Person‐centred positive emotions,object‐centred negative emotions: 2‐year‐olds generalize negative but not positive emotions across individuals

Prior work suggests that young children do not generalize others' preferences to new individuals. We hypothesized (following Vaish et al., 2008, Psychol. Bull., 134, 383–403) that this may only hold for positive emotions, which inform the child about the person's attitude towards the object but not about the positivity of the object itself. It may not hold for negative emotions, which additionally inform the child about the negativity of the object itself. Two‐year‐old children saw one individual (the emoter) emoting positively or negatively towards one and neutrally towards a second novel object. When a second individual then requested an object, children generalized the emoter's negative but not her positive emotion to the second individual. Children thus draw different inferences from others' positive versus negative emotions: Whereas they view others' positive emotions as person centred, they may view others' negative emotions as object centred and thus generalizable across people. The results are discussed with relation to the functions and implications of the negativity bias.     

Measuring being lost in thought: An exploratory driving simulator study

In driver behaviour research there is considerable focus on distraction caused by specific external systems, such as navigation systems or mobile telephones. However, it is not clear whether self-paced actions such as daydreaming have the same negative effects on driving behaviour. In a driving simulator study, the effects of an internal cognitive process (internal distraction) on driving behaviour and physiological data were compared to the effects of a sound and speech task (external distraction). Three groups of participants made two drives on a motorway, with one control group, one internal distraction group and one external distraction group. Dependent measures included driving behavioural measures, physiological measures and a subjective indication of participants’ experienced involvement in the driving task.The effects of both the internal and external distraction task were reflected in speed, number of lane changes, deceleration, glances and subjective ratings. When an effect was found for both the internal and the external distraction task, the results indicated similar (negative) effects. Participants also indicated that they had the feeling they were less involved in the driving task with both secondary tasks.