Thoughts
More dead than dead: Perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state
Kurt Gray, Anne Knickman & Daniel Wegner
Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
Patients in persistent vegetative state (PVS) may be biologically alive, but these experiments indicate that people see PVS as a state curiously more dead than dead. Experiment 1 found that PVS patients were perceived to have less mental capacity than the dead. Experiment 2 explained this effect as an outgrowth of afterlife beliefs, and the tendency to focus on the bodies of PVS patients at the expense of their minds. Experiment 3 found that PVS is also perceived as "worse" than death: people deem early death better than being in PVS. These studies suggest that people perceive the minds of PVS patients as less valuable than those of the dead - ironically, this effect is especially robust for those high in religiosity.
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Evidence for training the ability to read microexpressions of emotion
David Matsumoto & Hyi Sung Hwang
Motivation and Emotion, June 2011, Pages 181-191
Abstract:
Microexpressions are extremely quick facial expressions of emotion that appear on the face for less than ½ a s. To date, no study has demonstrated that the ability to read them can be trained. We present two studies that do so, as well as evidence for the retention of the training effects. In Study 1 department store employees were randomly assigned to a training or comparison group. The training group had significantly higher scores than the comparison group in microexpression reading accuracy at the end of the training; 2 weeks later the training group had better third-party ratings of social and communicative skills on the job. Study 2 demonstrated that individuals trained in reading microexpressions retained their ability to read them better than a comparison group tested 2-3 weeks after initial training. These results indicated that the ability to read microexpressions can be trained and are retained.
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Threatened to distraction: Mind-wandering as a consequence of stereotype threat
Michael Mrazek et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the threat of a negative stereotype increases the frequency of mind-wandering (i.e., task-unrelated thought), thereby leading to performance impairments. Study 1 demonstrated that participants anticipating a stereotype-laden test mind-wandered more during the Sustained Attention to Response Task. Study 2 assessed mind-wandering directly using thought sampling procedures during a demanding math test. Results revealed that individuals experiencing stereotype threat experienced more off-task thoughts, which accounted for their poorer test performance compared to a control condition. These studies highlight the important role that social forces can have on mind-wandering. More specifically, these results serve as evidence for task-unrelated thought as a novel mechanism for stereotype threat-induced performance impairments.
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Neuroimages as evidence in a mens rea defense: No impact
N.J. Schweitzer et al.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, August 2011, Pages 357-393
Abstract:
Recent developments in the neuropsychology of criminal behavior have given rise to concerns that neuroimaging evidence (such as MRI and functional MRI [fMRI] images) could unduly influence jurors. Across four experiments, a nationally representative sample of 1,476 jury-eligible participants evaluated written summaries of criminal cases in which expert testimony was presented in support of a mental disorder as exculpatory. The evidence varied in the extent to which it presented neuroscientific explanations and neuroimages in support of the expert's conclusion. Despite suggestive findings from previous research, we found no evidence that neuroimagery affected jurors' judgments (verdicts, sentence recommendations, judgments of the defendant's culpability) over and above verbal neuroscience-based testimony. A meta-analysis of our four experiments confirmed these findings. In addition, we found that neuroscientific evidence was more effective than clinical psychological evidence in persuading jurors that the defendant's disorder reduced his capacity to control his actions, although this effect did not translate into differences in verdicts.
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Dan King & Chris Janiszewski
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Neurobiological theories of affective processing suggest that different affective states can make people more sensitive to the stimulation impinging on different sensory channels. Five experiments show that consumers in a negative affective state experience enhanced sensitivity to the tactile benefits of products, whereas consumers in a positive affective state experience enhanced sensitivity to the visual benefits of products. Affect-based sensory sensitivity is a consequence of adaptations that induce mammals to seek social support when in a negative affective state and explore the environment when in a positive affective state. In humans, these adaptations are part of an innate system that influences preferences for products with tactile or visual benefits.
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Empathic neural responses to others' pain depend on monetary reward
Xiuyan Guo et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Human empathy is not merely a resonance with others' physical condition, but is modulated by social factors. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the present study demonstrated an increased brain empathic response to others in pain when they received no rather than a large reward, with increments of the ACC, aMCC, insula and postcentral gyrus in the pain matrix and temporoparietal junction. Thus, pain target's financial situation modulated brain empathic responses in the pain matrix based on an understanding of the situation pain target faces.
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Are pictures good for learning new vocabulary in a foreign language? Only if you think they are not
Shana Carpenter & Kellie Olson
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study explored whether new words in a foreign language are learned better from pictures than from native language translations. In both between-subjects and within-subject designs, Swahili words were not learned better from pictures than from English translations (Experiments 1-3). Judgments of learning revealed that participants exhibited greater overconfidence in their ability to recall a Swahili word from a picture than from a translation (Experiments 2-3), and Swahili words were also considered easier to process when paired with pictures rather than translations (Experiment 4). When this overconfidence bias was eliminated through retrieval practice (Experiment 2) and instructions warning participants to not be overconfident (Experiment 3), Swahili words were learned better from pictures than from translations. It appears, therefore, that pictures can facilitate learning of foreign language vocabulary - as long as participants are not too overconfident in the power of a picture to help them learn a new word.
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Bridgid Finn & Henry Roediger
Psychological Science, June 2011, Pages 781-786
Abstract:
When information is retrieved from memory, it enters a labile state rendering it amenable to change. This process of reconsolidation may explain, in part, the benefits that are observed in later retention following retrieval of information on an initial test. We examined whether the benefits of retrieval could be modulated by an emotional event occurring after retrieval. Participants studied Swahili-English vocabulary pairs. On a subsequent cued-recall test, each retrieval was followed by a blank screen, a neutral picture, or a picture inducing negative affect. Performance on a final cued-recall test was best for items whose initial retrieval was followed by negative pictures. This outcome occurred when a negative picture was presented immediately after (Experiment 1) or 2 s after (Experiment 2) successful retrieval, but not when it was presented after restudy of the vocabulary pair (Experiment 3). Postretrieval reconsolidation via emotional processing may enhance the usual positive effects of retrieval.
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Zhaoli Song, Wendong Li & Richard Arvey
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous behavioral genetic studies have found that job satisfaction is partially heritable. We went a step further to examine particular genetic markers that may be associated with job satisfaction. Using an oversample from the National Adolescent Longitudinal Study (Add Health Study), we found 2 genetic markers, dopamine receptor gene DRD4 VNTR and serotonin transporter gene 5-HTTLPR, to be weakly but significantly associated with job satisfaction. Furthermore, we found study participants' level of pay to mediate the DRD4 and job satisfaction relationship. However, we found no evidence that self-esteem mediated the relationships between these 2 genes and job satisfaction. The study represents an initial effort to introduce a molecular genetics approach to the fields of organizational psychology and organizational behavior.
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Stress increases the feeling of being looked at
Ulrike Rimmele & Janek Lobmaier
Psychoneuroendocrinology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Eye gaze direction and facial expression are important social cues. Recent studies have shown that emotional expression affects interpretation of gaze direction in such a way that positive emotions are more favorably interpreted as making eye contact than negative or neutral expressions. Here we examine whether stress affects this positivity bias in gaze perception. Stress was induced in 25 healthy young adults by means of the cold pressure stress test (CPS), 24 participants serving as controls. Stimuli were created from three-dimensional face models of 8 actors expressing happy, fearful, angry and neutral emotions. From each of these 3D models we extracted 9 different views (0°, 2°, 4°, 6° and 8° to the left and to the right). This resulted in 288 stimuli, which were randomly presented for 700 ms. Using a forced choice paradigm participants judged whether or not each face was looking at them. The results show that the CPS group falsely interpreted faces with averted gaze direction as making eye contact more often than did controls, independent of the expressed emotion. These results suggest that a stress-induced raise in cortisol level increases the sense of being looked at.
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Swearing, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity
Jeffrey Bowers & Christopher Pleydell-Pearce
PLoS ONE, July 2011, e22341
Abstract:
Participants read aloud swear words, euphemisms of the swear words, and neutral stimuli while their autonomic activity was measured by electrodermal activity. The key finding was that autonomic responses to swear words were larger than to euphemisms and neutral stimuli. It is argued that the heightened response to swear words reflects a form of verbal conditioning in which the phonological form of the word is directly associated with an affective response. Euphemisms are effective because they replace the trigger (the offending word form) by another word form that expresses a similar idea. That is, word forms exert some control on affect and cognition in turn. We relate these findings to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, and suggest a simple mechanistic account of how language may influence thinking in this context.
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Chess masters show a hallmark of face processing with chess
Amy Boggan, James Bartlett & Daniel Krawczyk
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Face processing has several distinctive hallmarks that researchers have attributed either to face-specific mechanisms or to extensive experience distinguishing faces. Here, we examined the face-processing hallmark of selective attention failure - as indexed by the congruency effect in the composite paradigm - in a domain of extreme expertise: chess. Among 27 experts, we found that the congruency effect was equally strong with chessboards and faces. Further, comparing these experts with recreational players and novices, we observed a trade-off: Chess expertise was positively related to the congruency effect with chess yet negatively related to the congruency effect with faces. These and other findings reveal a case of expertise-dependent, facelike processing of objects of expertise and suggest that face and expert-chess recognition share common processes.
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Famous Faces Demand Attention Due to Reduced Inhibitory Processing
Liana Machado, Hayley Guiney & Andrew Mitchell
PLoS ONE, May 2011, e20544
Abstract:
People have particular difficulty ignoring distractors that depict faces. This phenomenon has been attributed to the high level of biological significance that faces carry. The current study aimed to elucidate the mechanism by which faces gain processing priority. We used a focused attention paradigm that tracks the influence of a distractor over time and provides a measure of inhibitory processing. Upright famous faces served as test stimuli and inverted versions of the faces as well as upright non-face objects served as control stimuli. The results revealed that although all of the stimuli elicited similar levels of distraction, only inverted distractor faces and non-face objects elicited inhibitory effects. The lack of inhibitory effects for upright famous faces provides novel evidence that reduced inhibitory processing underlies the mandatory nature of face processing.
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Lindsay Squeglia et al.
Alcoholism, forthcoming
Background: Binge drinking is prevalent during adolescence, and its effect on neurocognitive development is of concern. In adult and adolescent populations, heavy substance use has been associated with decrements in cognitive functioning, particularly on tasks of spatial working memory (SWM). Characterizing the gender-specific influences of heavy episodic drinking on SWM may help elucidate the early functional consequences of drinking on adolescent brain functioning.
Methods: Forty binge drinkers (13 females, 27 males) and 55 controls (24 females, 31 males), aged 16 to 19 years, completed neuropsychological testing, substance use interviews, and an SWM task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Results: Significant binge drinking status × gender interactions were found (p < 0.05) in 8 brain regions spanning bilateral frontal, anterior cingulate, temporal, and cerebellar cortices. In all regions, female binge drinkers showed less SWM activation than female controls, while male bingers exhibited greater SWM response than male controls. For female binge drinkers, less activation was associated with poorer sustained attention and working memory performances (p < 0.025). For male binge drinkers, greater activation was linked to better spatial performance (p < 0.025).
Conclusion: Binge drinking during adolescence is associated with gender-specific differences in frontal, temporal, and cerebellar brain activation during an SWM task, which in turn relate to cognitive performance. Activation correlates with neuropsychological performance, strengthening the argument that blood oxygen level-dependent activation is affected by alcohol use and is an important indicator of behavioral functioning. Females may be more vulnerable to the neurotoxic effects of heavy alcohol use during adolescence, while males may be more resilient to the deleterious effects of binge drinking. Future longitudinal research will examine the significance of SWM brain activation as an early neurocognitive marker of alcohol impact to the brain on future behaviors, such as driving safety, academic performance, and neuropsychological performance.
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EEG potentials predict upcoming emergency brakings during simulated driving
Stefan Haufe et al.
Journal of Neural Engineering, October 2011
Abstract:
Emergency braking assistance has the potential to prevent a large number of car crashes. State-of-the-art systems operate in two stages. Basic safety measures are adopted once external sensors indicate a potential upcoming crash. If further activity at the brake pedal is detected, the system automatically performs emergency braking. Here, we present the results of a driving simulator study indicating that the driver's intention to perform emergency braking can be detected based on muscle activation and cerebral activity prior to the behavioural response. Identical levels of predictive accuracy were attained using electroencephalography (EEG), which worked more quickly than electromyography (EMG), and using EMG, which worked more quickly than pedal dynamics. A simulated assistance system using EEG and EMG was found to detect emergency brakings 130 ms earlier than a system relying only on pedal responses. At 100 km h-1 driving speed, this amounts to reducing the braking distance by 3.66 m. This result motivates a neuroergonomic approach to driving assistance. Our EEG analysis yielded a characteristic event-related potential signature that comprised components related to the sensory registration of a critical traffic situation, mental evaluation of the sensory percept and motor preparation. While all these components should occur often during normal driving, we conjecture that it is their characteristic spatio-temporal superposition in emergency braking situations that leads to the considerable prediction performance we observed.