The role of spatial attention and other processes on the magnitude and time course of cueing effects

We are quite often exposed to multiple objects present in the visual scene, thus attentional selection is necessary in order to selectively respond to the relevant information. Objects can be selected on the basis of the location they occupy by orienting attention in space. In this paper, we review the evidence showing that attention can be oriented in space either endogenously, on the basis of central cues, predictive of the relevant location, or exogenously, automatically triggered by the salient properties of visual stimuli (peripheral cues). Several dissociations observed between orienting on the basis of the two types of cues have led to the conclusion that they do not represent just two modes of triggering the orienting of the very same attentional mechanism, but rather they modulate processing differently. We present a theoretical framework according to which endogenous predictive cues facilitate target processing by orienting attention, thus amplifying processing at the attended location. In contrast, apart from attentional orienting, peripherally presented discrepant cues might trigger additional cue-target event-integration and event-segregation processes, which modulate processing in a different way, thus leading to cueing effects that are exclusively triggered by peripheral cues.     

The long-term effects of mild head injury on short-term memory for visual form, spatial location, and their conjunction in well-functioning university students

Research has suggested the presence of subtle long-term cognitive changes in otherwise well-functioning individuals who have previously sustained a mild head injury (MHI). This paper investigated the long-term effects of MHI on visual, spatial, and visual-spatial short-term memory in well-functioning university students. Sixteen students who reported having sustained a MHI were compared to 16 controls on tests of short-term memory (STM) for abstract polygons in haphazardly arranged locations. The three tests differed only in the requirements for recall (shapes for the visual task, locations for the spatial task, and the shapes in their respective locations for the visual-spatial task). MHI participants were selectively impaired on spatial memory, suggesting that tasks of spatial STM may be more sensitive, compared to tasks of visual STM, to the subtle long-term cognitive changes that may be present after a MHI.     

Sex differences in spatial ability: a lateralization of function approach

The current study was designed to examine whether the extent of the male advantage in performance on a spatial task was determined by the extent to which the task was right-hemisphere dependent. Participants included 108 right-handed men and women who completed the mental rotation, waterlevel, and paperfolding tasks, all of which were presented bilaterally. The results partially supported the hypothesis. On the mental rotation task, men showed a right-hemisphere advantage, whereas women showed no hemispheric differences; however, no overall sex differences were observed. On the waterlevel task, men outperformed women, and both men and women showed a right-hemisphere advantage. On the paperfolding task, no sex or hemispheric differences were observed. Although the findings of the current study were mixed, the study provides a framework for examining sex differences across different types of spatial ability.     

Elementary school teachers' strategies to handle externalizing classroom behavior: a study of relations between perceived control, teacher orientation and strategy preferences

Rydell, A.-M. & Henricsson, L. (2004). Elementary school teachers' strategies to handle externalizing classroom behavior: A study of relations between perceived control, teacher orientation and strategy preferences. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 45 , 93–102.
Strategies for dealing with problematic student behavior are an important part of the teacher role. Relations between teachers' perceptions of control over children's classroom behavior, teacher orientation and teachers' strategy preferences when confronted with externalizing child behaviors were investigated. Eighty-six primary school teachers, 91% of all first grade teachers in one municipality in Sweden, completed a questionnaire. Disciplinary strategy preferences were measured through vignettes describing externalizing child behaviors, with response alternatives modeled after the Parental Discipline Interview ( Scarr, Pinkerton & Eisenberg, 1991 ). Perceived control was measured with a subscale applied to teachers from the Parental Locus of Control Scale ( Campis, Lyman & Prentice-Dunn, 1986 ). Newly constructed measures of teacher orientation were used. The results indicated that perceived low control over one's classroom situation and a custodial teacher orientation were associated with preferences for authoritarian strategies (firm verbal reprimands, physical restraint) and perceived high control and a humanistic teacher orientation were associated with non-authoritarian strategies (e.g. reasoning with students). Teachers' strategy preferences and associations between perceived control, teacher orientation and strategy preferences were to some extent validated in relations to observed teacher behavior in a subsample of the classrooms.     

Short-term memory effects on the representation of two-dimensional space in the rhesus monkey

Human subjects represent the location of a point in 2D space using two independent dimensions (x–y in Euclidean or radius-angle in polar space), and encode location in memory along these dimensions using two levels of representation: a fine-grain value and a category. Here we determined whether monkeys possessed the ability to represent location with these two levels of coding. A rhesus monkey was trained to reproduce the location of a dot in a circle by pointing, after a delay period, on the location where a dot was presented. Five different delay periods (0.5–5 s) were used. The results showed that the monkey used a polar coordinate system to represent the fine-grain spatial coding, where the radius and angle of the dots were encoded independently. The variability of the spatial response and reaction time increased with longer delays. Furthermore, the animal was able to form a categorical representation of space that was delay-dependent. The responses avoided the circumference and the center of the circle, defining a categorical radial prototype around one third of the total radial length. This radial category was observed only at delay durations of 3–5 s. Finally, the monkey also formed angular categories with prototypes at the obliques of the quadrants of the circle, avoiding the horizontal and vertical axes. However, these prototypes were only observed at the 5-s delay and on dots lying on the circumference. These results indicate that monkeys may possess spatial cognitive abilities similar to humans.     

Active versus passive learning and testing in a complex outside built environment

A review of the evidence on active and passive learning in virtual environments (VEs) suggests that both conditions have shown superiority under some conditions of learning and testing, but there is no consistent outcome pattern. Measures of transfer between virtual and real environments have also revealed a variety of outcomes. Following either active or passive learning in a VE, experiment 1 assessed measures of orientation and distance estimation in that VE and in a real-world equivalent environment. On measures of direct and relative distance, more accurate estimates were found for active than passive VE explorers. A suggestion was also noted for the orientation estimates to benefit from real-world rather than VE testing. With an improvement to the procedure, experiment 2 found similar real versus virtual orientation judgements, suggesting that an opportunity for active learning during the test procedure probably influenced orientation measures in experiment 1. We conclude that the effects of interactivity are unreliable and vary with the measures used, and that testing in virtual and real environments leads to similar outcomes.     

Being seaward-handed: a computational model of the acquisition of language-specific spatial references

Empirical findings of cross-linguistic studies reveal three different frames of spatial reference: intrinsic, relative, and absolute. Of special interest are relative and absolute systems because they have antagonistic logical implications concerning the dependence on standpoint and orientation of the speaker/hearer. On the background of these findings it becomes crucial to show how an agent can form such language-specific spatial representations. In this paper, the system Locator is introduced as a model of concept formation in the spatial domain. It is assumed that an agent creates necessary discriminative features in processes of self-organization and selection and cannot just discover or find them in its environment. A number of simulations show that agents successfully create concepts of either a relative system (German) or an absolute system (Marquesan), relying solely on multimodal input (visual and linguistic).

Have sex differences in spatial ability evolved from male competition for mating and female concern for survival?

Drawing on the theoretical and empirical foundations of two evolutionary models, we argue that, among humans and other mammals, a twofold selection process would parsimoniously account for sex-linked advantages in spatial contexts. In males, a superiority for both solving navigation-related spatial problems and understanding physical principles that apply to the behavior of projectiles could have been inherited from mating-oriented male competition involving extensive ranging and agonistic displays. In females, a form of superior spatial memory may have been shaped in relation to a costly reproduction system compelling them to safeguard their survival and that of their offspring by fostering low-risk strategies consisting of restricted navigation as well as concentration on nearby spatial cues. Based on the combined action of competition and survival pressures, we submit new predictions as to spatial sex differences in several species including humans.     

Action, verbal response and spatial reasoning

Studies have shown that perception of distance, orientation and size can be dissociated from action tasks. The action system seems to possess more veridical, unbiased information than the perceptual/verbal system. The current study examines the nature of the distinction between action and verbal responses in a spatial reasoning task. Participants imagined themselves facing different orientations and either pointed to where other objects would be, or verbally reported their egocentric directions (e.g., "50 degrees to my left"). When using pointing responses, RT and error increased as a function of the angular disparity between the imagined heading and their actual heading. However, when using verbal responses, performance was not affected by angular disparity, suggesting that participants knew the direction of the targets from the imagined perspective but could not point to them directly. The verbal and action systems have fundamentally different information or processes rather than quantitatively different ones.     

Components of attentional bias to threat in high trait anxiety: Facilitated engagement, impaired disengagement, and attentional avoidance

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating enhanced attention to threat in high trait anxious individuals (HTA) compared with low trait anxious individuals (LTA). In two experiments, we investigated whether this attentional bias is related to facilitated attentional engagement to threat or difficulties disengaging attention from threat. HTA and LTA undergraduates performed a modified exogenous cueing task, in which the location of a target was correctly or incorrectly cued by neutral, highly and mildly threatening pictures. Results indicate that at 100 ms picture presentation, HTA individuals more strongly engaged their attention with and showed impaired disengagement from highly threatening pictures than LTA individuals. In addition, HTA individuals showed a stronger tendency to attentional avoidance of threat at the 200 and 500 ms picture presentation. These data provide evidence for differential patterns of anxiety-related biases in attentive processing of threat at early versus later stages of information processing.