Loss of cognitive skill across delays: Constraints for theories of cognitive skill acquisition.

Mastering a cognitive skill requires many practice sessions, occurring over a period of days, weeks, months, or even years. Although a large body of research describes and explains gains made within a given practice session, few studies have investigated what happens to these gains across a delay, and none have examined effects of delays on item-general gains. Across 3 experiments, participants performed alphabet arithmetic verification in an initial practice session followed by a test session after a delay (from 0 to 30 days). All experiments included conditions yielding item-general practice gains; Experiments 2–3 also included an item-specific practice condition. Surprisingly, item-general gains were relatively well preserved across a delay (e.g., only 6.7% decrease in practice effects after 2 days), whereas item-specific gains showed sizeable losses across a delay (e.g., 25.9% loss after 2 days). Results provide important empirical constraints to theories of cognitive skill acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Automaticity of Visual Statistical Learning.

The visual environment contains massive amounts of information involving the relations between objects in space and time, and recent studies of visual statistical learning (VSL) have suggested that this information can be automatically extracted by the visual system. The experiments reported in this article explore the automaticity of VSL in several ways, using both explicit familiarity and implicit response-time measures. The results demonstrate that (a) the input to VSL is gated by selective attention, (b) VSL is nevertheless an implicit process because it operates during a cover task and without awareness of the underlying statistical patterns, and (c) VSL constructs abstracted representations that are then invariant to changes in extraneous surface features. These results fuel the conclusion that VSL both is and is not automatic: It requires attention to select the relevant population of stimuli, but the resulting learning then occurs without intent or awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic imitation.

“Automatic imitation” is a type of stimulus-response compatibility effect in which the topographical features of task-irrelevant action stimuli facilitate similar, and interfere with dissimilar, responses. This article reviews behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging research on automatic imitation, asking in what sense it is “automatic” and whether it is “imitation.” This body of research reveals that automatic imitation is a covert form of imitation, distinct from spatial compatibility. It also indicates that, although automatic imitation is subject to input modulation by attentional processes, and output modulation by inhibitory processes, it is mediated by learned, long-term sensorimotor associations that cannot be altered directly by intentional processes. Automatic imitation provides an important tool for the investigation of the mirror neuron system, motor mimicry, and complex forms of imitation. It is a new behavioral phenomenon, comparable with the Stroop and Simon effects, providing strong evidence that even healthy adult humans are prone, in an unwilled and unreasoned way, to copy the actions of others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The automatic component of habit in health behavior: Habit as cue-contingent automaticity.

Objective: Habit might be usefully characterized as a form of automaticity that involves the association of a cue and a response. Three studies examined habitual automaticity in regard to different aspects of the cue-response relationship characteristic of unhealthy and healthy habits. Design, Main Outcome Measures, and Results: In each study, habitual automaticity was assessed by the Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI). In Study 1 SRHI scores correlated with attentional bias to smoking cues in a Stroop task. Study 2 examined the ability of a habit cue to elicit an unwanted habit response. In a prospective field study, habitual automaticity in relation to smoking when drinking alcohol in a licensed public house (pub) predicted the likelihood of cigarette-related action slips 2 months later after smoking in pubs had become illegal. In Study 3 experimental group participants formed an implementation intention to floss in response to a specified situational cue. Habitual automaticity of dental flossing was rapidly enhanced compared to controls. Conclusion: The studies provided three different demonstrations of the importance of cues in the automatic operation of habits. Habitual automaticity assessed by the SRHI captured aspects of a habit that go beyond mere frequency or consistency of the behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From automatic antigay prejudice to behavior: The moderating role of conscious beliefs about gender and behavioral control.

Two experiments tested whether the relation between automatic prejudice and discriminatory behavior is moderated by 2 conscious processes: conscious egalitarian beliefs and behavioral control. The authors predicted that, when both conscious processes are deactivated, automatic prejudice would elicit discriminatory behavior. When either of the 2 processes is activated, behavioral bias would be eliminated. The authors assessed participants' automatic attitudes toward gay men, conscious beliefs about gender, behavioral control, and interactions with gay confederates. In Experiment 1, men's beliefs about gender were heterogeneous, whereas women's beliefs were mostly egalitarian; men's responses supported the predictions, but women's responses did not. In Experiment 2, the authors recruited a sample with greater diversity in gender-related beliefs. Results showed that, for both sexes, automatic prejudice produced biased behavior in the absence of conscious egalitarian beliefs and behavioral control. The presence of either conscious process eliminated behavioral bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A time course analysis of the synesthetic colour priming effect.

A currently unresolved issue in research on synesthesia concerns the extent to which synesthetic experiences arise automatically. To shed light on this issue, we manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) in a synesthetic colour priming task (i.e., 0 ms, 200 ms, 1,000 ms). Results show that 200-ms presentations of synesthetic inducers produce reliable synesthetic colour priming at short SOAs. Based on this finding, we conclude that synesthesia is produced by fast-acting, automatic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the automatic evaluation of end-states.

The author's research examined automatically activated attitudes toward desired end-states. Across 4 studies, participants' automatic attitudes toward goals (i.e., thinness, egalitarianism) significantly predicted their goal pursuit, including behaviors, intentions, and judgments. Such attitudes predicted behavior and judgments that are difficult to monitor and control (i.e., restrained eating, subtle prejudice), but not judgments that are easy to monitor and control (i.e., blatant prejudice). Automatic attitudes toward goals also possessed unique predictive validity compared with explicit measures of motivation and with automatic attitudes toward more physical, "graspable" objects. The findings are discussed with regard to the predictive validity of automatic attitudes, the use of automatic attitudes toward goals as an implicit measure of motivation, and the role of automatic evaluative processes in goal-pursuit and self-regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The automaticity of emotion recognition.

Evolutionary accounts of emotion typically assume that humans evolved to quickly and efficiently recognize emotion expressions because these expressions convey fitness-enhancing messages. The present research tested this assumption in 2 studies. Specifically, the authors examined (a) how quickly perceivers could recognize expressions of anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, fear, happiness, pride, sadness, shame, and surprise; (b) whether accuracy is improved when perceivers deliberate about each expression's meaning (vs. respond as quickly as possible); and (c) whether accurate recognition can occur under cognitive load. Across both studies, perceivers quickly and efficiently (i.e., under cognitive load) recognized most emotion expressions, including the self-conscious emotions of pride, embarrassment, and shame. Deliberation improved accuracy in some cases, but these improvements were relatively small. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for the cognitive processes underlying emotion recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)