努力控制及其神经基础

本文对努力控制的概念、发展及其神经基础进行了归纳和总结。我们发现努力控制涉及的脑区主要包括背外侧和腹外侧前额叶,前扣带回,顶上和顶下小叶以及辅助运动皮层等。此外,通过分析对比后发现努力控制与执行功能之间在行为表现和神经基础上有密切关系：两者都与个体的学业成绩、情绪状态和攻击行为等有关;努力控制涉及的脑区有很大部分处于具有执行功能的突显网络和额顶控制网络。这些证据表明两者之间可能有共同的脑结构基础。     

The association of motor information and verbal information: a new perspective on the mechanism of the SPT effect

Current perspectives on the mechanism underlying the Subject Performed Task (SPT) effect have not yet reached a consensus. This study investigated whether the association between motor and verbal information is a key factor that explains the SPT effect. Experiment 1 and 2 tested whether motor and verbal retrieval memory performance were different when the association level was varied. Results showed that when subjects used low association learning materials, memory performance in either motor or verbal retrieval condition was significantly better than performance in the combined retrieval condition. Experiment 3 examined whether the level of association between motor and verbal information affects the SPT effect. Results revealed that the SPT effect disappeared when low association learning materials were used. Our findings imply that the high association level between motor and verbal information enables mutual activation of the two information types, leading to improved memory performance.     

工读学生与普通学生对责任判断的比较研究

用内隐联想测验对40名工读学生与普通学生的责任判断进行比较研究,结果表明:工读学生比普通学生辨别攻击词以及与"责任在他"有关的短语的反应时短;工读学生辨别与"责任在他"有关的短语的速度比辨别与"责任在我"有关的短语的速度快,而普通学生辨别与"责任在他"有关的短语的速度比辨别与"责任在我"有关的短语的速度要慢;工读学生在"责任在他—攻击,责任在我-不攻击"的联合辨别反应时上比普通学生短。这些反应时的差异反映了工读学生存在着敌意归因与对攻击信念的内隐联想。     

Spatial working memory effects in early visual cortex

The present study investigated how spatial working memory recruits early visual cortex. Participants were required to maintain a location in working memory while changes in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signals were measured during the retention interval in which no visual stimulation was present. We show working memory effects during the retention period in early visual cortex which were retinotopically organized in the sense that evoked BOLD responses were specific to the position of the remembered location on an imaginary clock. We demonstrate that this activity is similar to activity observed in conditions in which participants have to direct spatial attention to the same location. We suggest that during the retention interval modulation of neurons coding the remembered location evoke a baseline shift, providing converging evidence for the notion that spatial working memory may use spatial attention as a rehearsal mechanism.     

Creating distinct implicit and explicit attitudes with an illusory correlation paradigm

Two studies used an illusory correlation procedure to test whether distinct implicit and explicit evaluations can result from the same learning episode. All participants learned twice as much about the qualities of one group (majority) than another (minority). In one condition, the ratio of positive to negative information was equal between groups. In other conditions, the majority group showed proportionally more positive qualities than the minority group, or vice versa. Participants in the pro-majority and pro-minority conditions formed both implicit and explicit attitudes consistent with the attitude induction. Participants in the illusory correlation condition showed the expected preference for the majority group (the illusory bias), but showed no implicit preference, suggesting distinct influences on implicit and explicit attitude formation. The effects are consistent with dual-process models in which implicit attitudes reflect accounting of covariation and explicit attitudes reflect interpretative judgments of that covariation.     

What determines creative association? Revealing two factors which separately influence the creative process when solving the Remote Associates Test

The Remote Associates Test is a well‐established measure, frequently used to assess individuals’ creative abilities, as a function of the ability to elicit remote associates. The nature of the involved associative processes is still poorly understood. This hampers a deeper understanding of the creative process, rendering it difficult to determine what factors are controlled for, when the RAT is employed. We report an experiment that sheds further light on the nature of the associative process by manipulating (a) the frequency with which a pair of items are associated as associative strength, and (b) the probability of reaching the answer given the strength and the spread. Experimental results indicate a clear and surprisingly separate influence of frequency and probability on accuracy and response times. Frequency and probability both are thus factors that need to be included in the modeling process and controlled for when using the RAT to assess creativity.     

Cathodal tDCS of the Left Posterior Parietal Cortex Increases Proprioceptive Drift

In aiming movements the limb position drifts away from the defined target after some trials without visual feedback, a phenomenon defined as proprioceptive drift (PD). There are no studies investigating the association between the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and PD in aiming movements. Therefore, cathodal and sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) were applied to the left PPC concomitantly with the performance of movements with or without vision. Cathodal tDCS applied without vision produced a higher level of PD and higher rates of drift accumulation while it decreased peak velocity and maintained the number of error corrections, not affecting movement amplitude. The proprioceptive information seems to produce an effective reference to movement, but with PPC stimulation it causes a negative impact on position.     

The evil eye effect: vertical pupils are perceived as more threatening

Popular culture has many examples of evil characters having vertically pupilled eyes. Humans have a long evolutionary history of rivalry with snakes and their visual systems were evolved to rapidly detect snakes and snake-related cues. Considering such evolutionary background, we hypothesised that humans would perceive vertical pupils, which are characteristics of ambush predators including some of the snakes, as threatening. In seven studies (aggregate N?=?1458) conducted on samples from American and Turkish samples, we found that vertical pupils are perceived as more threatening on both explicit (Study 1) and implicit level (Studies 2–7) and they are associated with physical, rather than social, threat (Study 4). Findings provided partial support regarding our hypothesis about the relevance of snake detection processes: Snake phobia, and not spider phobia, was found to be related to perceiving vertical pupils as threatening (Study 5), however an experimental manipulation of saliency of snakes rendered no significant effect (Study 6) and a comparison of fears of snakes, alligators, and cats did not support our prediction (Study 7). We discuss the potential implications and limitations of these novel findings.     

The effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on multitasking performance and oculometrics

Multitasking is the ability to perform more than one task simultaneously. The need to multitask is common in many industries especially within the military with tasks such as air traffic controllers, cyber defense operators and image analysts. However, as the time on task increases, information throughput can become overwhelming resulting in a performance decrement. Through task prioritizing, the operator is able to maintain performance on specific subtasks in which they selected as high importance while other subtasks experience a decrement. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (ldLPFC) on information processing capabilities to improve individual and overall multitasking performance while performing the multi-attribute task battery (MATB). Two groups of 8 participants each received either 2 mA of anodal or sham tDCS while performing MATB. In addition, eye tracking was implemented to record eye movement patterns. In doing so, we were able to determine how much time the operator allocated to each of the subtasks within MATB and how their task priorities changed as workload demands increased. The findings provided evidence that 2 mA of anodal tDCS during MATB significantly improved overall information throughput compared to the sham group. With respect to the individual subtasks, communication and system monitoring displayed the greatest enhancement with anodal tDCS. Our data suggests that tDCS could be a useful tool to enhance information processing capabilities during a multitasking paradigm resulting in improved processing capabilities and information throughput.     

A mental number line in human newborns

Humans represent numbers on a mental number line with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers on the right side. A left‐to‐right oriented spatial–numerical association, (SNA), has been demonstrated in animals and infants. However, the possibility that SNA is learnt by early exposure to caregivers’ directional biases is still open. We conducted two experiments: in Experiment 1, we tested whether SNA is present at birth and in Experiment 2, we studied whether it depends on the relative rather than the absolute magnitude of numerousness. Fifty‐five‐hour‐old newborns, once habituated to a number (12), spontaneously associated a smaller number (4) with the left and a larger number (36) with the right side (Experiment 1). SNA in neonates is not absolute but relative. The same number (12) was associated with the left side rather than the right side whenever the previously experienced number was larger (36) rather than smaller (4) (Experiment 2). Control on continuous physical variables showed that the effect is specific of discrete magnitudes. These results constitute strong evidence that in our species SNA originates from pre‐linguistic and biological precursors in the brain.