Counterintuitive effects of negative social feedback on attention

Which stimuli we pay attention to is strongly influenced by learning. Stimuli previously associated with reward outcomes, such as money and food, and stimuli previously associated with aversive outcomes, such as monetary loss and electric shock, automatically capture attention. Social reward (happy expressions) can bias attention towards associated stimuli, but the role of negative social feedback in biasing attentional selection remains unexplored. On the one hand, negative social feedback often serves to discourage particular behaviours. If attentional selection can be curbed much like any other behavioural preference, we might expect stimuli associated with negative social feedback to be more readily ignored. On the other hand, if negative social feedback influences attention in the same way that other aversive outcomes do, such feedback might ironically bias attention towards the stimuli it is intended to discourage selection of. In the present study, participants first completed a training phase in which colour targets were associated with negative social feedback. Then, in a subsequent test phase, these same colour stimuli served as task-irrelevant distractors during a visual search task. The results strongly support the latter interpretation in that stimuli previously associated with negative social feedback impaired search performance.     

The effect of induced sadness and moderate depression on attention networks

This study investigates how sadness and minor/moderate depression influences the three functions of attention: alerting, orienting, and executive control using the Attention Network Test. The aim of the study is to investigate whether minor-to-moderate depression is more similar to sadness or clinical depression with regard to attentional processing. It was predicted that both induced sadness and minor-to-moderate depression will influence executive control by narrowing spatial attention and in turn this will lead to less interference from the flanker items (i.e. less effects of congruency) due to a focused attentional state. No differences were predicted for alerting or orienting functions. The results from the two experiments, the first inducing sadness (Experiment 1) and the second measuring subclinical depression (Experiment 2), show that, as expected, participants who are sad or minor to moderately depressed showed less flanker interference compared to participants who were neither sad nor depressed. This study provides strong evidence, that irrespective of its aetiology, sadness and minor/moderate depression have similar effects on spatial attention.     

Heightened ruminative disposition is associated with impaired attentional disengagement from negative relative to positive information: support for the “impaired disengagement” hypothesis

Information processing accounts of rumination propose that impaired attentional disengagement from negative information may underpin heightened disposition to experience ruminative brooding in response to negative mood. The present study examined the relationship between individual differences in ruminative disposition and selective attention, using a paradigm capable of distinguishing between biases in the engagement and disengagement of attention. Results showed that higher dispositional ruminative brooding, as measured by both the brooding subscale of the RRS and an in-vivo assessment of ruminative disposition, was associated with greater relative impairment disengaging attention from negative compared to positive stimuli. These findings thus provide support for the “impaired disengagement” account of ruminative brooding.     

Working memory in social anxiety disorder: better manipulation of emotional versus neutral material in working memory

Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) engage in post-event processing, a form of perseverative thinking. Given that deficits in working memory might underlie perseverative thinking, we examined working memory in SAD with a particular focus on the effects of stimulus valence. SAD (n?=?31) and healthy control (n?=?20) participants either maintained (forward trials) or reversed (backward trials) in working memory the order of four emotional or four neutral pictures, and we examined sorting costs, which reflect the extent to which performance deteriorated on the backward trials compared to the forward trials. Emotionality of stimuli affected performance of the two groups differently. Whereas control participants exhibited higher sorting costs for emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli, SAD participants exhibited the opposite pattern. Greater attention to emotional stimuli in SAD might facilitate the processing of emotional (vs. neutral) stimuli in working memory.     

纯小数加工的心理机制:选择通达还是平行通达?

采用数字线索提示的目标觉察范式,以60名在校大学生与研究生为被试,设计3个实验探讨纯小数(整数部分是零的小数,例如0.2)的加工及其与空间表征的联系。实验1探讨纯小数作为线索时是否能引起空间注意的空间-数字反应编码联合效应(Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes,SNARC),结果发现,纯小数数量大小的加工可以引起空间注意的SNARC效应;实验2探讨纯小数的加工是否会同时激活小数点后对应的自然数,结果发现,对纯小数数量大小相同、小数点后对应的自然数是否有0(例如0.2和0.20,0.4和0.40)的加工能引起空间注意的转移;实验3比较纯小数的加工对纯小数本身及小数点后对应的自然数激活强度,结果发现,在纯小数数量大小判断和纯小数小数点后对应的自然数数量大小判断冲突的条件下,纯小数的加工未能引起注意的SNARC效应。该研究结果表明,在目标觉察范式中,纯小数的加工采取了平行通达的方式,引发了注意的SNARC效应,并且纯小数空间注意的转移受到纯小数本身以及对应的自然数的影响。     

视觉预期和注意指向对姿势和动作肌肉预期和补偿姿势调节的影响

采用经典落球试验研究范式,同步观察视觉预期和注意指向对腰部姿势肌肉和上肢运动肌肉预期和补偿姿势调节的影响,探索视觉预期和注意指向影响姿势控制的早期心理生理机制。24名青年志愿者(10名男性,14名女性)参与完成本实验,分别在有、无视觉预期以及注意指向"托盘稳定"或者"重心稳定"的实验条件下观察外部姿势干扰对腰部姿势肌肉(L5~S1腰部多裂肌)和上肢动作肌肉(肱二头肌)预期姿势调节(anticipatory postural adjustments,APAs)和补偿姿势调节(compensatory postural adjustments,CPAs)相关时间和强度参数的影响。APAs和CPAs的时间和强度参数通过获取被检肌肉s EMG信号并参照相关检测规范进行。结果显示:(1)视觉预期对多裂肌的APAs启动时间,对肱二头肌的APAs启动时间、APAs强度和CPAs强度有显著影响;(2)注意指向对多裂肌的CPAs启动时间和肱二头肌APAs启动时间有显著影响;(3)视觉预期和注意指向对肱二头肌的APAs启动时间和APAs强度有交互作用。研究认为,突发外部姿势干扰条件下姿势肌肉和动作肌肉的姿势调节策略具有一定的差异,视觉预期和注意指向仅对姿势肌肉的时间参数有影响,对动作肌肉APAs和CPAs时间和强度参数都产生调节作用,表明在中枢神经系统的姿势控制中,人体姿势策略的调节是通过对姿势肌肉和动作肌肉的双重控制来完成的,视觉预期效应和心理指向效应反映在对不同功能肌肉前馈控制和反馈控制相应参数的调节。     

Recollection and familiarity for words and faces: a study comparing Remember–Know judgements and the Process Dissociation Procedure

Measures of recollection and familiarity often differ depending on the paradigm utilised. Remember–Know (R–K) and Process Dissociation Procedure (PDP) methods have been commonly used but rarely compared within a single study. In the current experiments, R–K and PDP were compared by examining the effect of attention at study and time to respond at test on recollection and familiarity using the same experimental procedures for each paradigm. We also included faces in addition to words to test the generality of the findings often obtained using words. The results from the R–K paradigm revealed that recollection and familiarity were similarly affected by attention at study and time to respond at test. However, in the case of PDP, the measures of recollection and familiarity showed a different pattern of results. The effects observed for recollection were similar to those obtained with the R–K method, whereas familiarity was affected by time to respond but not by attention at study. These results are discussed in relation to the controlled-automatic processing distinction and the contribution of each paradigm to research on recognition memory.     

The influence of external stimulation in missing knowledge retrieval

We investigated the effects of sensory reduction on the retrieval of information during tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experiences. As conscious access results from severe competition in which external stimuli often have priority, we hypothesised that reducing external stimulation would allow individuals greater access to weakly activated inner knowledge. In Study 1, when participants experienced a TOT while answering a general knowledge question, they were given additional time to find the solution in a restricted (eyes closed?+?silence) or a non-restricted (eyes open?+?ambient noise) external stimulation environment. Results indicated that knowledge was more often retrieved when external stimulation was restricted than when not restricted. This result was replicated in a second study. Using an independent manipulation of the level of auditory and visual stimulation, Study 2 also indicated that the presence of visual stimulation was more disruptive for TOT resolution than the presence of auditory stimulation. Overall, the findings suggest that sensory restriction (especially of visual stimuli) facilitates the retrieval of weakly accessible knowledge through a greater processing of inner stimuli.     

Selective attention meets spontaneous recognition memory: Evidence for effects at retrieval

Previous research on the effects of Divided Attention on recognition memory have shown consistent impairments during encoding but more variable effects at retrieval. The present study explored whether effects of Selective Attention at retrieval and subsequent testing were parallel to those of Divided Attention. Participants studied a list of pictures and then had a recognition memory test that included both full attention and selective attention (the to be responded to object was overlaid atop a blue outlined object) trials. All participants then completed a second recognition memory test. The results of 2 experiments suggest that subsequent tests consistently show impacts of the status of the ignored stimulus, and that having an initial test changes performance on a later test. The results are discussed in relation to effect of attention on memory more generally as well as spontaneous recognition memory research.     

The relationship between joint attention and theory of mind in neurotypical adults

Joint attention (JA) is hypothesized to have a close relationship with developing theory of mind (ToM) capabilities. We tested the co-occurrence of ToM and JA in social interactions between adults with no reported history of psychiatric illness or neurodevelopmental disorders. Participants engaged in an experimental task that encouraged nonverbal communication, including JA, and also ToM activity. We adapted an in-lab variant of experience sampling methods (Bryant et al., 2013) to measure ToM during JA based on participants’ subjective reports of their thoughts while performing the task. This experiment successfully elicited instances of JA in 17/20 dyads. We compared participants’ thought contents during episodes of JA and non-JA. Our results suggest that, in adults, JA and ToM may occur independently.