The advantage of mentally rotating clockwise

The time taken to decide whether a character is shown in its mirror or normal version has been shown to increase approximately linearly with the angular departure from an up-right position. Additionally, in some studies, decisions took longer for clockwise tilted characters than for counterclockwise tilted ones. Other studies do not report the latter effect. We argue that inconsistencies across studies are caused by variance in participants' strategies. The task employed here was specifically designed to bring these strategies and thereby the direction of rotation under experimental control. From the EEG recorded during the rotation period, we extracted an event-related slow potential whose amplitude is sensitive to the amount of mental rotation. In both strategy conditions, the slow potential's amplitude was lower for clockwise than for counterclockwise rotations. We take this as evidence that mental rotation of alphanumeric characters is easier in a clockwise than in a counterclockwise direction.     

Development of postural stability limits: Anteroposterior and mediolateral postural adjustment mechanisms do not follow the same maturation process

There is increasing evidence that indicates a critical transition period for the maturation of postural control from the ages of 6–7 years. Some studies suggest that this transitional period may be explained by a change from a ballistic toward a sensory strategy, but the cause remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the transition period on dynamic postural control in a natural self-initiated leaning task under different sensory conditions. We evaluated the center of pressure (COP) displacement during maximum leaning in four directions (forward, backward, rightward, leftward) under three sensory conditions (eyes open, eyes closed and eyes closed standing on a foam). Three groups were tested: young children (4 years old), older children (8–10 years old) and adults (21–42 years old). The maximum COP excursion along the anteroposterior and mediolateral axes and the COP amplitude were analyzed. Young children showed smaller maximum anteroposterior and mediolateral COP excursion than other groups. Older children also exhibited a significantly smaller maximum excursion along the mediolateral direction but performed similar to adults along the anteroposterior direction. In a similar manner, the analysis of the COP amplitude did not indicate any differences between the groups along the anteroposterior axis. In contrast, along the mediolateral axis, the results showed developmental differences. Furthermore, the effect of sensory conditions was similar across the children's groups. Our results suggest an important plasticity period for the maturation of postural control mechanisms. Notably, our findings support the idea that the postural mechanisms controlling the anteroposterior axis reach maturity before the mechanisms involved in controlling the mediolateral axis.     

Binding communication and problematic request: Application in the field of road safety

IntroductionMost studies using the binding communication paradigm aim at obtaining requests whose nature remains essentially pro-social.ObjectiveThe objective of this research is to evaluate the importance of the target of the binding communication strategy (self-centred vs. focused on others) and its greater effectiveness compared to persuasive communication with respect to a counter-attitudinal issue — reducing the speed of riders of powered two-wheelers (PTW).MethodOne hundred and sixteen two-wheeler drivers are randomly placed in four experimental conditions: binding self-centred communication, binding communication focused on others, persuasive communication, and control condition.ResultsBinding self-centred communication allows for a greater increase in the behavioural intent of a problematic request compared to binding communication focused on others or persuasive communication.ConclusionThe research prospects proposed as a conclusion call for a broader reflection on the design and evaluation of prevention campaigns using the paradigm of binding communication.     

Speed of processing of the visual-orthographic and auditory-phonological systems in adult dyslexics: the contribution of "asynchrony" to word recognition deficits

This study investigated whether "asynchrony" in speed of processing (SOP) between the visual-orthographic and auditory-phonological modalities contributes to word recognition deficits among adult dyslexics. Male university students with a history of diagnosed dyslexia were compared to age-matched normal readers on a variety of experimental measures while event-related potentials and reaction time data were collected. Measures were designed to evaluate auditory and visual processing for non-linguistic (tones and shapes) and linguistic (phonemes and graphemes) low-level stimuli as well as higher-level orthographic and phonological processing (in a lexical decision task). Data indicated that adult dyslexic readers had significantly slower reaction times and longer P300 latencies than control readers in most of the experimental tasks and delayed P200 latencies for the lexical decision task. Moreover, adult dyslexics revealed a systematic SOP gap in P300 latency between the auditory/phonological and visual/orthographic processing measures. Our data support and extend previous work that found SOP asynchrony to be an underlying factor of childhood dyslexia. The present data suggests, however, that among adult dyslexics the between modalities asynchrony occurs at later processing stages than in children.     

Does surrounding traffic benefit from an assisted driver with traffic light assistance system?

Traffic light assistance systems enable drivers more energy and time efficient driving behavior at signalized intersections. However, most vehicles will not be equipped with such systems in the next years. These unequipped vehicles’ drivers (UVDs) may benefit from assisted drivers, if they would adapt their behavior. This paper outlines how UVDs (N = 60) interpreted and reacted to a driver with traffic light assistance system. We used a multi-driver simulator with three drivers driving in a car-following scenario. The lead driver was not a participant, but a confederate who was followed by two UVDs. The confederate was apparently equipped either with or without a traffic light assistance system. The traffic light assistance system consisted of two functionalities: a Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory and a start-up assistance system with two different parametrizations. These functionalities aimed at preventing unnecessary changes in speed and reducing the start-up lost time after signal change. The results showed that UVDs benefited from the driving behavior of the confederate with traffic light assistance system. However, the assisted driving behavior was hardly understood and partly rated as aversive by the UVDs. We discuss how to enhance behavioral adaptation of UVDs. We also outline which negative consequences may result from encounters of driver with systems and UVDs. We assume that how UVDs react towards drivers with systems may be one factor contributing to a successful launch of such systems.     

Investigating the childhood development of working memory using sentences: New evidence for the growth of chunk capacity

Child development is accompanied by a robust increase in immediate memory. This may be due to either an increase in the number of items (chunks) that can be maintained in working memory or an increase in the size of those chunks. We tested these hypotheses by presenting younger and older children (7 and 12 years of age) and adults with different types of lists of auditory sentences: four short sentences, eight short sentences, four long sentences, and four random word lists, each read with a sentence-like intonation. Young children accessed (recalled words from) fewer clauses than did older children or adults, but no age differences were found in the proportion of words recalled from accessed clauses. We argue that the developmental increase in memory span was due to a growing number of chunks present in working memory with little role of chunk size.     

Working memory capacity — facets of a cognitive ability construct

Working memory capacity is differentiated theoretically along two dimensions: contents and functions. The resulting 3×3 matrix was operationalized by 23 tasks sampled from the literature. Data for these tasks from 128 participants were analyzed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Regarding the content facet, spatial working memory was clearly distinct from the other two content categories. A distinction between verbal and numerical working memory was not warranted. On the functional dimension the postulated categories of simultaneous storage and transformation and of coordination could not be separated. The third category was clearly separate from the first two functions. This factor could be interpreted to reflect a mixture of variance due to mental speed and to supervisory functions of the central executive.     

Drivers’ self-reported responses to a potentially realistic fabricated road sign message

This article seeks to understand the potential response of drivers when they encounter compromised Dynamic Message Signs (DMS). The findings are built on the self-reported response of 4,706 participants in a Stated Preference (SP) survey conducted between November 2018 and December 2018 in the United States. The findings show the response of drivers to the “Downtown Under Terrorist Attack” message falls into route divergence, speed change, and distraction, and the likelihood of route divergence, distraction, and a slowdown is significantly more than either stopping or speeding up. The possibility of a response, however, varies depending on socioeconomic characteristics, attitudinal characteristics, and driving behavior. It is highlighted (1) female and young drivers are more probable to detour, to change speed, or to be distracted, (2) drivers who are familiar with DMS, encounter it frequently, or pay attention to its content, have a higher chance of detouring or changing speed, while they are less likely to be distracted, and (3) technology-friendly drivers are likely to detour or slow down. From the distraction model, it is further inferred that drivers are distracted cognitively, visually, and manually. The findings have implications for researchers and federal, state, and local agencies who are aware of the consequences of cybersecurity threats for the operation and profitability of the transport network. They, for example, assist transport planners in prioritizing equipment security efforts and resource allocation to the areas of greatest risk, and help to prepare contingency plans based on drivers’ behavioral response.     

Psychological refractory period in introverts and extraverts

The present study was designed to explore extraversion-related differences in the psychological refractory period (PRP). PRP refers to a bottleneck of information processing that becomes evident when participants are required to respond to two signals (S1 and S2) presented in rapid succession. If this capacity limit of premotor information processing is essential for differences in speed of information processing between introverts and extraverts, magnitude of the PRP effect should vary as a function of extraversion. Due to the failure of previous attempts to establish extraversion-related differences in the PRP effect, we also obtained lateralized readiness potentials (LRPs). For this purpose, 63 introverted and 63 extraverted female participants were tested with a standard PRP design. Extraverts responded faster to S2 and exhibited shorter stimulus-locked LRP latencies compared to introverts. Although a general PRP effect could be shown at the behavioral and psychophysiological level, there was no indication for any extraversion-related differences in PRP. Thus, extraversion-related differences in speed of information processing at the premotor level appear unlikely to originate from individual differences in the capacity limits underlying the PRP phenomenon. Furthermore, our findings provide converging evidence for the notion that extraversion-related individual differences in processing speed depend on specific task demands.