客体相似性对不同认知方式个体视觉工作记忆表征的影响

采用整体检测的变化察觉范式,探讨客体的相似性对客体—空间型认知方式个体视觉工作记忆表征的影响。行为结果显示,在不相似客体的视觉工作记忆表征任务中,客体型者在长延时条件的成绩优于空间型者,而在相似客体的视觉工作记忆表征任务中,两者无差异;ERP结果显示,在不相似客体视觉工作记忆表征任务中,与客体型者相比,空间型者在大脑皮层诱发出更大的负SP。以上结果表明,客体型者比空间型者对不相似客体视觉工作记忆加工具有优势,其潜在机制可能在于,客体型者对不相似客体视觉工作记忆表征时的神经活动效能更高。     

语境情绪韵律对新异词汇学习过程的影响

模拟自然学习语境,探讨情绪韵律对具体和抽象词学习的调节作用及其产生原因。被试在高兴、愤怒、中性语境情绪韵律条件下学习抽象和具体词,记录学习过程及测试过程中的行为与脑电反应。结果发现在愤怒韵律背景下学习的抽象词加工的正确率更低、反应时更长;并且诱发了更为显著的脑电成分。表明愤怒韵律对词汇学习尤其是抽象词学习有显著的消极作用。此外,情绪韵律对词汇学习的调节作用是在学习过程中对词汇语义提取及晚期语义整合产生影响而形成的。     

Evidence from masked‐priming that initial identification of brand names is via abstract letter identities

Although visual‐word recognition is often assumed to proceed on the basis of case‐invariant letter representations, previous research has shown a role for letter‐case in recognizing brand names. One recent study reported early effects of letter‐case in a brand‐decision task using masked primes (Perea et al., 2015, British Journal of Psychology, 106, 162). The present study attempts to replicate this finding using brand names typically presented in all lowercase (e.g., adidas), all uppercase (e.g., IKEA), or titlecase (e.g., Ford). Across three masked‐priming experiments, we found no advantage for case‐matched identity primes over case‐mismatched identity primes. This finding suggests that brand‐specific letter‐case information does not play a role in the early processing of brand names. However, we observed evidence that case may be used as a cue for making brand decisions, which may explain the effect reported by Perea et al. (2015, British Journal of Psychology, 106, 162).     

Anticipatory versus reactive spatial attentional bias to threat

Dot‐probe or visual probe tasks (VPTs) are used extensively to measure attentional biases. A novel variant termed the cued VPT (cVPT) was developed to focus on the anticipatory component of attentional bias. This study aimed to establish an anticipatory attentional bias to threat using the cVPT and compare its split‐half reliability with a typical dot‐probe task. A total of 120 students performed the cVPT task and dot‐probe tasks. Essentially, the cVPT uses cues that predict the location of pictorial threatening stimuli, but on trials on which probe stimuli are presented the pictures do not appear. Hence, actual presentation of emotional stimuli did not affect responses. The reliability of the cVPT was higher at most cue–stimulus intervals and was .56 overall. A clear anticipatory attentional bias was found. In conclusion, the cVPT may be of methodological and theoretical interest. Using visually neutral predictive cues may remove sources of noise that negatively impact reliability. Predictive cues are able to bias response selection, suggesting a role of predicted outcomes in automatic processes.     

Perceptual grouping boosts visual working memory capacity and reduces effort during retention

Consistent, robust boosts to visual working memory capacity are observed when colour–location arrays contain duplicate colours. The prevailing explanation suggests that duplicated colours are encoded as one perceptual group. If so, then we should observe not only higher working memory capacity overall for displays containing duplicates, but specifically an improved ability to remember unique colours from displays including duplicates compared with displays comprising all uniquely coloured items. Furthermore, less effort should be required to retain displays as colour redundancy increases. I recorded gaze position and pupil sizes during a visual change detection task including displays of 4–6 items with either all unique colours, two items with a common colour, or three items with a common colour in samples of young and healthy elderly adults. Increased redundancy was indeed associated with higher estimated working memory capacity, both for tests of duplicates and uniquely coloured items. Redundancy was also associated with decreased pupil size during retention, especially in young adults. While elderly adults also benefited from colour redundancy, spillover to unique items was less obvious with low redundancy than in young adults. This experiment confirms previous findings and presents complementary novel evidence linking perceptual grouping via colour redundancy with decreased mental effort.     

Multimedia learning trumps retrieval practice in psychology teaching

It is well established that studying with (vs. without) visual illustrations as well as taking tests (vs. restudying) is beneficial for learning, but on which strategy should one put the efforts, or should they be combined for best learning? Eighty‐eight upper secondary school students were given a brief lecture presented verbally (6 classes) or with the aid of a visual illustration (visuoverbal, 6 classes). The information was processed again by taking a memory test or by restudying. Recall and transfer tests were conducted after some few minutes and again after one week. The visuoverbal lecture resulted in better learning than verbal presentation only. A significant study strategy by retention interval interaction was found. However, this interaction was not qualified by a testing effect. Hence, taking tests (retrieval practice) did not lead to better learning than restudying. It was concluded that it is worthwhile to use visual illustrations in teaching. However, the present study did not reveal any synergistic effects from the combination of visuoverbal presentation and retrieval practice.     

A step forward: Bayesian hierarchical modelling as a tool in assessment of individual discrimination performance

Individual assessment of infants’ speech discrimination is of great value for studies of language development that seek to relate early and later skills, as well as for clinical work. The present study explored the applicability of the hybrid visual fixation paradigm (Houston et al., 2007) and the associated statistical analysis approach to assess individual discrimination of a native vowel contrast, /aː/ - /eː/, in Dutch 6 to 10-month-old infants. Houston et al. found that 80% (8/10) of the 9-month-old infants successfully discriminated the contrast between pseudowords boodup - seepug. Using the same approach, we found that 12% (14/117) of the infants in our sample discriminated the highly salient /aː/ -/eː/ contrast. This percentage was reduced to 3% (3/117) when we corrected for multiple testing. Bayesian hierarchical modeling indicated that 50% of the infants showed evidence of discrimination. Advantages of Bayesian hierarchical modeling are that 1) there is no need for a correction for multiple testing and 2) better estimates at the individual level are obtained. Thus, individual speech discrimination can be more accurately assessed using state of the art statistical approaches.     

Happy but overconfident: positive affect leads to inaccurate metacomprehension

When learning from text, it is important that learners not only comprehend the information provided but also accurately monitor and judge their comprehension, which is known as metacomprehension accuracy. To investigate the role of a learner’s affective state for text comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy, we conducted an experiment with N?=?103 university students in whom we induced positive, negative, or neutral affect. Positive affect resulted in poorer text comprehension than neutral affect. Positive affect also led to overconfident predictions, whereas negative and neutral affect were both associated with quite accurate predictions. Independent of affect, postdictions were rather underconfident. The results suggest that positive affect bears processing disadvantages for achieving deep comprehension and adequate prediction accuracy. Given that postdictions were more accurate, practice tests might represent an effective instructional method to help learners in a positive affective state to accurately judge their text comprehension.     

场景对面孔情绪探测的影响：特质性焦虑的调节作用

本研究采用面孔情绪探测任务, 通过状态-特质焦虑问卷筛选出高、低特质性焦虑被试, 考察场景对不同情绪效价以及不同情绪强度的面部表情加工的影响, 并探讨特质性焦虑在其中所发挥的作用。结果发现：(1)对于不同情绪效价的面部表情, 场景对其情绪探测的影响存在差异：对于快乐面部表情, 在100%、80%和20%三个情绪层级上, 在场景与面孔情绪性一致情况下, 被试对面孔情绪探测的正确率显著高于不一致情况; 对于恐惧面部表情, 在80%、60%、40%和20%四个情绪层级上, 均发现一致条件比不一致条件有着更高的情绪探测正确率。(2)对于高特质性焦虑组, 一致条件和不一致条件中的面孔情绪探测正确率并没有显著差异, 即高特质性焦虑组并未表现出显著的场景效应; 而低特质性焦虑组则差异显著, 即出现显著的场景效应。该研究结果表明：(1)对于情绪强度较低的面部表情, 快乐与恐惧面孔情绪探测都更容易受到场景的影响。(2)相比于中等强度快乐面孔, 场景更容易影响中等强度恐惧面孔情绪的探测。(3)特质性焦虑的个体因素在场景对面孔情绪探测的影响中发挥调节作用, 高特质性焦虑者在情绪识别中较少受到场景信息的影响。     

“Passion” versus “patience”: the effects of valence and arousal on constructive word recognition

Accumulating evidence suggests that emotional information is often recognised faster than neutral information. Several studies examined the effects of valence and arousal on word recognition, but yielded partially diverging results. Here, we used two alternative versions of a constructive recognition paradigm in which a target word is hidden by a visual mask that gradually disappears, to investigate whether the emotional properties of words influence their speed of recognition. Participants were instructed either to classify the incrementally appearing word as emotional or non-emotional (semantic categorisation task) or to decide whether the appearing letter string is an existing word or not (lexical decision task). Results from both tasks revealed faster recognition times for high- compared to low-arousing words, and for positive compared to negative or neutral words. These findings indicate a recognition advantage for emotionally positive and highly arousing stimuli that persists even when visual word recognition is hampered and participants are encouraged to make more active, semantic inferences to generate the meaning of the emerging word.