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.     

群体印象形成与个体印象形成：反基准比率效应

采用 “反基准比率效应”范式考察在群体印象形成与个体印象形成两种认知加工过程中, 基准比率对印象形成过程及其结果的影响。被试分别为39名19~25岁大学生(实验1：男生17名, 女生22名, 均为右利手)以及46名19~25岁大学生(实验2：男生21名, 女生25名, 均为右利手)。结果发现：无论是群体印象形成还是个体印象形成, 在学习阶段, 知觉者都能准确认知各类事件间的关系, 但会优先建构高频事件间的联结。而在测试阶段, 当低频事件与高频事件同时出现时, 知觉者发生明显关系误判, 即以反基准比率的倾向高估低频事件间的联结强度。实验表明群体与个体印象形成过程中都会产生反基准比率效应这样的加工偏差, 进而初步揭示反基准比率现象在社会信息加工领域具有一定的普遍性。     

不同任务情境中5~6岁儿童卡通面孔加工的眼动研究

以卡通面孔图片为刺激材料,赋予5~6岁儿童三种不同的加工任务,包括卡通面孔识别、分类和吸引力评价,旨在比较其在不同任务情境中的眼动差异。结果表明:(1)任务情境会影响儿童对卡通面孔的加工。在不同的面孔加工任务中,儿童的反应时、正确率、注视时间和次数等存在差异;(2)随着三种任务难度的逐渐加大,儿童的加工程度也相应地加深;(3)儿童在三种任务中的加工方式一致,对面部不同部位的关注程度不同:加工初期特别关注鼻子,而后眼睛部位耗费最多的注意资源,其次是鼻子、嘴巴、前额和脸颊,极少关注下巴;(4)男女童在卡通面孔分类任务中表现出较显著的性别差异,女童具有速度方面的优势,而男童对于关键信息的搜索则更为积极主动。     

汉语句子加工中句法信息与语义信息的交互作用：来自ERP的证据

采用ERP技术考察句子加工过程中句法信息和语义信息交互作用的时间进程。以汉语“把字句”为实验材料,分别比较句法违例句与双重违例句的LAN和P600效应、语义违例句与双重违例句的N400效应。与句法违例句相比,双重违例句的LAN效应的波幅更负,潜伏期更长,皮层分布更广泛;双重违例句的P600效应出现减弱趋势;双重违例句的N400效应的潜伏期显著长于语义违例句。结果表明,在句子加工的各个阶段,句法信息和语义信息呈持续交互作用,支持句子的平行加工模型。     

Social anxiety and the effects of negative self-imagery on emotion, cognition, and post-event processing

Numerous studies have shown that social phobia patients experience negative self-impressions or images during social situations. Clark and Wells (1995) posited that such negative self-images are involved in the maintenance of social phobia. Thus, the present study investigated the effects of negative self-imagery on cognition and emotion during and following a brief social situation. Specifically, high and low socially anxious participants (N = 77) were instructed to hold either a negative or control self-image as they engaged in a brief speech. Participants then rated their anxiety, performance, cognitions, and focus of attention. Twenty-four hours later, they returned to the laboratory and completed questionnaires assessing the amount of post-event processing (PEP) they engaged in. The results showed that, irrespective of the level of social anxiety or depressive symptoms, participants that held the negative self-image experienced higher levels of anxiety, were more self-focused, experienced more negative thoughts, rated their anxiety as more visible, appraised their performance more negatively, and engaged in more negative and less positive PEP than participants that held the control self-image. Collectively the results indicate that negative imagery is causally involved in the maintenance of social phobia, as well as in the generation of social anxiety among non-anxious individuals.     

Impact of anticipatory processing versus distraction on multiple indices of anxiety in socially anxious individuals

In models of social phobia, anticipatory processing before a social-evaluative event is a key maintaining factor for the disorder. This study investigated the impact of anticipatory processing versus distraction before a social-evaluative task on affective (self-reported anxiety), psychophysiological (skin conductance), cognitive (self-reported maladaptive self-beliefs) and behavioural (in-situation performance) responses of participants. High and low socially anxious undergraduates were randomly allocated to either an anticipatory processing or distraction condition, and then completed an impromptu speech task. Relative to distraction, anticipatory processing increased self-reported anxiety in all participants, and increased skin conductance and the strength of conditional and high standard beliefs in the high (but not low) socially anxious participants. Unconditional beliefs were not affected. For high socially anxious individuals, anticipatory processing was also indirectly associated with poorer speech performance by increasing self-reported anxiety. Anticipatory processing appears to have multiple adverse effects in socially anxious individuals.     

Cascading effects: the influence of attention bias to threat on the interpretation of ambiguous information

Both attention bias to threat and negative interpretive bias have been implicated in the emergence and maintenance of anxiety disorders. However, relations between attention and interpretive biases remain poorly understood. The current study experimentally manipulated attention bias to threat and examined the effects of attention training on the way ambiguous information was interpreted. Results suggest that the preferential allocation of attention towards threat affects the manner in which ambiguous information is interpreted. Individuals trained to attend to threat were more likely than individuals in a placebo training group to interpret ambiguous information in a threat-related manner. These data suggest that perturbations in the initial stages of information processing associated with anxiety may lead to a cascade of subsequent processing biases.