Within-subject covariation between depression- and anxiety-related affect

Studies find a strong positive relationship between the affective components of anxiety and depression. However, most research thus far has examined the between-person correlations among these constructs, while ignoring how changes in these two types of affect covary over time within a person. Within-person correlations could differ meaningfully from how anxiety- and depression-related affect relate across individuals. Further, individuals may differ in terms of how highly these constructs covary over time. The current study aimed to (1) compare between- and within-person correlations between anxious and depressive affect, (2) examine lagged effects between anxious and depressive affect over time, (3) test whether individuals differ in their within-person correlations between these two types of affect, and (4) examine whether the mean level of affective intensity moderated these individual differences. These questions were explored using college undergraduates (N?=?50) who rated their depression- and anxiety- related affect six times a day for two weeks. A higher average correlation was observed between anxious and depressive affect in between-person compared to within-person analyses. Significant bidirectional lagged effects were observed between these constructs. Individuals with higher average levels of anxious affect experienced stronger within-person correlations between anxious and depressive affect.     

Reinforcement,Rationality, and Intentions: How Robust Is Automatic Reinforcement Learning in Economic Decision Making?

Reinforcement learning is often observed in economic decision making and may lead to detrimental decisions. Because of its automaticity, it is difficult to avoid. In three experimental studies, we investigated whether this process could be controlled by goal intentions and implementation intentions. Participants' decisions were investigated in a probability‐updating task in which the normative rule to maximize expected payoff (Bayes' rule) conflicted with the reinforcement heuristic as a simple decision rule. Some participants were asked to set goal intentions designated to foster the optimization of rational decision making, while other participants were asked to furnish these goal intentions with implementation intentions. Results showed that controlling automatic processes of reinforcement learning is possible by means of goal intentions or implementation intentions that focus decision makers on the analysis of decision feedback. Importantly, such beneficial effects were not achieved by simply instructing participants to analyze the feedback, without defining a goal as the desired end state from a first‐person perspective. Regarding intentions supposed to shut down reinforcement processes by controlling negative affect, effects were more complex and depended on the specified goal‐directed behavior. The goal intention to suppress the disappointment elicited by negative feedback was not effective in controlling reinforcement processes. Furnishing this goal with an implementation intention even backfired and strengthened unwanted reinforcement processes. In contrast, asking participants to keep cool in response to negative decision outcomes through the use of goal intentions or implementation intentions increased decisions in line with Bayes' rule. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Cognitive Underpinnings of Continuous Identity: Higher Episodic Memory Recall and Lower Heuristic Usage Predicts Highest Levels of Self-Continuity

Continuous identity (CI) is a sense of persistent identity wherein the present self is seen as overlapping with the past and future selves. This study addressed the hypothesis that judgments of CI require successful retrieval of information by examining the relationship between varying levels of CI and two forms of memory recall. The pattern of findings indicated that high levels of cued memory recall combined with low levels of heuristic usage were associated with higher levels of CI, and this occurred for both past-to-present CI and present-to-future CI. We propose that to achieve high levels of CI, individuals need to access and analyze a fund of stored autobiographical information.     

内隐人格理论对他人印象加工策略的影响

从表征状态与他人知觉信息加工方式两个角度探讨了内隐人格理论对他人印象加工策略的影响。首先采用自编的童话情境测验对120名被试的内隐人格理论进行维度分析, 甄选出持不同内隐人格理论的被试(实体论42人、渐变论48人)。随后使用错觉关联效应的实验范式, 要求两类被试(持不同内隐人格理论及其指向性情境)对他人行为信息进行判断, 记录自由回忆和频率估计的差异值。结果发现：持不同内隐人格理论的个体在知觉他人时采用不同的信息加工方式。实体论者通常采用启发式加工, 渐变论者通常采用分析式加工。实体论者在进行启发式加工时, 通过对他人行为信息的即时性判断形成他人印象; 渐变论者在进行分析式加工时, 对他人行为信息进行记忆性判断, 最终依赖情境信息形成他人印象。     

框架效应发生机制的辨优启发加工

以亚洲疾病问题为代表的框架效应是描述性决策理论违背规范性理论的经典＂异像＂,而辨优启发式是行为决策理论的一大新进展。该研究探讨了辨优启发式对框架效应的解释过程。以经营风险决策为情境,以有管理经验的被试为样本,实验结果发现选择理由越少的情景其反应时越短、相应的优势项的选择比例也越高,这一结果有效地支持了辨优启发作为过程模型的次序规则、停规则和裁决规则存在的客观依据,也间接证实了辨优启发式对框架效应的解释力。     

Ideology is related to basic cognitive processes involved in attitude formation

Ideological orientation shapes the perception of the social world and conservatism is associated to an increased weighting of negative over positive information. In the present work we explored how this ideology-based difference is also related to basic cognitive processes involved in attitude formation. In particular, we hypothesized that conservatives, as compared to liberals, would show stronger illusory correlation effects when negative information is relatively infrequent. In Study 1 we employed the typical illusory correlation paradigm (Hamilton & Gifford, 1976) and results confirmed the hypothesis: conservatives developed more negative impressions toward the minority group and showed consistent memory biases. In Study 2, positive information represented the infrequent dimension and in this case no ideology-based difference was observed. Overall, findings indicate that when exposed to numerically different novel groups and negative behaviors are infrequent, illusory correlation effects are accentuated among individuals embracing conservative rather than liberal views of the world. This result may help to understand why conservatives tend to form more negative attitudes toward social minorities.     

Differential prefrontal–temporal neural correlates of semantic processing in children

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain–behavior correlations in a group of 16 children (9- to 12-year-olds). Activation was measured during a semantic judgment task presented in either the visual or auditory modality that required the individual to determine whether a final word was related in meaning to one of two previous words (e.g., found–tank–lost). The main finding was that higher performers (i.e., accuracy) were associated with more activation in posterior representational systems including the inferior and middle temporal gyri, whereas lower performers were associated with more activation in anterior regions including the inferior and middle frontal gyri. This pattern of results was interpreted as reflecting an elaborated semantic representational system in temporal areas for the high accuracy performers that allowed them to efficiently and accurately make meaning based judgments. The low accuracy performers may have an inaccurate or weakly interconnected semantic system that results in greater use of frontal areas in a feature selection process.     

Particularism and the Point of Moral Principles

According to radical moral particularists such as Jonathan Dancy, there are no substantive moral principles. And yet, few particularists wish to deny that something very like moral principles do indeed play a significant role in our everyday moral practice. Loathe at dismissing this as mere error on the part of everyday moral agents, particularists have proposed a number of alternative accounts of the practice. The aim of all of these accounts is to make sense of our appeal to general moral truths in both reaching and justifying our particular moral judgments without thereby violating the particularists' stricture against substantive moral principles. In this paper, I argue that the most prominent non-substantive accounts of moral generalities appealed to by radical particularists – the heuristic account and default reasons accounts – fail in this aim.     

启发信息对个体顿悟问题解决影响的眼动研究

本研究以火柴棒算式问题为实验材料,采用2(问题类型:问题A、问题B)×2(启发类型:有、无)×2(认知风格:场独立型、场依存型)×5(兴趣区:第一个加数、加号、第二个加数、等号和结果)实验设计,考察顿悟问题解决时个体的眼动差异。结果发现:相对于场依存型个体,场独立型个体能够更有效地利用启发信息来减小表征变换时的心理加工负荷,进而提高加工效率;启发信息促进问题解决者对问题的表征从数值表征转变到符号表征,从而成功地产生了顿悟。     

Complexity matching and coordination in individual and dyadic performance

Complexity matching is a measure of coordination based on information exchange between complex networks. To date, studies have focused mainly on interpersonal coordination, but complexity matching may generalize to interacting networks within individuals. The present study examined complexity matching in a double, coordinated Fitts' perceptual-motor task with comparable individual and dyadic conditions. Participants alternated touching targets with their left and right hands in the individual condition, or analogously with the left hand of one partner and the right hand of another in the dyadic condition. In Experiment 1, response coupling was manipulated by making targets drift either randomly or contingently based on prior responses. Here, drift refers to the variability in the target movements between response locations. Long-range correlations in time series of inter-response intervals exhibited complexity matching between the left and right hands of dyads and individuals. Response coupling was necessary for complexity matching in dyads but not individuals. When response coupling was absent in the dyadic condition, the degree of complexity matching was significantly reduced. Experiment 2 showed that the effect of coupling was due to interactions between left and right responses. Results also showed a weak, negative relationship between complexity matching and performance as measured by total response time. In conclusion, principles and measures of complexity matching apply similarly within and between individuals, and perceptual-motor performance can be facilitated by loose response coupling.