Investigating the Role of Instructional Focus in Incidental Pattern Learning

The authors used a novel dual-component training procedure that combined a serial reaction time task and an artificial grammar learning task to investigate the role of instructional focus in incidental pattern learning. In Experiment 1, participants either memorized letter strings as a primary task and reacted to the stimuli locations as a secondary task or vice versa. In Experiment 2, participants were given the same dual-component stimuli but performed only one of the two training tasks. Instructional focus affected the amount of learning and the likelihood of acquiring explicit knowledge of the underlying pattern. However, the effect of instructional focus varied for the different types of stimuli. These results are discussed in terms of the role of focused attention in incidental learning.     

Sampling Methods for Identifying Differences in Source Reliability

This study explored observer performance in using across-trial and within-trial variability information to weight sources based on reliability. Three trained observers performed a multi-element, visual signal-detection task under 3 block-type conditions: a fixed block condition and 2 random conditions. In the fixed block condition, the observers had both within- and across-trial variability information to identify differences in source reliability. The random conditions eliminated the across-trial information, leaving only within-trial variability information in 1 case and neither within- nor across-trial variability information in another case. There was a significant block-type effect. Observers could use differences in across-trial variability of individual sources to assign weights. Although there was a difference in the weights assigned to reliable and unreliable sources in the partial-random condition (in which within-trial variability information was available), only 1 participant showed a significant difference in the weight assignment relative to the full-random condition. Thus, altogether, observers were not very efficient at using within-trial variability to weight sources accordingly.     

Children's Responses to Entry Failure: Attention Deployment Patterns and Self-Regulation Skills

In this study the authors investigated associations among children's observed responses to failure in an analogue entry situation, their attention deployment patterns, and skills and processes associated with self-regulation. Participants were 54 kindergarten and first-grade students who were either aggressive-rejected or low aggressive-popular based on peer nominations. Inhibitory control predicted the tendency to respond to entry failure by stopping and watching the group's activity. Baseline vagal tone and other-directed attention predicted children's tendency to change entry strategies after failure. Parent-rated attention skills moderated the relation between children's attention deployment patterns during the entry task and their responses to entry failure. Children who engaged in more other-directed attention were less likely to turn to solitary play after entry failure but only if they had high or moderate levels of attentional control. Other-directed attention was related to repeating previous entry bids without modification after entry failure but only when children had high levels of attention problems.     

Learning to Minimize Energy Costs and Maximize Mechanical Work in a Bimanual Coordination Task

The authors addressed the hypothesis that economy in motor coordination is a learning phenomenon realized by both reduced energy cost for a given workload and more external work at the same prepractice metabolic and attentional energy expenditure. "Self-optimization" of movement parameters has been proposed to reflect learned motor adaptations that minimize energy costs. Twelve men aged 22.3 ± 3.9 years practiced a 90° relative phase, upper limb, independent ergometer cycling task at 60 rpm, followed by a transfer test of unpracticed (45 and 75 rpm) and selfpaced cadences. Performance in all conditions was initially unstable, inaccurate, and relatively high in both metabolic and attentional energy costs. With practice, coordinative stability increased, more work was performed for the same metabolic and attentional costs, and the same work was done at a reduced energy cost. Selfpaced cycling was initially below the metabolically optimal, but following practice at 60 rpm was closer to optimal cadence. Given the many behavioral options of the motor system in meeting a variety of everyday movement task goals, optimal metabolic and attentional energy criteria may provide a solution to the problem of selecting the most adaptive coordination and control parameters.     

Digit ratios,but not facial width-to-height ratios,are associated with the priority placed on attending to faces versus bodies

Testosterone has been linked to a sexual preference for bodies rather than faces. Low digit ratio (2D:4D) and high facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) are associated with high prenatal testosterone. We tested whether low 2D:4D and high facial WHR were correlated with a preference for bodies over faces. Our sample consisted of 109 college students (64 males). A two-way analysis of variance demonstrated a significant main effect of digit ratio on the priority placed on paying attention to faces or bodies such that low 2D:4D was linked to a preference for bodies, but the effect of sex was not significant. There were no significant interaction effects. Another two-way analysis of variance revealed no significant effects for facial WHR and attentional priority but significant associations between sex and attentional priority. There were no significant interaction effects. Our findings indicate that individuals with low digit ratios tended to pay more attention to bodies than to faces compared with individuals with higher digit ratios, independently of sex. We also found that males tended to pay more attention to bodies than to faces compared with females, independently of facial WHR.