The electrophysiological correlates of integrated face and body-part perception

Previous studies have suggested that the human visual system processes faces and bodies holistically—that is, the different body parts are integrated into a unified representation. However, the time course of this integrative process is less known. In the present study, we investigated this issue by recording event-related potentials evoked by a face and two hands presented simultaneously and in different configurations. When the hands were rotated to obtain a biologically implausible configuration, a reduction of the P2 amplitude was observed relative to the condition in which the face and hands were retained in their veridical configuration and were supplemented with visual cues to highlight further the overall body posture. Our results show that the P2 component is sensitive to manipulations affecting the configuration of face and hand stimuli and suggest that the P2 reflects the operation of perceptual mechanisms responsible for the integrated processing of visually presented body parts.     

Reading span task performance,linguistic experience,and the processing of unexpected syntactic events

Accounts of individual differences in online language processing ability often focus on the explanatory utility of verbal working memory, as measured by reading span tasks. Although variability in reading span task performance likely reflects individual differences in multiple underlying traits, skills, and processes, accumulating evidence suggests that reading span scores also reflect variability in the linguistic experiences of an individual. Here, through an individual differences approach, we first demonstrate that reading span scores correlate significantly with measures of the amount of experience an individual has had with written language (gauged by measures that provide “proxy estimates” of print exposure). We then explore the relationship between reading span scores and online language processing ability. Individuals with higher reading spans demonstrated greater sensitivity to violations of statistical regularities found in natural language—as evinced by higher reading times (RTs) on the disambiguating region of garden-path sentences—relative to their lower span counterparts. This result held after statistically controlling for individual differences in a non-linguistic operation span task. Taken together, these results suggest that accounts of individual differences in sentence processing can benefit from a stronger focus on experiential factors, especially when considered in relation to variability in perceptual and learning abilities that influence the amount of benefit gleaned from such experience.     

Global-local processing impacts academic risk taking

Research has shown that academic risk taking—the selection of school tasks with varying difficulty levels—affords important implications for educational outcomes. In two experiments, we explored the role of cognitive processes—specifically, global versus local processing styles—in students’ academic risk-taking tendencies. Participants first read a short passage, which provided the context for their subsequent academic risk-taking decisions. Following which, participants undertook the Navon’s task and attended to either global letters or local letters only, i.e., were either globally or locally primed. The effects of priming on academic risk taking were then assessed using a perception-based measure (Experiment 1) and a task-based measure (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 provided preliminary evidence, which Experiment 2 confirmed, that globally focused individuals took more academic risk than did locally focused individuals after controlling for participants’ need for cognition (how much they enjoy effortful cognitive activities). Additionally, the inclusion of and comparisons with a control group in Experiment 2 revealed that locally focused participants drove the observed effects. The theory of predictive and reactive control systems (PARCS) provides a cogent account of our findings. Future directions and practical applications in education are discussed.     

Executive functions and processing speed in children with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities and externalizing behavior problems

Several studies suggest impaired executive functions (EFs) in children with externalizing behavior problems and average intelligence (e.g., IQ > 85). Even though children with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities (MBID) are at higher risk of developing externalizing behavior problems compared to children with average intelligence, it is not yet clear if impaired EFs are also associated with the occurrence of externalizing behavior problems in children with MBID. In the current study, we therefore assessed three EF components (inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) as well as processing speed in children with MBID and externalizing behavior problems (n = 71) versus children with MBID with no such problems (n = 70). This was accomplished using a well-established computerized test battery. Even after IQ was controlled for, the children with MBID and externalizing behavior problems showed more impaired working memory performance. Differences for inhibition performance and processing speed were also found but less consistent across the tasks used to measure these aspects of EF. Cognitive flexibility was not more impaired in children with both MBID and externalizing behavior problems relative to children with MBID only. Our findings highlight working memory as a potential target to enhance the treatment of children with MBID and externalizing behavior problems.     

The influence of visual mental imagery size on metamemory accuracy in judgment of learning

Many studies have found the font size of to-be-remembered words has a significant influence on judgments of learning (JOLs). However, few studies have investigated whether JOLs are affected by the mental imagery size of to-be-remembered words, even when the font sizes themselves are kept identical in study materials. This study investigated whether the visual mental imagery size influences the participants’ JOLs and what the underlying mechanisms are. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants learned words with identical font sizes, mentally generated large or small imageries and then made JOLs. We found that JOLs under the large imagery condition were significantly higher than those under the small imagery condition, but actual recall performance exhibited no significant difference. In Experiment 3, participants pressed a button immediately after mental imagery generation and showed that it took significantly longer to generate large imageries than to generate small imageries, and the difference in JOLs between two conditions was no longer significant. In Experiment 4, we used a questionnaire to investigate the contribution of beliefs and found that participants believed large imageries were easier to remember. These findings indicate that imagery size has a significant impact on JOLs, in which beliefs may play a leading role.     

亮度对空间-数字反应编码联合效应的影响

本研究探讨亮度对空间-数字反应编码联合效应（Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes,简称SNARC效应）的影响及其机制。通过三个实验设计不同的亮度对比水平,要求被试对阿拉伯数字1~9（5除外）进行奇偶判断。实验一将数字亮度设为最高值255时,结果出现了数字的SNARC效应。实验二将数字的亮度值分别设为255和213时,结果仍存在SNARC效应。实验三将亮度值分别设置为213和42时,数字的SNARC效应却消失了。这些结果表明亮度会激活或抑制数字的空间表征,可能与亮度对比值的高低及所消耗认知资源的多少有关。     

Do you remember where sounds,pictures and words came from? The role of the stimulus format in object location memory

Contrasting results in visual and auditory spatial memory stimulate the debate over the role of sensory modality and attention in identity-to-location binding. We investigated the role of sensory modality in the incidental/deliberate encoding of the location of a sequence of items. In 4 separated blocks, 88 participants memorised sequences of environmental sounds, spoken words, pictures and written words, respectively. After memorisation, participants were asked to recognise old from new items in a new sequence of stimuli. They were also asked to indicate from which side of the screen (visual stimuli) or headphone channel (sounds) the old stimuli were presented in encoding. In the first block, participants were not aware of the spatial requirement while, in blocks 2, 3 and 4 they knew that their memory for item location was going to be tested. Results show significantly lower accuracy of object location memory for the auditory stimuli (environmental sounds and spoken words) than for images (pictures and written words). Awareness of spatial requirement did not influence localisation accuracy. We conclude that: (a) object location memory is more effective for visual objects; (b) object location is implicitly associated with item identity during encoding and (c) visual supremacy in spatial memory does not depend on the automaticity of object location binding.     

Social anxiety and post-event processing among African-American individuals

Background: Social anxiety is among the most prevalent psychiatric conditions, yet little attention has been paid to whether putative cognitive vulnerability factors related to social anxiety in predominantly White samples are related to social anxiety among historically underrepresented groups.

Design: We tested whether one such vulnerability factor, post-event processing (PEP; detailed review of social event that can increase state social anxiety) was related to social anxiety among African-American (AA; n?=?127) persons, who comprise one of the largest underrepresented racial groups in the U.S. Secondarily, we tested whether AA participants differed from non-Hispanic White participants (n?=?127) on PEP and social anxiety and whether race moderated the relation between PEP and social anxiety.

Method: Data were collected online among undergraduates.

Results: PEP was positively correlated with social anxiety among AA participants, even after controlling for depression and income, pr?=?.30, p?=?.001. AA and White participants did not differ on social anxiety or PEP, β?=??1.57, 95% CI: ?5.11, 1.96. The relation of PEP to social anxiety did not vary as a function of race, β?=?0.00, 95% CI: ?0.02, 0.02.

Conclusions: PEP may be an important cognitive vulnerability factor related to social anxiety among AA persons suffering from social anxiety.     

Processing of negative stimuli facilitates event-based prospective memory only under low memory load

Event-based prospective memory (PM) is related to the ability to execute a previously planned action at the appropriate situation. Previous literature showed enhanced performance when emotional stimuli are used as PM targets. However, it was entirely unexplored whether this effect is susceptible to prospective memory load (PML), related to the number of target events that are relevant for the pending PM task. Here we presented participants with angry or neutral faces for an identity judgment (ongoing task). A different number of faces, depending on low vs. high levels of PML, served as PM targets. The results showed better PM performance following negative than neutral targets, but only under low levels of PML. This indicates that the bottom-up facilitation driven by negative stimuli serving as PM targets dramatically depends on the available attention resources allocated for monitoring the incoming information.     

The role of general and number-specific order processing in adults’ arithmetic performance

Digit order processing is highly related to individual differences in arithmetic performance. To examine whether serial scanning or associative mechanisms underlie order processing, order tasks (i.e. deciding whether three digits were presented in an order or not) were administered in two experiments. In the first experiment, digits were presented in different directions namely ascending, descending and non-ordered. For each direction, close and far distance sequences were presented. Results revealed reversed distance effects for ordered sequences, but ascending sequences elicited faster performance and stronger reversed distance effects than descending sequences, suggesting that associative mechanisms underlie order processing. In the second experiment, it was examined to which extent the relation between order processing and arithmetic is number-specific by presenting order tasks with digits, letters and months. In all order tasks similar distance effects were observed and similar relations with arithmetic were found, suggesting that both general associative mechanisms and number-specific mechanisms contribute to arithmetic.