bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cultural Variance in the Interpersonal Effects of Anger in Negotiations
Authors: Adam Hajo , Shirako Aiwa , Maddux William W.
Published: October 2010

The current research is the first investigation of how the effects of expressing discrete emotions in negotiations vary across cultures. In a hypothetical negotiation scenario (Study 1) and a computer-mediated negotiation simulation (Study 2), expressing anger (relative to not expressing anger) elicited larger concessions from European American negotiators, but smaller concessions from Asian and Asian American negotiators. A third study provided evidence that this effect is due to different cultural norms about the appropriateness of anger expressions in negotiations: When we explicitly manipulated anger expressions to be appropriate, Asian and Asian American negotiators made larger concessions to the angry opponent, and their concessions were as large as was typical for European American negotiators; when we explicitly manipulated anger expressions to be inappropriate, European American negotiators made smaller concessions to the angry opponent, and their concessions were as small as was typical for Asian and Asian American negotiators. Implications for current understanding of culture, emotions, and negotiations are discussed.
Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention
Authors: MacLean Katherine A. , Ferrer Emilio , Aichele Stephen R. , Bridwell David A. , Zanesco Anthony P. , Jacobs Tonya L. , King Brandon G. , Rosenberg Erika L. , Sahdra Baljinder K. , Shaver Phillip R. , Wallace B. Alan , Mangun George R. , Saron Clifford D.
Published: October 2010

The ability to focus one’s attention underlies success in many everyday tasks, but voluntary attention cannot be sustained for extended periods of time. In the laboratory, sustained-attention failure is manifest as a decline in perceptual sensitivity with increasing time on task, known as the vigilance decrement. We investigated improvements in sustained attention with training (~5 hr/day for 3 months), which consisted of meditation practice that involved sustained selective attention on a chosen stimulus (e.g., the participant’s breath). Participants were randomly assigned either to receive training first ( n = 30) or to serve as waiting-list controls and receive training second ( n = 30). Training produced improvements in visual discrimination that were linked to increases in perceptual sensitivity and improved vigilance during sustained visual attention. Consistent with the resource model of vigilance, these results suggest that perceptual improvements can reduce the resource demand imposed by target discrimination and thus make it easier to sustain voluntary attention.
The Role of the Dorsal Visual Processing Stream in Tool Identification
Authors: Almeida Jorge , Mahon Bradford Z. , Caramazza Alfonso
Published: October 2010

The dorsal visual processing stream subserves object-directed action, whereas the ventral visual processing stream subserves visual object recognition. Little is known about how information computed by dorsal-stream structures influences object recognition. We used continuous flash suppression to functionally separate information computed by the dorsal stream from that computed by the ventral stream. We show that information originating from the dorsal stream influences not only decisions requiring the selection of superordinate category labels, but also decisions that entail the selection of a basic-level object. We further show that information computed by the dorsal stream does not carry specific functional information about objects. Our results indicate that the dorsal stream, in isolation from the ventral stream, is agnostic as to the identity of the objects that it processes. We suggest that structures within the dorsal visual processing stream compute motor-relevant information (e.g., graspability), which influences the identification of manipulable objects, and is not either about the function of the object or function-specific.
Rapid Assimilation of External Objects Into the Body Schema
Authors: Carlson Thomas A. , Alvarez George , Wu Daw-an , Verstraten Frans A.J.
Published: October 2010

When a warrior picks up a sword for battle, do sword and soldier become one? The notion of an extended sense of the body has been the topic of philosophical discussion for more than a century and more recently has been subjected to empirical tests by psychologists and neuroscientists. We used a unique afterimage paradigm to test if, and under what conditions, objects are integrated into an extended body sense. Our experiments provide empirical support for the notion that objects can be integrated into an extended sense of the body. Our findings further indicate that this extended body sense is highly plastic, quickly assimilating objects that are in physical contact with the observer. Finally, we show that this extended body sense is limited to first-order extensions, thus constraining how far one can extend oneself into the environment.
Emotional Inertia and Psychological Maladjustment
Authors: Kuppens Peter , Allen Nicholas B. , Sheeber Lisa B.
Published: October 2010

In this article, we examine the concept of emotional inertia as a fundamental property of the emotion dynamics that characterize psychological maladjustment. Emotional inertia refers to the degree to which emotional states are resistant to change. Because psychological maladjustment has been associated with both emotional underreactivity and ineffective emotion-regulation skills, we hypothesized that its overall emotion dynamics would be characterized by high levels of inertia. We provide evidence from two naturalistic studies that, using different methods, showed that the emotional fluctuations of individuals who exhibited low self-esteem (Study 1) and depression (Study 2) were characterized by higher levels of inertia in both positive and negative emotions than the emotional fluctuations of people who did not exhibit low self-esteem and depression. We also discuss the usefulness of the concept of emotional inertia as a hallmark of maladaptive emotion dynamics.
The Direction of Walking—but Not Throwing or Kicking—Is Adapted by Optic Flow
Authors: Bruggeman Hugo , Warren William H.
Published: October 2010

Optic flow is known to adapt the direction of walking, but the locus of adaptation remains unknown. The effect could be due to realignment of anatomical eye, head, trunk, and leg coordinate frames or to recalibration of a functional mapping from the visual direction of the target to the direction of locomotion. We tested whether adaptation of walking to a target, with optic flow displaced by 10°, transfers to facing, throwing, and kicking a ball to the target. A negative aftereffect for initial walking direction failed to transfer to head orientation or throwing or kicking direction. Thus, participants effectively threw or kicked the ball to the target, and then walked in another direction to retrieve it. These findings are consistent with recalibration of a task-specific visuo-locomotor mapping, revealing a functional level of organization in perception and action.
Experience Matters
Authors: Nelson Jonathan D. , McKenzie Craig R.M. , Cottrell Garrison W. , Sejnowski Terrence J.
Published: October 2010

Deciding which piece of information to acquire or attend to is fundamental to perception, categorization, medical diagnosis, and scientific inference. Four statistical theories of the value of information—information gain, Kullback-Liebler distance, probability gain (error minimization), and impact—are equally consistent with extant data on human information acquisition. Three experiments, designed via computer optimization to be maximally informative, tested which of these theories best describes human information search. Experiment 1, which used natural sampling and experience-based learning to convey environmental probabilities, found that probability gain explained subjects’ information search better than the other statistical theories or the probability-of-certainty heuristic. Experiments 1 and 2 found that subjects behaved differently when the standard method of verbally presented summary statistics (rather than experience-based learning) was used to convey environmental probabilities. Experiment 3 found that subjects’ preference for probability gain is robust, suggesting that the other models contribute little to subjects’ search behavior.
Remembering to Execute a Goal
Authors: Scullin Michael K. , McDaniel Mark A.
Published: October 2010

Remembering to execute deferred goals (prospective memory) is a ubiquitous memory challenge, and one that is often not successfully accomplished. Could sleeping after goal encoding promote later execution? We evaluated this possibility by instructing participants to execute a prospective memory goal after a short delay (20 min), a 12-hr wake delay, or a 12-hr sleep delay. Goal execution declined after the 12-hr wake delay relative to the short delay. In contrast, goal execution was relatively preserved after the 12-hr sleep delay relative to the short delay. The sleep-enhanced goal execution was not accompanied by a decline in performance of an ongoing task in which the prospective memory goal was embedded, which suggests that the effect was not a consequence of attentional resources being reallocated from the ongoing task to the prospective memory goal. Our results suggest that consolidation processes active during sleep increase the probability that a goal will be spontaneously retrieved and executed.
Ways of Giving Benefits in Marriage
Authors: Clark Margaret S. , Lemay Edward P. , Graham Steven M. , Pataki Sherri P. , Finkel Eli J.
Published: October 2010

Couples reported on bases for giving support and on relationship satisfaction just prior to and approximately 2 years into marriage. Overall, a need-based, noncontingent (communal) norm was seen as ideal and was followed, and greater use of this norm was linked to higher relationship satisfaction. An exchange norm was seen as not ideal and was followed significantly less frequently than was a communal norm; by 2 years into marriage, greater use of an exchange norm was linked with lower satisfaction. Insecure attachment predicted greater adherence to an exchange norm. Idealization of and adherence to a communal norm dropped slightly across time. As idealization of a communal norm and own use and partner use of a communal norm decreased, people high in avoidance increased their use of an exchange norm, whereas people low in avoidance decreased their use of an exchange norm. Anxious individuals evidenced tighter links between norm use and marital satisfaction relative to nonanxious individuals. Overall, a picture of people valuing a communal norm and striving toward adherence to a communal norm emerged, with secure individuals doing so with more success and equanimity across time than insecure individuals.
Deliberate Practice Is Necessary but Not Sufficient to Explain Individual Differences in Piano Sight-Reading Skill
Authors: Meinz Elizabeth J. , Hambrick David Z.
Published: October 2010

Deliberate practice—that is, engagement in activities specifically designed to improve performance in a domain—is strongly predictive of performance in domains such as music and sports. It has even been suggested that deliberate practice is sufficient to account for expert performance. Less clear is whether basic abilities, such as working memory capacity (WMC), add to the prediction of expert performance, above and beyond deliberate practice. In evaluating participants having a wide range of piano-playing skill (novice to expert), we found that deliberate practice accounted for nearly half of the total variance in piano sight-reading performance. However, there was an incremental positive effect of WMC, and there was no evidence that deliberate practice reduced this effect. Evidence indicates that WMC is highly general, stable, and heritable, and thus our results call into question the view that expert performance is solely a reflection of deliberate practice.
The Primacy of Negative Interpretations When Resolving the Valence of Ambiguous Facial Expressions
Authors: Neta Maital , Whalen Paul J.
Published: October 2010

Low-spatial-frequency (LSF) visual information is processed in an elemental fashion before a finer analysis of high-spatial-frequency information. Further, the amygdala is particularly responsive to LSF information contained within negative (e.g., fearful) facial expressions. In a separate line of research, it has been shown that surprised facial expressions are ambiguous in that they can be interpreted as either negatively or positively valenced. More negative interpretations of surprise are associated with increased ventral amygdala activity. In this report, we show that LSF presentations of surprised expressions bias the interpretation of surprised expressions in a negative direction, a finding suggesting that negative interpretations are first and fast during the resolution of ambiguous valence. We also examined the influence of subjects’ positivity-negativity bias on this effect.
Tracking Multiple Objects Is Limited Only by Object Spacing, Not by Speed, Time, or Capacity
Authors: Franconeri S.L. , Jonathan S.V. , Scimeca J.M.
Published: October 2010

In dealing with a dynamic world, people have the ability to maintain selective attention on a subset of moving objects in the environment. Performance in such multiple-object tracking is limited by three primary factors—the number of objects that one can track, the speed at which one can track them, and how close together they can be. We argue that this last limit, of object spacing, is the root cause of all performance constraints in multiple-object tracking. In two experiments, we found that as long as the distribution of object spacing is held constant, tracking performance is unaffected by large changes in object speed and tracking time. These results suggest that barring object-spacing constraints, people could reliably track an unlimited number of objects as fast as they could track a single object.
Remembering to Forget
Authors: Delaney Peter F. , Sahakyan Lili , Kelley Colleen M. , Zimmerman Carissa A.
Published: October 2010

Daydreaming mentally transports people to another place or time. Many daydreams are similar in content to the thoughts that people generate when they intentionally try to forget. Thus, thoughts like those generated during daydreaming can cause forgetting of previously encoded events. We conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that daydreams that are more different from the current moment (e.g., in distance, time, or circumstance) will result in more forgetting than daydreams that are less different from the current moment, because they result in a greater contextual shift. Daydreaming was simulated in the laboratory via instructions to engage in a diversionary thought. Participants learned a list of words, were asked to think about autobiographical memories, and then learned a second list of words. They tended to forget more words from the first list when they thought about their parents’ home than when they thought about their current home (Experiment 1). They also tended to forget more when they thought about an international vacation than when they thought about a domestic vacation (Experiment 2). These results support a context-change account of the amnesic effects of daydreaming.
Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain
Authors: DeWall C. Nathan , MacDonald Geoff , Webster Gregory D. , Masten Carrie L. , Baumeister Roy F. , Powell Caitlin , Combs David , Schurtz David R. , Stillman Tyler F. , Tice Dianne M. , Eisenberger Naomi I.
Published: October 2010

Pain, whether caused by physical injury or social rejection, is an inevitable part of life. These two types of pain—physical and social—may rely on some of the same behavioral and neural mechanisms that register pain-related affect. To the extent that these pain processes overlap, acetaminophen, a physical pain suppressant that acts through central (rather than peripheral) neural mechanisms, may also reduce behavioral and neural responses to social rejection. In two experiments, participants took acetaminophen or placebo daily for 3 weeks. Doses of acetaminophen reduced reports of social pain on a daily basis (Experiment 1). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure participants’ brain activity (Experiment 2), and found that acetaminophen reduced neural responses to social rejection in brain regions previously associated with distress caused by social pain and the affective component of physical pain (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula). Thus, acetaminophen reduces behavioral and neural responses associated with the pain of social rejection, demonstrating substantial overlap between social and physical pain.
Cosmetic Use of Botulinum Toxin-A Affects Processing of Emotional Language
Authors: Havas David A. , Glenberg Arthur M. , Gutowski Karol A. , Lucarelli Mark J. , Davidson Richard J.
Published: October 2010

How does language reliably evoke emotion, as it does when people read a favorite novel or listen to a skilled orator? Recent evidence suggests that comprehension involves a mental simulation of sentence content that calls on the same neural systems used in literal action, perception, and emotion. In this study, we demonstrated that involuntary facial expression plays a causal role in the processing of emotional language. Subcutaneous injections of botulinum toxin-A (BTX) were used to temporarily paralyze the facial muscle used in frowning. We found that BTX selectively slowed the reading of sentences that described situations that normally require the paralyzed muscle for expressing the emotions evoked by the sentences. This finding demonstrates that peripheral feedback plays a role in language processing, supports facial-feedback theories of emotional cognition, and raises questions about the effects of BTX on cognition and emotional reactivity. We account for the role of facial feedback in language processing by considering neurophysiological mechanisms and reinforcement-learning theory.
How Do People Construct Logical Form During Language Comprehension?
Authors: Raffray Claudine N. , Pickering Martin J.
Published: October 2010

How do people interpret ambiguous sentences containing more than one quantifier, such as Every kid climbed a tree? We report four sentence-picture matching experiments that used priming to investigate whether comprehenders construct logical-form representations during processing. Experiment 1 investigated priming in active-voice sentences containing transitive verbs and found priming effects of quantifier-scope relations. Experiment 2 demonstrated priming effects when prime sentences were in the passive voice (e.g., A tree was climbed by every kid) and target sentences were in the active voice. Experiment 3 used prime sentences containing existentially quantified agents and universally quantified patients (e.g., A kid climbed every tree) and found no priming effects. Experiment 4 showed no priming effects when prime sentences contained plural nouns but no quantifiers (e.g., Kids like to climb trees), thus calling into question a visual-priming account of our priming effects. Our findings suggest that people construct logical-form representations, and they do so after constructing meaning-based representations involving quantifiers and thematic-role information.
Small Wins Big
Authors: Lin Dan , McBride-Chang Catherine , Shu Hua , Zhang Yuping , Li Hong , Zhang Juan , Aram Dorit , Levin Iris
Published: October 2010

The present study examined invented spelling of pinyin (a phonological coding system for teaching and learning Chinese words) in relation to subsequent Chinese reading development. Among 296 Chinese kindergartners in Beijing, independent invented pinyin spelling was found to be uniquely predictive of Chinese word reading 12 months later, even with Time 1 syllable deletion, phoneme deletion, and letter knowledge, in addition to the autoregressive effects of Time 1 Chinese word reading, statistically controlled. These results underscore the importance of children’s early pinyin representations for Chinese reading acquisition, both theoretically and practically. The findings further support the idea of a universal phonological principle and indicate that pinyin is potentially an ideal measure of phonological awareness in Chinese.
Restricted Emigration, System Inescapability, and Defense of the Status Quo
Authors: Laurin Kristin , Shepherd Steven , Kay Aaron C.
Published: October 2010

The freedom to emigrate at will from a geographic location is an internationally recognized human right. However, this right is systematically violated by restrictive migration policies. In three experiments, we explored the psychological consequences of violating the right to mobility. Our results suggest that, ironically, restricted freedom of movement can lead to increased system justification (i.e., increased support of the status quo). In Study 1, we found that participants who read that their country was difficult to leave became stronger defenders of their system’s legitimacy than before, even in domains unrelated to emigration policy (e.g., gender relations). In Study 2, we demonstrated that this increased system defense was the result of a motivated process. In Study 3, we broadened the scope of this psychological phenomenon by conceptually replicating it using a different system (participants’ university) and measure of system defense. The importance of these two findings—the first experimental demonstration of the psychological consequences of restrictive emigration policies and the introduction of a novel psychological phenomenon—is discussed.
Ameliorating Children’s Reading-Comprehension Difficulties
Authors: Clarke Paula J. , Snowling Margaret J. , Truelove Emma , Hulme Charles
Published: October 2010

Children with specific reading-comprehension difficulties can read accurately, but they have poor comprehension. In a randomized controlled trial, we examined the efficacy of three interventions designed to improve such children’s reading comprehension: text-comprehension (TC) training, oral-language (OL) training, and TC and OL training combined (COM). Children were assessed preintervention, midintervention, postintervention, and at an 11-month follow-up. All intervention groups made significant improvements in reading comprehension relative to an untreated control group. Although these gains were maintained at follow-up in the TC and COM groups, the OL group made greater gains than the other groups did between the end of the intervention and follow-up. The OL and COM groups also demonstrated significant improvements in expressive vocabulary compared with the control group, and this was a mediator of the improved reading comprehension of the OL and COM groups. We conclude that specific reading-comprehension difficulties reflect (at least partly) underlying oral-language weaknesses that can be effectively ameliorated by suitable teaching.
Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize
Authors: Ford Brett Q. , Tamir Maya , Brunyé Tad T. , Shirer William R. , Mahoney Caroline R. , Taylor Holly A.
Published: October 2010

People’s emotional states influence what they focus their attention on in their environment. For example, fear focuses people’s attention on threats, whereas excitement may focus their attention on rewards. This study examined the effect of anger on overt visual attention to threats and rewards. Anger is an unpleasant emotion associated with approach motivation. If the effect of emotion on visual attention depends on valence, we would expect anger to focus people’s attention on threats. If, however, the effect of emotion on visual attention depends on motivation, we would expect anger to focus people’s attention on rewards. Using an eye tracker, we examined the effects of anger, fear, excitement, and a neutral emotional state on participants’ overt visual attention to threatening, rewarding, and control images. We found that anger increased visual attention to rewarding information, but not to threatening information. These findings demonstrate that anger increases attention to potential rewards and suggest that the effects of emotions on visual attention are motivationally driven.
Reflecting on God
Authors: Inzlicht Michael , Tullett Alexa M.
Published: October 2010

The world is a vast and complex place that can sometimes generate feelings of uncertainty and distress for its inhabitants. Although religion is associated with a sense of meaning and order, it remains unclear whether religious belief can actually cause people to feel less anxiety and distress. To test the anxiolytic power of religion, we conducted two experiments focusing on the error-related negativity (ERN)—a neural signal that arises from the anterior cingulate cortex and is associated with defensive responses to errors. The results indicate that for believers, conscious and nonconscious religious primes cause a decrease in ERN amplitude. In contrast, priming nonbelievers with religious concepts causes an increase in ERN amplitude. Overall, examining basic neurophysiological processes reveals the power of religion to act as a buffer against anxious reactions to self-generated, generic errors—but only for individuals who believe.
Perceptual Learning in a Nonretinotopic Frame of Reference
Authors: Otto Thomas U. , Öğmen Haluk , Herzog Michael H.
Published: October 2010

Perceptual learning is the ability to improve perception through practice. Perceptual learning is usually specific for the task and features learned. For example, improvements in performance for a certain stimulus do not transfer if the stimulus is rotated by 90° or is presented at a different location. These findings are usually taken as evidence that orientation-specific, retinotopic encoding processes are changed during training. In this study, we used a novel masking paradigm in which the offset in an invisible, oblique vernier stimulus was perceived in an aligned vertical or horizontal flanking stimulus presented at a different location. Our results show that learning is specific for the perceived orientation of the vernier offset but not for its actual orientation and location. Specific encoding processes cannot be invoked to explain this improvement. We propose that perceptual learning involves changes in nonretinotopic, attentional readout processes.
Are Representations in Working Memory Distinct From Representations in Long-Term Memory?
Authors: Öztekin Ilke , Davachi Lila , McElree Brian
Published: October 2010

Neural activation in a 12-item probe-recognition task was examined to investigate the contribution of the hippocampus to long-term memory (LTM) retrieval and working memory (WM) retrieval. Results indicated a dissociation between the last item that participants studied and other items of the study list: Compared with all other serial positions, activation was reduced for the item in the most recent position (for which no items intervened between study and test). This finding suggests that this last item was in focal attention at test time, and, therefore, no retrieval operation was required to access it. However, contra the assertion that the hippocampus should selectively support LTM, activation of the medial temporal lobe was observed for all serial positions other than the last position, and activation level could be predicted from the underlying memory strength. Collectively, these findings support single-store accounts that assume there are similar operating principles across WM and LTM representations, and the focus of attention is limited.
The Hands and Mouth Do Not Always Slip Together in British Sign Language
Authors: Vinson David P. , Thompson Robin L. , Skinner Robert , Fox Neil , Vigliocco Gabriella
Published: October 2010

In contrast to the single-articulatory system of spoken languages, sign languages employ multiple articulators, including the hands and the mouth. We asked whether manual components and mouthing patterns of lexical signs share a semantic representation, and whether their relationship is affected by the differing language experience of deaf and hearing native signers. We used picture-naming tasks and word-translation tasks to assess whether the same semantic effects occur in manual production and mouthing production. Semantic errors on the hands were more common in the English-translation task than in the picture-naming task, but errors in mouthing patterns showed a different trend. We conclude that mouthing is represented and accessed through a largely separable channel, rather than being bundled with manual components in the sign lexicon. Results were comparable for deaf and hearing signers; differences in language experience did not play a role. These results provide novel insight into coordinating different modalities in language production.
Seeking Congruity Between Goals and Roles
Authors: Diekman Amanda B. , Brown Elizabeth R. , Johnston Amanda M. , Clark Emily K.
Published: October 2010

Although women have nearly attained equality with men in several formerly male-dominated fields, they remain underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We argue that one important reason for this discrepancy is that STEM careers are perceived as less likely than careers in other fields to fulfill communal goals (e.g., working with or helping other people). Such perceptions might disproportionately affect women’s career decisions, because women tend to endorse communal goals more than men. As predicted, we found that STEM careers, relative to other careers, were perceived to impede communal goals. Moreover, communal-goal endorsement negatively predicted interest in STEM careers, even when controlling for past experience and self-efficacy in science and mathematics. Understanding how communal goals influence people’s interest in STEM fields thus provides a new perspective on the issue of women’s representation in STEM careers.
The Ecology of Automaticity
Authors: Cesario Joseph , Plaks Jason E. , Hagiwara Nao , Navarrete Carlos David , Higgins E. Tory
Published: October 2010

What is the role of ecology in automatic cognitive processes and social behavior? Our motivated-preparation account posits that priming a social category readies the individual for adaptive behavioral responses to that category—responses that take into account the physical environment. We present the first evidence showing that the cognitive responses (Study 1) and the behavioral responses (Studies 2a and 2b) automatically elicited by a social-category prime differ depending on a person’s physical surroundings. Specifically, after priming with pictures of Black men (a threatening out-group), participants responded with either aggressive behavior (fight) or distancing behavior (flight), depending on what action was allowed by the situation. For example, when participants were seated in an enclosed booth (no distancing behavior possible) during priming, they showed increased accessibility of fight-related action semantics; however, when seated in an open field (distancing behavior possible), they showed increased accessibility of flight-related action semantics. These findings suggest that an understanding of automaticity must consider its situated nature.
Eye Movements During Mindless Reading
Authors: Reichle Erik D. , Reineberg Andrew E. , Schooler Jonathan W.
Published: October 2010

Mindless reading occurs when the eyes continue moving across the page even though the mind is thinking about something unrelated to the text. Despite how commonly it occurs, very little is known about mindless reading. The present experiment examined eye movements during mindless reading. Comparisons of fixation-duration measures collected during intervals of normal reading and intervals of mindless reading indicate that fixations during the latter were longer and less affected by lexical and linguistic variables than fixations during the former. Also, eye movements immediately preceding self-caught mind wandering were especially erratic. These results suggest that the cognitive processes that guide eye movements during normal reading are not engaged during mindless reading. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of eye movement control in reading, for the distinction between experiential awareness and meta-awareness, and for reading comprehension.
The Heartbrake of Social Rejection
Authors: Gunther Moor Bregtje , Crone Eveline A. , van der Molen Maurits W.
Published: October 2010

Social relationships are vitally important in human life. Social rejection in particular has been conceptualized as a potent social cue resulting in feelings of hurt. Our study investigated the psychophysiological manifestation of hurt feelings by examining the beat-by-beat heart rate response associated with the processing of social rejection. Study participants were presented with a series of unfamiliar faces and were asked to predict whether they would be liked by the other person. Following each judgment, participants were provided with feedback indicating that the person they had viewed had either accepted or rejected them. Feedback was associated with transient heart rate slowing and a return to baseline that was considerably delayed in response to unexpected social rejection. Our results reveal that the processing of unexpected social rejection is associated with a sizable response of the parasympathetic nervous system. These findings are interpreted in terms of a cardiovagal manifestation of a neural mechanism implicated in the central control of autonomic function during cognitive processes and affective regulation.
Delayed Reentrant Processing Impairs Visual Awareness
Authors: Dux Paul E. , Visser Troy A.W. , Goodhew Stephanie C. , Lipp Ottmar V.
Published: October 2010

In object-substitution masking (OSM), a sparse, common-onset mask impairs perception of a target when the mask’s offset is later than the target’s offset and spatial attention is dispersed. OSM is thought to reflect the interaction of feed-forward and reentrant processes in the brain: Upon stimulus presentation, a low-resolution representation of the target and mask progresses from sensory to anterior brain regions, triggering reentrant processing to confirm stimulus identity. It is hypothesized that dispersing spatial attention prolongs the required reentrant iterations, increasing the likelihood that only the lingering mask stimulus will remain physically present and thus substitute for the target in consciousness. However, empirically, it remains unclear whether substitution stems from delayed feed-forward or reentrant processing. Here, we demonstrate that delayed reentrant processing causes OSM, by showing that a task tapping high-level brain regions involved in reentrant processing leads to a spatially attended target being replaced by the mask. Our results confirm a key role for reentrant processing in conscious perception.
I Feel Your Voice
Authors: Tanaka Akihiro , Koizumi Ai , Imai Hisato , Hiramatsu Saori , Hiramoto Eriko , de Gelder Beatrice
Published: October 2010

Cultural differences in emotion perception have been reported mainly for facial expressions and to a lesser extent for vocal expressions. However, the way in which the perceiver combines auditory and visual cues may itself be subject to cultural variability. Our study investigated cultural differences between Japanese and Dutch participants in the multisensory perception of emotion. A face and a voice, expressing either congruent or incongruent emotions, were presented on each trial. Participants were instructed to judge the emotion expressed in one of the two sources. The effect of to-be-ignored voice information on facial judgments was larger in Japanese than in Dutch participants, whereas the effect of to-be-ignored face information on vocal judgments was smaller in Japanese than in Dutch participants. This result indicates that Japanese people are more attuned than Dutch people to vocal processing in the multisensory perception of emotion. Our findings provide the first evidence that multisensory integration of affective information is modulated by perceivers’ cultural background.
Predicting Sensation Seeking From Dopamine Genes
Authors: Derringer Jaime , Krueger Robert F. , Dick Danielle M. , Saccone Scott , Grucza Richard A. , Agrawal Arpana , Lin Peng , Almasy Laura , Edenberg Howard J. , Foroud Tatiana , Nurnberger John I. , Hesselbrock Victor M. , Kramer John R. , Kuperman Samuel , Porjesz Bernice , Schuckit Marc A. , Bierut Laura J. ,   Gene Environment Association Studies (GENEVA) Consortium
Published: October 2010

Sensation seeking is a heritable personality trait that has been reliably linked to behavioral disorders. The dopamine system has been hypothesized to contribute to variations in sensation seeking between different individuals, and both experimental and observational studies in humans and nonhuman animals provide evidence for the involvement of the dopamine system in sensation-seeking behavior. In this study, we took a candidate-system approach to genetic association analysis of sensation-seeking behavior. We analyzed single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from a number of dopaminergic genes. Using 273 SNPs from eight dopamine genes in a sample of 635 unrelated individuals, we examined the aggregate effect of SNPs that were significantly associated with sensation-seeking behavior. Multiple SNPs in four dopamine genes accounted for significant variance in sensation-seeking behavior between individuals. These results suggest that multiple SNPs, aggregated within genes that are relevant to a specific neurobiological system, form a genetic-risk score that may explain a significant proportion of observed variance in human traits such as sensation-seeking behavior.
Anti-Expression Aftereffects Reveal Prototype-Referenced Coding of Facial Expressions
Authors: Skinner Andrew L. , Benton Christopher P.
Published: October 2010

Adaptation is a powerful experimental technique that has recently provided insights into how people encode representations of facial identity. Here, we used this approach to explore the visual representation of facial expressions of emotion. Participants were adapted to anti-expressions of six facial expressions. The participants were then shown an average face and asked to classify the face’s expression using one of six basic emotion descriptors. Participants chose the emotion matching the anti-expression they were adapted to significantly more often than they chose any other emotion (e.g., if they were adapted to antifear, they classified the emotion on the average face as fear). The strength of this aftereffect of adaptation decreased as the strength of the anti-expression adapter decreased. These findings provide evidence that visual representations of facial expressions of emotion are coded with reference to a prototype within a multidimensional framework.
Comparing Gains and Losses
Authors: McGraw A. Peter , Larsen Jeff T. , Kahneman Daniel , Schkade David
Published: October 2010

Loss aversion in choice is commonly assumed to arise from the anticipation that losses have a greater effect on feelings than gains, but evidence for this assumption in research on judged feelings is mixed. We argue that loss aversion is present in judged feelings when people compare gains and losses and assess them on a common scale. But many situations in which people judge and express their feelings lack these features. When judging their feelings about an outcome, people naturally consider a context of similar outcomes for comparison (e.g., they consider losses against other losses). This process permits gains and losses to be normed separately and produces psychological scale units that may not be the same in size or meaning for gains and losses. Our experiments show loss aversion in judged feelings for tasks that encourage gain-loss comparisons, but not tasks that discourage them, particularly those using bipolar scales.
Explaining the Effect of Education on Health
Authors: Peters Ellen , Baker David P. , Dieckmann Nathan F. , Leon Juan , Collins John
Published: October 2010

Higher education (or more years of formal schooling) is widely associated with better health, but the underlying causes of this association are unclear. In this study, we tested our schooling-decision-making model, which posits that formal education fosters intellectual ability, which in turn provides individuals with enduring competencies to support better health-related behaviors. Using data from a field study on formal education in 181 adults in rural Ghana, we examined health-protective behaviors related to HIV/AIDS infection, a critical health issue in Ghana. As expected, individuals with more education practiced more protective health behaviors. Our structural equation modeling analysis showed that cognitive abilities, numeracy, and decision-making abilities increased with exposure to schooling, and that these enhanced abilities (and not HIV/AIDS knowledge) mediated the effects of education on health-protective behavior. Research and policy implications for HIV prevention efforts in sub-Saharan Africa are discussed.
The Outcast-Lash-Out Effect in Youth
Authors: Reijntjes Albert , Thomaes Sander , Bushman Brad J. , Boelen Paul A. , de Castro Bram Orobio , Telch Michael J.
Published: October 2010

Although there are good theoretical reasons to believe that youth who are high in alienation (i.e., estranged from society, significant others, and themselves) are prone to behave aggressively, empirical evidence is lacking. The present experiment tested whether alienation moderates the effects of acute peer rejection on aggression in youth. Participants ( N = 121; mean age = 11.5 years) completed a personal profile (e.g., “How do you describe yourself?”) that was allegedly evaluated online by a panel of peer judges. After randomly receiving negative or positive feedback from peer judges, participants were given the opportunity to aggress against them (i.e., by reducing their monetary reward and by posting negative comments about them online). As predicted, alienation increased participants’ aggression against peers who had rejected them, but not against peers who had praised them, even after controlling for peer-nominated chronic rejection and peer-nominated aggression. Thus, alienated youth are more aggressive than others when they experience acute peer rejection.
Direct Evidence for the Role of Inhibition in Resolving Interference in Memory
Authors: Healey M. Karl , Campbell Karen L. , Hasher Lynn , Ossher Lynn
Published: October 2010

Interference from competing material at retrieval is a major cause of memory failure. We tested the hypothesis that such interference can be overcome by suppressing competing responses. In a three-phase task, participants in the critical interference condition first performed a vowel-counting task (Phase 1) that included pairs of orthographically similar words (e.g., allergy and analogy). After a delay, participants were asked to solve word fragments (e.g., a _ l _ _ gy) that resembled both words in a pair they had seen, but could be completed only by one of these words (Phase 2). We then measured the consequence of having successfully resolved interference in Phase 2 by asking participants to read a list of words, including rejected competitor words (i.e., the word in each pair that could not be used to solve the word fragments), as quickly as possible (Phase 3). Participants in the interference condition were slower to name the competitor words than participants in conditions that did not require interference resolution. These results constitute direct evidence for the role of active suppression in resolving interference during memory retrieval.
Right Orbitofrontal Cortex Mediates Conscious Olfactory Perception
Authors: Li Wen , Lopez Leonardo , Osher Jason , Howard James D. , Parrish Todd B. , Gottfried Jay A.
Published: October 2010

Understanding how the human brain translates sensory impressions into conscious percepts is a key challenge of neuroscience research. Work in this area has overwhelmingly centered on the conscious experience of vision at the exclusion of the other senses—in particular, smell. We hypothesized that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a central substrate for olfactory conscious experience because of its privileged physiological role in odor processing. Combining functional magnetic resonance imaging, peripheral autonomic recordings, and olfactory psychophysics, we studied a case of complete anosmia (smell loss) in a patient with circumscribed traumatic brain injury to the right OFC. Despite a complete absence of conscious olfaction, the patient exhibited robust “blind smell,” as indexed by reliable odor-evoked neural activity in the left OFC and normal autonomic responses to odor hedonics during presentation of stimuli to the left nostril. These data highlight the right OFC’s critical role in subserving human olfactory consciousness.
Company, Country, Connections
Authors: Ersner-Hershfield Hal , Galinsky Adam D. , Kray Laura J. , King Brayden G.
Published: October 2010

Four studies examined the relationship between counterfactual origins—thoughts about how the beginning of organizations, countries, and social connections might have turned out differently—and increased feelings of commitment to those institutions and connections. Study 1 found that counterfactually reflecting on the origins of one’s country increases patriotism. Study 2 extended this finding to organizational commitment and examined the mediating role of poignancy. Study 3 found that counterfactual reflection boosts organizational commitment even beyond the effects of other commitment-enhancing appeals and that perceptions of fate mediate the positive effect of counterfactual origins on commitment. Finally, Study 4 temporally separated the counterfactual manipulation from a behavioral measure of commitment and found that counterfactual reflection predicted whether participants e-mailed social contacts 2 weeks later. The robust relationship between counterfactual origins and commitment was found across a wide range of companies and countries, with undergraduates and M.B.A. students, and for attitudes and behaviors.
Missing the Forest for the Trees
Authors: Soto Fabian A. , Wasserman Edward A.
Published: October 2010

Growing evidence indicates that error-driven associative learning underlies the ability of nonhuman animals to categorize natural images. This study explored whether this form of learning might also be at play when people categorize natural objects in photographs. Two groups of college students (a blocking group and a control group) were trained on a categorization task and then tested with novel photographs from each category; however, only the blocking group received pretraining on a task that required the discrimination of objects from the same category. Because of this earlier noncategorical discrimination learning, the blocking group performed well in the categorization task from the outset, and this strong initial performance reduced the likelihood of category learning driven by error. There was far less transfer of categorical responding during testing in the blocking group than in the control group; this finding suggests that learning the specific properties of each photographic image in pretraining blocked later learning of an open-ended category.