Implicit learning of social predictions

Humans exchange a range of nonverbal social signals in every interaction. It is an open question whether people use these signals, consciously or unconsciously, to guide social behavior. This experiment directly tested whether participants could learn to predict another person’s behavior using nonverbal cues in a single interaction, and whether explicit knowledge of the cue-outcome relationship was necessary for successful prediction. Participants played a computerized game of rock-paper-scissors against an avatar they believed was another participant. Sometimes the avatar generated a predictive facial cue before the play. On these trials, participants’ win-frequency increased over time, even if they did not acquire explicit knowledge of the predictive cue. The degree to which participants could predict the avatar (wins on cued trials) related to their self-reported liking of the avatar. These findings demonstrate the importance of implicit associative learning mechanisms in guiding social behavior on a moment-to-moment basis during interaction.     

Recognizing discrimination explicitly while denying it implicitly: Implicit social identity protection

Past research suggests that members of devalued groups recognize their groups are discriminated against. Do the implicit responses of members of these groups demonstrate the same pattern? We argue that they do not and that this is due to a motivated protection of members of devalued groups' social identity. Study 1 demonstrates that, at an explicit level African-Canadians recognize that their group is discriminated against, but at an implicit level African-Canadians think that most people like their group to a greater extent than do European-Canadians. Study 2 replicates this implicit finding with Muslim participants while demonstrating that, when affirmed, this group difference disappears. Study 3 demonstrates that implicit normative regard can predict collective action over and above implicit attitudes and explicit normative regard. The implications for changing the status quo are discussed.     

Motor simulation in verbal knowledge acquisition

Recent research highlights the importance of motor processes for a wide range of cognitive functions such as object perception and language comprehension. It is unclear, however, whether the involvement of the motor system goes beyond the processing of information that is gathered through active action experiences and affects also the representation of knowledge acquired through verbal learning. We tested this prediction by varying the presence of motor interference (i.e., squeezing a ball vs. oddball detection task) while participants verbally acquired functional object knowledge and examined the effects on a subsequent object detection task. Results revealed that learning of functional object knowledge was only impaired when participants performed an effector-specific motor task while training. The present finding of an effector-specific motor interference effect on object learning demonstrates the crucial role of the motor system in the acquisition of novel object knowledge and provides support for an embodied account to perception and cognition.     

Questioning implicit motor learning as instantiated by the pursuit-tracking task

The effect of concurrent visual feedback on the implicit learning of repeated segments in a task of pursuit tracking has been tested. Although this feedback makes it possible to regulate the positional error during the movement, it could also induce negative guidance effects. To test this hypothesis, a first set of participants (N?=?42) were assigned to two groups, which performed either the standard pursuit-tracking task based on the experimental paradigm of Pew (1974 Pew, R. W. 1974. Levels of analysis in motor control. Brain Research, 71: 393–400. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; group F-ST), or a task called “movement reproduction” in which the feedback was suppressed (group noF-ST). A second set of participants (N?=?26) performed in the same feedback condition groups but in a dual-task situation (F-DT and noF-DT; Experiment 2). The results appear to confirm our predictions since the participants in groups without feedback, contrary to those in groups with feedback, succeeded with practice in differentiating their performances as a function of the nature of the segments (repeated or nonrepeated) both in simple (Experiment 1) and in dual-task (Experiment 2) situations. These experiments indicate that the feedback in the pursuit-tracking task induces a guidance function potentially resulting in an easiness tracking that prevents the participants from learning the repetition.     

Feasibility,acceptability, and impact of a web-based gratitude exercise among individuals in outpatient treatment for alcohol use disorder

This mixed methods pilot study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of a web-based gratitude exercise (the ‘Three Good Things’ exercise (TGT)) among 23 adults in outpatient treatment for alcohol use disorder. Participants were randomized to TGT or a placebo condition. The intervention was feasible with high rates of completion. Participants found TGT acceptable and welcomed the structure of daily e-mails; however, they found it difficult at times and discontinued TGT when the study ended. Participants associated TGT with gratitude, although there were no observed changes in grateful disposition over time. TGT had a significant effect on decreasing negative affect and increasing unactivated (e.g. feeling calm, at ease) positive affect, although there were no differences between groups at the 8 week follow-up. Qualitative results converged on quantitative findings that TGT was convenient, feasible, and acceptable and additionally suggested that TGT was beneficial for engendering positive cognitions and reinforcing recovery.     

Self-esteem,personality and Internet Addiction: A cross-cultural comparison study

Previous work from Germany and Austria highlighted the importance of personality and excessive private Internet usage for Internet Addiction (IA). In a cross-cultural approach we tried to replicate a negative association between IA and the personality trait of self-directedness in Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Colombia, China, Taiwan and Sweden and as well the finding that persons with a damaged self-esteem have a higher proclivity for becoming Internet addicted in Bulgaria, Spain, Germany and Colombia. In total N = 989 took part in the study. Results show that the personality dimension self-directedness was negatively correlated to the IA score of the participants in all samples. In contrast, no interaction effect between implicit and explicit self-esteem on IA could be observed.     

Explicit and implicit attitudes towards food and physical activity in childhood obesity

This study investigated differences in the explicit and implicit attitudes towards food and physical activities between children with obesity (n=38) and a matched control group (n=38). The implicit attitude was assessed using the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; J. Exp. Psychol. (50) (2003) 77), a modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; J. Personality Social Psychol. (74) (1999) 1464). It was expected that both groups would report a positive explicit attitude towards healthy food and intense physical activities, and a negative explicit attitude towards unhealthy food and sedentary activities. Of particular interest was the hypothesis that children with obesity would have a more positive implicit attitude towards unhealthy food and sedentary activities than the control group. Results revealed no differences between groups in the explicit attitude towards food and physical activity. Children and adolescents with obesity had a more pronounced positive implicit attitude towards food in general. The relevance of these findings in terms of prevention, treatment and further research is discussed.     

有自杀意念大学生的内隐态度探析

该文结合Greenwald开创的内隐联想测验,自编IAT程序,对有自杀意念大学生的内隐态度进行了相关研究。结果显示,有自杀意念大学生较无自杀意念大学生的内隐态度对自杀类词语敏感等。家庭所在地为农村对有自杀意念大学生的内隐态度有显著性影响。