bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Meditative Attention to Bodily Sensations: Conscious Attention without Selection?
Authors: Saran Kranti
Published: July 2018

Prominent figures in the philosophical literature on attention hold that the connection between attention and selection is essential (Mole, 2011), necessary (Wu, 2011; 2014), or conceptual (Smithies, 2011). I argue that selection is neither essentially, necessarily, nor conceptually tied to attention. I first isolate the target conception of selection that I deny is so tightly coupled with attention: graded intramodal selection within consciousness. I analyse two visual cases: analysis of the first case shows that there can be attention without a connection to tasks or action; analysis of the second case shows that there can be attention without a phenomenal foreground/background structure. Finally, I extend the argument into the domain of the body by considering a form of meditative absorption in body sensations to recapitulate the conclusions drawn from the two visual cases.
Brief Training in Mindfulness May Normalize Blunted Error-Related Negativity in Chronically Depressed Patients
Authors: Barnhofer Thorsten , Fissler Maria , Winnebeck Emilia , Schröter Titus , Gummersbach Marie , Huntenburg Julia M , Gärtner Matti
Published: July 2018

The error-related negativity (ERN), an evoked-potential that arises in response to the commission of errors, is an important early indicator of self-regulatory capacities. This study investigated whether brief mindfulness training can reverse ERN deficits in chronically depressed patients. ERN was assessed in a sustained attention task. Chronically depressed patients (n = 59) showed significantly blunted expression of the ERN in frontocentral and frontal regions compared to healthy controls (n = 18). Following two weeks of training, patients (n = 24) in the mindfulness condition showed significantly increased ERN magnitude in the frontal region while there were no significant changes in patients who had received a resting control (n = 22). The findings suggest that brief training in mindfulness may help to normalize aberrations in ERN in chronically depressed patients providing preliminary evidence for responsiveness of the parameter to mental training.
The Philosophy of Mind-Wandering
Authors: Irving Zachary , Thompson Evan
Published: July 2018

This chapter provides an introduction to the philosophy of mind-wandering. It begins with a philosophical critique of the standard psychological definitions of mind-wandering as task-unrelated thought or stimulus-independent thought. Although these definitions have helped bring mind-wandering research onto center stage in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, they have substantial limitations. They do not account for the dynamics of mind-wandering, task-unrelated thought that does not qualify as mind-wandering, or the ways in which mind-wandering can be task-related. The chapter reviews philosophical accounts that improve upon the current psychological definitions, in particular an account of mind-wandering as “unguided thinking.” It critically assesses the view that mind-wandering can be defined as thought lacking meta-awareness and cognitive agency, as well as the view that mind-wandering is disunified thinking. The definition of mind-wandering as unguided thinking not only is conceptually and phenomenologically precise, but also can be operationalized in a principled way for empirical research.
Opioid Antagonist Enhances Meditation Analgesia in Experienced Meditators
Authors: May Lisa , Kosek Peter , Zeidan Fadel , Berkman Elliot
Published: July 2018

Objective: Studies have consistently shown that long-term meditation practice is associated with reduced pain, but the neural mechanisms by which long-term meditation practice reduces pain remain unclear. This study tested endogenous opioid involvement in meditation analgesia associated with long-term meditation practice.Methods: Electrical pain was induced with randomized, double-blind, cross-over administration of the opioid antagonist Naloxone (0.15mg/kg bolus dose, then 0.2mg/kg/hr infusion dose) with 32 healthy, experienced meditation practitioners and a standardized open monitoring meditation.Results: Under saline, pain ratings were significantly lower during meditation (pain intensity: 6.41 ± 1.32; pain unpleasantness: 3.98 ± 2.17) than at baseline (pain intensity: 6.86 ±1.04, t(31) = 2.476, p = 0.019, Cohen’s d = 0.46; pain unpleasantness: 4.96 ±1.75, t(31) = 3.746, p = 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.68), confirming the presence of meditation analgesia. Comparing saline and Naloxone revealed significantly lower pain intensity (t(31) = 3.12, p = 0.004, d = 0.56), and pain unpleasantness (t(31) = 3.47, p = 0.002, d = 0.62), during meditation under Naloxone (pain intensity: 5.53 ± 1.54; pain unpleasantness: 2.95 ± 1.88) than under saline (pain intensity: 6.41 ± 1.32; pain unpleasantness: 3.98 ± 2.17). Naloxone not only failed to eliminate meditation analgesia, it made meditation analgesia stronger.Conclusions: Long-term meditation practice does not rely on endogenous opioids to reduce pain. Naloxone’s blockade of opioid receptors enhanced meditation analgesia; pain ratings during meditation were significantly lower under Naloxone than under saline. Possible biological mechanisms by which Naloxone-induced opioid receptor blockade enhances meditation analgesia are discussed.
The Effect of Atmospheric Plasma on the Hydrophobicity of Powdered Whey Protein Isolate
Authors: Lightfoot Heidi
Published: July 2018

Whey protein is considered the most nutritionally available protein powder source. This is largely due to a variety of structural properties, one of which is hydrophobicity. Hydrophobicity is the tendency of a molecule to repel water and it plays an important role in protein bioavailability. Increasing hydrophobicity of whey protein may increase nutritional availability and thus, have various applications in the food industry. As such, techniques used to modify hydrophobicity warrant further investigation. A technique that is currently of interest is plasma-surface modification (PSM), a process that has been shown to alter the surface properties of inorganic and organic materials. In this study we explore the effect of PSM on the hydrophobicity of dry protein powder. We use 8-anilinonaphtalene-1-sulfonic acid (ANS) Probe Spectrofluorometry to measure the hydrophobicity of a pristine sample of whey protein isolate and samples exposed to various atmospheric plasma conditions and demonstrate an increase in hydrophobicity with application of PSM. These findings provide further confirmation of the utility of PSM using atmospheric plasma in the food and nutrition industries.
The Effect of Atmospheric Plasma on the Perception of Taste and Mixability of Powdered Whey Protein Isolate
Authors: Lightfoot Heidi
Published: July 2018

Powdered whey protein is most often used as a food supplement to enhance athletic performance, but it also has a role in health and wellness as well as the pharmaceutical sectors. Given the dynamic array of roles across several industries, understanding the functional characteristics of whey proteins is of great interest. Protein structure can be altered via plasma-surface modification (PSM), a method which is based on plasma as a means to alter a material’s surface structure and as such its functional characteristics. So far PSM has been utilized to alter the surfaces of inorganic materials but there is growing interest in its applications with organic materials such as food proteins. To date, the effect of atmospheric plasma on the perception of mixability and taste of whey protein isolate has not been explored; the purpose of this study is to investigate whether PSM could be effectively utilized to alter the two. Psychometric measures of mixability and taste were gathered during a single-blind, randomized clinical trial design during which subjects ingested 28g of either PSM treated or untreated whey protein isolate powder. A 30.26% increase in perceived mixability and 12.5% in perceived taste were observed upon treatment with PSM, indicating that plasma treatment does not negatively impact the perception of mixability and taste of whey protein isolate and under the right conditions could promote an improvement in these characteristics.
The Effect of Atmospheric Plasma on the Shipping Stability of Powdered Whey Protein Isolate
Authors: Birnbaum Michael D
Published: July 2018

Whey protein powders are the most nutritionally available proteins on the market. As such, their accessibility has led to a wide commercialization including online retail, which in turn has resulted in these products being exposed to several shipping and handling conditions that could adversely affect their structural integrity and therefore their efficacy and nutritional value. The objective of this study was to investigate the ability of commercially available whey protein powder isolate to structurally withstand various shipping and handling conditions and whether that resilience could be enhanced via PSM treatment. Using Protein Thermal Shift Assay (PTSA), we demonstrated various structural changes in whey protein isolate powder as a result of shipping methods, whereby 2-3 day shipping had the least structural impact, followed by ground shipping. The highest structural impact was observed with the shortest transportation method, namely 1-day shipping, where a 9.14% change in structure was observed via PTSA. Furthermore, PSM treated whey powders had an overall 58.04% lower structural variation than their non-treated counterparts. Overall, we demonstrate that commercially available whey protein powder isolates undergo significant structural variations due to shipping and handling. We also show that PSM treatment lessens those variations and as such serves as an effective method in preserving protein structure of commercially available whey powder isolates.
The Effect of Atmospheric Plasma on Cold Thermal Stability of Powdered Whey Protein Isolate
Authors: Birnbaum Michael D
Published: July 2018

Thermostability is the capacity of a material to withstand irreversible change in its structure by resisting extreme external factors such as high relative temperature. Extensive efforts toward making protein-based biological substances such as vaccines thermally stable have been made by implementing treatments such as lyophilisation, biomineralization, and encapsulation in sugar glass and organic polymers. These substances have a typically short shelf life, as they denature and degrade at room temperature over time. Furthermore, efficient storage and distribution relies on continuous refrigeration in order to preserve protein stability. However, this is costly and not always effective, as any disturbance in storage and distribution conditions may lead to rapid loss of effectiveness and potency. Whey protein isolate is used in a wide variety of food applications and is at risk of exposure to freezing temperatures during its transportation, which in turn could affect its stability as well as chemical and physical structure. This study examines the effects of plasma surface modification (PSM) on whey protein thermostability. Here we report on structural changes in commercially available whey protein exposed to cold thermal conditions, as reported by the Protein Thermal Shift Assay (PTSA). An improvement of 48% in protein thermal stability was observed upon treatment with PSM, suggesting that PSM may reduce damage caused by temperature fluctuations.
The biostratigraphic record of Cretaceous to Paleogene tectono-eustatic relative sea-level change in Jamaica
Authors: Gold David Patrick , Fenton James P. G. , Casas-Gallego Manuel , Novak Vibor , Pérez-Rodríguez Irene , Cetean Claudia , Price Richard , Nembhard Nicole , Thompson Herona
Published: July 2018

The island of Jamaica forms the northern extent of the Nicaraguan Rise, an elongate linear tectonic feature stretching as far as Honduras and Nicaragua to the south. Uplift and subaerial exposure of Jamaica during the Neogene has made the island rare within the Caribbean region, as it is the only area where rocks of the Nicaraguan Rise are exposed on land. Biostratigraphic dating and palaeoenvironmental interpretations using larger benthic foraminifera, supplemented by planktonic foraminifera, nannopalaeontology and palynology of outcrop, well and corehole samples has enabled the creation of a regional relative sea-level curve through identification of several depositional sequences. This study recognises ten unconformity-bounded transgressive-regressive sequences which record a complete cycle of relative sea level rise and fall. Sequences are recognised in the Early to ‘Middle’ Cretaceous (EKTR1), Coniacian-Santonian (STR1), Campanian (CTR1), Maastrichtian (MTR1-2), Paleocene-Early Eocene (PETR1), Eocene (YTR1-3) and Late Eocene-Oligocene (WTR1). These transgressive-regressive cycles represent second to fourth order sequences, although most tie with globally recognised third order sequences. Comparisons of the Jamaican relative sea-level curve with other published global mean sea-level curves show that local tectonics exerts a strong control on the deposition of sedimentary sequences in Jamaica. Large unconformities (duration >1 Ma) are related to significant regional tectonic events, with minor overprint of a global eustatic signal, while smaller unconformities (duration <1 Ma) are produced by global eustatic trends. The relatively low rates of relative sea-level rise calculated from the regional relative sea-level curve indicate that carbonate production rates were able to keep pace with the rate of relative sea-level rise accounting for the thick successions of Maastrichtian carbonates and those of the Yellow and White Limestone Groups. Carbonate platform drowning within the White Limestone Group during the Oligocene to Miocene is attributed to environmental deterioration given the low rates of relative sea-level rise.
Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) diploporitan fauna of Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada: implications for evolutionary and biogeographic patterns
Authors: Sheffield Sarah L.
Published: July 2018

Abstract: Hirnantian (latest Ordovician) localities containing echinoderm fossils are rare; the few that have been discovered primarily contain disarticulated crinoid ossicles. Therefore, relatively little is known about echinoderm evolutionary dynamics across the Late Ordovician – early Silurian boundary, especially noncrinoid echinoderms. New diploporitan echinoderms, Holocystites salmoensis and an unidentified holocystitid, from reefal facies of the Upper Ordovician Ellis Bay Formation of Anticosti Island provide a critical data point concerning diploporitan biogeography and evolutionary pathways undertaken during the Ordovician and Silurian. These fossils also provide a crucial link in understanding the ancestry of the Silurian Holocystites Fauna, an unusual diploporitan fauna from the middle Silurian of North America, whose origination dates back atleast 15 million years earlier than previously thought with the discovery of taxa described here. New fossil data such as these stress the importance of uncovering new localities from underrepresented times and places in Earth’s history, so that these evolutionary transitions can be better understood.
Revised age constraints for Late Cretaceous to early Paleocene terrestrial strata from the Dawson Creek section, Big Bend National Park, west Texas
Authors: Leslia Caitlin E. , Peppe Daniel J. , Williamson Thomas E. , Heizler Matthew , Jackson Mike , Atchley Stacy , Nordt Lee , Standhart Barbara
Published: July 2018

We analyzed samples for paleomagnetism, 40Ar/39Ar detrital sanidine ages, and mammalian fauna to produce a precise chronostratigraphic framework for the Upper Cretaceous to lower Paleocene Dawson Creek section of Big Bend National Park. Prior to this work, the absolute age and duration of the Upper Cretaceous Aguja and Javelina Formations and Paleocene Black Peaks Formation were relatively poorly constrained. The documented polarity zones can be correlated to C32n-C31n, C29r, and C27r of the geomagnetic polarity time scale (GPTS) with three hiatuses spanning more than 1.5 myr each. Rock magnetic analyses indicate that the dominant magnetic carrier in the Aguja and Black Peaks Formations is titanomagnetite while the Javelina Formation has varying magnetic carriers including hematite, magnetite, and maghemite. An overprint interval surrounding the K-Pg boundary suggests the primary magnetic carrier, titanohematite, was likely reset by burial and/or overlying basaltic flows. These are the first independent age constraints for the Cretaceous-Paleocene strata at the Dawson Creek section that determines the age and duration of deposition of each formation in the section, as well as the age and duration of multiple unconformities through the succession. As a result, these age constraints can be used to reassess biostratigraphic and isotopic correlations between the Big Bend area and other Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) basins across North America. Based on this new data, we reassign the age of the mammalian fauna found in the Black Peaks Formation from the Puercan to the Torrejonian North American Land Mammal age. Our age constraints show that the dinosaur fauna in the Javelina Formation in the Dawson Creek area is latest Maastrichtian and restricted to C29r. Thus, the Javelina dinosaur fauna is correlative to the Hell Creek Formation dinosaur fauna from the Northern Great Plains, indicating differences between the faunas are not due to differences in age and providing support for the hypothesis of provinciality and endemism in dinosaur communities in the late Maastrichtian. Further, the age constraints indicate that the previously documented mid-Maastrichtian and late Maastrichtian greenhouse events were rapid (<200 kyr) and correlate closely with climate events documented in the marine record.
Reste eines Elasmosauriers aus der Oberkreide von Schleswig-Holstein in der Sammlung des Naturkunde-Museums Bielefeld
Authors: Sachs Sven
Published: July 2018

In 2016, the Natural History Museum Bielefeld received fragmentary remains of an elasmosaurid plesiosaurian from the upper Campanian of Kronsmoor (Steinburg district) in Schleswig-Holstein (northern Germany). The material includes incomplete vertebrae, phalanges and unidentifiable fragments. Additional parts of the same skeleton (a tooth, cervical-, dorsal- and caudal vertebrae, limb elements and 110 gastroliths) are housed at the Institute for Geology of the University of Hamburg and in private collections.
Dazzled by the mystery of mentalism: The cognitive neuroscience of mental athletes
Authors: Rieznik Andrés , Sigman Mariano
Published: July 2018

We review how often distortions on the cognitive mechanisms underlying the virtuosism of mental athletes, including the frequent link to autistic savants or synesthesia, result from the confusion, misconceptions and even lack of rigor found in scientific literature. We present specific cases were ignorance about the basic training techniques of mental athlete’s world causes serious interpretation and methodological problems. Calculations seem obviously more impressive if they mysteriously pop-out in the air from unexplained virtues of an unexplained brain. The task of cognitive neuroscience is the opposite. It is to find and reveal the trick and seek to unfold which operations (often much more normal than they seem) result in these seemingly extraordinary performances.
Adapting a Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale for rural India: a pilot, amenable to scale up.
Authors: Haldar Kasturi
Published: July 2018

*Abstract. *Education is an important cornerstone of economic developmentin India. Mental health critically impacts education but its comprehensiveassessment at a population level, especially in children in rural areaspresents significant challenges. Mental health problems areunder-recognized in the community and the clinic. Assessment by clinicalpractitioners requires specialized expertise which (for both logistical andcost reasons) are not amenable to scale-up. Diversity in languages,cultures and variation in levels of literacy further compounds the problem.Consequently, despite universal recognition that mental health isimportant, tools to measure its overall prevalence at scale are limited.Here we report adaptation of a robust, internationally validated, mentalhealth assessment scale, the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale(RCADS) into Hindi, the national language, spoken by the largest number ofIndians. First RCADS in Urdu1 was translated to Hindi (since spoken Urdu isclose to Hindi). In addition, iterative steps of field adaptation andtraining enabled conversion from self-report to a questionnaire-survey(qaRCADS-H) to facilitate inclusion of illiterate respondents and improvethe overall accuracy and acceptance of the tool. Pratham EducationalFoundation-ASER Center field workers administered qaRCADS-H as a homeinterview/survey in a largely agrarian village where in 2011 the Censusreported 35% illiteracy2. Over a period of three weeks, fourcollege-educated field workers with prior survey experience, targeted 115households with children of which 110 agreed, resulting in participation of130 children 10-17 years of age. Our findings are discussed in context ofscaling and sensitization needed to effectively assess mental healthprevalence in a vulnerable group in large regions of India.
The importance of awareness for understanding language
Authors: Rabagliati Hugh , Robertson Alexander , Carmel David
Published: July 2018

Is consciousness required for high level cognitive processes, or can the unconscious mind perform tasks that are as complex and difficult as, for example, understanding a sentence? Recent work has argued that, yes, the unconscious mind can: Sklar et al. (2012) found that sentences, masked from consciousness using the technique of continuous flash suppression (CFS), broke into awareness more rapidly when their meanings were more unusual or more emotionally negative, even though processing the sentences’ meaning required unconsciously combining each word’s meaning. This has motivated the important claim that consciousness plays little-to-no functional role in high-level cognitive operations. Here, we aimed to replicate and extend these findings, but instead, across 10 high-powered studies, we found no evidence that the meaning of a phrase or word could be understood without awareness. We did, however, consistently find evidence that low-level perceptual features, such as sentence length and familiarity of alphabet, could be processed unconsciously. Our null findings for sentence processing are corroborated by a meta-analysis that aggregates our studies with the prior literature. We offer a potential explanation for prior positive results through a set of computational simulations, which show how the distributional characteristics of this type of CFS data, in particular its skew and heavy tail, can cause an elevated level of false positive results when common data exclusion criteria are applied. Our findings thus have practical implication for analyzing such data. More importantly, they suggest that consciousness may well be required for high-level cognitive tasks such as understanding language.
Outgrowing the Procrustean Bed of Normality: The Utility of Bayesian Modeling for Asymmetrical Data Analysis
Authors: Martin Stephen Ross , Williams Donald Ray
Published: July 2018

Psychological data often violate the normality assumptions made by commonly used statistical methods. These violations are addressed in a variety of ways such as transformations or assuming the employed method is robust to violations. Here we argue that data transformations are unnecessary at best and severely misleading at worst. An alternative approach is to use a Bayesian model that permits skewness and other perturbations to classical assumptions (e.g., heteroskedasticity). Through simulation, we demonstrate that a Bayesian skew-normal model has optimal frequentist properties (i.e., "type 1" error, "power", unbiasedness) compared to normal-assumptive models with or without transformation. Furthermore, the Bayesian skew-normal model has greater predictive utility, as indicated by posterior predictive checking and approximate leave-one-out cross-validation. After an applied example, we discuss practical implications of our findings for psychological science in general, and specifically how Bayesian modeling can improve reproducibility in psychology.
Opioids and Social Connection
Authors: Inagaki Tristen K.
Published: July 2018

Social connection, the pleasurable, subjective experience of feeling close to and bonded with others, is critical for well-being and continued social bonding. Despite the importance of social connection for many important outcomes, less research has experimentally examined how humans connect with those with whom they feel close. The strongest insights into the biological bases of social connection come from animal research showing that social bonds rely on the same neurochemicals that support general motivation. One neurochemical, opioids, has received increased attention in recent years with the rise of pharmacological methods to manipulate opioids in humans. This paper reviews emerging findings to show that opioids affect social feelings, behaviors, and perceptions in both positive and negative social experiences and concludes with translational implications of such findings. Future work should consider the subjective feelings of social connection felt during interactions with close social contacts to further understanding of social connection.
Gratitude Increases Third-Party Punishment
Authors: Vayness Jonathan , Duong Fred , DeSteno David
Published: July 2018

Third-party punishment occurs when a perpetrator of a transgression is punished by another person who was not directly affected by the transgression (i.e., a third-party). Given gratitude’s demonstrated ability to enhance both cooperation and the value people place on future-rewards, its capacity to increase third-party punishment was investigated. In two experiments, participants were randomly assigned to experience one of three emotional states (i.e., gratitude, happiness, or neutrality) prior to making decisions about how much of a previous financial endowment they would spend to punish a person who transgressed against another at differing degrees within the context of a dictator game. As expected, punishment expenditures decreased for all participants as a dictator’s decision became fairer. Of primary interest, however, participants who felt grateful, as compared to those who felt neutral or happy, engaged in significantly more third-party punishment across dictator splits that were not altruistic in nature.
Attractiveness and distinctiveness in voices and faces of young adults
Authors: Zäske Romi , Schweinberger Stefan R. , Skuk Verena G.
Published: July 2018

Facial attractiveness has been linked to the averageness (or typicality) of a face. More tentatively, it has also been linked to a speaker’s vocal attractiveness, via the “honest signal” hypothesis, holding that attractiveness signals good genes. In four experiments, we assessed ratings for attractiveness and two common measures of distinctiveness (“distinctiveness-in-thecrowd”- DITC and “deviation-based distinctiveness”-DEV) for faces and voices (vowels or sentences) from 64 young adult speakers (32 female). Consistent and strong negative correlations between attractiveness and DEV generally supported the averageness account of attractiveness for both voices and faces. By contrast, indicating that both measures of distinctiveness reflect different constructs, correlations between attractiveness and DITC were numerically positive for faces (though small and non-significant), and significant for voices in sentence stimuli. As the only exception, voice ratings based on vowels exhibited a moderate but significant negative correlation between attractiveness and DITC. Between faces and voices, distinctiveness ratings were uncorrelated. Remarkably, and at variance with the honest signal hypothesis, vocal and facial attractiveness were uncorrelated, with the exception of a moderatepositive correlation for vowels. Overall, while our findings strongly support an averageness account of attractiveness for both domains, they provide little evidence for an honest signal account of facial and vocal attractiveness in complex naturalistic speech. Although our findings for vowels do not rule out the tentative notion that more primitive vocalizations can provide relevant clues to genetic fitness, researchers should carefully consider the nature of voice samples, and the degree to which these are representative of human vocal communication.
Sampling frames and inductive inference with censored evidence
Authors: Hayes Brett , Banner Stephanie , Forrester Suzy , Navarro Danielle
Published: July 2018

We propose and test a Bayesian model of property induction with censored evidence. A core model prediction is that identical evidence samples can lead to different patterns of inductive inference depending on the censoring mechanisms that cause some instances to be excluded. This prediction was confirmed in four experiments examining property induction following exposure to identical samples that were subject to different sampling frames. Each experiment found narrower generalization of a novel property when the sample instances were selected because they shared a common property (property sampling) than when they were selected because they belonged to the same category (category sampling). In line with model predictions, sampling frame effects were moderated by the addition of explicit negative evidence (Experiment 1), sample size (Experiment 2) and category base rates (Experiments 3-4). These data show that reasoners are sensitive to constraints on the sampling process when making property inferences; they consider both the observed evidence and the reasons why certain types of evidence has not been observed.
An Investigation of the Role of Working Memory Capacity and Naming Speed in Phonological Advance Planning in Language Production
Authors: Klaus Jana , Schriefers Herbert
Published: July 2018

Producing multi-word utterances is a complex, yet relatively effortless process. Research with the picture-word interference paradigm has shown that speakers can plan all elements of such utterances up to the phonological level before initiating speech, yet magnitude and polarity differ between but also within studies. We investigated possible sources for variability in the phonological advance planning scope. In two experiments, participants produced bare nouns (“monkey”) and complex noun phrases (“the small red monkey”) while ignoring distractor words phonologically (un)related to the noun. For low- and high-working memory capacity speakers as well as fast and slow speakers, we found phonological facilitation effects for the bare noun, but no distractor effects for the complex noun phrases. However, looking at individual distractor effects for utterance-final elements revealed a large variability between speakers. We conclude that phonological advance planning cannot be summarised as an overall effect, but should take into account inter- and intraindividual variability.
Bridging Racial Divides: Social Constructionist (vs. Essentialist) Beliefs Facilitate Trust in Intergroup Contexts
Authors: Kung Franki Y. H. , Chao Melody Manchi , YAO Jingdan , Adair Wendi L. , Fu Jeanne H. , Tasa Kevin
Published: July 2018

Trust serves as the foundation for social harmony and prosperity, but it is not always easy to build. When people see other groups as different, e.g., members of a different race or ethnicity, the perceived boundary often obstructs people from extending trust. This may result in interracial conflicts. The current research argues that individual differences in the lay theory of race can systematically influence the degree to which people extend trust to a racial outgroup in conflict situations. The lay theory of race refers to the extent to which people believe race is a malleable social construct that can change over time (i.e., social constructionist beliefs) versus a fixed essence that differentiates people into meaningful social categories (i.e., essentialist beliefs). In our three studies, we found evidence that social constructionist (vs. essentialist) beliefs promoted interracial trust in intergroup contexts, and that this effect held regardless of whether the lay theory of race was measured (Studies 1 and 3) or manipulated (Study 2), and whether the conflict was presented in a team conflict scenario (Study 1), social dilemma (Study 2), or a face-to-face dyadic negotiation (Study 3). In addition, results revealed that the lay theory’s effect on interracial trust could have critical downstream consequences in conflict, namely cooperation and mutually beneficial negotiation outcomes. The findings together reveal that the lay theory of race can reliably influence interracial trust and presents a promising direction for understanding interracial relations and improving intergroup harmony in society.
Implicit preferences for straight people over lesbian women and gay men weakened from 2006 to 2013
Authors: Westgate Erin Corwin , Riskind Rachel G. , Nosek Brian A.
Published: July 2018

Legal rights and cultural attitudes towards lesbian women and gay men have shifted rapidly in the early 21st century. Using 683,976 visitors to Project Implicit from February 2006 to August 2013, we investigated whether shifts were also observable in implicit evaluations that occur outside of conscious awareness or control. Similar to public opinion polling, the estimated explicit preference for straight people over lesbian women and gay men was 26% weaker on the last day compared to the first. The estimated implicit preference for straight people declined by 13.4% over the same period. The largest shifts in implicit evaluations occurred among Hispanic, White, female, liberal, and young adult participants; the smallest shifts occurred among Black, Asian, male, conservative, and older adult participants. Societal change in evaluation of lesbian and gay people is not limited to what people are willing and able to report. However, change in implicit evaluation appears to be slower.
Parenting Styles Moderate How Parent and Adolescent Beliefs Shape Each Other’s Eating and Physical Activity: Dyadic Evidence from a Cross-Sectional, U.S. National Survey
Authors: Lenne Richie L , Joyal-Desmarais Keven , Jones Rachael E. , Huelsnitz Chloe O. , Panos Mary Elizabeth , Auster-Gussman Lisa , Johnson William F. , Rothman Alexander , Simpson Jeffry
Published: July 2018

Psychological theories of health behavior focus on intrapersonal influences on behavior. Greater attention to interpersonal effects and the relational contexts that regulate them has the potential to improve theory, and offer innovative strategies for intervention. This research takes a dyadic approach to understanding how parent and adolescent beliefs influence each other’s health behaviors, and how the relationship context of parent-adolescent dyads moderates these effects. Using the Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating study (FLASHE), we analyze responses from 1,717 parent-adolescent dyads from across the U.S., and explore a dyadic extension to the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). We evaluate how parenting styles that characterize each parent-adolescent dyad moderate the degree to which parents’ and adolescents’ own attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are associated with the other person’s behaviors across four domains: fruit and vegetable consumption, junk food and sugary drinks consumption, engagement in physical activity, and engagement in screen time sedentary behaviors. We find that the association between parents’ attitudes, social norms, and perceived behavioral control and their adolescent’s eating behavior tends to be stronger when parents have an authoritative parenting style. However, we also find that the association between adolescents’ attitudes, social norms, and perceived behavioral control and their parent’s eating behavior tends to be stronger when parents have an authoritative parenting style. These findings show the importance of context in evaluating interpersonal influence, and hold implications for health-relevant interventions.
Implications of the Credibility Revolution for Productivity, Creativity, and Progress
Authors: Vazire Simine
Published: July 2018

In this essay, I explore what the credibility revolution means for productivity, creativity, and progress in psychology. I begin by reviewing the most salient changes that have been brought about by the credibility revolution. Then I review some common concerns about the implications of theses changes for psychological science, and consider each of these concerns in turn. I conclude that the changes brought about by the credibility revolution are likely to hamper the rate of individual researchers’ productivity, could have a negative or positive impact on creativity depending on how the changes are implemented and what is meant by creativity, and are likely to increase the rate of scientific progress.
Want to gain height? How body motion makes you taller.
Authors: Koppensteiner Markus , Stephan Pia , Jäschke Johannes PM
Published: July 2018

Body height and expansiveness of body motion both affect perceived dominance and status. We investigated whether expansiveness of body motion also has a direct impact on perceptions of height. For two independent rating experiments we turned the body movements of politicians giving a speech into short clips of animated stick-figures. In experiment one, participants judged these stimuli on dominance, trustworthiness, and competence. In experiment two participants assessed the stick-figures’ heights. Perceptions of stick-figure heights were related to ratings of dominance even after controlling for actual stimulus height. We concluded that perceived height was influenced by motion cues. Detailed analyses of hand and torso movements revealed that expansive vertical arm movements made our stimuli appear taller. In conclusion, our findings indicate that motion cues do not only affect attributions of personality traits but also distort perceptions of physiognomic features such as body height.
Dispositional negativity in the wild: Social environment governs momentary emotional experience
Authors: Shackman Alexander J.
Published: July 2018

Dispositional negativity—the tendency to experience more frequent or intense negative emotions—is a fundamental dimension of temperament and personality. Elevated levels of dispositional negativity have profound consequences for public health and wealth, drawing the attention of researchers, clinicians, and policy makers. Yet, relatively little is known about the factors that govern the momentary expression of dispositional negativity in the real world. Here, we used smart phone-based experience-sampling to demonstrate that the social environment plays a central role in shaping the moment-by-moment emotional experience of 127 young adults selectively recruited to represent a broad spectrum of dispositional negativity. Results indicate that individuals with a more negative disposition derive much larger emotional benefits from the company of close companions—friends, romantic partners, and family members—and that these benefits reflect heightened feelings of social connection and acceptance. These results set the stage for developing improved interventions and provide new insights into the interaction of emotional traits and situations in the real world, close to clinically and practically important end-points.
The Creativity-Verification Cycle in Psychological Science: New Methods to Combat Old Idols
Authors: Wagenmakers Eric-Jan , Dutilh Gilles , Sarafoglou Alexandra
Published: July 2018

Over the years, psychological science has documented and investigated a host of powerful cognitive fallacies, including hindsight bias and confirmation bias. Researchers themselves may not be immune to these fallacies, and unwittingly adjust their statistical analysis to produce an outcome that is more pleasant or better in line with prior expectations. In order to shield researchers from the impact of cognitive fallacies, several methodologists are now advocating preregistration, that is, the creation of a detailed analysis plan prior to data collection or data analysis. One may argue, however, that preregistration is out of touch with academic reality, hampering creativity and impeding scientific progress. We provide a historical overview to show that the interplay between creativity and verification has shaped theories of scientific inquiry throughout the centuries; in the currently dominant theory, creativity and verification operate in succession and enhance one another’s effectiveness. From this perspective, the use of preregistration to safeguard the verification stage will help rather than hinder the generation of fruitful new ideas.
Morality and Self-Control: How They are Intertwined, and Where They Differ
Authors: Hofmann Wilhelm , Meindl Peter , Mooijman Marlon , Graham Jesse
Published: July 2018

Despite sharing conceptual overlap, morality and self-control research have led largely separate lives. In this article, we highlight neglected connections between these major areas of psychology. To this end, we first note their conceptual similarities and differences. We then show how morality research, typically emphasizing aspects of moral cognition and emotion, may benefit from incorporating motivational concepts from self-control research. Similarly, self-control research may benefit from a better understanding of the moral nature of many self-control domains. We place special focus on various components of self-control and on the ways in which self-control goals may be moralized.
Partition dependence in consumer choice: Perceptual groupings do not reliably shape decisions
Authors: Reichelson Sheri , Zax Alexandra , Bass Ilona , Patalano Andrea , Barth Hilary
Published: July 2018

The partitioning of options into arbitrary categories has been shown to influence decisions about allocating choices or resources among those options; this phenomenon is called “partition dependence.” While we do not call into question the validity of the partition dependence phenomenon in the present work, we do examine the robustness of one of the experimental paradigms reported by Fox, Ratner, and Lieb (2005, Study 4). In three experiments (N = 300) conducted here, participants chose from a menu of perceptually partitioned options (varieties of candy distributed across bowls). We found no clear evidence of partition dependent choice in children (Experiment 1), and no evidence at all of partition dependence in adults’ choices (Experiments 1-3). This was true even when methods were closely matched to those of Fox et al.’s Study 4 (Experiment 3). We conclude that the “candy-bowl” choice task does not reliably elicit partition dependence and propose possible explanations for the discrepancy between these findings and prior reports. Future work will explore the conditions under which partition dependence in consumer choice does reliably arise.
Zhang & Smith_Does Power Reduce Temporal Discounting
Authors: Zhang Min , Smith Pamela Karen
Published: July 2018

Joshi and Fast (2013) showed that increased social power reduces temporal discounting. Their findings imply the potential to mitigate temporal discounting with power and inform the theoretical debate on how power affects self-control. Given the theoretical and real-world significance of this effect, it is important to examine its reproducibility. With much larger samples, we found no effect of power on temporal discounting in two preregistered direct replication studies. Meta-analysis on the known replication studies and the target studies also showed a nonsignificant effect of power on temporal discounting. The cumulative evidence raises many questions about the relationship between power and temporal discounting and indicates more high-powered research is needed on this topic.
State anxiety and information processing: a 7.5% carbon dioxide challenge study
Authors: Easey Kayleigh , Catling Jon , Kent Chris , Crouch Coral , Jackson Sam , Munafo Marcus Robert , Attwood Angela Suzanne
Published: July 2018

We used the 7.5% carbon dioxide model of anxiety induction to investigate the effects of state anxiety on simple information processing. In both high and low anxious states participants completed an auditory/visual matching task and a visual binary categorisation task. Stimuli were either degraded or clear to investigate whether the effects of anxiety are greater when signal clarity is compromised. Accuracy in the matching task was lower during CO2 inhalation and for degraded stimuli. Response times and indecision (measured using mouse trajectories) were greater during CO2 inhalation and for degraded stimuli in the categorization task. For most measures, there was no evidence of gas × clarity interactions. These data indicate that state anxiety negatively impacts simple information processing, and does not support claims that anxiety may benefit performance in low cognitively demanding tasks. These findings have important implications for understanding the impact of state anxiety in real world situations. 7.5%
The metaphoric nature of the ordinal position effect
Authors: Zhou Dandan , Zhong Hanxi , Wenshan Dong , Min Li , Verguts Tom , Qi Chen
Published: July 2018

Serial orders are thought to be spatially represented in working memory: The beginning items in the memorized sequence are associated with the left side of space and the ending items associated with the right side of space. However, the origin of this ordinal position effect has remained unclear. It was suggested (Guida, et al., 2018) that the reading / writing experience shapes the direction of serial order-space interaction. An alternative hypothesis is that it originates from the “more is right” / “more is up” spatial metaphors we use in daily life (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003). We can adjudicate between the two theories in Chinese subjects; they read left-to-right, but also have a culturally ancient top-to-bottom reading / writing direction. Thus, the reading / writing theory predicts no or a top-to-bottom effect in serial order-space interaction; whereas the spatial metaphor theory predicts a clear bottom-to-top effect. We designed three experiments to investigate this issue. First, we found a left-to-right ordinal position effect, replicating results obtained in Western populations. However we observed a vertical ordinal position effect in a bottom-to-top direction, which was itself modulated by (left / right) hand positions. We suggest that order-space interactions are a case of metaphoric comprehension, which itself may ground cognitive processing.
How culture and biology interact to shape language and the language faculty
Authors: Smith Kenny
Published: July 2018

Recent work suggests that linguistic structure develops through cultural evolution, as a consequence of the repeated cycle of learning and use by which languages persist. This work has important implications for our understanding of the evolution of the cognitive basis for language: in particular, human language and the cognitive capacities underpinning it are likely to have been shaped by co-evolutionary processes, where the cultural evolution of linguistic systems is shaped by and in turn shapes the biological evolution of the capacities underpinning language learning. I review several models of this co-evolutionary process, which suggest that the precise relationship between evolved biases in individuals and the structure of linguistic systems depends on the extent to which cultural evolution masks or unmasks individual-level cognitive biases from selection. I finish by discussing how these co-evolutionary models might be extended to cases where the biases involved in learning are themselves shaped by experience, as is the case for language.