Morning Passages from Home to Work Among Managers in Israel: Intergender Differences

This paper presents a study on morning passages from home to work. The sample consisted of 226 Israeli parents working in managerial positions (136 men and 90 women). Eighty percent of the participants were Israeli-born, and the rest immigrated to Israel at a young age. In the study, I examined gender differences in emphasis on domestic and work activities at 3 main transitional stages in the morning: home transitions (30 min before leaving for work), on the way to work, and at work (the first 30 min after arrival at work). The findings indicate that in the home-transition women focused more on domestic tasks than on work tasks, whereas men showed the opposite tendency. On the way to work, women tended to intensify their involvement in work activities, but remained strongly concerned with domestic activities. Men, however, focused primarily on work tasks during this transition. In the work transition, both men and women were more concerned with work tasks than domestic tasks. Therefore, even though men and women focused on different tasks in the initial transition, by the time they arrived at the workplace, they were immersed to the same extent in work activities. Furthermore, the participants' age, children's ages, and years of marriage correlated negatively with emphasis on domestic tasks during the home transition regardless of gender.     

Improving judgement with prepaid expert advice

Decision makers (“Judges”) often make decisions after obtaining advice from an Advisor. The two parties often share a psychological “contract” about what each contributes in expertise to the decision and receives in monetary outcomes from it. In a laboratory experiment, we varied Advisor Experitise and the opportunity for monetary rewards. As expected, these manipulations influenced advice quality, advice taking, and Judge post‐advice decision quality. The main contribution of the study, however, was the manipulation of the timing of monetary rewards (before or after the advising interaction). We found, as predicted, that committing money for expert—but not novice—advice increases Judges' use of advice and their subsequent estimation accuracy. Implications for advice giving and taking are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Directed forgetting of negative performed actions is difficult: A behavioural study

Strong evidence suggests that both performing actions and emotional stimuli can enhance memory by capturing attention. However, the synergetic effect of the two factors on directed forgetting has not been assessed. In this study, we used an item-method directed forgetting paradigm to examine the forgetting of emotional materials depending on whether actions were performed. The results showed that action performance influenced the directed forgetting of emotional words. Specifically, when actions were performed there was a directed forgetting effect for neutral and positive words but not for negative words. In comparison, for verbal tasks, directed forgetting was observed for all words. The elaborative encoding prior to the remember/forget instructions and the influence of negative emotion on attentional inhibition after the presentation of the instructions together suggest that it is more difficult to intentionally forget negative performed actions.     

Groups perform better than the best individuals on Letters-to-Numbers problems

Eighty-two four-person cooperative groups and 328 independent individuals solved a random coding of the letters A–J to the numbers 0–9. On each trial the group or individual proposed an equation in letters (e.g., A + D=?), received the answer in letters (e.g., A + D=B), proposed one specific mapping (e.g., A=3), received the answer (e.g., True, A=3), and proposed the full mapping of the 10 letters to the 10 numbers. As predicted, the groups had fewer trials to solution, proposed more complex equations, and identified more letters per equation than each of the best, second-best, third-best, and fourth-best individuals. We interpret the group superiority as due to the highly intellective nature of Letters-to-Numbers problems, which entail demonstrable recognition of correct answers, demonstrable rejection of erroneous answers, and multiple insights into effective collective information processing strategies.     

Control of oscillatory force tasks: Low-frequency oscillations in force and muscle activity

Force variability during steady force tasks is strongly related to low-frequency oscillations (<0.25 Hz) in force. However, it is unknown whether low-frequency oscillations also contribute to the variability of oscillatory force tasks. To address this, twelve healthy young participants (21.08 ± 2.99 years, 6 females) performed a sinusoidal force task at 15% MVC at two different frequencies (0.5 and 1 Hz) with isometric abduction of the index finger. We recorded the force from the index finger and surface EMG from the first dorsal interosseous muscle and quantified the following outcomes: 1) trajectory variability and accuracy; 2) power spectrum of force and EMG bursting below 2 Hz; 3) power spectrum of the interference EMG from 4 to 60 Hz. The trajectory variability and error significantly increased from 0.5 to 1 Hz task (P < 0.01). Increased force oscillations <0.25 Hz contributed to greater trajectory variability and error for both the 0.5 and 1 Hz oscillatory task (R² > 0.33; P < 0.05). The <0.25 Hz oscillations in force were positively associated with greater power in the <0.25 Hz for EMG bursting (R² > 0.52; P < 0.01). The modulation of the interference EMG from 35 to 60 Hz was a good predictor of the <0.25 Hz force oscillations for both the 0.5 Hz task and 1 Hz task (R² > 0.66; P < 0.01). These results provide novel evidence that, similar to steady contractions, low-frequency oscillations of the motor neuron pool appear to be a significant mechanism that controls force during oscillatory force tasks.     

金钱激励在社会排斥影响不确定性决策中的调节作用

研究从金钱补偿的视角考察社会排斥对不确定性决策的影响以及金钱激励的调节作用。实验发现,有金钱激励时,被排斥者在爱荷华赌博任务(Iowa gambling task,IGT)中的行为分数(组块2和3的选牌净分数和总的盈利分数)显著高于社会接纳者,表现为风险规避; 在无金钱激励时,被排斥者在IGT任务中的行为分数(组块4和5的选牌净分数和总的盈利分数)显著低于被接纳者,表现为风险寻求。实验结果表明社会排斥对不确定性决策的影响受到金钱激励的调制。     

金钱惩罚促进Stroop任务中的行为表现

本研究通过Stroop任务和修改版MIDT相结合,目的是考察不同额度金钱惩罚对Stroop任务行为表现的影响。结果发现：（1）无论是中性试次,一致试次还是不一致试次,金钱惩罚不仅减少了被试的行为反应时,而且提高了正确率;（2）非惩罚条件与惩罚条件下的冲突效应以及其他不同额度惩罚条件下的冲突效应差异不显著;（3）金钱惩罚对不一致试次反应时的影响与个体的惩罚敏感性呈显著负相关,而与奖赏敏感性无关。结果表明,金钱惩罚能够促进个体的一般行为表现,但是不会提高冲突抑制能力。同时,金钱惩罚对认知行为的影响与其惩罚敏感性密切相关。     

人际距离调节自我-他人的神经表征：来自oFRN的证据

为考察人际距离对自我-他人表征的影响, 采用金钱博弈任务检测了在自己操作、观察朋友操作和观察陌生同学操作时的脑电成分反馈相关负波(FRN)。结果发现, 观察任务产生了类似于自我操作时输钱反馈的负偏向, 即观察者反馈负波(oFRN); 在观察条件下, 被试自评与朋友的亲近程度高于同学(p<0.001), 两者引起的oFRN达到边缘显著性水平(p = 0.062), 亲近程度与oFRN呈显著相关(p = 0.041)。前者说明自我和他人具有相似表征, 后者则反映了自我对他人信息表征的替代性体验可能受人际距离所调节。     

奖赏预期对面孔情绪加工的影响：一项事件相关电位研究

采用事件相关电位(ERPs)技术考察了奖赏预期对人类面孔情绪识别的影响。实验采用线索-目标范式, 分别记录了被试在奖赏预期条件下以及无奖赏预期条件下对正性、中性和负性面孔进行情绪辨别任务的ERP数据。行为结果显示, 被试在奖赏预期条件下的反应时快于无奖赏预期条件下的反应时, 对情绪面孔的反应时快于对中性面孔的反应时。ERPs数据显示, 奖赏线索比无奖赏线索诱发了更正的P1、P2和P300成分。目标刺激诱发的P1、N170波幅以及N300均受到奖赏预期的调节, 在奖赏预期条件下目标诱发了更正的ERPs。P1、N170、VPP等成分没有受到面孔情绪的影响, 而额中央位置的N300波幅显示情绪(正性与负性)面孔与中性面孔加工的差异。重要的是, N300波幅出现奖赏预期与情绪的交互作用, 正、负情绪加工效应以及负性偏向效应受奖赏预期的差异性影响。正性情绪加工效应不受奖赏预期的影响, 而负性情绪加工效应和负性偏向效应在奖赏预期条件下显著大于无奖赏预期条件下。这些结果说明, 奖赏预期能够调节对面孔情绪的加工, 且不同加工进程中奖赏对情绪加工的调节作用不同。动机性信息调节注意资源的分配, 促进了个体在加工面孔情绪时的负性偏向。     

提取干扰对内隐记忆的影响

以往研究多认同内隐记忆不会受到干扰的影响,但主要集中于编码时的干扰不会影响随后的内隐记忆提取成绩,而对于提取时的干扰是否也不会影响内隐记忆成绩仍存在疑义。该文在实验1采用学习-测验范式,通过在提取阶段设置同时干扰任务进一步考察提取干扰与内隐记忆的关系,结果表明提取干扰下并未发现明显的启动效应,即提取干扰破坏了内隐记忆。为进一步探讨内隐记忆的提取干扰效应是否源于记忆与干扰刺激同时呈现所引起的知觉表征竞争,实验2改变了记忆与干扰刺激的呈现顺序,结果表明不论干扰刺激在记忆项目之前或之后呈现,启动效应均受到影响。相比之下,提取干扰对再认成绩的影响并不明显(实验3)。上述结果表明,内隐记忆的提取干扰效应是源于一般认知资源的竞争,在提取过程中任何能够产生认知资源竞争的变量设置都可能会削减内隐测验中的启动效应。