Conscientiousness and adherence to the oral contraceptive pill: a cross-sectional analysis of the facets of conscientiousness

We examine the association between a six-facet model of conscientiousness and adherence to the Oral Contraceptive Pill (OCP), to investigate if these 6 facets can account for variation in adherence to the OCP. Cross-sectional data were collected from an opportunity sample of 243 female participants who were current users of the OCP, via online survey. Data were analysed using correlation and standard regression. The 60-item Chernyshenko Conscientiousness Scale (CCS), the 10-item IPIP Conscientiousness (IPIP C) subscale and the 5-item OCP Medication Adherence Report Scale (MARS) were employed. Both the total CCS (ρ = ?0.26, p < 0.01) and the IPIP C scale (ρ = ?0.22, p < 0.01) were associated with MARS. All facets measured by the CCS had small to medium-sized statistically significant correlations (r > ?0.18 and r < ?0.23, p < 0.05) with OCP adherence with the exception of traditionalism. Within a multivariable model, the six facets accounted for 7.1% of variance (p < 0.01) in adherence to the OCP. No one facet made a significant unique contribution to the model. These findings replicate and extend previous links between conscientiousness and OCP adherence. Further research should be conducted to establish the reliability of these findings in a general population of OCP users. Future interventions should focus on the development of interventions which take conscientiousness into consideration.     

工作记忆负荷对注意捕获的影响研究

注意捕获研究对于探讨两种控制过程:自上而下的加工与自下而上的加工之间的关系具有重要的意义。本文通过检验不同工作记忆负荷对注意捕获的影响,探讨自上而下的认知控制对注意捕获的影响机制。本研究共包括二个实验:实验一比较了单、双任务条件对颜色干扰子注意捕获的影响;实验二探讨了不同工作记忆负荷对颜色干扰子注意捕获的影响。实验结果表明:工作记忆不仅在选择性注意任务中具有认知控制作用,而且这种作用能扩展到注意捕获现象中。注意捕获不是纯粹的刺激驱动的加工过程,它还受到自上而下的认知控制的调节。具体表现为,随着工作记忆负荷水平的增加,无关干扰子产生的注意捕获的程度增大。     

Actions modulate attentional capture

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the action system plays a role in determining which stimulus characteristics capture attention by assessing the interference effects caused by dynamic discontinuities that have similar attention-capturing properties, but different action affordances. Results revealed that offset distractors caused significant interference when onset targets were presented in a keypress task, but did not increase reaction times when the same onset targets were presented in a goal-directed aiming task. In contrast, onset distractors caused interference when offset targets were presented in both keypress and aiming tasks. This pattern of results suggests that the attentional set, and thus the properties of stimuli that capture attention, is modulated by the interaction between stimulus and response expectations.     

Distractor interference in focused attention tasks is not mediated by attention capture

Distractor stimuli possessing information that is relevant for a task (henceforth, task-relevant distractors) often interfere with task performance. The interference by task-relevant distractors is observed even when distractors are positioned outside the main attentional focus. We investigated whether such interference is due to an attention capture by the distractors. Participants responded to a target colour while ignoring word distractors positioned within (Experiment 1) or outside (Experiments 2 and 3) the attentional focus. The words carried task-relevant information in their colour and personally significant information in their content. Because personally significant information affects performance only when positioned in an attended region, it was used as a marker for the locus of the attentional focus. As expected, when distractors were attended, both task-relevant and personally significant information affected performance. However, when distractors were unattended, only task-relevant information caused interference, suggesting that attention did not shift to the distractors’ location. We discuss possible accounts for interference effects in focused-attention tasks.     

Investigating the nature and time-course of the modality shift effect between vision and touch

It is well known that stimuli grab attention to their location, but do they also grab attention to their sensory modality? The modality shift effect (MSE), the observation that responding to a stimulus leads to reaction time benefits for subsequent stimuli in the same modality, suggests that this may be the case. If noninformative cue stimuli, which do not require a response, also lead to benefits for their modality, this would suggest that the effect is automatic. We investigated the time-course of the visuotactile MSE and the difference between the effects of cues and targets. In Experiment 1, when visual and tactile tasks and stimulus locations were matched, uninformative cues did not lead to reaction time benefits for targets in the same modality. However, the modality of the previous target led to a significant MSE. Only stimuli that require a response, therefore, appear to lead to reaction time benefits for their modality. In Experiment 2, increasing attention to the cue stimuli attenuated the effect of the previous target, but the cues still did not lead to a MSE. In Experiment 3, a MSE was demonstrated between successive targets, and this effect decreased with increasing intertrial intervals. Overall, these studies demonstrate how cue- and target-induced effects interact and suggest that modalities do not automatically capture attention as locations do; rather, the MSE is more similar to other task repetition effects.     

“I see what you mean”: Oral deaf individuals benefit from speaker's gesturing

Recent studies in the psychological literature reveal that cospeech gestures facilitate the construction of an articulated mental model of an oral discourse by hearing individuals. In particular, they facilitate correct recollections and discourse-based inferences at the expense of memory for discourse verbatim. Do gestures accompanying an oral discourse facilitate the construction of a discourse model also by oral deaf individuals trained to lip-read? The atypical cognitive functioning of oral deaf individuals leads to this prediction. Experiments 1 and 2, each conducted on 16 oral deaf individuals, used a recollection task and confirmed the prediction. Experiment 3, conducted on 36 oral deaf individuals, confirmed the prediction using a recognition task.     

Does low perceptual load enable capture by colour singletons?

There is considerable debate as to whether colour singletons can capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. In this study, we explore one potential capture enabling condition—low perceptual load. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated perceptual load in a flanker task in which flanking letters sometimes were colour singletons. If low load enhances capture by colour singletons, then colour singletons should produce an especially large increase in overall reaction times and in flanker–target compatibility effects. Neither of these predictions was confirmed in any of the four experiments reported here, although we did replicate the classic load effects from previous studies. These experiments indicate that although perceptual load does strongly modulate overall performance, it does not facilitate capture by colour singletons. This finding contrasts sharply with findings from other types of salient stimuli (abrupt onsets and moving objects). Implications for theories of attentional capture will be discussed.     

奖赏历史对自上而下注意控制的调节：促进还是干扰？

奖赏能够影响注意控制,但是关于奖赏历史对注意控制的影响还处于争论之中。本研究以大学生为被试,采用点探测范式,操作了奖赏历史和奖赏额度,考察了奖赏历史对自上而下注意控制的调节作用。实验一结果发现,有奖赏-无奖赏条件下前后阶段反应时无显著差异,无奖赏-有奖赏条件下有奖赏阶段的反应时显著短于无奖赏阶段。实验二操作了奖赏额度,结果与实验一一致。整个研究表明,奖赏历史促进自上而下注意控制,先前奖赏对随后自上而下注意控制产生持续促进效应。     

社会行为的效价信息对注意捕获的影响：基于帮助和阻碍行为的探讨

采用学习-测验两任务范式, 通过3项实验探讨了社会行为的效价信息对注意捕获的影响。在学习阶段, 被试观看具有积极效价的帮助行为(某智能体帮助另一智能体爬山)和消极效价的阻碍行为(某智能体阻碍另一智能体爬山), 以及与各自运动特性匹配的无社会交互行为, 其目的为建立不同智能体颜色与社会行为效价信息的联结关系。在测验阶段, 则分别检验社会行为中的施动方(帮助者和阻碍者)颜色和受动方(被帮助者和被阻碍者)颜色的注意捕获效应。结果发现, 消极社会行为中施动方颜色和受动方颜色均更容易捕获注意, 而积极社会行为效价信息并没有改变联结特征值的注意捕获效应; 且相比于受动方, 与消极社会行为效价建立联结的施动方颜色的注意捕获效应更强。该结果提示, 存在消极社会行为效价驱动的注意捕获, 且消极的效价信息与卷入社会行为所有个体的特征建立联结, 但该联结中施动方物理特征具有更高的注意优先性。这一发现暗示, 声誉信息与对社会交互行为的整体表征可能综合作用于对社会交互事件的注意选择。