Processing fluency as a predictor of salience asymmetries in the Implicit Association Test

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most popular indirect measure of attitudes in social psychology. Rothermund and Wentura (2001, 2004) suggested that artifacts such as salience asymmetries are a source of compatibility effects in the IAT, and, therefore, the IAT does not necessarily measure attitude. They claim that salience asymmetries correspond with visual search asymmetries, such that the stimulus categories that are more quickly detected in a visual search task are also compatible in the IAT. We propose that processing fluency is a more reliable indicator of salience asymmetries in the IAT than are visual search asymmetries. To test this hypothesis, we set processing fluency in opposition to visual search asymmetry to see which variable better predicted IAT effects. In one pair of categories, the category that was more quickly detected in visual search was also more fluently processed in a binary classification task. In a second pair of categories, the category that was more quickly detected in visual search was the less fluently processed category. Across four experiments, we demonstrated that compatibility effects in the IAT corresponded with differences in processing fluency between categories, rather than with visual search asymmetries.     

Exploring conflict- and target-related movement of visual attention

Intermixing trials of a visual search task with trials of a modified flanker task, the authors investigated whether the presentation of conflicting distractors at only one side (left or right) of a target stimulus triggers shifts of visual attention towards the contralateral side. Search time patterns provided evidence for lateral attention shifts only when participants performed the flanker task under an instruction assumed to widen the focus of attention, demonstrating that instruction-based control settings of an otherwise identical task can impact performance in an unrelated task. Contrasting conditions with response-related and response-unrelated distractors showed that shifting attention does not depend on response conflict and may be explained as stimulus-conflict-related withdrawal or target-related deployment of attention.     

Task-dependent sensitisation of perceptual and semantic processing during visual search for words

Two experiments examined the impact of task-set on people's use of the visual and semantic features of words during visual search. Participants' eye movements were recorded while the distractor words were manipulated. In both experiments, the target word was either given literally (literal task) or defined by a semantic clue (categorical task). According to Kiefer and Martens, participants should preferentially use either the visual or semantic features of words depending on their relevance for the task. This assumption was partially supported. As expected, orthographic neighbours of the target word attracted participants' attention more and took longer to reject, once fixated, during the literal task. Conversely, semantic associates of the target word took longer to reject during the categorical task. However, they did not attract participants' attention more than in the literal task. This unexpected finding is discussed in relation to the processing of words in the peripheral visual field.     

Memory benefits during visual search depend on difficulty

In three experiments we explored whether memory for previous locations of search items influences search efficiency more as the difficulty of exhaustive search increases. Difficulty was manipulated by varying item eccentricity and item similarity (discriminability). Participants searched through items placed at three levels of eccentricity. The search displays were either identical on every trial (repeated condition) or the items were randomly reorganised from trial to trial (random condition), and search items were either relatively easy or difficult to discriminate from each other. Search was both faster and more efficient (i.e., search slopes were shallower) in the repeated condition than in the random condition. More importantly, this advantage for repeated displays was greater (1) for items that were more difficult to discriminate and (2) for eccentric targets when items were easily discriminable. Thus, increasing target eccentricity and reducing item discriminability both increase the influence of memory during search.     

Reasonable reasons for waiting

Recent decision‐making research claims to establish that, in violation of Savage's normative sure‐thing principle, individuals often wait to acquire noninstrumental information and subsequently base their decisions upon this information. The current research suggests that characterizing individuals as pursuing noninstrumental or useless information may be overstated. Through a series of experiments we establish, first, that many people choose to wait, even when waiting provides no additional information at all. Second, the longer people are allowed to wait before having to decide, the more people prefer to wait rather than decide immediately. Third, those individuals who choose to wait are the ones less confident about committing themselves to a decision. For them, the benefit from waiting may be especially valuable by allowing them to come to terms with a less‐than‐ideal decision. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Voluntary aspects of attentional control setting for detecting a feature‐defined target1

Abstract: Singleton targets that differ from distractors in a single salient attribute can be discerned regardless of the number of items in the display. Recent studies have indicated that the perception of singleton targets is facilitated by an attentional control setting. We focused on the voluntary aspect of the attentional control setting. Psychophysical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments examined the temporal characteristics of the attentional control setting by using an auditory cue. In both experiments, an auditorily cued feature‐search task was used. The cue validity (valid vs. neutral) and the cue lead time (CLT) were varied. In the psychophysical experiment, we established the effect of a symbolic cue on detection of a singleton. When the CLT was short or the cue was neutral, there was no facilitation, as re?ected by the slow activation of the attentional control setting. In our fMRI experiment, the brain activity indicates that this detection task activated the prefrontal cortex. These results demonstrate that the attentional control setting for facilitation of the singleton‐target perception modulates activity in regions of the prefrontal cortex.     

Resiliency,Self-Regulation,and Reemployment After Job Loss

This study investigated self-regulation and resiliency in one's search for reemployment. Although trait-based approaches are central to many resiliency conceptualizations, recent research has found that self-regulation (affective, behavioral, and cognitive) contributes to predicting resiliency-related outcomes. We hypothesized that self-regulation would incrementally predict reemployment process outcomes, specifically the job search outcomes of psychological well-being, job search self-efficacy, and job search clarity. Results indicated that, over and above resiliency traits, behavioral and cognitive self-regulation incrementally predicted well-being and job search clarity, and cognitive self-regulation incrementally predicted job search self-efficacy. Implications for theory and continued research on resiliency in reemployment are discussed.     

Introspective access to implicit shifts of attention

Literature in metacognition has systematically rejected the possibility of introspective access to complex cognitive processes. This situation derives from the difficulty of experimentally manipulating cognitive processes while abiding by the two contradictory constraints. First, participants must not be aware of the experimental manipulation, otherwise they run the risk of incorporating their knowledge of the experimental manipulation in some rational elaboration. Second, we need an external, third person perspective evidence that the experimental manipulation did impact some relevant cognitive processes. Here, we study introspection during visual searches, and we try to overcome the above dilemma, by presenting a barely visible, “pre-conscious” cue just before the search array. We aim at influencing the attentional guidance of the search processes, while participants would not notice that fact. Results show that introspection of the complexity of a search process is driven in part by subjective access to its attentional guidance.     

Emotional intelligence,cognitive ability and information search in tactical decision-making

Emotional intelligence (EI) may promote more effective decision-making under stress. In the present study, 167 participants completed a situation judgment test for EI, and performed a decision-making task based on an Antarctic rescue scenario. Participants were assigned to either a negative or neutral feedback group. Negative feedback significantly increased distress and impaired decision-making. EI failed to moderate the impacts of negative feedback, but higher EI was associated with greater information-search activity irrespective of feedback condition. It is concluded that ability EI may have a motivational component that may support more exhaustive analysis of both social and non-social stimuli.