Visual search along the colour dimension

Subjects searched for a chromatic target among coloured background items. With low target-background chromatic similarity, response latencies remained uniformly short whether the target was present or not and whether the items were chromatically homogeneous or not. Latencies increased with increases in target-background similarity and were longest with heterogeneous backgrounds, with which the effects of trial type also became manifest. We employed Treisman's model of visual search to account for these findings. In particular, we suggest that similarity increases forced a shift from a preattentive to an attentive search, the latter being importantly shaped by the background's level of chromatic variance.     

Modeling Asymmetry in the Time–Distance Relation of Ordinal Personality Items

In analyzing responses and response times to personality questionnaire items, models have been proposed which include the so-called “inverted-U effect.” These models predict that response times to personality test items decrease as the latent trait value of a given person gets closer to the attractiveness of an item. Initial studies into these models have focused on dichotomous personality items, and more recently, models for Likert-type scale items have been proposed. In all these models, it is assumed that the inverted-U effect is symmetrical around 0, while, as will be explained in this article, there are substantive and statistical reasons to study this assumption. Therefore, in this article, a general inverted-U model is proposed which accommodates two sources of asymmetry between the response times and the attractiveness of the items. The viability of this model is demonstrated in a simulation study, and the model is applied to the responses and response times of the Temperament and Character Inventory–Revised, covering a broad range of personality dimensions.     

A Brief Gratitude Writing Intervention Decreased Stress and Negative Affect During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Exploring ways to mitigate the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic is important for long-term health. Expressive and gratitude-focused writing are effective methods to help individuals process traumatic or stressful events. Gratitude-focused writing may yield additional benefits because it helps individuals appraise events positively. We hypothesized that an online gratitude writing intervention would yield greater benefits than an expressive writing intervention or control group. Participants were randomized to one of three groups and completed assessments one-week and one-month post-intervention. The gratitude writing group maintained gratitude levels and decreased stress and negative affect at one-month post-intervention. The expressive writing group decreased in gratitude and showed no changes in stress or negative affect at one-month post-intervention. The control group decreased in gratitude and negative affect and showed no changes in stress at one-month post-intervention. Gratitude writing may be a better resource for dealing with stress and negative affect than traditional expressive writing methods under extremely stressful situations with uncertain trajectories.

     

Malleability of attitudes or malleability of the IAT?

In the current set of experiments, we establish, and explore the consequences of, the imprecision that characterizes the attribute response labels typically employed in the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Experiment 1, we demonstrate the malleability of the IAT, as conventionally implemented. IAT scores are shown to be influenced by perspective mindsets induced by an unrelated preceding task. Then, we explore how the malleability of the IAT can lead to the inference that attitude change has occurred even when there is very good reason to believe it has not (Experiment 2), and conversely, how it can obscure the detection of attitude change when such change is indeed likely to have occurred (Experiment 3). We provide conceptual explanations for these discrepancies and suggest methodological improvements to enhance the specificity of IAT measures.     

Perceived characteristics of “competent” people

The purpose of this research was to determine the specific behaviors and cues which 104 assessors perceived as indicating the presence of psychological variables shown to be related to competent job behavior. The cue systems utilized were found to be reminiscent of theory Y conceptions of effective job behavior. Implications of the lack of correlation of cue utilization with assessor characteristics are discussed.     

Towards a computational theory of experience

A standing challenge for the science of mind is to account for the datum that every mind faces in the most immediate – that is, unmediated – fashion: its phenomenal experience. The complementary tasks of explaining what it means for a system to give rise to experience and what constitutes the content of experience (qualia) in computational terms are particularly challenging, given the multiple realizability of computation. In this paper, we identify a set of conditions that a computational theory must satisfy for it to constitute not just a sufficient but a necessary, and therefore naturalistic and intrinsic, explanation of qualia. We show that a common assumption behind many neurocomputational theories of the mind, according to which mind states can be formalized solely in terms of instantaneous vectors of activities of representational units such as neurons, does not meet the requisite conditions, in part because it relies on inactive units to shape presently experienced qualia and implies a homogeneous representation space, which is devoid of intrinsic structure. We then sketch a naturalistic computational theory of qualia, which posits that experience is realized by dynamical activity-space trajectories (rather than points) and that its richness is measured by the representational capacity of the trajectory space in which it unfolds.     

The effect of expertise on the relation between implicit and explicit attitude measures: An information availability/accessibility perspective

Three experiments investigate expertise as a moderator of the relationship between implicit and explicit attitude measures. Prior research suggests that greater expertise leads to stronger implicit–explicit relations; however, a cognitive view of expertise can also predict a weaker implicit–explicit relation. Our framework helps to resolve that seeming contradiction on the basis of the availability/accessibility of attributes versus attitudes in explicit attitude measures. We show that object specificity and contextual factors (e.g., instructions and prior evaluations in a survey) differentially affect the availability/accessibility of global attitudes and attribute information for novices versus experts, thus determining how expertise moderates the implicit–explicit relation.     

Foot Motion Character During Forward and Backward Walking With Shoes and Barefoot

Abstract

Backward walking (BW) has been extensively used in athletic training and orthopedic rehabilitation as it may have value for enhancing balance. This study identified the differences in foot intersegment kinematics (forward walking (FW) vs. time-reversed BW) and plantar pressure parameters of 16 healthy habitually shod individuals walking FW and BW using flexible shoes (SH) and under barefoot conditions (BF). BW was found to have shorter stride length (SL) and higher stride frequency (SF) under BF conditions compared with SH, which indicates a better BW gait stability under BF conditions. Decreased HX/FF dorsiflexion at HO in BW induces less plantar aponeurosis tension which may inhibit the windlass mechanism compared to FW walking. Increased forefoot relative to hindfoot (FF/HF) pronation and sequentially hindfoot relative to tibia (HF/TB) eversion combined with medially distributed plantar pressure and a higher plantar contact area in the medial side in BW–BF maybe beneficial in maintaining balance. These results indicate that BW training may be more reliable under BF conditions compared to the SH conditions based on greater sensory information feedback from the plantar area resulting in better biomechanical behavior.     

Facing guilt: Role of negative affectivity,need for reparation,and fear of punishment in leading to prosocial behaviour and aggression

The present study aims to further corroborate and to extend the scope of previous findings regarding the path of influence between negative affectivity, need for reparation and fear of punishment when examining the determinants and the motivational components of guilt. Data were collected from three different European countries (i.e. Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic). About 1100 young adolescents were involved in the research. The generalizability of a nomological network linking individual differences in Negative Affectivity to Need for Reparation, Fear of Punishment, Prosocial Behaviour, and Aggression has been investigated across countries and gender, by means of structural equation modelling. Need for Reparation turns out to be positively related to Prosocial Behaviour and negatively related to Aggression. Fear for Punishment turns out to be positively related to Aggression and negatively related to Prosocial Behaviour, with the exception of Hungary. Alternative paths of influence among considered variables have been examined. Practical implications for prevention and education are underlined. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.