Using cognitive science methods to assess the role of social information processing in sexually coercive behavior.

74 undergraduate men completed cognitive performance tasks assessing perceptual organization, classification, and category learning, as well as self-report measures relevant to sexual coercion. The stimuli were slides of Caucasian women who varied along affect and physical exposure (i.e., sensuality) dimensions. Data were analyzed using a weighted multidimensional scaling model, signal-detection theory analyses, and a connectionist learning model (RASHNL; J. K. Kruschke and M. K. Johansen, 1999). Individual differences in performance on the classification and category-learning tasks were congruent with individual differences in perceptual organization. Additionally, participants who showed relatively more attention to exposure than to affect were less sensitive to women's negative responses to unwanted sexual advances. Overall, the study demonstrates the feasibility and utility of cognitive science methods for studying information processing in psychopathology, (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes underlying women's risk judgments: Associations with sexual victimization history and rape myth acceptance.

Objective: This study evaluated the effects of sexual victimization history, rape myth acceptance, implicit attention, and recent learning on the cognitive processes underlying undergraduate women's explicit risk judgments. Method: Participants were 194 undergraduate women between 18 and 24 years of age. The sample was ethnically diverse and composed primarily of freshman, heterosexual, and single women. Stimuli were written vignettes describing social situations that varied on dimensions of sexual victimization risk and potential impact on women's popularity. Participants completed cognitive tasks assessing relative attention to victimization risk versus popularity impact, learning about either risk or popularity impact, and explicit classification of victimization risk. Participants then completed the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) and the Rape Myth Acceptance Scale; SES responses were used to quantify the severity of victimization experiences. Results: More severe victimization history predicted use of higher thresholds for judging situations as risky, as well as lower sensitivity to risk and greater sensitivity to popularity impact when judging risk. Greater rape myth acceptance also predicted lower sensitivity to risk information. Higher relative attention to victimization risk predicted greater sensitivity to risk information when judging risk. Recent learning about either the risk or the popularity impact aspects of social situations modified sensitivity to risk versus popularity when making risk judgments. Conclusion: The study emphasizes the importance of distinguishing the threshold for judging situations as risky from sensitivity to risk-relevant information in understanding individual differences in women's risk judgments. Both processes may be important to consider when developing interventions to reduce women's risk for sexual victimization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for cognition, task difficulty, and the formation of performance expectancies.

In the present article, the authors analyze how performance expectancies are generated and how they affect actual performance. The authors predicted that task difficulty would affect performance expectancies only when cognitive motivation (i.e., need for cognition [NFC]) and cognitive capacity are high. This should be the case because analyzing task difficulty is a process requiring cognitive capacity as well as cognitive motivation. The findings supported the expected NFC × Difficulty interaction for the formation of performance expectancies (Study 1, Study 2), but only when cognitive capacity was high (Study 2). The authors also predicted that expectancies would affect actual performance only if the task is difficult and if task difficulty is taken into account when the expectancy is generated. This hypothesis was supported: Significant relations between performance expectancies and actual performance were found only for difficult tasks and for participants higher in NFC. Studies 5 and 6 showed clear evidence that the NFC × Difficulty interaction could not be explained by differences in the use of task-specific self-concepts. The findings were robust across academic, social, and physical tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processing about classroom-relevant contexts: Teachers' attention to and utilization of girls' body size, ethnicity, attractiveness, and facial affect.

This study examines 2 aspects of cognitive processing in person perception--attention and decision making--in classroom-relevant contexts. Teachers completed 2 implicit, performance-based tasks that characterized attention to and utilization of 4 student characteristics of interest: ethnicity, facial affect, body size, and attractiveness. Stimuli were 24 full-body photos of girls that varied along the dimensions of interest. Teachers completed a similarity-ratings task and 4 preference-ratings tasks. Results showed that teachers attended to ethnicity and body size but did not utilize this information when selecting students across contexts. In contrast, teachers relied heavily on affect and attractiveness when making decisions. These results suggest that further investigating cognitive processing in person perception is important in understanding how teachers attend to and use multiple salient student attributes in real-world contexts. This study also illustrates the potential utility of adopting a method that places a premium on internal validity to investigate questions relevant to educational researchers. Future work should investigate how other student information, such as student background or personality, affects teachers' cognitive processing in different classroom-relevant contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypnotic susceptibility as related to gestalt closure tasks.

Studied the relationship of gestalt closure tasks to hypnotizability (Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility and Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale) as a test of the hypothesis that the more highly hypnotizable do better on a task of holistic visuospatial functioning than those less responsive to hypnosis. Several other cognitive tasks were included. Four studies were conducted with 125 male and 106 female high school and college students. In Study I, high hypnotizables scored significantly higher than low hypnotizables on the gestalt closure tasks, but there were no significant correlations between hypnotizability and the other cognitive tasks. In Studies II and III, females showed significant correlations between hypnotic susceptibility and gestalt closure scores. In Study IV, a significant correlation between hypnotic susceptibility and gestalt closure was found for males. Results are consistent with studies of different types of cognitive functioning (hemispheric preference, creativity, attentional distribution, imaginative involvement, and absorption), all indicating differences in cognitive abilities associated with high hypnotizability. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Wechsler Object Assembly subtest and bodily concerns.

This study tried to evaluate a hypothesis drawn from clinical impressions and from suggestive incidental data of prior research that concerns about body intactness will be reflected in a Wechsler subtest pattern where the Object Assembly (OA) score is lower than those of other subtests. OA scores were found to be significantly lower in children with bodily concerns than in a control group, and there were no other significant differences on other WISC subtests. Rorschachs of adult patients with low and high OA scores were compared and there was a significantly greater percentage of Rorschach responses indicating bodily concern in the group scoring low in OA. These findings are discussed in relation to the assessment of cognitive processes and ego functions in diagnostic testing, the process of clinical inference and prior research on body image. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive functions, information sampling, and decision making in narcolepsy with cataplexy.

Objective: Narcolepsy with cataplexy (NC) affects neurotransmitter systems regulating emotions and cognitive functions. This study aimed to assess executive functions, information sampling, reward processing, and decision making in NC. Method: Twenty-one NC patients and 58 healthy participants performed an extensive neuropsychological test battery. Results: NC patients scored as controls in executive function tasks assessing set shifting, reversal learning, working memory, and planning. Group differences appeared in a task measuring information sampling and reward sensitivity. NC patients gathered less information, tolerated a higher level of uncertainty, and were less influenced by reward contingencies than controls. NC patients also showed reduced learning in decision making and had significantly lower scores than controls in the fifth block of the IOWA gambling task. No correlations were found with measures of sleepiness. Conclusions: NC patients may achieve high performance in several neuropsychological domains, including executive functions. Specific differences between NC patients and controls highlight the importance of the hypocretin system in reward processing and decision making and are in line with previous neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of interpersonal orientation and the sex-type of the task on choosing to work alone or in groups.

The preferences of men and women for working alone or with others were examined. 150 undergraduates were presented with masculine and feminine tasks and were offered the choice of working alone or with others on the tasks. A cognitive model predicted that the congruence between gender and the sex-type of the task would affect expectancies of success, which, in turn would affect choice. From an individual difference perspective, it was predicted that interpersonal orientation would affect choice. The cognitive perspective model was supported, whereas interpersonal orientation had little effect on choice. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for task perceptions and gender differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the nature of global dominance in object perception.

Taken together, the previous studies confirm that global information is favoured during the processing of compound stimuli. In addition, global dominance occurs during both preattentive and attentive processing. The nature of this dominance is affected by whether or not an object is attended. Preattentive analysis leads to an automatic categorization but not to the identification of global features, whereas attentive processing lead to an inevitable identification of global information. Finally, the studies demonstrated a fundamental difference between global and local processing which seem to differ in their automatically level; local processing is greatly affected by attentional set, whereas global processing appears less subject to high level cognitive strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neural and behavioral measures of error-related cognitive control predict daily coping with stress.

This study tested the hypothesis that individual differences in cognitive control can predict individual differences in emotion regulation. Participants completed color–word and emotional Stroop tasks while an electroencephalogram was recorded, and then they reported daily stressful events, affect, and coping for 14 days. Greater posterror slowing in the emotional Stroop task predicted greater negative affect in response to stressors and less use of task-focused coping as daily stressors increased. Participants whose neural activity best distinguished errors from correct responses tended to show less stress reactivity in daily self-reports. Finally, depression levels predicted daily affect and coping independent of cognitive control variables. The results offer qualified support for an integrated conception of cognitive and emotional self-regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive impairment among elderly coronary heart disease patients

BACKGROUND: Coronary heart disease (CHD) and decline in cognitive functioning and dementia are common problems in the elderly. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are connected with vascular dementia, but less is known about cognitive functioning among elderly patients with CHD based on population studies. OBJECTIVE: To describe the associations between CHD and cognitive impairment among the elderly. POPULATION AND METHODS: Of the total population of the Lieto study (488 community-dwelling men and 708 women, >/=64 years old), the ambulatory patients with CHD (89 men and 73 women) and sex- and age-matched controls without any sign of CHD (178 men and 146 women) were selected to make up the study population. CHD was defined as the presence of angina pectoris or a past myocardial infarction. Cognitive assessment was based on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). RESULTS: The total MMSE scores, the MMSE subtest scores and the overall test-based cognitive functioning did not differ between patients and controls. Among men, higher MMSE subscores in orientation and language were related to more severe chest pain. According to logistic regression analyses, the cognitive impairment of men was associated with high age, the use of cardiac glycosides and physical disability. Among women, cognitive impairment was associated with high age and the use of antipsychotics. CONCLUSION: In general, CHD has no independent association with cognitive impairment among the non-institutionalized community-living elderly. Among men, however, a complicated CHD may negatively affect cognitive functioning.     

Power in Stereotypically Masculine Domains: A Social Influence Strategy X Stereotype Match Model.

This work examines the hypothesis that stereotypes of groups to which low-power people belong should influence the perceptions and behavior of powerful people only when those stereotypes are both contextually relevant (e.g., women in masculine domains) and provide information of relevance given powerful people's beliefs about the relation between subordinates and goal attainment. Findings across two studies supported predictions. In a masculine domain, when high-power men were attentive to subordinate weaknesses that may produce thwarts to goal attainment, stereotypes of women defined the contextually relevant shortcomings of women, and stereotype-consistent high-power behaviors ensued. In contrast, when powerful men were attentive to subordinate strengths that may enhance goal strivings, stereotypes of women were uninformative (i.e., did not contain information about relevant strengths); female and male employees were responded to and, in turn, performed and reacted similarly. The implications of these findings for theorizing on the relation between power and stereotyping are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of work task cues and play task cues on information processing, judgment, and motivation.

Explored how task cues affect cognition, attitudes, and behavior in this laboratory study with 82 MBA students. Linguistic analysis of responses to the same puzzle task, cued as either work or play, revealed that task cues influenced how information was perceived and was used to form judgments and to shape behavioral responses. Ss performing work tasks attended more to information about the quantity of their performance and made more streamlined, goal-directed responses. Ss performing play tasks attended more to information about the quality of their performance; made more elaborated, image-laden responses; and were more intrinsically motivated. Links among task cues, cognitive processes, and performance were explicated through path analysis. Task cues affected performance outcomes indirectly by instantiating associated cognitive orientations: a means orientation in play and an ends orientation in work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensitivity and teaching by dysphoric and nondysphoric women in structured versus unstructured situations.

This study compared the sensitivity and teaching strategies of dysphoric and nondysphoric women working with unfamiliar 5- and 6-year-olds. Interactions of 20 dysphoric and 20 nondysphoric mothers and an unfamiliar child were observed during 2 classification tasks and 3 unstructured activities staged as breaks. Nondysphoric women were more sensitive to children's level of understanding than dysphoric women and were more likely to use a variety of teaching strategies. Dyads with nondysphoric women were also more likely to share decision making than dyads with dysphoric women. These differences between dysphoric and nondysphoric women were significant only in the structured classification tasks. The findings indicate that in some situations dysphoric and nondysphoric women vary in their sensitivity to children's cues and in the teaching strategies they use with children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental investment theory and gender differences in the evolution of inhibition mechanisms.

Based on the tenets of parental investment theory, the authors postulate that there was greater pressure to inhibit potentially maladaptive emotional, social, and sexual responses on prehistoric women than men in some contexts, resulting in enhanced inhibitory abilities in women in some domains. They reviewed studies whose researchers examined gender differences on social, behavioral, and cognitive tasks involving inhibition and found gender differences favoring female humans most consistent for social tasks (e.g., control of emotions), somewhat less pronounced for behavioral tasks (e.g., delay of gratification), and weak and inconsistent for cognitive tasks (e.g., conceptual tempo). This pattern was interpreted as being consistent with the position that gender differences in inhibition are relatively domain specific in nature, with women demonstrating greater abilities on tasks related to reproduction and childrearing, which is consistent with parental investment theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Species differences in executive function correlate with hippocampus volume and neocortex ratio across nonhuman primates.

A persistent debate in behavioral research is whether brain size or architecture relates to cognitive performance. A growing body of evidence has demonstrated correlations between brain size and ecological and behavioral tasks. These studies are premised on a causal link between brain size and cognitive function, although this association has little empirical backing. We show, for a set of 46 species from 17 primate genera, that competence on a series of eight executive function cognitive tasks both correlate across tasks and with brain size and architecture across species. Our model selection approach showed that, although several measures of brain component volumes are significantly associated with performance, hippocampus size is the best predictor of overall performance. The best performing model also includes total brain size and relative neocortex size. Additionally, absolute measures are much more predictive of performance than relative measures of brain and brain component size. These results are consistent with the hippocampus' role in learning, and the executive brain (neocortex) being important for problem solving and consolidation. Our findings challenge and extend those of previous analyses by clarifying the relationship between overall brain size and specific regional volumes. They also suggest that commonly used indices of encephalization, such as residuals of brain volume regressed on body size, may confound rather than clarify matters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selected process variables as a function of client type and cognitive complexity in beginning counselors.

Investigated the effect on 4 selected counseling process variables by utilizing multiple measures of cognitive complexity and varied counseling tasks. Cognitive complexity was assessed with 5 separate measures (interconcept distance measure of cognitive complexity, intolerance of trait consistency, intolerance of ambiguity, category width, and paragraph completion test), and counseling tasks consisted of 2 counseling sessions with simulated clients. Ss were 33 22–44 yr old 1st-yr counselors grouped according to their cognitive style. The process variables were counselor–client congruency, counselor empathy, counselor verbal mode, and subrole. The principal findings of the study are as follows: (a) Counselor cognitive complexity did not significantly discriminate between measures of the 4 process variables. (b) There was a significant difference in performance on 3 process variables (counselor subrole, verbal mode, and accurate empathy) between the 2 counseling tasks. (c) There was a significant interaction effect between counseling tasks and the low-complexity group on accurate empathy. Within certain restrictions, it is concluded that differences in the simulated clients appear to be more influential on certain process variables than the information processing style of the student counselor. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Body size and physique among Canadians of First Nation and European ancestry

The purpose of this study was to compare body size and physique among Canadians of Aboriginal (First Nation [FN]) and European ancestry (EA) from the northern Ontario communities of Temagami and Bear Island. The sample consisted of 130 FN and 494 EA participants including adults (20-75 years: 214 men, 234 women) and youth (5-19 years: 97 boys, 79 girls). Indicators of body size and physique included stature, the sitting height-to-stature ratio (SSR), body mass, BMI, estimated upper-arm muscle area, biacromial, bicristal, biepicondylar, and bicondylar breadths, and the Heath-Carter anthropometric somatotype (endomorphy, mesomorphy, and ectomorphy). There were few differences in body size between FN and EA, with the exception of adult females. Adult FN females were significantly heavier and had greater bone breadths than EA women (P < 0.001). On the other hand, somatotype differed significantly between EA and FN by age and sex, except for 5-19-year-old females. Among boys and men, FN had greater endomorphy (P < 0.03), whereas FN men also had lower ectomorphy (P < 0.01). Among women, FN were significantly more endomorphic and mesomorphic and less ectomorphic (P < 0.001). Although results for 5-19-year-old females were not significant, they were in the same direction as the other groups (greater endomorphy). Forward stepwise discriminant function analyses indicated that endomorphy was the most important discriminator between FN and EA by age and sex.     

Behavioral and electrographic measures of attention in children at risk for schizophrenia.

A previous study by H. Grunebaum et al (see record 1975-00816-001) found that 5-yr-old children of schizophrenic mothers were impaired on visual attention tasks as compared with controls. No difference was observed in 6-yr-olds, however. This study reexamined the attentive behavior of 12 of these children 3 yrs later. In addition, evoked potentials to various visual stimuli were obtained. Group differences could no longer be found in visual attentive behavior; however, the risk group had evoked potentials of significantly higher amplitude and, under certain conditions, of longer latency than the controls. These findings suggest a maturational lag in visual stimulus processing in these children at risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Priming effects in semantic classification tasks.

Six experiments were conducted on priming in semantic classification tasks that allow free play between perceptual and semantic processes. Priming was greatest when words were repeated on the same semantic task at study and test but was absent when repeated words were classified on different semantic tasks (size and man-made; Exp 1). Thus, merely repeating perceptual information is not sufficient to produce priming. Priming was obtained, however, when items on the same semantic task were repeated in different formats (words and pictures; Exp 2). Consistent with stage models of single-word reading, priming was obtained when a semantic classification task was followed by a word form task (i.e., lexical classification or naming) but not when it was preceded by the word form task (Exps 3 and 4). Priming was also found across lexical tasks that both involve the word form (Exp 5) and across classification tasks that refer to the same semantic domain (overall size and relative dimensions; Exp 6). Results suggest that priming is determined by the overlap in the component processes of the study and test tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)