Sleep deprivation and sustained attention performance: integrating mathematical and cognitive modeling

A long history of research has revealed many neurophysiological changes and concomitant behavioral impacts of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and circadian rhythms. Little research, however, has been conducted in the area of computational cognitive modeling to understand the information processing mechanisms through which neurobehavioral factors operate to produce degradations in human performance. Our approach to understanding this relationship is to link predictions of overall cognitive functioning, or alertness, from existing biomathematical models to information processing parameters in a cognitive architecture, leveraging the strengths from each to develop a more comprehensive explanation. The integration of these methodologies is used to account for changes in human performance on a sustained attention task across 88 h of total sleep deprivation. The integrated model captures changes due to time awake and circadian rhythms, and it also provides an account for underlying changes in the cognitive processes that give rise to those effects. The results show the potential for developing mechanistic accounts of how fatigue impacts cognition, and they illustrate the increased explanatory power that is possible by combining theoretical insights from multiple methodologies.     

Temporal distance and ease of retrieval

Construal Level Theory (CLT; Trope & Liberman, 2003) proposes that pro-arguments (pros) constitute high-level construals and counter-arguments (cons) low-level construals. Therefore, pros are more salient for distant-future actions than are cons and the reverse holds for near-future actions (Eyal, Liberman, Trope, & Walther, 2004). We further predicted and results from one experiment show that participants found it easier to generate pros if an action pertained to the distant rather than the near future. For cons the effect was reversed: participants found it more difficult to generate cons if the action pertained to the distant rather than the near future. Consequently, people were more in favor of the action if it pertained to the distant rather than the near future. Ease of retrieval mediated the effect of temporal distance on attitudes. The mutual relevance of the CLT framework and research on ease of retrieval is discussed.     

Explaining sex differences in infants' preferences for groups

Social organization of a species influences myriad facets of individuals’ behavior. Much research indicates that human social organization consists of males in large groups and females in smaller groups or interacting with individuals. This study analyzed the initial factors that produce greater preferences for groups by human male versus female infants. To this end, using a looking preference paradigm, fifty-nine 6–8-month-old infants viewed individual versus group images of actual children. On the basis of several controls, results demonstrated that male more than female infants are attracted to the complex level of stimulation provided by groups. Discussion centers on further identifying male versus female patterns of group interaction from a perceptual and cognitive standpoint.     

图片和汉字的激活水平及知觉干扰效应的比较

研究使用8个残缺水平下的图片及其中文名（汉字双字词）为实验材料．试图比较图片与汉字双字词识别激活水平的差异,接着比较二者产生知觉于扰效应的条件,并把二者产生知觉于扰的条件与英文单词产生知觉于扰的条件进行比较。实验一结果发现,在材料较清晰的条件下,汉字双字词的命名成绩高于图片,表明汉字双字词的激活水平不比图片低,但在材料很残缺的条件下,汉字双字词的命名成绩低于图片。实验二发现双字词和图片在没有事先学习情况下都产生知觉干扰效应,已有研究表明单个汉字无需事先学习也可以产生干扰效应,而英文单词需要事先学习。因此,图片和汉字的干扰效应与英文单词的差别跟图片、汉字的激活水平比英文单词高有关。     

Self-Reliance and Empathy: The Enemies of Poverty—and of the Poor

Starting with a brief review of why all post-industrial societies tend to be inegalitarian, this paper develops two main themes: (1) how the idea that people are individually responsible for their own fates reduces poverty but impedes redistribution, and (2) how both the loose ties of individuals to their societies and the selective nature of their empathy and pity for others reduces compassion for the poor, making redistribution unlikely. The first theme is elaborated through psychological research on dispositional versus circumstantial attributions, showing their effects on the widely shared belief in a just world and more generally on the prevailing theory of the justice of deserts. The attribution-affect-action model is used to show how dispositional attributes evoke either anger or pity for victims and, if anger, then unwillingness to help. The development of the second theme shows how people divorce their own fates from those of their nations, how the basic tendency to favor the familiar and similar limits support for redistribution, how converting concern regarding deprivations of the self to concern for (fraternal) deprivation of people like the self excludes those who most need help, how envy fails to lead to redistribution, and finally, how people's ideas of the privileged and the disadvantaged reflect market values and often mark the poor and the different as overprivileged.     

联想启动与知觉启动的比较研究

采用快速命名方法探讨不同加工水平对联想启动效应的影响。被试分别在深、浅加工条件下学习一系列颜色词,然后完成颜色命名和再认任务,并设立词命名任务,以比较联想启动和知觉启动的异同。结果表明,在颜色命名任务中,深、浅加工条件下均可形成对颜色词的启动效应,但浅加工条件下的再认成绩明显低于深加工,出现了联想启动和再认的分离现象。词命名表现出与颜色命名相似的结果,但它们在有意识回忆方面仍存在一定的差异,提示知觉表征系统单独并不能支持联想启动,联想启动可能是多个记忆系统共同作用的结果。     

干预不同个体记忆内容对负性刺激诱发的情绪水平影响*

探讨记忆在情绪发生和调节中的作用,通过干预个体对负性刺激的记忆内容,研究了积极干预、消极干预和不干预三组被试在接受负性刺激后产生的情绪水平差异,以及不同认知方式个体对诱发情绪的不同反应。结果表明,干预类型对负性刺激诱发的消极情绪产生了一定影响:积极干预组和不干预组在消极情绪后测上的得分显著低于消极干预组,积极干预组与不干预组的得分差异不显著。认知方式、性别及干预顺序对诱发情绪的影响不显著。结论:干预记忆内容可影响负性刺激诱发的消极情绪水平,接受积极干预比消极干预产生的消极情绪水平更低,因此对记忆内容的积极干预可有效降低产生的消极情绪水平。     

心理距离对风险决策框架效应的影响

解释水平理论是一种解释心理距离怎样影响个体的思维决策的社会认知理论。研究基于解释水平理论,探查了心理距离对风险决策框架效应的影响。实验从心理距离的四个维度入手,每个维度均采用2（解释水平高、低）×2（正框架、负框架）的被试间设计,用于检验解释水平是否调节框架对被试决策任务的选择。结果表明,当心理距离越远,解释水平越高时,被试产生明显的框架效应;而当心理距离越近,解释水平越低时,框架效应明显减弱。除了大概率情况下的框架效应削弱至不显著,其余维度的高、低解释水平下的框架效应均显著。     

Loneliness in Infancy: Harry Harlow, John Bowlby and Issues of Separation

In this contribution, the authors give an overview of the different studies on the effect of separation and deprivation that drew the attention of many in the 1940s and 1950s. Both Harlow and Bowlby were exposed to and influenced by these different studies on the so called ‘hospitalization’ effect. The work of Bakwin, Goldfarb, Spitz, and others is discussed and attention is drawn to films that were used to support new ideas on the effects of maternal deprivation.

Global identification,xenophobia and globalisation: A cross‐national exploration

This paper explores the ways in which globalisation influences social identity. Combining a psychological social‐identity framework with sociological considerations regarding the contextual impact of globalisation, it tests whether global identification—that is, people's identification as global citizens—constitutes an inclusive category, negatively linked to xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants across countries and whether the actual country level of globalisation moderates the relationship between global identification and xenophobia. Unlike most psychological studies of globalisation, it draws its data from 124 national samples across 86 countries, with 154,760 respondents overall, using three different cross‐national surveys. Study 1 (International Social Survey Program National Identity Module III 2013; N = 39,426, countries = 32) evinces that while global identification is in fact negatively linked to xenophobia, the correlation is moderated by the country level of globalisation, countries marked by higher levels of globalisation exhibiting a stronger negative relation between global identification and xenophobia than those characterised by a lower level of globalisation. Study 2 (European Values Study 2008; N = 53,083, countries = 44) and Study 3 (World Values Survey 6; N = 65,251, countries = 48) replicated these results across other countries employing dissimilar scales for global identification and xenophobia.