Maximizing Tendency Predicts Delayed Marriage Among Japanese Adults

The present study examined whether maximizing tendency predicts Japanese adults' likelihood of getting married and their age at first marriage. Registered members of a survey company panel (n = 428) completed the Japanese version of the Relational Maximization Scale, which was used to assess maximizing tendency consisting of two factors. The first factor, “high standards,” was not related to either of the two variables under investigation. The second factor, “alternative search,” was positively related to age at first marriage but not to the likelihood of getting married. The results thus suggest that those who seek the best possible marriage partner tend to get married at a later age, but that they are as likely to get married as those who do not. The finding that maximizing tendency did not significantly predict the likelihood of marriage suggests that getting married remains a strong social norm in Japan.     

拖延刺激对注意偏向的影响及过程

研究是考察拖延个体对拖延相关信息的注意偏向及特点。实验1采用情绪Stroop范式,要求被试忽略刺激的语义,仅判断刺激的颜色。实验2采用修改后的点探测范式,以拖延词和中性词为线索,并操作线索和目标之间的时间间隔,被试的任务是判断目标刺激的位置。结果发现:高拖延的被试难以抵制拖延词的注意,在情绪Stroop任务中对拖延词的反应时间更长; 当拖延词和目标刺激的位置一致时,在短的线索—目标时间间隔(SOA)内,被试对目标刺激的反应时间更长,但当时间间隔长时,一致条件下的反应时更短。该研究表明,高拖延行为个体在有限的时间内难以抵制拖延信息的注意,对拖延刺激存在注意偏向。     

强迫症患者抑制困难与促进效应的实验研究

强迫症的发病是抑制困难还是促进效应, 或者是两者共同起作用的缘故, 是当前强迫症研究中急需解决的问题。因此, 本研究采用国际上较为新颖的抑制与促进范式, 探讨强迫症患者的抑制困难与促进效应, 并且进一步探寻了作为焦虑障碍一种的强迫症是否与其他焦虑障碍共同存在抑制与促进效应。结果发现: (1) 强迫症患者存在抑制困难与促进效应, 但是同正常个体组相比, 促进效应较为微弱, 而抑制困难作用则更为凸显; (2) 抑制困难是强迫症患者的特有的机制, 而不是与焦虑障碍患者的“共享物”。     

Close coupling between eye movements and serial attentional refreshing during multiple-identity tracking

Multiple-identity tracking (MIT) is a dynamic task in which observers track multiple moving objects of distinct identities and then report the location of each target object. The present study examined participant’ eye movements during MIT in order to investigate the relationship between eye movements and attentional performance during the task. The results showed that fixations were predominately directed to individual targets during tracking. When successfully landed on targets, the fixations dwelled for longer duration; otherwise, they were terminated quickly. As the attentional demands for processing the targets increased, fixations landed on the targets more frequently while fixations outside targets decreased both in number and duration. The attentionally more demanding targets were fixated more frequently than the attentionally less demanding ones. The most recently fixated target was tracked with higher performance, while the tracking accuracy for the more previously fixated targets gradually decreased. Taken together, the results indicate that fixations are tightly coupled with attention during MIT, switching serially from target to target for refreshing each object representation to facilitate the tracking of identities and locations of multiple targets.     

Dividing Attention Between Tasks: Testing Whether Explicit Payoff Functions Elicit Optimal Dual‐Task Performance

We test people's ability to optimize performance across two concurrent tasks. Participants performed a number entry task while controlling a randomly moving cursor with a joystick. Participants received explicit feedback on their performance on these tasks in the form of a single combined score. This payoff function was varied between conditions to change the value of one task relative to the other. We found that participants adapted their strategy for interleaving the two tasks, by varying how long they spent on one task before switching to the other, in order to achieve the near maximum payoff available in each condition. In a second experiment, we show that this behavior is learned quickly (within 2–3 min over several discrete trials) and remained stable for as long as the payoff function did not change. The results of this work show that people are adaptive and flexible in how they prioritize and allocate attention in a dual‐task setting. However, it also demonstrates some of the limits regarding people's ability to optimize payoff functions.     

The Ecological Validity of Delay Aversion and Response Inhibition as Measures of Impulsivity in AD/HD: A Supplement to the NIMH Multimodal Treatment Study of AD/HD

Impulsivity is a primary symptom of the combined type of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). The Stop Signal Paradigm is premised upon a primary deficit in inhibitory control in AD/HD, whereas the Delay Aversion Hypothesis, by contrast, conceptualizes impulsivity in AD/HD, not as an inability to inhibit a response, but rather as a choice to avoid delay. This study compared the ecological validity of the Stop Signal Task (SST) and Choice-Delay Task (C-DT) measure of delay aversion, with respect to their relative utility in discriminating AD/HD children from normal control participants, and their correlations with classroom observations and with ratings of impulsivity and other core AD/HD symptoms on the Conners and SNAP-IV checklists. The tasks exhibited modest discriminant validity when used individually and excellent discriminant validity when used in combination. The C-DT correlated with teacher ratings of impulsivity, hyperactivity, and conduct problems, and with observations of gross motor activity, physical aggression, and an AD/HD composite score. The SST correlated with the observations only. These results suggest that delay aversion is associated with a broad range of AD/HD characteristics whereas inhibitory failure seems to tap a more discrete dimension of executive control     

The Relationship between Performance in Near Match-to-Sample Tasks and Fluid Intelligence

Match-to-sample is a timed task in which a subject is presented with a visual stimulus (the probe) and must select a match to that stimulus (the target) from among an array of distractors. These tasks are frequently employed as tests of basic cognitive abilities and demonstrate consistent correlations with measures of intelligence. In the current study, a match-to-sample task was modified to produce near-match conditions (trials for which no exact match existed). Two factors were manipulated: type of discrepancy between the target and probe (additive or subtractive) and degree of discrepancy between target and probe (1 element or 2 elements). It was hypothesized that introducing near-match conditions would change the processing demands of the task, resulting in increased correlations between decision time and fluid intelligence. Degree and type of discrepancy affected decision times: participants required more time for 2 element discrepancies and additive type discrepancies. Contrary to expectations, increased decision time on a task did not correspond to higher correlations with fluid intelligence. For type, correlations were larger when participants needed to mentally subtract elements from the target in order to make it match the probe (mean r_additive = .399; mean r_subtractive = .451). For degree, correlations were larger for trials where the probe and target differed by one element (mean r = .470) than for trials where the probe and target differed by two elements (mean r = .380). These results seem to indicate that the relationship between the complexity of a task and general intelligence is not as straightforward as has been commonly believed.     

Task switching and shifting between stopping and going: Developmental change in between-trial control adjustments

This study set out to investigate developmental differences in the ability to switch between choice tasks and to shift between Go/NoGo and choice tasks. Three age groups (7-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and young adults) were asked to consider the shape or color of a bivalued target stimulus. The participants performed a switch task in which a cue signaled the task to be performed (i.e., respond to shape vs. respond to color) and a shift task in which a cue instructed them to make a choice reaction to the shape of the stimulus or to respond (Go) versus inhibit (NoGo) to the color of the stimulus. The ability to switch was examined by considering choice-choice switches versus choice-choice repeats. The ability to shift was examined by considering NoGo-to-choice shifts versus choice-choice repeats and NoGo-to-Go shifts versus Go-Go repeats. The results showed that responding on Go trials was delayed following response inhibition on a NoGo trial. This delay did not discriminate between age groups. Responding on choice trials was considerably slowed when following response inhibition on NoGo trials. This slowing decreased with advancing age. Finally, responses on switch trials were slower compared with repeat trials, and this slowing was disproportionately large in young children compared with the other two age groups. This pattern of findings was interpreted in terms of a generic mechanism involving between-trial control adjustments in the setting of response thresholds that are likely to be mediated by a complex neural network implicating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the presupplementary motor cortex.     

Word recognition in child second language learners: Evidence from cognates and false friends

We studied how Dutch children learned English as a second language (L2) in the classroom. Learners at different levels of L2 proficiency recognized words under different task conditions. Beginning learners in primary school (fifth and sixth grades) and more advanced learners in secondary school (seventh and ninth grades) made lexical decisions on words that are similar for English and Dutch in both meaning and form (“cognates”) or only in form (“false friends”). Cognates were processed faster than matched control words by all participant groups in an English lexical decision task (Experiment 1) but not in a Dutch lexical decision task (Experiment 2). An English lexical decision task that mixed cognates and false friends (Experiment 3) led to consistently longer reaction times for both item types relative to controls. Thus, children in the early stages of learning an L2 already activate word candidates in both of their languages (language-nonselective access) and respond differently to cognates in the presence or absence of false friends in the stimulus list.