Can musical transformations be implicitly learned?

The dominant theory of what people can learn implicitly is that they learn chunks of adjacent elements in sequences. A type of musical grammar that goes beyond specifying allowable chunks is provided by serialist or 12-tone music. The rules constitute operations over variables and could not be appreciated as such by a system that can only chunk elements together. A series of studies investigated the extent to which people could implicitly (or explicitly) learn the structures of serialist music. We found that people who had no background in atonal music did not learn the structures, but highly selected participants with an interest in atonal music could implicitly learn to detect melodies instantiating the structures. The results have implications for both theorists of implicit learning and composers who may wish to know which structures they put into a piece of music can be appreciated.     

Slower access to visual awareness but otherwise intact implicit perception of emotional faces in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders

Schizophrenia-spectrum disorders are characterized by deficits in social domains. Extant research has reported an impaired ability to perceive emotional faces in schizophrenia. Yet, it is unclear if these deficits occur already in the access to visual awareness. To investigate this question, 23 people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 22 healthy controls performed a breaking continuous flash suppression task with fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Response times were analysed with generalized linear mixed models. People with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders were slower than controls in detecting faces, but did not show emotion-specific impairments. Moreover, happy faces were detected faster than neutral and fearful faces, across all participants. Although caution is needed when interpreting the main effect of group, our findings may suggest an elevated threshold for visual awareness in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, but an intact implicit emotion perception. Our study provides a new insight into the mechanisms underlying emotion perception in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.     

BRIEF REPORT Forgetting “murder” is not harder than forgetting “circle”: Listwise-directed forgetting of emotional words

The list-method directed forgetting (DF) paradigm has attracted the attention of clinical psychologists because it is widely believed that a retrieval inhibition mechanism underlies its effects. Thus, the idea is that people are capable of intentionally forgetting negative emotional material. On the other hand, there are reasons to believe that negative stimuli are relatively resistant to forgetting. The present experiment compared listwise DF of emotional and neutral words in healthy college students. A modified procedure (i.e., a simulated computer crash) showed a reliable DF-effect in that list 1 recall was larger under remember than forget instructions whereas the reverse was true for list 2 recall. Emotionality did not modulate the magnitude of this effect. Thus, negative emotional material is not resistant to forgetting. Although overall, the present findings are in line with a retrieval inhibition interpretation (i.e., decreased access to list 1 material), attentional focusing during list 2 learning may provide a sufficient explanation.     

An effective metacognitive strategy: learning by doing and explaining with a computer‐based Cognitive Tutor

Recent studies have shown that self‐explanation is an effective metacognitive strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms? How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self‐explanation affect students' learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether self‐explanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing. In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during problem‐solving practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better‐integrated visual and verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge. The research demonstrates that the benefits of self‐explanation can be achieved in a relatively simple computer‐based approach that scales well for classroom use.     

Depression severity and psychosocial determinants of physical activity behavior in in-patients with major depressive disorders

BackgroundPhysical inactivity is a world-wide health issue. In people with major depressive disorders approximately 68% do not reach the recommended physical activity levels. Psychosocial determinants of and implicit attitudes towards physical activity serve to explain physical activity behavior and may form the basis of interventions to promote physical activity. The aim of this study was to examine, whether psychosocial determinants and implicit attitudes towards physical activity vary according to depression severity.MethodsPhysically inactive, adult in-patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (according to ICD-10) were recruited from four Swiss psychiatric clinics. Psychosocial determinants of physical activity were assessed with seven questionnaires pertaining to motivational and volitional aspects of physical activity. Implicit attitudes towards physical activity were measured with a computer-based Single Target Implicit Association Test.ResultsIn-patients (N = 215, M_age = 41 ± 13 years, 53% female) with major depressive disorder reporting more severe (n = 52) depression symptomology exhibited less favorable psychosocial determinants for physical activity behavior (self-efficacy, negative outcome expectancies, intention, intrinsic motivation, introjected motivation, external motivation, action planning, perceived barriers, coping planning) compared to those with mild (n = 89) and moderate (n = 74) depression symptomology. Positive outcome expectancies, identified, social support and implicit attitudes towards physical activity did not vary according to depression severity.ConclusionsPsychosocial determinants of physical activity do vary according to depression severity. Attempts to promote physical activity among people with major depressive disorder should take depression severity into account when developing and delivering interventions.Trial registrationISRCTN registry, ISRCTN10469580, registered on 3^rd September 2018, https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN10469580.