Viewers prefer predictive cues

Devaluation-by-inhibition hypothesis demonstrated that previously ignored items are judged more negatively than previously attended and novel items. Based on this view, the present study investigated the evaluation of preceding stimuli that presumably elicit attentional processes to task-relevant stimuli. Accordingly, we employed a Posner-type cueing task followed by evaluation of the preceding cues indicating left and right directions. The important manipulation is predictability of two different preceding cues which predict the target location with high or with low probability. In Experiment 1 with two different arrows, a low predictive arrow was judged more negatively than a high predictive cue. Experiment 2 using gaze cues of two persons instead of two different arrows supported the findings of Experiment 1. These findings are consistent with devaluation-by-inhibition, suggesting that cue items triggering attention to the target are devaluated when they have less predictability.     

Using equivalence‐based instruction to teach the visual analysis of graphs

Previous research has demonstrated low rater agreement when visually inspecting trends in single‐subject design graphs (see Wolfe, Seaman, & Drasgow, 2016). Didactic instruction of visual analysis of practicing behavior analysts has resulted in generally poor and unreliable performances (Danov & Symons, 2008; Diller, Barry, & Gelino, 2016). Therefore, a refined instructional technology to improve the reliability among behavior analysts is warranted. Developing research has focused on the application of equivalence‐based instruction (Brodsky & Fienup, 2018; Rehfeldt, 2011) for a variety of complex human behaviors. In the current study, equivalence‐based instruction was used to train four participants to identify functional relations displayed in five different classes of graphs. Training resulted in the formation of five equivalence classes by all participants consisting of three members (graph, functional relation rule, and functional relation statement). In addition, the skills were maintained for up to 2 weeks and generalized to novel graphs.     

Divided attention enhances explicit but not implicit conceptual memory: an item-specific account of the attentional boost effect

The Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) refers to the counterintuitive finding that words encoded with to-be-responded targets in a divided-attention condition are remembered better than words encoded with distractors. Previous studies suggested that the ABE-related enhancement of verbal memory depends upon the activation of abstract lexical representations. In the present study, we extend this hypothesis by embedding it in the context of a broader perspective, which proposes that divided attention in the ABE paradigm affects item-specific, but not relational, processing. To this purpose, we examined the ABE in the matched tasks of category-cued recall (CCRT: explicit memory) and category exemplar generation (CEGT: implicit memory). In addition, study time was varied (500, 1500 or 4000?ms), to further determine whether the attentional boost manipulation could influence late-phase elaborative processing. In agreement with the predictions of the item-specific account, the results showed that exemplars encoded with targets were recalled better than exemplars encoded with distractors in the CCRT, but not in the CEGT. Moreover, performance in the CCRT increased with study time, whereas the size of the ABE-related enhancement tended to decrease, further confirming that this effect hinges upon early phase encoding processes.     

Lexical processing while deciding what task to perform: reading aloud in the context of the task set paradigm

The results of two experiments provide the first direct demonstration that subjects can process a word lexically despite concurrently being engaged in decoding a task cue telling them which of two tasks to perform. These results, taken together with others, point to qualitative differences between the mind‘s ability to engage in lexical versus sublexical processing during the time they are engaged with other tasks. The emerging picture is one in which some form of resource(s) plays little role during lexical processing whereas the need for some form of resource(s) during sublexical processing serves to bottleneck performance.     

社会认知中的样例激活效应与内-外群体效应

采用信号检测论技术,以人格词单记忆为实验任务,探讨社会认知过程中样例激活效应与内-外群体效应对记忆过程的干扰作用.实验结果表明,(1)样例激活与群体范畴的交互效应对社会信息加工过程存在显著干扰作用.(2)与外群体相比,内群体的信息加工更不易受到干扰;与积极样例特质相比,消极他相关样例特质的信息加工更不易受到干扰.(3)在加工内群体成员信息而激活的是反面样例时,被试的判断标准最严.     

简单结构刺激非规则特征突显条件下的样例效应

用变化了的Allen和Brooks的实验范式,采用2(学习轮次:5轮、10轮)×2(项目类型:旧项目、新项目)×2(项目匹配性质:正向匹配、反向匹配)混合实验设计,研究对4个特征刺激分类时非规则特征突显条件下的样例效应。结果发现,无论是错误率还是反应时都取得了明显的样例效应,但是学习时间的影响不明显。     

来源记忆提取的情境线索效应

探索当存在多维来源信息时,对一个维度的来源信息的再现是否会促进对另一个维度的来源记忆的提取,即出现情境线索效应。以汉字词语作为项目刺激,以背景颜色作为情境线索,通过两个实验分别考察对呈现位置和背景形状的提取是否会出现情境线索效应。结果发现：只在对背景形状的提取中出现了情境线索效应,并且线索负载越高,效应越小。该结果表明对来源记忆提取时,来源信息间的高可结合性是引发情境线索效应的重要因素。     

Exemplarity Between Tradition and Critique

Moral exemplarism, which insists on the centrality of particular embodiments of exemplary virtue to the moral life, is currently receiving significant attention within moral philosophy as well as theological and religious ethics. This introductory essay situates the contributions made by this focus issue on moral exemplarity in relation to the history of attention to moral exemplars, the twentieth‐century turn to virtue, philosopher Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory, Stanley Hauerwas’s particularist embrace of Christian discipleship, Foucauldian turns to critique and self‐cultivation, and the significance of exemplars in Jeffrey Stout’s democratic piety. Arguing for the critical importance of articulating the authority of exemplars, this essay points to the ways in which the present focus can assist us to navigate between the shoals of nostalgic deference to tradition and dismissive critiques of authoritarianism.     

Sub-threshold cuing: Saccadic responses to low-contrast,peripheral, transient visual landmark cues

Dorsal stream visual encoding was studied in three experiments, by examining effects of peripheral landmark cues on eye movements. Stimulus features and task structure were tailored to physiological and functional characterisations of the dorsal visual stream. Sub-discriminable peripheral stimuli served as landmark cue stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, orienting behaviour in response to cues and targets differed for participants with relatively low and relatively high peripheral contrast thresholds. In Experiment 1, low, but not high-threshold participants oriented towards landmark cues that could not be discriminated consciously. However, in Experiment 3, high-, but not low-threshold participants oriented towards near threshold cues. Hence, under appropriate conditions both groups of participants oriented in response to brief, low-contrast, peripheral information. We propose that landmark cueing may provide a useful tool for measuring individual differences in dorsal stream processing and dynamic aspects of visual functioning and awareness.