic hand sign (AHS) and argue that, despite important differences, both ALIA experiences and AHS phenomenology reflect failures of executive control to intervene and cancel contrary affordance-driven habitual motor plans.     

Identification of biological neurons using adaptive observers

Change detection performance is influenced by a number of factors, among which is the informativeness of targets. It has not been clarified, yet, whether the highly informative regions have a processing priority as a result of resource deployment from other tasks or whether it results from a better resource management. In this paper, we adopted a change detection paradigm in which thirty participants were randomly assigned to two groups: single (change detection task) and dual task [change detection and a simplified version of the Paced Auditory Serial Oppository Task (PASOT, Gow and Deary in J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 26:723–736, 2004), which implies a verbal effort]. Stimulus informativeness was defined as social relevance, that is, changing targets were people (high relevance) versus objects (low relevance), all other aspects (i.e., salience and position in the scene) kept constant. As hypothesized, data analyses showed a significant main effect of social relevance and task condition, i.e., better change detection performance and lower change detection times for people versus objects and for single than for dual task condition. Interestingly, the PASOT accuracy remained stable across the person versus object trials, thus implying that the better performance with socially relevant targets could not be explained by a resources withdrawal from the secondary task.

Investigating the dynamics of affect: Psychological mechanisms of affective habituation to pleasurable stimuli

Affective habituation (i.e., reductions in stimulus-evoked affective reactions as a result of previous exposure) may serve a functional purpose. However, little is know about the psychological mechanisms underlying this process. To elucidate the characteristics of affective habituation, two experiments that examined affective reactions to repeated exposures of pleasurable stimuli were conducted. Results of these experiments indicated that habituation trajectories are characterized by linear decreases in affect. Results also demonstrated that habituation can be slowed by the introduction of novel stimuli (i.e., “novelty effects”), effects that are dimensional (rather than taxonic) in nature. Experiment 2 demonstrated that habituation is mediated by conceptual rather than perceptual processes. Depressed and anhedonic individuals were not more susceptible to habituation in either experiment. The current findings and previous theorizing suggest that habituation may be an important component of an adaptive affective processing system that promotes effective responses to salient stimuli and prevents compulsive reward-seeking behavior.

Vocational choice: A decision making perspective

We propose a model of vocational choice that can be used for analyzing and guiding the decision processes underlying career and job choices. Our model is based on research in behavioral decision making (BDM), in particular the choice goals framework developed by Bettman, Luce, and Payne (1998). The basic model involves two major processes. First, the selection of a decision strategy according to four choice goals: maximizing decision accuracy, minimizing cognitive effort, minimizing negative emotion, and maximizing justifiability of the decision. Second, the construction of situation-specific preferences, which can reflect irrelevant task and context factors such as the evaluation mode. This basic model is extended to account for social influences and the long decision time typical of most career and job decisions. We review research on vocational choice in light of this model, discuss normative implications for counseling, and outline a research agenda for studying vocational choice from a behavioral decision making perspective.     

Habit outweighs planning in grasp selection for object manipulation

Object-directed grasping movements are adapted to intended interactions with an object. We address whether adjusting the grasp for object manipulation is controlled habitually, based on past experiences, or by goal-directed planning, based on an evaluation of the expected action outcomes. Therefore, we asked participants to grasp and rotate a dial. In such tasks, participants typically grasp the dial with an excursed, uncomfortable arm posture, which then allows to complete the dial rotation in a comfortable end-state. We extended this task by manipulating the contingency between the orientation of the grasp and the resulting end-state of the arm. A one-step (control) group rotated the dial to a single target. A two-step group rotated the dial to an initial target and then in the opposite direction. A three-step group rotated the dial to the initial target, then in the opposite direction, and then back to the initial target. During practice, the two-step and three-step groups reduced the excursion of their grasps, thus avoiding overly excursed arm postures after the second rotation. When the two-step and three-step groups were asked to execute one-step rotations, their grasps resembled those that were acquired during the two-step and three-step rotations, respectively. However, the carry-over was not complete. This suggests that adjusting grasps for forthcoming object manipulations is controlled by a mixture of habitual and goal-directed processes. In the present experiment, the former contributed approximately twice as much to grasp selection than the latter.