Simple predictions fueled by capacity limitations: When are they successful?

Counterintuitively, Y. Kareev, I. Lieberman, and M. Lev (1997) found that a lower short-term memory capacity benefits performance on a correlation detection task. They assumed that people with low short-term memory capacity (low spans) perceived the correlations as more extreme because they relied on smaller samples, which are known to exaggerate correlations. The authors consider, as an alternative hypothesis, that low spans do not perceive exaggerated correlations but make simpler predictions. Modeling both hypotheses in ACT-R demonstrates that simpler predictions impair performance if the environment changes, whereas a more exaggerated perception of correlation is advantageous to detect a change. Congruent with differences in the way participants make predictions, 2 experiments revealed a low capacity advantage before the environment changes but a high capacity advantage afterward, although this pattern of results surprisingly only existed for men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing Theories of Recognition Memory by Predicting Performance Across Paradigms.

Signal-detection theory (SDT) accounts of recognition judgments depend on the assumption that recognition decisions result from a single familiarity-based process. However, fits of a hybrid SDT model, called dual-process theory (DPT), have provided evidence for the existence of a second, recollection-based process. In 2 experiments, the authors tested predictions of DPT and SDT by comparing the invariance of parameter estimates between yes/no (Y/N) and 2-altemative forced-choice (2AFC) testing paradigms. Both experiments showed DPT recollection estimates in Y/N to be poorly correlated with recollection estimates in 2AFC. In Experiment 2, SDT predictions explained more variance than DPT predictions. The authors evaluate and discuss the extent to which each model possesses theoretical validity versus computational flexibility in curve fitting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sample size and correlational inference.

In 4 studies, the authors examined the hypothesis that the structure of the informational environment makes small samples more informative than large ones for drawing inferences about population correlations. The specific purpose of the studies was to test predictions arising from the signal detection simulations of R. B. Anderson, M. E. Doherty, N. D. Berg, and J. C. Friedrich (2005). The results of a simulation study in the present article confirmed and extended previous theoretical claims (R. B. Anderson et al., 2005) that in a yes/no correlation detection task, small-sample advantages should occur but should be restricted to particular decision conditions. In 3 behavioral studies, participants viewed larger or smaller samples of data pairs and judged whether each sample had been drawn from a population characterized by a zero correlation or from one characterized by a greater-than-zero correlation. Consistent with traditional statistical theory, accuracy tended to be greater for larger than for smaller samples, though there was a small-sample advantage in 1 experimental condition. The results are discussed in relation to alternative theoretical and behavioral paradigms such as those of Y. Kareev (e.g., 2005) and K. Fiedler and Y. Kareev (2006). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are performance predictions for text based on ease of processing?

In 4 experiments, the authors evaluated the hypothesis that performance predictions for text are based on ease of processing. In each experiment, participants read texts, predicted their performance for each one, and then were tested. Ease of processing was manipulated by having participants read texts that varied in coherence. Coherence was varied by manipulating causal relatedness across sentence pairs (Experiments 1 and 2) and by altering the structure of sentences within paragraphs (Experiment 3). In these experiments, prediction magnitudes increased as coherence increased, suggesting that predictions were based on processing ease. In Experiment 4, prediction magnitudes were greater for intact paragraphs than for paragraphs with letters deleted from some of the words. Discussion focuses on resolving apparent inconsistencies in the literature concerning whether processing ease influences performance predictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A controlled-attention view of working-memory capacity.

In 2 experiments the authors examined whether individual differences in working-memory (WM) capacity are related to attentional control. Experiment 1 tested high- and low-WM-span (high-span and low-span) participants in a prosaccade task, in which a visual cue appeared in the same location as a subsequent to-be-identified target letter, and in an antisaccade task, in which a target appeared opposite the cued location. Span groups identified targets equally well in the prosaccade task, reflecting equivalence in automatic orienting. However, low-span participants were slower and less accurate than high-span participants in the antisaccade task, reflecting differences in attentional control. Experiment 2 measured eye movements across a long antisaccade session. Low-span participants made slower and more erroneous saccades than did high-span participants. In both experiments, low-span participants performed poorly when task switching from antisaccade to prosaccade blocks. The findings support a controlled-attention view of WM capacity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Being better by being right: Subjective group dynamics and derogation of in-group deviants when generic norms are undermined.

The authors predicted that derogation of group deviants depends on the extent to which in-group norms or values are validated or undermined in a social context. In Experiment 1 participants were less tolerant and derogated in-group deviants more when other in-group members opposed the norm. In Experiment 2 participants derogated in-group deviants more than out-group deviants and than noncategorized individuals, but only when normative in-group members lacked uniformity. In Experiment 3 participants derogated in-group deviants more when there was uncertainty about in-group superiority. These results are consistent with previous research on the black sheep effect (J. M. Marques, V. Y. Yzerbyt, & J. -P. Leyens, 1998) and with the model of subjective group dynamics (D. Abrams, J. M. Marques, N. J. Bown, & M. Henson, 2000; J. M. Marques, D. Abrams, D. Paez, & C. Martinez-Taboada, 1998). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of varying stimulus size on object recognition in pigeons.

The authors investigated the pigeon's ability to generalize object discrimination performance to smaller and larger versions of trained objects. In Experiment 1, they taught pigeons with line drawings of multipart objects and later tested the birds with both larger and smaller drawings. The pigeons exhibited significant generalization to new sizes, although they did show systematic performance decrements as the new size deviated from the original. In Experiment 2, the authors tested both linear and exponential size changes of computer-rendered basic shapes to determine which size transformation produced equivalent performance for size increases and decreases. Performance was more consistent with logarithmic than with linear scaling of size. This finding was supported in Experiment 3. Overall, the experiments suggest that the pigeon encodes size as a feature of objects and that the representation of size is most likely logarithmic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the manipulative behavior of low Machiavellians: Feigning incompetence to "sandbag" an opponent.

Three decades of research has revealed that people scoring high in Machiavellianism (high Machs) are manipulative and domineering. However, the domineering style of high Machs may preclude them from using manipulations that require a display of weakness. The authors examined whether Machiavellianism moderates the use of sandbagging—a manipulative strategy in which people display low ability to induce an opponent to reduce effort or lower his or her guard. In Experiment 1, participants (N?=?198) reported that they would reduce effort in response to a disadvantaged opponent and anticipated that their opponent would behave similarly if they were disadvantaged. In Experiment 2 (N?=?66), low Machs in competition sandbagged their opponent when they were uncertain that they could otherwise beat him. High Machs, in contrast, preferred a show of strength to a show of weakness, displaying high ability even when sandbagging might have been an advantageous strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preparing for novel versus familiar events: Shifts in global and local processing.

Six experiments examined whether novelty versus familiarity influences global versus local processing styles. Novelty and familiarity were manipulated by either framing a task as new versus familiar or by asking participants to reflect upon novel versus familiar events prior to the task (i.e., procedural priming). In Experiments 1–3, global perception was enhanced after novelty priming or framing, whereas familiarity priming facilitated local perception relative to a control group. In Experiment 4, participants used more inclusive categories under novelty priming and narrower categories under familiarity priming. In Experiments 5–6, participants construed actions and products more abstractly when these were framed as novel as compared to familiar. These results support the construal level theory (N. Liberman & Y. Trope, 2008; Y. Trope & N. Liberman, 2003) contention that having less direct experience is associated with using higher construal levels. Implications of the findings for research on mood, processing styles, stereotypes, and consumer research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguishing between inhibitory and episodic processing accounts of switch-cost asymmetries.

In two experiments, the authors investigate whether switch-cost asymmetries that are often observed in studies of task switching (e.g., Allport, Styles, & Hsieh, 1994) can be best explained by reference to an inhibitory mechanism or episodic memory principles. In Experiment 1, the authors replicated the basic finding, observing the highest switching costs when participants were required to perform an easier perceptual task after having just performed a more difficult conceptual judgment. The reverse task switch produced a significantly smaller switching cost. Experiment 2 revealed that the cost of switching from one difficult conceptual task to another is also higher than the cost of switching from one easy perceptual task to another. In combination, our results demonstrate that the cost of task switching depends mainly on the difficulty of the task participants are required to switch from, favouring an episodic processing account of this switch-cost asymmetry. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Logic, beliefs, and instruction: A test of the default interventionist account of belief bias.

According to dual-process accounts of thinking, belief-based responses on reasoning tasks are generated as default but can be intervened upon in favor of logical responding, given sufficient time, effort, or cognitive resource. In this article, we present the results of 5 experiments in which participants were instructed to evaluate the conclusions of logical arguments on the basis of either their logical validity or their believability. Contrary to the predictions arising from these accounts, the logical status of the presented conclusion had a greater impact on judgments concerning its believability than did the believability of the conclusion on judgments about whether it followed logically. This finding was observed when instructional set was presented as a between-participants factor (Experiment 1), when instruction was indicated prior to problem presentation by a cue (Experiment 2), and when the cue appeared simultaneously with conclusion presentation (Experiments 3 and 4). The finding also extended to a range of simple and more complex argument forms (Experiment 5). In these latter experiments, belief-based judgments took significantly longer than those made under logical instructions. We discuss the implications of these findings for default interventionist accounts of belief bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repetition Blindness: Out of Sight or Out of Mind?

Does repetition blindness represent a failure of perception or of memory? In Experiment 1, participants viewed rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sentences. When critical words (C1 and C2) were orthographically similar, C2 was frequently omitted from serial report; however, repetition priming for C2 on a postsentence lexical decision task was equivalent whether or not C1 was similar to C2. In Experiment 2, participants monitored RSVP sentences for a predetermined target. Participants frequently failed to detect the target when it was preceded by an orthographically similar word. In Experiment 3, the authors investigated the role of the attentional blink in this effect. These experiments suggest that repetition blindness is a failure of conscious perception, consistent with predictions of the token-individuation hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cold water immersion modulates the reinforcing effects of nitrous oxide in healthy volunteers.

The purpose of this study was to determine if a contextual variable manipulation, water temperature of a bath in which a forearm was immersed, would modulate the reinforcing effects of nitrous oxide (N?O) in healthy volunteers (N?=?12). Each of 2 separate choice experiments consisted of a lukewarm water session and a cold water session. Each session consisted of 3 trials: The 1st 2 were sampling trials in which participants inhaled either 100% oxygen or 40% N?0 for 25 min, and the last trial was a 25-min choice trial, in which participants chose between the 2 agents. In each of the 3 trials, participants immersed their forearm in either ice-cold or lukewarm water for 3 min. A variant of the McNemar test revealed that participants were more likely to choose N?O on cold water sessions than on warm water sessions. The authors conclude that N?O was more reinforcing when participants forearms were immersed in ice-cold water than when immersed in lukewarm water. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional attention set-shifting and its relationship to anxiety and emotion regulation.

Attentional deployment is a primary strategy individuals use to regulate emotion. In 2 experiments, a measure of an individual’s ability to deploy attention toward and away from emotional mental representations was developed. This measure of attentional control capacity for emotion adapted an explicit-cuing task switching paradigm in which participants had to shift between emotional and neutral mental sets. Experiment 1 (N = 118) showed that those higher in trait anxiety and worrisome thoughts took longer to switch from a neutral to an emotional mental set. In Experiment 2 (N = 42), participants were given a stressful anagram task, and those who switched more efficiently from a neutral set to an emotional set were more frustrated by the stressful task. In addition, those who switched more efficiently from an emotional set to a neutral set persisted longer on the stressful task. These findings provide an initial step toward identifying possible mechanisms through which individuals apply attentional control to emotional mental representations to regulate emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linguistic intergroup bias: Evidence for in-group-protective motivation.

Linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) is the tendency to describe positive in-group and negative out-group behaviors more abstractly than negative in-group and positive out-group behaviors. Two experiments investigated the role of in-group-protective motives, by varying threat to ingroup identity of hunters vs. environmentalists (Experiment 1, N?=?160) and northern vs. southern Italians (Experiment 2, N?=?212). Participants whose in-group had or had not been threatened described positive and negative behaviors of in-group and out-group protagonists. In both experiments, the LIB was greater under identity threat. Experiment 1 also showed that LIB was positively related to postexperimental but not to preexperimental individual and collective self-esteem. Results suggest that the magnitude of LIB depends on in-group-protective motivation and that in-group-favoring language may be functional to self-esteem maintenance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Object permanence in ring doves (Streptopelia risoria).

Object permanence tests were administered to ring doves (Streptopelia risoria). In Experiment 1 (N?=?4), doves received tests in which a food cup was moved behind a screen as the subject watched. The birds successfully retrieved the food when a single screen was used but failed to do so when food was displaced behind 1 of 2 simultaneously present screens. In Experiment 2 (N?=?4), doves were allowed to initiate search movement before the object disappeared behind 1 of 2 screens. This procedural change improved performance. In Experiment 3 (N?=?2), a screen was lowered over a stationary object as the subject approached the object. Lowering the screen interrupted search behavior temporarily without impairing performance. It is argued that interruption of search behavior requires some cognitive flexibility that the typical Stage 4a capacity described in Piaget's theory does not include. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Orienting and maintenance of gaze to facial expressions in social anxiety.

In 2 experiments, the authors tested predictions from cognitive models of social anxiety regarding attentional biases for social and nonsocial cues by monitoring eye movements to pictures of faces and objects in high social anxiety (HSA) and low social anxiety (LSA) individuals. Under no-stress conditions (Experiment 1), HSA individuals initially directed their gaze toward neutral faces, relative to objects, more often than did LSA participants. However, under social-evaluative stress (Experiment 2), HSA individuals showed reduced biases in initial orienting and maintenance of gaze on faces (cf. objects) compared with the LSA group. HSA individuals were also relatively quicker to look at emotional faces than neutral faces but looked at emotional faces for less time, compared with LSA individuals, consistent with a vigilant-avoidant pattern of bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expertise and category-based induction.

The authors examined inductive reasoning among experts in a domain. Three types of tree experts (landscapers, taxonomists, and parks maintenance personnel) completed 3 reasoning tasks. In Experiment 1, participants inferred which of 2 novel diseases would affect "more other kinds of trees" and provided justifications for their choices. In Experiment 2, the authors used modified instructions and asked which disease would be more likely to affect "all trees." In Experiment 3, the conclusion category was eliminated altogether, and participants were asked to generate a list of other affected trees. Among these populations, typicality and diversity effects were weak to nonexistent. Instead, experts' reasoning was influenced by "local" coverage (extension of the property to members of the same folk family) and causal-ecological factors. The authors concluded that domain knowledge leads to the use of a variety of reasoning strategies not captured by current models of category-based induction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical attractiveness and subjective well-being.

Three studies were conducted to determine whether physical attractiveness (PAT) is related to subjective well-being (SWB). In the first study (N?=?221), unselected students were photographed and videotaped. In the second study (N?=?131), participants were selected on the basis of extremes in PAT, and in the third study (N?=?155), participants were preselected for extreme scores on SWB. Correlations between SWB and PAT varied from .03 to .33. In Study 1 the mean correlation between PAT and SWB was .13. When appearance enhancers (hair, clothing, and jewelry) were covered or removed in Studies 2 and 3, the correlation between PAT and SWB dropped, suggesting that part of the SWB–PAT relation might be due to happier people doing more to enhance their beauty. The impact of PAT on SWB may be mitigated by the fact that others agree on a target's PAT at only modest levels. It was found that self-perceptions of PAT were correlated with both one's objective PAT and one's SWB. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detecting variety: What's so special about uniformity?

People and pigeons were taught to make 1 of 2 responses to 16-icon arrays that differed in their visual variability. In 2 experiments, participants had to (1) discriminate a collection of identical items from a collection in which 2 or more items were different or (2) discriminate a collection of different items from a collection in which 2 or more items were identical. In Experiment 1, humans found it much easier to discriminate uniformity from all levels of diversity. In Experiment 2, pigeons also found it easier to discriminate uniformity from all levels of diversity, but the size of this effect was smaller than that observed in people. These and other results suggest that both species are predisposed to notice differences rather than similarities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)