Upbeat and happy: Arousal as an important factor in studying attention

The present study examined the effects of music-induced mood changes on different components of visual attention. Affective valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low) were manipulated by having participants listen to one of four versions of a Mozart Sonata that varied in mode (major or minor) and tempo (fast or slow). Attention was measured in three domains—alerting, orienting, and executive control. Affective valence and arousal had an effect on executive control, but not on alerting or orienting. Individuals who experienced positive valence had less efficient control over their responses than those who experienced negative valence, but only when arousal levels were high. Positive and negative valence did not influence executive control measures when arousal levels were low. These findings demonstrate that affective valence and arousal interact with one another to influence the processing of items in visual attention.     

The psychological costs of knowledge specialization in groups: Unique expertise leaves you out of the loop

Knowledge specialization, such as that present in cross-functional teams, produces both positive and negative outcomes. Our research investigated how unique expertise can lead to feelings of ostracism in the form of being out of the loop. Compared to group members with shared expertise, members with unique expertise felt out of the loop and experienced decreased fulfillment of fundamental needs, particularly when their expertise was to be given less weight in the group’s decision. Possessing unique expertise did not inhibit leadership emergence, even when that expertise should not have been used in the decision-making process. So, although knowledge specialization can have positive consequences for teams and task performance, it also has some negative psychological consequences that need to be understood.     

The effect of information distribution on collaborative inhibition

Two experiments examined collaborative memory for information that was studied by all group members (shared items) and information that was studied by only a subset of group members (unshared items). In both experiments significant collaborative inhibition (reduced output of the collaborative groups relative to the pooled output of individuals) was obtained for both shared and unshared information. In Experiment 1 the magnitude of collaborative inhibition was larger for unshared items than for shared items, possibly because unshared items were less likely to be acknowledged and thus incorporated into the groups’ recall. In Experiment 2 the magnitude of collaborative inhibition for shared and unshared information was equivalent once all participants were provided with the category name associated with the shared and unshared items. The results of the experiments are discussed in relation to the retrieval strategy disruption hypothesis of collaborative inhibition and the role of social process variables, such as acknowledgement, in influencing collaborative inhibition across situations involving memory of shared and unshared information.     

Domain‐General and Domain‐Specific Creative‐Thinking Tests: Effects of Gender and Item Content on Test Performance

The study examined the effects of gender and item content of domain‐general and domain‐specific creative‐thinking tests on four subscale scores of creative‐thinking (fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration). Chinese tenth‐grade students (234 males and 244 females) participated in the study. Domain‐general creative thinking was measured by using two domain‐independent items—box and newspaper. Domain‐specific creative thinking was measured in the domain of history by two history‐specific items—school uniform and health food—that were part of lessons in modern Chinese history. Domain‐general creative‐thinking scores were not different across gender in any of the four subscales. In domain‐specific creative thinking, female students produced more responses (fluency) and more categories of ideas (flexibility), and more detailed answers (elaboration) on both items than did males. Gender difference was not found in originality. Item effects were significant in both general and specific creative‐thinking scores, with higher fluency, flexibility, and elaboration for the newspaper than the box item, and higher fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration for the school uniform than the health food item. The findings on both gender and item effects support the contention that personal interest and life experience influence the generation of creative solutions. The finding that gender did not differ in domain‐general creative‐thinking was expected, as the two general items (box and newspaper) are experienced similarly by both genders. As most of the creative‐thinking tests are influenced by individuals' experience beyond creative‐thinking ability, judicial evaluation and use of creative‐thinking scores are underscored.     

Systems Factorial Technology provides new insights on global-local information processing in autism spectrum disorders

Previous studies of global-local processing in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have indicated mixed findings, with some evidence of a local processing bias, or preference for detail-level information, and other results suggesting typical global advantage, or preference for the whole or gestalt. Findings resulting from this paradigm have been used to argue for or against a detail focused processing bias in ASDs, and thus have important theoretical implications. We applied Systems Factorial Technology, and the associated Double Factorial Paradigm (both defined in the text), to examine information processing characteristics during a divided attention global-local task in high-functioning individuals with an ASD and typically developing controls. Group data revealed global advantage for both groups, contrary to some current theories of ASDs. Information processing models applied to each participant revealed that task performance, although showing no differences at the group level, was supported by different cognitive mechanisms in ASD participants compared to controls. All control participants demonstrated inhibitory parallel processing and the majority demonstrated a minimum-time stopping rule. In contrast, ASD participants showed exhaustive parallel processing with mild facilitatory interactions between global and local information. Thus our results indicate fundamental differences in the stopping rules and channel dependencies in individuals with an ASD.     

Focus induced tunnel vision in managerial judgment and decision making: The peril and the antidote

Managers often must assess singular strategic options. Four studies of such assessments demonstrate a tunnel vision effect: Focal managerial options often are favored in an evidentially unjustifiable manner. Study 1 concerns new product development, and demonstrates that a prototype that has become focal tends to be judged overly favorably, and is chosen for launch with unwarranted enthusiasm. Study 2 shows that this tunnel vision effect generalizes to judgments and decisions about general strategy. Study 3 focuses on the information search patterns underlying the effect, and Study 4 replicates the tunnel vision effect among experienced executives, and demonstrates the utility of a debiasing procedure. Data in all of the studies implicate selective processing as the driver of the tunnel vision effect, and further understanding of how selective processing affects choice. Several alternative operationalizations of the empirically tested debiasing procedure are discussed.     

Adaptive Memory: Identifying the Proximate Roots of the Survival Processing Advantage

The current study examined the role of item-specific, relational, and elaborative processing on adaptive memory. Younger and older adults received the standard survival processing, a survival-short, or a pleasantness processing instruction. The survival-short condition was specifically included to lead to fewer possibilities to engage in elaborative processing. Furthermore, half of the presented words were categorized words to boost relational processing. Younger adults demonstrated the typical survival recall advantage in that standard survival processing instructions resulted in superior free recall performance than that of the survival-short and the pleasantness processing groups. Among older adults, no mnemonic benefit of standard survival processing relative to the survival-short or pleasantness processing groups was found. Furthermore, reducing the probability of elaborative processing (i.e., through the survival-short processing instructions) abolished the survival recall advantage. Our results thus provide further evidence for the role of item-specific, relational, and elaborative processing in the survival processing advantage.     

Managing information overload in virtual teams: Effects of a structured online team adaptation on cognition and performance

Information overload (IO) indicates the exchange of too much low-quality information in virtual teams. When being overloaded with information, teams need to adapt and to change communication behaviour. This study introduces and tests a structured online team adaptation (STROTA) procedure that enables virtual teams to reduce IO by improving their team mental model quality. STROTA, built from team adaptation models, is a moderated intervention consisting of three stages: (1) individual situation awareness, (2) team situation awareness, and (3) plan formulation. STROTA was tested in the context of an experimental problem-solving task. Participants (N = 363) worked in virtual teams of three and were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: no STROTA, incomplete STROTA (step 1, steps 1–2), and complete STROTA (steps 1–2–3). We found teams that followed a complete STROTA procedure experienced lessened IO over time. Teams with complete STROTA showed the largest development of TMM immediately after STROTA. Finally, multilevel mediation analyses showed that TMM are mediators that explain the influence of STROTA on IO.     

Intuitive understanding of the relation between velocities and masses in simulated collisions

The participants in our experiments were asked to judge whether simulated horizontal collisions appeared to be “natural” or “unnatural”. We manipulated the implied masses and the velocity ratio of two colliding objects. Implied masses were varied through manipulations of the objects' simulated materials (Experiment 1) and sizes (Experiments 2 and 3). For each participant, we determined the interval of velocity ratios that produced “natural” responses most of the time and evaluated how this interval varied as a function of implied masses. The results revealed a fair degree of consistency between predictions of Newtonian mechanics and the participants' responses; this consistency was greater when the implied masses of the colliding objects were varied through manipulations of the simulated materials. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that the cognitive system can integrate multiple sources of stimulus information, enabling individuals to understand multidimensional mechanical events.     

The more the better – But more of which? Information quantity and shared meaning as predictors of consistency and accuracy in person judgment

This study investigates the consistency and accuracy of person judgments at zero acquaintance in two conditions: Targets were judged repeatedly across a sequence of videotaped situations, either (a) by different observers in each situation, or (b) by the same observer in all situations. Replicating previous research, accuracy increased (inversely accelerated) when including additional situations rated by different observers. However, much of this increase was owed to improved inter-rater reliability (a confound in previous research). Also, cross-situational consistency of judgments was much higher when all ratings came from the same observer. These results underscore the crucial influence of shared meaning on judgment accuracy and consistency.