Responding to negativity: How a risky tactic can serve a vigilant strategy

Regulatory focus theory distinguishes between two motivational systems—a promotion system concerned with nurturance and advancement and a prevention system concerned with security and safety [Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280-1300]. In signal detection terms, a preference for eager strategies within the promotion system has been equated with a “risky” bias, whereas a preference for vigilant strategies within the prevention system has been equated with a “conservative” bias. However, we propose that when prevention-focused individuals face negative input, they should be willing to incur false alarms to ensure that negative stimuli are correctly identified. Across six studies, we found for negative stimuli a reversal of the traditional finding that prevention participants show a conservative bias in information processing. In these studies, prevention participants consistently exhibited a risky bias when the input was negative. We suggest that this new tactic—a risky bias in response to negativity—best serves the prevention strategy of vigilance.     

An inexpensive infrared detector to verify the delivery of food pellets

The reproducibility of experimental outcomes depends on consistent control of independent variables. In food-maintained operant performance, it is of utmost importance that the quantity of food delivered is reliable. To that end, some commercial food pellet dispensers have add-on attachments to sense the delivery of pellets. Not all companies, however, offer such add-ons. Aside from availability, cost and temporary reduction in throughput may be a problem for smaller labs. The present paper outlines our recent development of a simple, inexpensive infrared device to detect and confirm the delivery of pellets. The in-line construction of the detector routes the falling pellet through a barrel so that it passes between an infrared emitter and receiver. The circuitry was designed to be compatible with all commercially available behavioral measurement systems, and so may be retrofit to any existing system. Our tests with the detector so far have shown that it is 100% accurate in detecting pellet delivery. The individual unit cost is approximately 25 dollars. The low cost and versatility of the device offer an easy method to ensure the integrity of food delivery in operant settings.     

From Cognitive Neuroscience to Geriatric Neuropsychology: What Do Current Conceptualizations of the Action Error Handling Process Mean for Older Adults?

The fields of cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology have contributed an extensive corpus of research to the study of error monitoring processes in younger adults; however, less is known about error handling in older adults. This paper highlights current conceptualizations of error detection and correction in healthy and impaired older adult populations. The literature suggests that some error handling processes require fewer processing resources than others and may be performed relatively automatically. Compared with young adults, older adults demonstrate a reduced ability to recognize errors, but exhibit similar rates of correction. Older adults diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease) show a reduced ability to detect and correct their action errors. Thus, neurodegenerative disease processes amplify the impairments in error identification associated with normal aging by disrupting both automatic and controlled error corrections. The clinical implications of our current knowledge are discussed, and directions for future neuropsychological research are offered.

Shifting goal posts: First and second order access

Snodgrass et al.’s (2009) commentary makes explicit one of the major problems in consciousness research; that there seem to be just as many definitions of basic terms are there are people in the field. Although Snodgrass et al.’s position appears at odds with the views expressed in Irvine (2009), many of their arguments are actually consistent with the proposed views, or else fail to engage with them as a consequence of the shifting goal posts of what basic terms mean.     

Using habituation in machine learning

Habituation, a decrement in response to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without ill effect, can be identified in almost all animals. It can also be used in machine learning to provide a variety of different applications, such as novelty detection, recency encoding, and temporal signal pre-processing. This paper examines how habituation can be mathematically modelled, and discusses how well these models fit the revised characteristics of habituation. It then demonstrates how the models can be combined with neural networks in order to realise the various applications. Finally, some simple experimental results are presented that demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods.     

Sound enhances detection of visual target during infancy: a study using illusory contours

In adults, a salient tone embedded in a sequence of nonsalient tones improves detection of a synchronously and briefly presented visual target in a rapid, visually distracting sequence. This phenomenon indicates that perception from one sensory modality can be influenced by another one even when the latter modality provides no information about the judged property itself. However, no study has revealed the age-related development of this kind of cross-modal enhancement. Here we tested the effect of concurrent and unique sounds on detection of illusory contours during infancy. We used a preferential looking technique to investigate whether audio-visual enhancement of the detection of illusory contours could be observed at 5, 6, and 7 months of age. A significant enhancement, induced by sound, of the preference for illusory contours was observed only in the 7-month-olds. These results suggest that audio-visual enhancement in visual target detection emerges at 7 months of age.     

Can intuition improve deception detection performance?

Two studies examined the role of processing style (intuitive vs. deliberative processing) in a deception detection task. In the first experiment, a thin slicing manipulation was used to demonstrate that intuitive processing can lead to more accurate judgments of deception when compared with traditional deliberative forms of processing. In the second experiment, participants who engaged in a secondary (concurrent) task performed more accurately in a deception detection task than participants who were asked to provide a verbal rationale for each decision and those in a control condition. Overall, the results converge to suggest that intuitive processing can significantly improve deception detection performance.     

A pox on the mind: Disjunction of attention and memory in the processing of physical disfigurement

The unfavorable treatment of people with physical disfigurements is well-documented, yet little is known about basic perceptual and cognitive responses to disfigurement. Here, we identify a specialized pattern of cognitive processing consistent with the hypothesis that disfigurements act as heuristic cues to contagious disease. Disfigurements are often invariant across time and difficult to conceal, and thus observers can detect the presence of such cues without necessarily remembering the particular individuals bearing these cues. Indeed, despite the fact that disfigured faces were especially likely to hold disease-sensitive perceivers’ attention (Study 1), disfigured individuals were often confused with one another and thus not well remembered later (Study 2), revealing a disjunction of the typical relationship between elevated attention and elevated memory. We discuss the implications of our results for stigmatization of people with and without physical abnormalities and suggest the possibility that cognitive mechanisms for processing social information may be functionally tuned to the variant nature of important cues.     

The extent of active processing of a long-duration stimulus modulates the scalp-recorded sustained potential

A long-duration stimulus will elicit a negative sustained potential (SP) that is maximum in amplitude over fronto-central areas of the scalp. This study examines how the duration of active attentional processing of the stimulus might also elicit a nonsensory contingent negative variation (CNV) that overlaps and summates to the SP. Subjects were presented with either a low- or high-pitched 1.4s duration stimulus. In different conditions, a 20 ms gap occurred either 300 or 1300 ms after stimulus onset in half the stimuli. The subject's task was to button press upon detection of the gap in the low-pitched stimulus. The subject was not required to respond to the gap occurring in the high-pitched tone. In a separate Ignore condition, subjects ignored all stimuli and read a book. In the Ignore condition, a SP was apparent to the long-duration stimuli. In the Attend condition, a large amplitude slow wave, probably the CNV, overlapped and summated with the SP. The extent of the overlapping CNV was dependent on whether the gap occurred early or late. The CNV was not apparent following presentation of the high-pitched tone, when the gap did not need to be detected. Consistent with previous studies, a SP was thus elicited even when active processing of the stimulus was not required. The morphology of the scalp-recorded SP was, nevertheless, much modified by an overlapping and summating CNV, depending on the extent to which active processing of the long-duration stimulus was required.     

Cradling side preference is associated with lateralized processing of baby facial expressions in females

Women’s cradling side preference has been related to contralateral hemispheric specialization of processing emotional signals; but not of processing baby’s facial expression. Therefore, 46 nulliparous female volunteers were characterized as left or non-left holders (HG) during a doll holding task. During a signal detection task they were then asked to detect the emotional baby faces in a series of baby portraits with neutral and emotional facial expressions, presented either to the left or the right visual field (VFP). ANOVA revealed a significant HG × VFP interaction on response bias data (p < .05). Response bias was lowest when emotional baby faces were presented in the visual field of cradling side preference, suggesting that women’s cradling side preference may have evolved to save cognitive resources during monitoring emotional baby face signals.