Commentary on Corradi et al.’s (2019) new conception of aesthetic sensitivity: Is the ability conception dead?

Corradi et al. (British Journal of Psychology, 2019) argue that their new conception of visual aesthetic sensitivity (as responsiveness to aesthetic features in one’s preferences) presents several advantages in comparison with the current ability view of aesthetic sensitivity, usually defined as the ability to judge aesthetic stimuli in accordance with standards (The Journal of Psychology, 1964, 57 and 49). Although the measure they propose is interesting and presents advances to the field, we point to important issues. Notably, the authors conveniently base their comparison between the two conceptions on psychometric double standards, discard a century of research on aesthetic sensitivity by focusing on Eysenck’s speculations, and disguise an extension of already existing aesthetic preference tests (e.g., The Journal of Psychology, 1952, 33 and 199; Empirical Studies of the Arts, 2005, 23 and 165) as a redefinition of aesthetic sensitivity. We conclude that both aesthetic preference and aesthetic sensitivity research are legitimate objects of study, that the authors present interesting ideas to further the study of aesthetic preferences, but that their approach is not new and that its proposed renaming only adds confusion to the field.     

Regression II. Development through regression

As shown in our previous paper (‘Regression I. Experimental approaches to regression’, JAP, 65, 2, 345-65), the common mechanism of regression can be described as reversible dedifferentiation, which is understood as a relative increase of the proportion of low-differentiated (older) systems in actualized experience. Experimental data show that regression following disease (chronic tension headache) is followed by adaptation and an increase in system differentiation in that experience domain which contains systems responsible for that adaptation. The results of mathematical modelling support the idea that reversible dedifferentiation can be one of the mechanisms for increasing the effectiveness of adaptation through learning. Reversible dedifferentiation, which is phenomenologically described as regression, is a general mechanism for restructuring the organism-environment interactions in situations where behaviours that were effective in the past become ineffective. Reversible dedifferentiation has evolved as a component of adaptation when new behaviours are formed and large-scale modifications in the existing behaviours are required in the face of changes in the external and/or internal environment. Thus, the authors believe that this article provides evidence for Jung’s view that regression is not only a ‘return’ to past forms of thinking, affects and behaviour, but that regressive processes provide a significant impetus for psychological growth and development.     

The (Dis)Pleasures of Creativity: Spontaneous Eye Blink Rate during Divergent and Convergent Thinking Depends on Individual Differences in Positive and Negative Affect

Previous research has demonstrated that individual differences in affect and motivation predict divergent and convergent thinking performance, two thinking processes involved in creative idea generation. Individual differences in affect and motivation also predict spontaneous eye blink rate (sEBR) during divergent and convergent thinking; and sEBR predicts divergent and convergent thinking performance. This study investigates experimentally whether the relationship between sEBR and divergent and convergent thinking depends on individual differences in affect and motivation. Eighty-two participants completed the Emotion/motivation-related Divergent and Convergent thinking styles Scale (EDICOS; G. Soroa et al., 2015), performed the alternative uses task (AUT; divergent thinking) or the remote associates task (RAT; convergent thinking), while their sEBR was captured with an eye-tracker. The results showed that individual differences in positive affect positively correlated with sEBR for the AUT, whereas individual differences in negative affect positively correlated with sEBR for the RAT. Furthermore, the interaction between individual differences in positive and negative affect and sEBR predicted divergent and convergent thinking performance. The contribution of our study is therefore that individual differences in positive and negative affect can both positively correlate with sEBR during divergent and convergent thinking; and that this predicts divergent and convergent thinking performance.     

Recognizing images: The role of motivational significance,complexity, social content,age, and gender

Memory for affective events plays an important role in determining people’s behavior and well-being. Its determinants are far from being completely understood. We investigated how recognition memory for affective pictures depends on pictures’ motivational significance (valence and arousal), complexity (figure-ground compositions vs. scenes), and social content (pictures with people vs. without people) and on observers’ age and gender. Younger, middle-aged, and older adults viewed 84 pictures depicting real-life situations. After a break, the participants viewed 72 pictures, half of which had been viewed previously and half of which were novel, and were asked to endorse whether each picture was novel or had been presented previously. Hits, false alarms, and overall performance (discrimination accuracy) were our dependent variables. The main findings were that, across participants, recognition memory was better for unpleasant than pleasant pictures and for pictures depicting people than pictures without people. Low-arousal pictures were more accurately recognized than high-arousal pictures, and this effect was significantly larger among middle-aged and older adults than younger adults. Recognition memory worsened across adulthood, and this decline was steeper among men than women. Middle-aged and older women outperformed their male counterparts. This study suggests that how well we are able to successfully discriminate previously seen pictorial stimuli from novel stimuli depends on several pictures’ properties related to their motivational significance and content, and on observer’s age and gender.     

Spontaneous goal versus spontaneous trait inferences: How ideology shapes attributions and explanations

Past research documented liberals’ greater tendency than conservatives to take situational determinants of others’ actions into account when forming causal attributions, and conservatives’ greater tendency to seek consistency. We hypothesize that liberals (vs. conservatives) should be more likely to make spontaneous goal inferences (SGIs). Conservatives, however, should tend to implicitly infer invariant rather than variant characteristics from others’ behaviors, drawing spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) rather than SGIs. Experiment 1 and 2 supported those hypotheses by illustrating differences in the type of implicit inferences formed by liberals and conservatives in a false recognition paradigm common to the STI literature. Experiment 3 revealed similar differences in conservatives’ and liberals’ goal and trait inferences when making open-ended causal explanations for others’ actions.     

If you want to be one of us,then become like us: The evaluation of naturalization applicants by host nationals

Immigrant naturalization is a rite of passage, making assimilationist attitudes particularly pronounced among host nationals. Three experimental studies investigate whether heritage culture maintenance violates expectations that citizenship should be deserved by proving strong attachment to the host nation (i.e., neoliberal communitarianism). Study 1 (N = 293) demonstrates that naturalization applicants’ high degree of heritage culture maintenance impairs application evaluations. Perceived attachment to the host nation and citizenship deservingness mediated this effect. Study 2 (N = 220) replicates results across two national contexts and reveals that heritage culture maintenance impairs evaluations only among naturalization applicants from devalued countries. Study 3 (N = 117) manipulates attachment to the host nation and shows that perceived citizenship deservingness mediates the negative effects of naturalization applicants' low attachment to the host nation on application evaluations. Overall, assimilationist attitudes among host nationals are best explained by the combination of neoliberal and communitarian criteria of evaluation.     

EARSHOT: A Minimal Neural Network Model of Incremental Human Speech Recognition

Despite the lack of invariance problem (the many-to-many mapping between acoustics and percepts), human listeners experience phonetic constancy and typically perceive what a speaker intends. Most models of human speech recognition (HSR) have side-stepped this problem, working with abstract, idealized inputs and deferring the challenge of working with real speech. In contrast, carefully engineered deep learning networks allow robust, real-world automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, the complexities of deep learning architectures and training regimens make it difficult to use them to provide direct insights into mechanisms that may support HSR. In this brief article, we report preliminary results from a two-layer network that borrows one element from ASR, long short-term memory nodes, which provide dynamic memory for a range of temporal spans. This allows the model to learn to map real speech from multiple talkers to semantic targets with high accuracy, with human-like timecourse of lexical access and phonological competition. Internal representations emerge that resemble phonetically organized responses in human superior temporal gyrus, suggesting that the model develops a distributed phonological code despite no explicit training on phonetic or phonemic targets. The ability to work with real speech is a major advance for cognitive models of HSR.     

Individual differences in visual acuity and face matching ability

The visual acuity of the eyes varies outside the range of normal vision, requiring corrective lenses, but also within the normal range. This study investigated whether both types of variation relate to individual differences in face-identity matching, considering this applied task requires perception of detail. Across two experiments, face-matching accuracy correlated with variation in acuity when this fell outside the normal range of vision and was uncorrected with glasses or contact lenses. In contrast, variation in visual acuity within the normal range did not affect face-matching accuracy, whereas matching accuracy at a given level of acuity could vary substantially. These results indicate that visual acuity is only a problem for occupations performing face-identity matching when below-normal acuity is not diagnosed or adequately corrected. In turn, these findings suggest that variation in acuity within the normal range is not a contributing factor to individual differences in face matching accuracy.     

Image-size disparity reduces difference detection in face matching

Face matching is the act of deciding whether two facial images depict the same person or different people. The real-world face-matching task of checking photo IDs typically occurs under conditions of image-size disparity: A small picture is compared with a life-size face. We examined the effect of image-size disparity on face-matching accuracy. In three experiments, subjects were presented with pairs of equivalently or disparately sized images that depicted the same person or different people. Subjects made same/different judgments and, in two experiments, also reported confidence. Difference detection was significantly poorer given disparate (versus equivalent) image size. Confidence was significantly higher when responses were correct versus incorrect. These findings held whether viewing and decision time was unlimited or limited. Our results raise the practical concern that image-size disparity may undermine difference detection in ID checking, while also indicating that people have some insight into the accuracy of their face-matching judgments.     

How representations of number and numeracy predict decision paradoxes: A fuzzy-trace theory approach

Higher numeracy has been associated with decision biases in some numerical judgment-and-decision problems. According to fuzzy-trace theory, understanding such paradoxes involves broadening the concept of numeracy to include processing the gist of numbers—their categorical and ordinal relations—in addition to objective (verbatim) knowledge about numbers. We assess multiple representations of gist, as well as numeracy, and use them to better understand and predict systematic paradoxes in judgment and decision-making. In two samples (Ns = 978 and 957), we assessed categorical (some vs. none) and ordinal gist representations of numbers (higher vs. lower, as in relative magnitude judgment, estimation, approximation, and simple ratio comparison), objective numeracy, and a nonverbal, nonnumeric measure of fluid intelligence in predicting: (a) decision preferences exhibiting the Allais paradox and (b) attractiveness ratings of bets with and without a small loss in which the loss bet is rated higher than the objectively superior no-loss bet. Categorical and ordinal gist tasks predicted unique variance in paradoxical decisions and judgments, beyond objective numeracy and intelligence. Whereas objective numeracy predicted choosing or rating according to literal numerical superiority, appreciating the categorical and ordinal gist of numbers was pivotal in predicting paradoxes. These results bring important paradoxes under the same explanatory umbrella, which assumes three types of representations of numbers—categorical gist, ordinal gist, and objective (verbatim)—that vary in their strength across individuals.