Dissimilar effects of task‐relevant and interpersonal threat on independent–interdependent self‐construal in individuals with high self‐esteem

Previous research has indicated that individuals with high trait self‐esteem (HSEs) become more independent and less interdependent after experiencing a task‐relevant threat. However, these studies have not investigated other sources of ego threats, such as interpersonal threats. Therefore, the moderating effects of the degree of trait self‐esteem on task‐relevant and interpersonal ego threats were investigated in relation to independent, or interdependent self‐construal. It was predicted that in HSEs, the level of task‐relevant stress would be positively–negatively related to their independence–interdependence, whereas the level of interpersonal stress would be negatively–positively related to their independence–interdependence. In individuals with low trait self‐esteem (LSEs), the two types of stresses and independent–interdependent self‐construal may not have a significant relationship. We conducted a questionnaire survey with undergraduates. Correlational analysis of the results indicated that in HSEs, greater task‐relevant stress was related to heightened independence, whereas greater interpersonal stress had the opposite effect, indicating lower independence and heightened interdependence. However, these stresses were not related to the self‐construal of LSEs. These findings suggest that task‐relevant and interpersonal threat could have differential effects on independent and interdependent self‐construal for HSEs, but not in LSEs.     

Hemispheric lateralization in aging: Interest of the verbal-manual concurrency paradigm

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the classic asymmetry seen in hemispheric functioning is modified in older adults by using a verbal-manual concurrency task. Method: Thirty-five right-handed participants divided into two groups according to age (15 older participants, mean age: 68 ± 8 years, without cognitive decline and 20 younger participants, mean age: 23 ± 2 years) had to perform a 30-second uni-manual tapping task, in both a single task (tapping alone) and dual task (tapping and performing a letter fluency task together) condition. Results: In younger participants, the letter fluency task disrupted the right hand more than the left hand whereas, in older participants, the letter fluency task disrupted both hands equally. Conclusion: These results should be considered preliminary data using a behavioral dual task condition, which might be useful for studying lateralized hemispheric functioning and the processes of divided attention during aging.     

Location- and object-based inhibition of return are affected by different kinds of working memory

Castel, Pratt, and Craik (2003) have shown that inhibition of return (IOR, the delayed response to a recently cued item) is disrupted by a secondary task that involves spatial working memory (WM), and they suggest that IOR is mediated by spatial WM. However, they did not specify what kind of IOR was involved. We used a dual-task paradigm to examine whether the two kinds of IOR (location- and object-based IOR) are affected by two kinds of secondary task that involve spatial and nonspatial WM, respectively. The results show that location-based IOR was disrupted by a spatial secondary task while the object-based IOR was disrupted by a nonspatial secondary task. The present study further elaborates the conclusion of Castel et al. (2003) by differentiating the effect of the two kinds of WM (spatial vs. nonspatial) on the two kinds of IOR (location based vs. object based).     

Is advance reconfiguration in voluntary task switching affected by the design employed?

In task switching, when the amount of preparation time is increased, a reduction in switch cost or RISC effect is observed. This RISC effect is frequently attributed to advance reconfiguration processes. In the explicit task-cueing procedure, RISC effects are observed when varying the preparation time within participants but not when varying the preparation time across participants—a finding suggesting that RISC effects in the explicit task-cueing procedure are restricted to specific designs. The present study investigated RISC effects in voluntary task switching and compared RISC effects in a within-subjects design with RISC effects in a between-subjects design. Our results indicate that RISC effects are present in both designs. We conclude that advance reconfiguration in voluntary task switching is robust.     

Masked priming effect reflects evidence accumulated by the prime

In the same–different match task, masked priming is observed with the same responses but not different responses. Norris and Kinoshita's (2008) Bayesian reader account of masked priming explains this pattern based on the same principle as that explaining the absence of priming for nonwords in the lexical decision task. The pattern of priming follows from the way the model makes optimal decisions in the two tasks; priming does not depend on first activating the prime and then the target. An alternative explanation is in terms of a bias towards responding “same” that exactly counters the facilitatory effect of lexical access. The present study tested these two views by varying both the degree to which the prime predicts the response and the visibility of the prime. Unmasked primes produced effects expected from the view that priming is influenced by the degree to which the prime predicts the response. In contrast, with masked primes, the size of priming for the same response was completely unaffected by predictability. These results rule out response bias as an explanation of the absence of masked priming for different responses and, in turn, indicate that masked priming is not a consequence of automatic lexical access of the prime.     

Temporal distinctiveness and repetition benefits in task switching: Disentangling stimulus-related and response-related contributions

Despite the popularity of the Wason selection task in the psychology of reasoning, doubt remains as to whether card choices actually reflect a process of reasoning. One view is that while participants reason about the cards and their hidden sides—as indicated by protocol analysis—this reasoning merely confabulates explanations for cards that were preconsciously cued. This hypothesis has apparently been supported by studies that show that participants predominantly inspect cards which they end up selecting. In this paper, we reanalyse the data of one such study, which used eye-movement tracking to record card inspection times (Ball, Lucas, Miles, & Gale, 2003). We show that while cards favoured by matching bias are inspected for roughly equal lengths of times, their selection rates are strongly affected by their logical status. These findings strongly support a two-stage account in which attention is necessary but not sufficient for card selections. Hence, reasoning does indeed affect participants' choices on this task.     

Are transposition effects specific to letters?

Recent research has consistently shown that pseudowords created by transposing two letters are perceptually similar to their corresponding base words (e.g., jugde–judge). In the framework of the overlap model (Gomez, Ratcliff, & Perea, 2008), this effect is due to a noisy process in the localization of the “objects” (e.g., letters, kana syllables). In the present study, we examine whether this effect is specific to letter strings or whether it also occurs with other “objects” (namely, digits, symbols, and pseudoletters). To that end, we conducted a series of five masked priming experiments using the same–different task. Results showed robust effects of transposition for all objects, except for pseudoletters. This is consistent with the view that locations of familiar objects (i.e., letters, numbers, and symbols) can be best understood as distributions along a dimension rather than as precise points.     

Selective impairment of masked priming in dual-task performance

This study investigated the impact of divided attention on masked priming. In a dual-task setting, two tasks had to be carried out in close temporal succession: a tone discrimination task and a masked priming task. The order of the tasks was varied between experiments, and attention was always allocated to the first task—that is, the first task was prioritized. The priming task was the second (nonprioritized) task in Experiment 1 and the first (prioritized) task in Experiment 2. In both experiments, “novel” prime stimuli associated with semantic processing were essentially ineffective. However, there was intact priming by another type of prime stimuli associated with response priming. Experiment 3 showed that all these prime stimuli can reveal significant priming effects during a task-switching paradigm in which both tasks were performed consecutively. We conclude that dual-task specific interference processes (e.g., the simultaneous coordination of multiple stimulus–response rules) selectively impair priming that is assumed to rely on semantic processing.     

The temporal dynamics of effect anticipation in course of action planning

“Strong” versions of the ideomotor theory of action control claim that anticipations of the environmental effects that actions bring about are mandatory for response selection. This is considered to be the one and only way of how actions can be voluntarily selected. We studied this notion in a series of four experiments where we adapted the flanker paradigm to investigate the involvement of effect codes in the preparation of motor responses. Participants first learned that their responses to stimulus letters were contingently followed by the presentation of a new letter on the screen. In the second phase of the experiments, the action-demanding letters were presented together with the effects of the correct response, effects of other responses, or neutral letters. Varying the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between target stimuli and the flanking effect stimuli provides the opportunity to investigate the temporal dynamics of the activation of effect codes. Hence, flanker stimuli were presented before, simultaneously with, or after the onset of the target. The results indicate that effect-related information from the flanker stimuli is involved in the preparation process, but mainly in later phases of response preparation. The observed pattern of results suggests that, at least under conditions where responses are determined by stimuli, effect codes are activated in course of response planning to enable the evaluation of the executed response and the monitoring of response execution, but they do not automatically activate the responses themselves.     

Improved intertask coordination after extensive dual-task practice

This study examines whether an improved intertask coordination skill is acquired during extensive dual-task training and whether it can be transferred to a new dual-task situation. Participants practised a visual–manual task and an auditory–vocal task. These tasks were trained in two groups matched in dual-task performance measures before practice: a single-task practice group and a hybrid practice group (including single-task and dual-task practice). After practice, the single-task practice group was transferred to the same dual-task situation as that for the hybrid practice group (Experiment 1), both groups were transferred to a dual-task situation with a new visual task (Experiment 2), and both groups were transferred to a dual-task situation with a new auditory task matched in task difficulty (Experiment 3). The results show a dual-task performance advantage in the hybrid practice group over the single-task practice group in the practised dual-task situation (Experiment 1), the manipulated visual-task situation (Experiment 2), and the manipulated auditory-task situation (Experiment 3). In all experiments, the dual-task performance advantage was consistently found for the auditory task only. These findings suggest that extended dual-task practice improves the skill to coordinate two tasks, which may be defined as an accelerated switching operation between both tasks. This skill is relatively robust against changes of the component visual and auditory tasks. We discuss how the finding of task coordination could be integrated in present models of dual-task research.