Examining the Preferred Self-Controlled KR Schedules of Learners and Peers During Motor Skill Learning

In many practical situations, learners are provided with feedback in the form of knowledge of results (KR) by a peer. However, when peers provide KR is currently unknown. When given the opportunity to request KR in a self-controlled manner, some participants have reported a preference for requesting KR after good performances. Alternatively, peers may provide KR in a different fashion. Subsequently, a discrepancy between the learner's desire to receive KR and when a peer provides KR may arise. In our study, peer- and self-controlled KR schedules were compared. Participants were peers who controlled KR (PC; 8), learners with peers (P-L; 8), or learners with self-control (SC; 8). Participants in the two learning groups (P-L and SC groups) completed a serial-timing task with a goal time of 2500 ms. Absolute error data on KR and no-KR trials along with self-reports indicate that participants with self-control preferred KR after good trials and peers preferred to provide KR after both good and bad trials equally. Results from the delayed retention test indicated that peer-controlled learners were more consistent (i.e., in terms of variable error) than the self-control group.     

Intelligence indexes generalist genes for cognitive abilities

Twin research has supported the concept of intelligence (general cognitive ability, g) by showing that genetic correlations between diverse tests of verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities are greater than 0.50. That is, most of the genes that affect cognitive abilities are highly pleiotropic in the sense that genes that affect one cognitive ability affect all cognitive abilities. The impact of this finding may have been blunted because it depends on the validity of the twin method. Although the assumptions of the twin method have survived indirect tests, it is now possible to test findings from the twin method directly using DNA alone in samples of unrelated individuals, without the assumptions of the twin method. We applied this DNA method, implemented in a software package called Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis (GCTA), to estimate genetic variance and covariance for two verbal tests and two nonverbal tests using 1.7 million DNA markers genotyped on 2500 unrelated children at age 12; 1900 children also had cognitive data and DNA at age 7. Because each of these individuals is one member of a twin pair, we were able to compare GCTA estimates directly to twin study estimates using the same measures in the same sample. At age 12, GCTA confirmed the results of twin research in showing substantial genetic covariance between verbal and nonverbal composites. The GCTA genetic correlation at age 12 was 1.0 (SE = 0.32), not significantly different from the twin study estimate of 0.60 (SE = 0.09). At age 7, the genetic correlations were 0.31 (SE = 0.32) from GCTA and 0.71 (SE = 0.15).from twin analysis. The results from the larger sample and stronger measures at age 12 confirm the twin study results that the genetic architecture of intelligence is driven by pleiotropic effects on diverse cognitive abilities. However, the results at age 7 and the large standard errors of GCTA bivariate genetic correlations suggest the need for further research with larger samples.     

Mom told me scary things about this animal: Parents installing fear beliefs in their children via the verbal information pathway

This study investigated whether fear beliefs can be installed in children after parents had received negatively tinted information about a novel stimulus. Parents of children aged 8-13 years (N = 88) were presented with negative, positive, or ambiguous information about an unknown animal and then given a number of open-ended vignettes describing confrontations with the animal with the instruction to tell their children what would happen in these situations. Results indicated that children's fear beliefs were influenced by the information that was provided to the parent. That is, parents who had received negative information provided more threatening narratives about the animal and hence installed higher levels of fear beliefs in their children than parents who had received positive information. In the case of ambiguous information, the transmission of fear was dependent on parents' trait anxiety levels. More precisely, high trait anxious parents told more negative stories about the unknown animal, which produced higher fear levels in children.     

The roles of private speech and inner speech in planning during middle childhood: Evidence from a dual task paradigm

Children often talk themselves through their activities, producing private speech that is internalized to form inner speech. This study assessed the effect of articulatory suppression (which suppresses private and inner speech) on Tower of London performance in 7- to 10-year-olds, relative to performance in a control condition with a nonverbal secondary task. Experiment 1 showed no effect of articulatory suppression on performance with the standard Tower of London procedure; we interpret this in terms of a lack of planning in our sample. Experiment 2 used a modified procedure in which participants were forced to plan ahead. Performance in the articulatory suppression condition was lower than that in the control condition, consistent with a role for self-directed (private and inner) speech in planning. On problems of intermediate difficulty, participants producing more private speech in the control condition showed greater susceptibility to interference from articulatory suppression than their peers, suggesting that articulatory suppression interfered with performance by blocking self-directed (private and inner) speech.     

The ecology of self-monitoring effects on memory of verbal productions: Does speaking to someone make a difference?

Experiments involving verbal self-monitoring show that memory for spoken words varies with types of sensory feedback: memory is better when words are spoken aloud than when they are lip-synched or covertly produced. Such effects can be explained by the Central Monitoring Theory (CMT) via a process that matches a forward model reflecting expected sensory effects of practiced forms and sensory information during speech. But CMT oversees factors of shared attention as achieved by speaker–listener gaze, and implies that sensory feedback may not affect the learning of unpracticed forms (non-words). These aspects of CMT were examined in two experiments of self-monitoring focusing on oro-sensory feedback. In Experiment 1 we show that varying feedback creates differential effects on memory for spoken words and that speaker–listener gaze alters these effects. Using non-words, Experiment 2 shows the absence of differential feedback effects. The results confirm CMT but suggest the need to refine the theory in terms of processes that mediate attention.     

Insight versus analysis: Evidence for diverse methods in problem solving

Since the Gestalt psychologists made the distinction approximately 100 years ago, psychologists have differentiated between solving problems through analysis versus insight. The present paper presents evidence to support the idea that, rather than conceptualising insight versus analysis as distinct modes of solving problems, it is more useful to conceive of insight and analysis as two approaches within a set of possible solving methods. In the present research, 60 participants solved insight problems while thinking aloud, which provided evidence concerning the processes underlying problem solution. Comparison with performance of a nonverbalisation control group (n = 35) indicated no negative effects of thinking aloud on insight in problem solving. The results supported the idea that various methods are utilised in solving insight problems. The “classic” impasse–restructuring–insight sequence occurred in only a small minority of solutions. A number of other solution methods were found, ranging from relatively direct applications of knowledge, to various heuristic methods, to restructuring arising from new information gleaned from a failed solution. It is concluded that there is not a sharp distinction between solving a problem through analysis versus insight, and implications of that conclusion are discussed.     

Flexibility of working memory encoding in a sentence–picture–sound verification task

Dual-process accounts of working memory have suggested distinct encoding processes for verbal and visual information in working memory, but encoding for nonspeech sounds (e.g., tones) is not well understood. This experiment modified the sentence–picture verification task to include nonspeech sounds with a complete factorial examination of all possible stimulus pairings. Participants studied simple stimuli–pictures, sentences, or sounds–and encoded the stimuli verbally, as visual images, or as auditory images. Participants then compared their encoded representations to verification stimuli–again pictures, sentences, or sounds–in a two-choice reaction time task. With some caveats, the encoding strategy appeared to be as important or more important than the external format of the initial stimulus in determining the speed of verification decisions. Findings suggested that: (1) auditory imagery may be distinct from verbal and visuospatial processing in working memory; (2) visual perception but not visual imagery may automatically activate concurrent verbal codes; and (3) the effects of hearing a sound may linger for some time despite recoding in working memory. We discuss the role of auditory imagery in dual-process theories of working memory.     

To do or not to do? A cognitive consistency model for drawing conclusions from conditional instructions and advice

This paper investigates a cognitive consistency model of the directionality of conditional instructions and advice that use probability expressions to express uncertainty about the antecedent p. The proposed model combines world knowledge (conveyed by causal direction) with linguistic information (conveyed by polarity and negation), and predicts whether the complex sentence antecedent has a positive or negative directionality, which in turn predicts whether a positive or negative conclusion q will be drawn. The first experiment uses Do q if p conditionals to show that given a consequent q participants complete antecedents p with a probability expression in line with expected sentence directionality. The second experiment uses If p then do q conditionals to show similar effects in a reverse direction. A third experiment uses If p then do q conditionals to show that participants draw conclusions predicted by the cognitive consistency model but not by a decision-theoretic approach to reasoning.     

Is Language Required to Represent Others’ Mental States? Evidence From Beliefs and Other Representations

An important part of our Theory of Mind—the ability to reason about other people's unobservable mental states—is the ability to attribute false beliefs to others. We investigated whether processing these false beliefs, as well as similar but nonmental representations, is reliant on language. Participants watched videos in which a protagonist hides a gift and either takes a photo of it or writes a text about its location before a second person inadvertently moves the present to a different location, thereby rendering the belief and either the photo or text false. At the same time, participants performed either a concurrent verbal interference task (rehearsing strings of digits) or a visual interference task (remembering a visual pattern). Results showed that performance on false belief trials did not decline under verbal interference relative to visual interference. We interpret these findings as further support for the view that language does not form an essential part of the process of reasoning online (“in the moment”) about false beliefs.     

I’m paid biweekly,just not by leprechauns: Evaluating valid-but-incorrect response rates to attention check items

Participant carelessness is a source of invalidity in psychological data (Huang, Liu, & Bowling, 2015), and many methods have been created to screen for this carelessness (Curran, 2016; Johnson, 2005). These include items that researchers presume thoughtful individuals will answer in a given way (e.g., disagreement with “I am paid biweekly by leprechauns”, Meade & Craig, 2012). This paper reports on two samples in which individuals spoke aloud a series of these questions, and found that (a) individuals do occasionally report valid justifications for presumed invalid responses, (b) there is relatively high variance in this behavior over different items, and (c) items developed for this specific purpose tend to work better than those drawn from other sources or created ad-hoc.