MedWorm.com provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest items from the 'Psychological Science' source. Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:22:55 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3025151&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.volcontents_12.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3025151 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 3025151 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2976042&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02480.x In this study, we investigated the effects of immersion learning for a group of university students studying abroad in Spain. Our interest was in the effect of immersion on the native language (L1), English. We tested the hypothesis that immersion benefits L2 learning as a result of attenuated influence of the L1. Participants were English-speaking learners of Spanish who were either immersed in Spanish while living in Spain or exposed to Spanish in the classroom only. Performance on both comprehension and production tasks showed that immersed learners outperformed their classroom counterparts with respect to L2 proficiency. However, the results also revealed that immersed learners had reduced L1 access. The pattern of data is most consistent with the interpretation that the L1 was inhibit... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2976042 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2976042 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2976048&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02470.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The conflict-adaptation effect has been observed in several executive-control tasks and is thought to reflect an increase in control, driven by experienced conflict. We hypothesized that if this adaptation originates from the aversive quality of conflict, it would be canceled out by a positive, rewarding event. Subjects performed an arrow flanker task with monetary gain or loss as arbitrary feedback between trials. As predicted, we found a reduction in conflict adaptation for trials in which conflict was followed by monetary gain. The strength of this gain-induced modulation was found to depend on subjects' motivation to pursue reward, as measured by the Behavioral Activation System Drive scale. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that the conflict-adaptation effect ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2976048 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2976048 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2976047&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02475.x ABSTRACT[mdash]How do everyday goals shape the way people categorize others in the social environment? Research on social categorization has emphasized the role of feature-based categories such as race and gender, showing that people rely on such categories when perceiving and remembering others. We tested the hypothesis that social perception may depend on a new type of category[mdash]what we call "goal instrumentality," or the extent to which others are useful for an active goal. We demonstrate that people make more memory errors within the categories of "instrumental" and "noninstrumental," and fewer between-category errors, when a goal has been subtly activated. We also demonstrate that people perceive others within the categories of "instrumental" and "noninstrumental" to be more simi... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2976047 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2976047 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2976046&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02476.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Individuals show marked variation in their responses to threat. Such individual differences in behavioral inhibition play a profound role in mental and physical well-being. Behavioral inhibition is thought to reflect variation in the sensitivity of a distributed neural system responsible for generating anxiety and organizing defensive responses to threat and punishment. Although progress has been made in identifying the key constituents of this behavioral inhibition system in humans, the involvement of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) remains unclear. Here, we acquired self-reported Behavioral Inhibition System Sensitivity scores and high-resolution electroencephalography from a large sample (n= 51). Using the enhanced spatial resolution afforded by source modeling tec... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2976046 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2976046 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2976045&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02477.x ABSTRACT[mdash]We demonstrate that merely naming a research finding elicits feelings of ease (a "name-ease" effect). These feelings of ease can reduce or enhance the finding's perceived importance depending on whether people are making inferences about how understandable or how memorable the finding is. When people assess their understanding of a finding, feelings of ease reduce the finding's perceived importance. This is because people usually invest effort to understand important information but also mistakenly infer the reverse[mdash]namely, that information that requires effort to be understood is important. In contrast, when people assess the memorability of a finding, feelings of ease increase the finding's perceived importance. Because people usually recall important information eas... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2976045 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2976045 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2976044&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02478.x We report a randomized field experiment that tested whether a social-psychological intervention designed to lessen the impact of ego threat reduces narcissistic aggression. A sample of 405 young adolescents (mean age = 13.9 years) were randomly assigned to complete either a short self-affirmation writing assignment (which allowed them to reflect on their personally important values) or a control writing assignment. We expected that the self-affirmation would temporarily attenuate the ego-protective motivations that normally drive narcissists' aggression. As expected, the self-affirmation writing assignment reduced narcissistic aggression for a period of a school week, that is, for a period up to 400 times the duration of the intervention itself. These results provide the first empirical de... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2976044 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2976044 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2976043&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02479.x ABSTRACT[mdash]How does power affect behavior? We posit that this depends on the type of power. We distinguish between social power (power over other people) and personal power (freedom from other people) and argue that these two types of power have opposite associations with independence and interdependence. We propose that when the distinction between independence and interdependence is relevant, social power and personal power will have opposite effects; however, they will have parallel effects when the distinction is irrelevant. In two studies (an experimental study and a large field study), we demonstrate this by showing that social power and personal power have opposite effects on stereotyping, but parallel effects on behavioral approach. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2976043 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2976043 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2953162&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02474.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2953162 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2953162 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2953166&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02469.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Cumulative cultural evolution has been suggested to account for key cognitive and behavioral attributes that distinguish modern humans from their anatomically similar ancestors, but researchers have yet to establish which cognitive mechanisms are responsible for this kind of learning and whether they are unique to humans. Here, we show that human participants' cumulative learning is not always reliant on sources of social information commonly assumed to be essential. Seven hundred participants were organized into 70 microsocieties and completed a task involving building a paper airplane. We manipulated the availability of opportunities for imitation (reproducing actions), emulation (reproducing end results), and teaching. Each condition was independently sufficient for parti... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2953166 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2953166 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2953165&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02471.x ABSTRACT[mdash]How the visual system comes to bind diverse image regions into whole objects is not well understood. We recently had a unique opportunity to investigate this issue when we met three congenitally blind individuals in India. After providing them treatment, we studied the early stages of their visual skills. We found that prominent figural cues of grouping, such as good continuation and junction structure, were largely ineffective for image parsing. By contrast, motion cues were of profound significance in that they enabled intraobject integration and facilitated the development of object representations that permitted recognition in static images. Following 10 to 18 months of visual experience, the individuals' performance improved, and they were able to use the previously ine... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2953165 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2953165 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2953164&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02472.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Everyone has recounted a story or joke to someone only to experience a nagging feeling that they may already have told this person this information. Remembering to whom one has told what, an ability that we term destination memory, has been overlooked by researchers despite its important social ramifications. Using a novel paradigm, we demonstrate that destination memory is more fallible than source memory[mdash]remembering the person from whom one has received information (Experiment 1). In Experiments 2 and 3, we increased and decreased self-focus, obtaining support for a theoretical framework that explains relatively poor destination memory performance as being the result of focusing attention on oneself and on the processes required to transmit information. Along with so... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2953164 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2953164 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2953163&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02473.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Using a mobile-phone-based experience-sampling technology in a sample of 378 individuals ranging from 14 to 86 years of age, we investigated age differences in how people want to influence their feelings in their daily lives. Contra-hedonic motivations of wanting either to maintain or enhance negative affect or to dampen positive affect were most prevalent in adolescence, whereas prohedonic motivations of wanting either to maintain, but not enhance, positive affect or to dampen negative affect were most prevalent in old age. This pattern was mirrored by an age-related increase in self-reported day-to-day emotional well-being. Analyses of the emotional experiences that accompanied prohedonic and contra-hedonic motivations are consistent with the notions that contra-hedonic mo... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2953163 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2953163 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945865&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02468.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Four studies examined how impulse-control beliefs[mdash]beliefs regarding one's ability to regulate visceral impulses, such as hunger, drug craving, and sexual arousal[mdash]influence the self-control process. The findings provide evidence for a restraint bias: a tendency for people to overestimate their capacity for impulse control. This biased perception of restraint had important consequences for people's self-control strategies. Inflated impulse-control beliefs led people to overexpose themselves to temptation, thereby promoting impulsive behavior. In Study 4, for example, the impulse-control beliefs of recovering smokers predicted their exposure to situations in which they would be tempted to smoke. Recovering smokers with more inflated impulse-control beliefs exposed t... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945865 Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945865 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945872&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02459.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Emotions are generally thought to arise through the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes. However, prior work has not delineated their relative contributions. In a sample of 20 females, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of negative emotions generated by the bottom-up perception of aversive images and by the top-down interpretation of neutral images as aversive. We found that (a) both types of responses activated the amygdala, although bottom-up responses did so more strongly; (b) bottom-up responses activated systems for attending to and encoding perceptual and affective stimulus properties, whereas top-down responses activated prefrontal regions that represent high-level cognitive interpretations; and (c) self-reported... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945872 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945872 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945871&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02460.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Brain-imaging research has largely focused on localizing patterns of activity related to specific mental processes, but recent work has shown that mental states can be identified from neuroimaging data using statistical classifiers. We investigated whether this approach could be extended to predict the mental state of an individual using a statistical classifier trained on other individuals, and whether the information gained in doing so could provide new insights into how mental processes are organized in the brain. Using a variety of classifier techniques, we achieved cross-validated classification accuracy of 80% across individuals (chance = 13%). Using a neural network classifier, we recovered a low-dimensional representation common to all the cognitive-perceptual tasks ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945871 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945871 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945870&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02463.x ABSTRACT[mdash]In their descriptions, eyewitnesses often refer to a culprit's distinctive facial features. However, in a police lineup, selecting the only member with the described distinctive feature is unfair to the suspect and provides the police with little further information. For fair and informative lineups, the distinctive feature should be either replicated across foils or concealed on the target. In the present experiments, replication produced more correct identifications in target-present lineups[mdash]without increasing the incorrect identification of foils in target-absent lineups[mdash]than did concealment. This pattern, and only this pattern, is predicted by the hybrid-similarity model of recognition. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945870 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945870 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945869&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02464.x This study shows that humans (a) infer other people's movement trajectories from their gaze direction and (b) use this information to guide their own visual scanning of the environment and plan their own movement. In two eye-tracking experiments, participants viewed an animated character walking directly toward them on a street. The character looked constantly to the left or to the right (Experiment 1) or suddenly shifted his gaze from direct to the left or to the right (Experiment 2). Participants had to decide on which side they would skirt the character. They shifted their gaze toward the direction in which the character was not gazing, that is, away from his gaze, and chose to skirt him on that side. Gaze following is not always an obligatory social reflex; social-cognitive evaluations... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945869 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945869 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945868&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02465.x This report provides evidence against this explanation. The Himba, a seminomadic people living in a remote region of northwestern Namibia where there is little exposure to regular, simple artifacts, were virtually identical to Western observers in their greater sensitivity to nonaccidental properties than to metric properties of simple shapes. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945868 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945868 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945867&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02466.x ABSTRACT[mdash]That the scarcity of objects enhances their value is a widely known principle in the behavioral sciences. In addition, research has demonstrated that attaching high value to an object produces biased perceptions of its scarcity. Three studies applied this bidirectional link between scarcity and value to the meaning of death, testing the prediction that death represents the scarcity of life. In Study 1, reminders of death led to enhanced evaluations of life. In Studies 2 and 3, the monetary (Study 2) and psychological (Study 3) value of life were manipulated. In both studies, when human life was highly valuable, the concept of death was more accessible, as predicted from the association between value and scarcity. Previous theoretical treatments of the meaning of death have s... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945867 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945867 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2945866&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02467.x ABSTRACT[mdash]We explored whether self-affirmation enhances attentional bias toward threatening elements of a persuasive message. Female alcohol consumers read an article linking alcohol to breast cancer and were then exposed supraliminally to threat and nonthreat words from the article (as well as threat and nonthreat words that did not appear in the article). Among moderately heavy drinkers who were not self-affirmed, there emerged an attentional bias away from the threatening words in the article[mdash]a result suggesting an avoidant response. However, among moderately heavy drinkers who were self-affirmed, there was a bias toward the threatening words. No attentional biases appeared for threat words not in the message, which suggested that the effect was threat specific. Moreover, no ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2945866 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100 2945866 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2914518&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02462.x ABSTRACT[mdash]We propose that metaphor is a mechanism by which motivational states in one conceptual domain can influence attitudes in a superficially unrelated domain. Two studies tested whether activating motives related to the self-concept influences attitudes toward social topics when the topics' metaphoric association to the motives is made salient through linguistic framing. In Study 1, heightened motivation to protect one's own body from contamination led to harsher attitudes toward immigrants entering the United States when the country was framed in body-metaphoric, rather than literal, terms. In Study 2, a self-esteem threat led to more positive attitudes toward binge drinking of alcohol when drinking was metaphorically framed as physical self-destruction, compared with when it w... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2914518 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2914518 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2914521&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02457.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Some people have postulated that the perception of Jews' ongoing suffering from past atrocities can result in an increase in anti-Semitism. This postulated secondary anti-Semitism is compatible with a number of psychological theories, but until now there has been no empirical evidence in support of this notion. The present study provides the first evidence that ongoing suffering evokes an increase in prejudice against the victims. However, this effect became apparent only if respondents felt obliged to respond truthfully because of a bogus pipeline (BPL); without this constraint, the perception of ongoing victim suffering led to a socially desirable reduction in self-reported prejudice. The validity of the BPL manipulation was confirmed by the finding that it moderated the r... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2914521 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2914521 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2914520&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02458.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2914520 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2914520 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2914519&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02461.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Understanding when people reveal unfavorable information about themselves is both practically and theoretically important. Existing research suggests that people tend not to adopt stable disclosure strategies, and consequently disclose too much information in some situations (e.g., embarrassing personal information on Facebook) and too little in other situations (e.g., risky sexual behavior to a physician during diagnosis of a possible sexually transmitted disease). We sought to identify a domain-general cue that predicts self-disclosure patterns. We found that metacognitive ease, or fluency, promoted greater disclosure, both in tightly controlled lab studies (Studies 1a, 1b, and 3) and in an ecologically valid on-line field study (Study 4). Disfluency tended to prime though... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2914519 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2914519 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2892856&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02456.x ABSTRACT[mdash]We investigated the hypothesis that a sociocultural variable known as the culture of honor would be uniquely predictive of school-violence indicators. Controlling for demographic characteristics associated in previous studies with violent crime among adults, we found that high-school students in culture-of-honor states were significantly more likely than high-school students in non-culture-of-honor states to report having brought a weapon to school in the past month. Using data aggregated over a 20-year period, we also found that culture-of-honor states had more than twice as many school shootings per capita as non-culture-of-honor states. The data revealed important differences between school violence and general patterns of homicide and are consistent with the view that ma... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2892856 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2892856 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2892859&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02453.x We report a large-scale experiment that assessed tasting preferences in choice sets of two, three, four, or five wines. We found a large primacy effect[mdash]the first wine had a large advantage in the end-of-sequence choice. We also found that participants who were knowledgeable about wines showed a recency effect in the longer sequences. We conclude with a process model that explains our findings. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2892859 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2892859 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2892858&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02454.x ABSTRACT[mdash]It has been suggested that the locus of selective attention (early vs. late in processing) is dependent on the perceptual load of the task. When perceptual load is low, irrelevant distractors are processed (late selection), whereas when perceptual load is high, distractor interference disappears (early selection). Attentional abnormalities have long been reported within autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and this study is the first to examine the effect of perceptual load on selective attention in this population. Fourteen adults with ASD and 23 adults without ASD performed a selective attention task with varying perceptual loads. Compared with the non-ASD group, the ASD group required higher levels of perceptual load to successfully ignore irrelevant distractors; moreover, the... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2892858 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2892858 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2892857&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02455.x This study demonstrates the importance of considering profiles of cardiovascular reactivity when examining the influence of stress on decision making. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2892857 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2892857 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2874333&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02452.x ABSTRACT[mdash]When and why do power holders seek to harm other people? The present research examined the idea that aggression among the powerful is often the result of a threatened ego. Four studies demonstrated that individuals with power become aggressive when they feel incompetent in the domain of power. Regardless of whether power was measured in the workplace (Studies 1 and 4), manipulated via role recall (Study 2), or assigned in the laboratory (Study 3), it was associated with heightened aggression when paired with a lack of self-perceived competence. As hypothesized, this aggression appeared to be driven by ego threat: Aggressiveness was eliminated among participants whose sense of self-worth was boosted (Studies 3 and 4). Taken together, these findings suggest that (a) power pair... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2874333 Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2874333 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2874337&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02448.x ABSTRACT[mdash]How do minds produce explicit attitudes over several hundred milliseconds? Speeded evaluative measures have revealed implicit biases beyond cognitive control and subjective awareness, yet mental processing may culminate in an explicit attitude that feels personally endorsed and corroborates voluntary intentions. We argue that self-reported explicit attitudes derive from a continuous, temporally dynamic process, whereby multiple simultaneously conflicting sources of information self-organize into a meaningful mental representation. While our participants reported their explicit (like vs. dislike) attitudes toward White versus Black people by moving a cursor to a "like" or "dislike" response box, we recorded streaming x- and y-coordinates from their hand-movement trajectories.... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2874337 Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2874337 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2874336&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02449.x ABSTRACT[mdash]There has been a long-standing debate about whether having accurate self-perceptions or holding positive illusions of self is more adaptive. This debate has recently expanded to consider the role of accuracy and bias of partner perceptions in romantic relationships. In the present study, we hypothesized that because accuracy, positivity bias, and similarity bias are likely to serve distinct functions in relationships, they should all make independent contributions to the prediction of marital satisfaction. In a sample of 288 newlywed couples, we tested this hypothesis by simultaneously modeling the actor effects and partner effects of accuracy, positivity bias, and similarity bias in predicting husbands' and wives' satisfaction. Findings across several perceptual domains sug... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2874336 Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2874336 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2874335&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02450.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Stress affects memory, yet no study has investigated the effects of stress on memory inhibition: Remembering not only facilitates later recall, but also inhibits retrieval of related material, a phenomenon known as retrieval-induced forgetting. We investigated the effects of stress on this mechanism, which is thought to adaptively guide memory selection. Participants learned categorized lists and were then exposed to either a psychosocial laboratory stressor or a cognitively challenging control treatment. They then actively retrieved parts of the previously learned material. Finally, memory for all initially learned items was tested. In the stress group, unlike in the control group, intervening retrieval practice did not impair final recall. Moreover, salivary cortisol level... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2874335 Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2874335 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2874334&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02451.x ABSTRACT[mdash]In two experiments, we investigated the effects of expertise and mode of thought on the accuracy of people's predictions. Both experts and nonexperts predicted the results of soccer matches after conscious thought, after unconscious thought, or immediately. In Experiment 1, experts who thought unconsciously outperformed participants in all other conditions. Whereas unconscious thinkers showed a correlation between expertise and accuracy of prediction, no such relation was observed for conscious thinkers or for immediate decision makers. In Experiment 2, this general pattern was replicated. In addition, experts who thought unconsciously were better at applying diagnostic information than experts who thought consciously or who decided immediately. The results are consistent wi... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2874334 Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2874334 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2830741&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02447.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Perception of one's body is related not only to the physical appearance of the body, but also to the neural representation of the body. The brain contains many body maps that systematically differ between right- and left-handed people. In general, the cortical representations of the right arm and right hand tend to be of greater area in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere for right-handed people, whereas these cortical representations tend to be symmetrical across hemispheres for left-handers. We took advantage of these naturally occurring differences and examined perceived arm length in right- and left-handed people. When looking at each arm and hand individually, right-handed participants perceived their right arms and right hands to be longer than their left ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2830741 Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2830741 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2830745&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02443.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2830745 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2830745 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2830744&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02444.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2830744 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2830744 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2830743&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02445.x ABSTRACT[mdash]To understand the mechanisms of visual attention, it is crucial to know the relationship between attention and saccades. Some theories propose a close relationship, whereas others view the attention and saccade systems as completely independent. One possible way to resolve this controversy is to distinguish between the maintenance and shifting of attention. The present study used a novel paradigm that allowed simultaneous measurement of attentional allocation and saccade preparation. Saccades toward the location where attention was maintained were either facilitated or suppressed depending on the probability of making a saccade to that location and the match between the attended location and the saccade location on the previous trial. Shifting attention to another location w... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2830743 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2830743 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2830742&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02446.x ABSTRACT[mdash]During binocular-rivalry suppression, an ordinarily visible stimulus is erased from awareness, but how is the sensory representation of that stimulus affected? Although it is established that rivalry suppression attenuates signal strength, the influence of suppression on signal fidelity remains unknown. Here, we show that noise plays a hitherto undiscovered role in the degradation of the percept under suppression. In Experiment 1, we measured psychometric functions for a stimulus presented under dominance and suppression, and found that the slope of these functions was shallower under suppression[mdash]a result suggesting that the signal representation was rendered noisier. Experiment 2 then revealed the source of this noise: An examination of the influence of suppression on... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2830742 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2830742 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2806262&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02442.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Everyone knows that attention to the details disrupts skilled performance, but little empirical evidence documents this fact. We show that attention to the hands disrupts skilled typewriting. We had skilled typists type words preceded by cues that told them to type only the letters assigned to one hand or to type all of the letters. Cuing the hands disrupted performance markedly, slowing typing and increasing the error rate (Experiment 1); these deleterious effects were observed even when no keystrokes were actually inhibited (Experiment 3). However, cuing the same letters with colors was not disruptive (Experiment 2). We account for the disruption with a hierarchical control model, in which an inner loop controls the hands and an outer loop controls what is typed. Typing le... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2806262 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2806262 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2806264&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02440.x This study provides evidence that spatial imagery is not a single faculty; rather, visualizing spatial location and mentally transforming location rely on distinct neural networks. Using 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested 16 participants (8 male, 8 female) in each of two spatial imagery tasks[mdash]one that required visualizing location and one that required mentally rotating stimuli. The same stimuli were used in the two tasks. The location-based task engendered more activation near the occipito-parietal sulcus, medial posterior cingulate, and precuneus, whereas the transformation task engendered more activation in superior portions of the parietal lobe and in the postcentral gyrus. These differences in activation provide evidence that there are at least two different ty... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2806264 Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2806264 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2806263&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02441.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Stigma is a risk factor for mental health problems, but few studies have considered how stigma leads to psychological distress. The present research examined whether specific emotion-regulation strategies account for the stigma-distress association. In an experience-sampling study, rumination and suppression occurred more on days when stigma-related stressors were reported than on days when these stressors were not reported, and rumination mediated the relationship between stigma-related stress and psychological distress. The effect of social support on distress was moderated by the concealability of the stigma: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) respondents reported more isolation and less social support than African American respondents subsequent to experiencing stigma-rela... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2806263 Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2806263 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2799044&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02439.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Men tend to be less selective than women when evaluating and pursuing potential romantic partners. The present experiment employed speed-dating procedures to test a novel explanation for this sex difference: The mere act of physically approaching a potential romantic partner (vs. being approached), a behavior that is more characteristic of men than of women, increases one's attraction to that partner. This hypothesis was supported in a sample of speed daters (N= 350) who attended a heterosexual event where either men (eight events) or women (seven events) rotated from one partner to the next while members of the other sex remained seated. Rotators were significantly less selective than were sitters, which meant that the tendency for men to be less selective than women at eve... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2799044 Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2799044 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2799046&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02437.x This study experimentally tested whether a stressor characterized by social-evaluative threat (SET), a context in which the self can be judged negatively by others, would elicit increases in proinflammatory cytokine activity and alter the regulation of this response. This hypothesis was derived in part from research on immunological responses to social threat in nonhuman animals. Healthy female participants were assigned to perform a speech and a math task in the presence or absence of an evaluative audience (SET or non-SET, respectively). As hypothesized, stimulated production of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-[alpha] (TNF-[alpha]) increased from baseline to poststressor in the SET condition, but was unchanged in the non-SET condition. Further, the increases in TNF-[al... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2799046 Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2799046 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2799045&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02438.x We examined the emotional displays of Olympic athletes across time, classified their expressive styles, and tested the association between those styles and a number of characteristics associated with the countries the athletes represented. Athletes from relatively urban, individualistic cultures expressed their emotions more, whereas athletes from less urban, collectivistic cultures masked their emotions more. These culturally influenced expressions occurred within a few seconds after initial, immediate, and universal emotional displays. Thus, universal and culture-specific emotional displays can unfold across time in an individual in a single context. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2799045 Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2799045 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2760553&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02436.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Previous research, restricted to the laboratory, has found that restrained eaters overeat after they violate their diet. However, there has been no evidence showing that this same process occurs outside the lab. We hypothesized that outside of this artificial setting, restrained eaters would be able to control their eating. In Study 1, 127 participants reported hourly on their diet violations and eating over 2 days. In Study 2, 89 participants tracked their intake for 8 days, and 50 of these participants consumed a milk shake (a diet violation) on Day 7, as part of an ostensibly unrelated study. As hypothesized, dieters did not overeat following violations of their diet in either study. These findings are in contrast with those of previous lab studies and dispel the widely h... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2760553 Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2760553 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2760555&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02434.x ABSTRACT[mdash]"Holding warm feelings toward someone" and "giving someone the cold shoulder" indicate different levels of social proximity. In this article, we show effects of temperature that go beyond these metaphors people live by. In three experiments, warmer conditions, compared with colder conditions, induced (a) greater social proximity, (b) use of more concrete language, and (c) a more relational focus. Different temperature conditions were created by either handing participants warm or cold beverages (Experiment 1) or placing them in comfortable warm or cold ambient conditions (Experiments 2 and 3). These studies corroborate recent findings in the field of grounded cognition revealing that concrete experiences ground abstract concepts with which they are coexperienced. Our studies... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2760555 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2760555 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2760554&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02435.x We report results that suggest a reversal of Hume's conjecture: People's sense of time is warped by the experience of causality. In a stimulus-anticipation task, participants' response behavior reflected a shortened experience of time in the case of target stimuli participants themselves had generated, relative to equidistant, equally predictable stimuli they had not caused. These findings suggest that causality in the mind leads to temporal binding of cause and effect, and extend and generalize beyond earlier claims of intentional binding between action and outcome. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2760554 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2760554 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2750427&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02433.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The generalist genes hypothesis implies that general cognitive ability (g) is an essential target for understanding how genetic polymorphisms influence the development of the human brain. Using 8,791 twin pairs from the Twins Early Development Study, we examine genetic stability and change in the etiology of g assessed by diverse measures during the critical transition from early to middle childhood. The heritability of a latent g factor in early childhood is 23%, whereas shared environment accounts for 74% of the variance. In contrast, in middle childhood, heritability of a latent g factor is 62%, and shared environment accounts for 33%. Despite increasing importance of genetic influences and declining influence of shared environment, similar genetic and shared environmenta... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2750427 Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2750427 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2750429&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02431.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Prior research suggests that having a baby face is negatively correlated with success among White males in high positions of leadership. However, we explored the positive role of such "babyfaceness" in the success of high-ranking Black executives. Two studies revealed that Black chief executive officers (CEOs) were significantly more baby-faced than White CEOs. Black CEOs were also judged as being warmer than White CEOs, even though ordinary Blacks were rated categorically as being less warm than ordinary Whites. In addition, baby-faced Black CEOs tended to lead more prestigious corporations and earned higher salaries than mature-faced Black CEOs; these patterns did not emerge for White CEOs. Taken together, these findings suggest that babyfaceness is a disarming mechanism t... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2750429 Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2750429 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2750428&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02432.x This study assessed embodied simulation via electromyography (EMG) as participants first encoded emotionally ambiguous faces with emotion concepts (i.e., "angry,""happy") and later passively viewed the faces without the concepts. Memory for the faces was also measured. At initial encoding, participants displayed more smiling-related EMG activity in response to faces paired with "happy" than in response to faces paired with "angry." Later, in the absence of concepts, participants remembered happiness-encoded faces as happier than anger-encoded faces. Further, during passive reexposure to the ambiguous faces, participants' EMG indicated spontaneous emotion-specific mimicry, which in turn predicted memory bias. No specific EMG activity was observed when participants encoded or viewed faces wi... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2750428 Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2750428 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2714563&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02430.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Compared with other objects, faces are processed more holistically and with a larger reliance on configural information. Such hallmarks of face processing can also be found for nonface objects as people develop expertise with them. Is this specifically a result of expertise individuating objects, or would any type of prolonged intensive experience with objects be sufficient? Two groups of participants were trained with artificial objects (Ziggerins). One group learned to rapidly individuate Ziggerins (i.e., subordinate-level training). The other group learned rapid, sequential categorizations at the basic level. Individuation experts showed a selective improvement at the subordinate level and an increase in holistic processing. Categorization experts improved only at the bas... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2714563 Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2714563 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2714566&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02427.x ABSTRACT[mdash]It is well established that animal communication signals have adapted to the evolutionary pressures of their environment. For example, the low-frequency vocalizations of the elephant are tailored to long-range communications, whereas the high-frequency trills of birds are adapted to their more localized acoustic niche. Like the voice, the human face transmits social signals about the internal emotional state of the transmitter. Here, we address two main issues: First, we characterized the spectral composition of the facial features signaling each of the six universal expressions of emotion (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise). From these analyses, we then predicted and tested the effectiveness of the transmission of emotion signals over different viewing ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2714566 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2714566 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2714565&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02428.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2714565 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2714565 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2714564&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02429.x ABSTRACT[mdash]During the grammatical encoding of spoken multiword utterances, various kinds of information must be used to determine the order of words. For example, whereas in adjective-noun utterances like "red car," word order can be determined on the basis of the word's grammatical class information, in noun-noun utterances like "[hellip] by car, bus, or [hellip]," word order cannot be determined on the basis of a word's grammatical class information. We investigated whether a word's phonological properties play a role in grammatical encoding. In four experiments, participants produced multiword utterances in which the words' onset phonology was manipulated. Phonological-onset relatedness yielded inhibitory effects in noun-noun utterances, no effects in noun-adjective utterances, and ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2714564 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2714564 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703442&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02426.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Four studies show that the abstract concept of importance is grounded in bodily experiences of weight. Participants provided judgments of importance while they held either a heavy or a light clipboard. Holding a heavy clipboard increased judgments of monetary value (Study 1) and made participants consider fair decision-making procedures to be more important (Study 2). It also caused more elaborate thinking, as indicated by higher consistency between related judgments (Study 3) and by greater polarization of agreement ratings for strong versus weak arguments (Study 4). In line with an embodied perspective on cognition, these findings suggest that, much as weight makes people invest more physical effort in dealing with concrete objects, it also makes people invest more cogniti... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703442 Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2703442 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703447&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02423.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Facial width-to-height ratio is a sexually dimorphic metric that is independent of body size and may have been shaped by sexual selection. We recently showed that this metric is correlated with behavioral aggression in men. In Study 1, observers estimated the propensity for aggression of men photographed displaying neutral facial expressions and for whom a behavioral measure of aggression was obtained. The estimates were correlated strongly with the facial width-to-height ratio of the stimulus faces and with the actual aggression of the men. These results were replicated in Study 2, in which the exposure to each stimulus face was shortened to 39 ms. Participants' estimates of aggression for each stimulus face were highly correlated between Study 2 (39-ms exposure) and Study ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703447 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2703447 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703446&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02413.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Olfaction and emotion are distinctively different systems. Nevertheless, there are reasons to suspect that they influence each other on the social level. Functionally, olfactory chemosensory communication is used by a wide range of animals to convey individual and group identity, as well as attraction or repulsion. Anatomically, the olfactory brain overlaps with the socioemotional brain, and is believed to have contributed to the evolution of the latter. Little is known about how the functional and anatomical links are manifested in behavior, however. Using human olfaction as a model, we demonstrate that chemosensory recognition of individuals[mdash]one of the most ubiquitous forms of social communication[mdash]is interconnected with both the cognitive and the visual process... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703446 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2703446 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703445&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02422.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Perceivers spontaneously sort other people's faces into social categories and activate the stereotype knowledge associated with those categories. In the work described here, participants, presented with sex-typical and sex-atypical faces (i.e., faces containing a mixture of male and female features), identified which of two gender stereotypes (one masculine and one feminine) was appropriate for the face. Meanwhile, their hand movements were measured by recording the streaming x, y coordinates of the computer mouse. As participants stereotyped sex-atypical faces, real-time motor responses exhibited a continuous spatial attraction toward the opposite-gender stereotype. These data provide evidence for the partial and parallel activation of stereotypes belonging to alternate soc... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703445 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2703445 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703444&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02424.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Human visual perception is sometimes ambiguous, switching between different perceptual structures, and shifts of attention sometimes favor one perceptual structure over another. It has been proposed that, in figure-ground segmentation, attention to certain regions tends to cause those regions to be perceived as closer to the observer. Here, we show that this attention effect can be reversed under certain conditions. To account for these phenomena, we propose an alternative principle: The visual system chooses the interpretation that maximizes simplicity of the attended regions. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703444 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2703444 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2703443&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02425.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Previous research has demonstrated stability of cognitive ability and marked heritability during adulthood, but questions remain about the extent to which genetic factors account for this stability. We conducted a 35-year longitudinal assessment of general cognitive ability using the Armed Forces Qualification Test administered to 7,232 male twins in early adulthood and readministered to a subset of 1,237 twins during late middle age. The proportion of variance in cognitive functioning explained by genetic factors was .49 in young adulthood and .57 in late middle age. The correlation between the two administrations was .74 with a genetic correlation of 1.0, indicating that the same genetic influences operated at both times. Genetic factors were primarily responsible for stab... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2703443 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2703443 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2680520&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02421.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Under what conditions do people act dishonestly to help or hurt others? We addressed this question by examining the influence of a previously overlooked factor[mdash]the beneficiary or victim of dishonest acts. In two experiments, we randomly paired participants and manipulated their wealth levels through an initial lottery. We then observed how inequity between partners influenced the likelihood of one dishonestly helping or hurting the other, while varying the financial incentives for dishonest behavior. The results show that financial self-interest cannot fully explain people's tendency to dishonestly help or hurt others. Rather, such dishonesty is influenced by emotional reactions to wealth-based inequity, even when the dishonesty bears a personal financial cost. Envy ev... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2680520 Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2680520 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2680522&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02419.x This study demonstrates that social primes can have an influence on infant behavior, and so opens up a wealth of possibilities for future research. In addition, these data have wide-ranging practical implications, suggesting that subtle changes to the social environment can promote prosocial behavior in children. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2680522 Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2680522 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2680521&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02420.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Three studies suggest that people control the nature of their relationships, in part, by choosing to enter (or avoid) situations providing feedback about other people's social interest. In Study 1, chronically avoidant individuals (but not others) preferred social options that would provide no information about other people's evaluations of them over social options that would, but did not prefer nondiagnostic situations more generally. In Study 2, chronically avoidant students (but not others) in a methods class preferred to have their teacher assign them to working groups (a nondiagnostic situation) over forming their own groups (a diagnostic situation). In Study 3, individuals experimentally primed to feel avoidant were less likely than those primed to feel secure to choos... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2680521 Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2680521 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2652306&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02418.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Here we show that demands associated with brood parasitism have favored sophisticated cognitive abilities in female brown-headed cowbirds. We discovered that cowbirds can use the rate at which eggs are added to a nest across days to assess the readiness of the nest for incubation, which would allow them to synchronize laying with the host and avoid nests where incubation has most likely commenced. In three experiments, cowbirds investigated and laid eggs in artificial nests that differed in the number of eggs they contained. Across days, we added eggs to nests at different rates to simulate differences in the timing of reproduction of the hosts. Cowbirds avoided a nest if the number of eggs that had been added was less than the number of days that had elapsed. The ability of... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2652306 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2652306 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2652309&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02415.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Retrieving information from long-term memory can lead people to forget previously irrelevant related information. Some researchers have proposed that this retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) effect is mediated by inhibitory executive-control mechanisms recruited to overcome interference. We assessed whether inhibition in RIF depends on executive processes. The RIF effect observed in a standard retrieval-practice condition was compared to that observed in two different conditions in which participants had to perform two concurrent updating tasks that demanded executive attention. Whereas the usual RIF effect was observed when retrieval practice was performed singly, no evidence of forgetting was found in the dual-task conditions. Results strongly suggest that inhibition involv... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2652309 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2652309 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2652308&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02416.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2652308 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2652308 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2652307&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02417.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Past research has assumed that group differences in academic performance entirely reflect genuine differences in ability. In contrast, extending research on stereotype threat, we suggest that standard measures of academic performance are biased against non-Asian ethnic minorities and against women in quantitative fields. This bias results not from the content of performance measures, but from the context in which they are assessed[mdash]from psychological threats in common academic environments, which depress the performances of people targeted by negative intellectual stereotypes. Like the time of a track star running into a stiff headwind, such performances underestimate the true ability of stereotyped students. Two meta-analyses, combining data from 18,976 students in fiv... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2652307 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2652307 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2647711&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02414.x ABSTRACT[mdash]In the current studies, we tested the prediction that learning of novel patterns of association would be enhanced in response to unrelated meaning threats. This prediction derives from the meaning-maintenance model, which hypothesizes that meaning-maintenance efforts may recruit patterns of association unrelated to the original meaning threat. Compared with participants in control conditions, participants exposed to either of two unrelated meaning threats (i.e., reading an absurd short story by Franz Kafka or arguing against one's own self-unity) demonstrated both a heightened motivation to perceive the presence of patterns within letter strings and enhanced learning of a novel pattern actually embedded within letter strings (artificial-grammar learning task). These results ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2647711 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2647711 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2647713&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02411.x ABSTRACT[mdash]How does the brain respond to statements that clash with a person's value system? We recorded event-related brain potentials while respondents from contrasting political-ethical backgrounds completed an attitude survey on drugs, medical ethics, social conduct, and other issues. Our results show that value-based disagreement is unlocked by language extremely rapidly, within 200 to 250 ms after the first word that indicates a clash with the reader's value system (e.g., "I think euthanasia is an acceptable/unacceptable[hellip]"). Furthermore, strong disagreement rapidly influences the ongoing analysis of meaning, which indicates that even very early processes in language comprehension are sensitive to a person's value system. Our results testify to rapid reciprocal links betwee... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2647713 Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2647713 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2647712&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02412.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The surface reflectance of objects is highly variable, ranging between 4% for, say, charcoal and 90% for fresh snow. When stimuli are presented simultaneously, people can discriminate hundreds of levels of visual intensity. Despite this, human languages possess a maximum of just three basic terms for describing lightness. In English, these are white (or light), black (or dark), and gray. Why should this be? Using information theory, combined with estimates of the distribution of reflectances in the natural world and the reliability of lightness recall over time, we show that three lightness terms is the optimal number for describing surface reflectance properties in a modern urban or indoor environment. We also show that only two lightness terms would be required in a forest... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2647712 Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2647712 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2632827&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02410.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Popular history films sometimes contain major historical inaccuracies. Two experiments investigated how watching such films influences people's ability to remember associated texts. Subjects watched film clips and studied texts about various historical topics. Whereas the texts contained only correct information, the film clips contained both correct information (consistent with the text) and misinformation (contradicted by the text). Before watching each clip, subjects received a specific warning, a general warning, or no warning about the misinformation. One week later, they returned for a cued-recall test about the texts. Watching a film clip increased correct recall of consistent information relative to recall of the same information when subjects did not see the clip. H... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2632827 Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2632827 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2632831&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02406.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Theory and research point to different ways moral conviction and religiosity connect to trust in political authorities to decide controversial issues of the day. Specifically, we predicted that stronger moral convictions would be associated with greater distrust in authorities such as the U.S. Supreme Court making the "right" decisions regarding controversial issues. Conversely, we predicted that stronger religiosity would be associated with greater trust in authorities. We tested these hypotheses using a survey of a nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 727) that assessed the degree to which people trusted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the legal status of physician-assisted suicide. Results indicated that greater religiosity was associated with greater trus... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2632831 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2632831 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2632830&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02407.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Previous research suggests that a language learned during early childhood is completely forgotten when contact to that language is severed. In contrast with these findings, we report leftover traces of early language exposure in individuals in their adult years, despite a complete absence of explicit memory for the language. Specifically, native English individuals under age 40 selectively relearned subtle Hindi or Zulu sound contrasts that they once knew. However, individuals over 40 failed to show any relearning, and young control participants with no previous exposure to Hindi or Zulu showed no learning. This research highlights the lasting impact of early language experience in shaping speech perception, and the value of exposing children to foreign languages even if suc... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2632830 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2632830 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2632829&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02408.x ABSTRACT[mdash]How does a physical stimulus determine a conscious percept? Binocular rivalry provides useful insights into this question because constant physical stimulation during rivalry causes different visual experiences. For example, presentation of vertical stripes to one eye and horizontal stripes to the other eye results in a percept that alternates between horizontal and vertical stripes. Presentation of a different color to each eye (color rivalry) produces alternating percepts of the two colors or, in some cases, a color mixture. The experiments reported here reveal a novel and instructive resolution of rivalry for stimuli that differ in both form and color: perceptual alternation between the rivalrous forms (e.g., horizontal or vertical stripes), with both eyes' colors seen si... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2632829 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2632829 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2632828&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02409.x This article reexamines the prevailing conclusion that people are unaware of the different impressions they make, or that their differential meta-accuracy is poor. This conclusion emerged from research employing contextually undifferentiated designs that may have constrained differences in actual impressions, thereby limiting participants' ability to demonstrate differential meta-accuracy. We argue that an alternative, contextually differentiated approach may reveal evidence for differential meta-accuracy because (a) people tend to behave differently in different social contexts, (b) interaction partners from different social contexts witness differing behaviors and form differing impressions of a target person, and (c) contextual information used to infer the impression one makes on other... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2632828 Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2632828 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2582773&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02405.x We present the results from a 3-year longitudinal study. RAN, measured with nonalphabetic stimuli before reading instruction has begun, is a predictor of later growth in reading fluency. After reading instruction has started, RAN continues to exert an influence on the development of reading fluency over the next 2 years. However, there is no evidence of a reciprocal influence of reading fluency on the growth of RAN skill. We suggest that RAN taps the integrity of left-hemisphere object-recognition and naming circuits that are recruited to function as a critical component of the child's developing visual word-recognition system. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2582773 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2582773 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2582776&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02402.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Curiosity has been described as a desire for learning and knowledge, but its underlying mechanisms are not well understood. We scanned subjects with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they read trivia questions. The level of curiosity when reading questions was correlated with activity in caudate regions previously suggested to be involved in anticipated reward. This finding led to a behavioral study, which showed that subjects spent more scarce resources (either limited tokens or waiting time) to find out answers when they were more curious. The functional imaging also showed that curiosity increased activity in memory areas when subjects guessed incorrectly, which suggests that curiosity may enhance memory for surprising new information. This prediction about memo... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2582776 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2582776 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2582775&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02403.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Three studies examined automatic associations between words with moral and immoral meanings and the colors black and white. The speed of color naming in a Stroop task was faster when words in black concerned immorality (e.g., greed), rather than morality, and when words in white concerned morality (e.g., honesty), rather than immorality. In addition, priming immorality by having participants hand-copy an unethical statement speeded identification of words in the black font. Making immorality salient in this way also increased the moral Stroop effect among participants who had not previously shown it. In the final study, participants also rated consumer products. Moral meanings interfered with color naming most strongly among those participants who rated personal cleaning pro... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2582775 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2582775 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2582774&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02404.x This article reports two studies in which college students' identification with their university was measured and information about the procedural justice of the university was manipulated. Study 1 used an explicit measure of group identification and a deliberative measure of group-serving behavior. Study 2 used an implicit measure of group identification and both deliberative and spontaneous measures of group-serving behavior. The findings of both studies support the hypothesis that among people who are highly identified with a group, learning about the group's injustice leads to short-term increases in group-serving behavior. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2582774 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2582774 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2575178&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02401.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Functional imaging data were acquired during performance of a reward-contingency task in a unique cohort of adolescents (ages 14[ndash]18 years) who were characterized since infancy on measures of temperamental behavioral inhibition. Neural activation was examined in striatal structures (nucleus accumbens, putamen, caudate) with a known role in facilitating response to salient reward-related cues. Adolescents with a history of behavioral inhibition, relative to noninhibited adolescents, showed increased activation in the nucleus accumbens when they believed their selection of an action would affect reward outcome. Neural responses did not differ between the two groups when participants made a prespecified response that they knew would result in reward or when they produced r... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2575178 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2575178 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2575182&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02393.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Adopting an observer perspective to recall trauma memories may function as a form of avoidance that maintains posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We conducted a prospective study to analyze the relationship between memory vantage point and PTSD symptoms. Participants (N= 947) identified the vantage point of their trauma memory and reported PTSD symptoms within 4 weeks of the trauma; 730 participants repeated this process 12 months later. Initially recalling the trauma from an observer vantage point was related to more severe PTSD symptoms at that time and 12 months later. Shifting from a field to an observer perspective a year after trauma was associated with greater PTSD severity at 12 months. These results suggest that remembering trauma from an observer vantage point is... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2575182 Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2575182 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2575181&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02398.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Why are genetic polymorphisms related to severe mental disorders retained in the gene pool of a population? A possible answer is that these genetic variations may have a positive impact on psychological functions. Here, I show that a biologically relevant polymorphism of the promoter region of the neuregulin 1 gene (SNP8NRG243177/rs6994992) is associated with creativity in people with high intellectual and academic performance. Intriguingly, the highest creative achievements and creative-thinking scores were found in people who carried the T/T genotype, which was previously shown to be related to psychosis risk and altered prefrontal activation. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2575181 Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2575181 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2575180&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02399.x ABSTRACT[mdash]A pernicious paradox in human motivation is the occasional reduced performance associated with tasks and situations that involve larger-than-average rewards. Three broad explanations that might account for such performance decrements are attentional competition (distraction theories), inhibition by conscious processes (explicit-monitoring theories), and excessive drive and arousal (overmotivation theories). Here, we report incentive-dependent performance decrements in humans in a reward-pursuit task; subjects were less successful in capturing a more valuable reward in a computerized maze. Concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that increased activity in ventral midbrain, a brain area associated with incentive motivation and basic reward responding, correla... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2575180 Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2575180 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2575179&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02400.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Observing and producing a smile activate the very same facial muscles. In Experiment 1, we predicted and found that verbal stimuli (action verbs) that refer to emotional expressions elicit the same facial muscle activity (facial electromyography) as visual stimuli do. These results are evidence that language referring to facial muscular activity is not amodal, as traditionally assumed, but is instead bodily grounded. These findings were extended in Experiment 2, in which subliminally presented verbal stimuli were shown to drive muscle activation and to shape judgments, but not when muscle activation was blocked. These experiments provide an important bridge between research on the neurobiological basis of language and related behavioral research. The implications of these fi... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2575179 Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2575179 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2558879&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02397.x ABSTRACT[mdash]To understand and remember stories, readers integrate their knowledge of the world with information in the text. Here we present functional neuroimaging evidence that neural systems track changes in the situation described by a story. Different brain regions track different aspects of a story, such as a character's physical location or current goals. Some of these regions mirror those involved when people perform, imagine, or observe similar real-world activities. These results support the view that readers understand a story by simulating the events in the story world and updating their simulation when features of that world change. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2558879 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2558879 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2558882&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02394.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The scales used to describe the attributes of different choice options are usually open to alternative expressions, such as inches versus feet or minutes versus hours. More generally, a ratio scale can be multiplied by an arbitrary factor (e.g., 12) while preserving all of the information it conveys about different choice alternatives. We propose that expanded scales (e.g., price per year) lead decision makers to discriminate between choice options more than do contracted scales (e.g., price per month) because they exaggerate the difference between options on the expanded attribute. Two studies show that simply increasing the size of an attribute's scale systematically changes its weight in both multiattribute preferences and willingness to pay: Expanding scales for one attr... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2558882 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2558882 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2558881&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02395.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2558881 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2558881 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2558880&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02396.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2558880 Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2558880 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495189&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02392.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Serious consideration is being given to the impact of private behavior and public policies on people's subjective well-being (SWB). A new approach to measuring well-being, the day reconstruction method (DRM), weights the affective component of daily activities by their duration in order to construct temporal aggregates. However, the DRM neglects the potentially important role of thoughts. By adapting this method to include thoughts as well as feelings, we provide perhaps the most comprehensive measure of SWB to date. We show that some activities relatively low in pleasure (e.g., work and time with children) are nonetheless thought of as rewarding and therefore contribute to overall SWB. Such information may be important to policymakers wishing to promote behaviors that are c... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495189 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495189 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495193&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02388.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Although the perception of available support is associated with positive outcomes, the receipt of actual support from close others is often associated with negative outcomes. In fact, support that is "invisible" (not perceived by the support recipient) is associated with better outcomes than "visible" support. To investigate this paradox, we proposed that received support (both visible and invisible) would be beneficial when it was responsive to the recipient's needs. Sixty-seven cohabiting couples participated in a daily-experience study in which they reported on the support they provided and received each day. Results indicated that both visible and invisible support were beneficial (i.e., associated with less sadness and anxiety and with greater relationship quality) only... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495193 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495193 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495192&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02389.x This study focused on how knowledge of a second language influences how people read sentences written in their native language. We used the cognate-facilitation effect as a marker of cross-lingual activations in both languages. Cognates (e.g., Dutch-English schip [ship]) and controls were presented in a sentence context, and eye movements were monitored. Results showed faster reading times for cognates than for controls. Thus, this study shows that one of people's most automated skills, reading in one's native language, is changed by the knowledge of a second language. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495192 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495192 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495191&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02390.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Previous studies have demonstrated the involvement of spatial codes in the representation of time and numbers. We took advantage of a well-known spatial modulation (prismatic adaptation) to test the hypothesis that the representation of time is spatially oriented from left to right, with smaller time intervals being represented to the left of larger time intervals. Healthy subjects performed a time-reproduction task and a time-bisection task, before and after leftward and rightward prismatic adaptation. Results showed that prismatic adaptation inducing a rightward orientation of spatial attention produced an overestimation of time intervals, whereas prismatic adaptation inducing a leftward shift of spatial attention produced an underestimation of time intervals. These findin... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495191 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495191 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495190&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02391.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Learning to associate the probability and value of behavioral outcomes with specific stimuli (value learning) is essential for rational decision making. However, in demanding cognitive conditions, access to learned values might be constrained by limited attentional capacity. We measured recognition of briefly presented faces seen previously in a value-learning task involving monetary wins and losses; the recognition task was performed both with and without constraints on available attention. Regardless of available attention, recognition was substantially enhanced for motivationally salient stimuli (i.e., stimuli highly predictive of outcomes), compared with equally familiar stimuli that had weak or no motivational salience, and this effect was found regardless of valence (w... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495190 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495190 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495198&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02383.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Previous research has demonstrated that organizational principles become functional over different time courses of development: Lightness similarity is available at 3 months of age, but form similarity is not readily in evidence until 6 months of age. We investigated whether organization would transfer across principles and whether perceptual scaffolding can occur from an already functional principle to a not-yet-operational principle. Six- to 7-month-old infants (Experiment 1) and 3- to 4-month-old infants (Experiment 2) who were familiarized with arrays of elements organized by lightness similarity displayed a subsequent visual preference for a novel organization defined by form similarity. Results with the older infants demonstrate transfer in perceptual grouping: The org... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495198 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495198 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495197&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02384.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Research on achievement goals has demonstrated that mastery goals positively impact achievement-related outcomes, but paradoxically hold an inconsistent relation with academic achievement. We hypothesized that this relationship depends on the reason why students endorse mastery goals[mdash]namely, to garner teachers' appreciation (social desirability) or to succeed at university (social utility). First-year psychology students completed a mastery-goal scale in a standard format, with social-desirability instructions and social-utility instructions. Participants' grades on academic exams were recorded later in the semester. Results indicated that students' perceptions of both social desirability and social utility related to mastery goals moderated the relationship between th... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495197 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495197 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495196&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02385.x This article introduces the N-effect[mdash]the discovery that increasing the number of competitors (N) can decrease competitive motivation. Studies 1a and 1b found evidence that average test scores (e.g., SAT scores) fall as the average number of test takers at test-taking venues increases. Study 2 found that individuals trying to finish an easy quiz among the top 20% in terms of speed finished significantly faster if they believed they were competing in a pool of 10 rather than 100 other people. Study 3 showed that the N-effect is strong among individuals high in social-comparison orientation and weak among those low in social-comparison orientation. Study 4 directly linked the N-effect to social comparison, ruling out ratio bias as an explanation of our results and finding that social co... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495196 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495196 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495195&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02386.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Models of agency[mdash]powerful implicit assumptions about what constitutes normatively "good" action[mdash]shaped how observers and survivors made meaning after Hurricane Katrina. In Study 1, we analyzed how 461 observers perceived survivors who evacuated (leavers) or stayed (stayers) in New Orleans. Observers described leavers positively (as agentic, independent, and in control) and stayers negatively (as passive and lacking agency). Observers' perceptions reflected the disjoint model of agency, which is prevalent in middle-class White contexts and defines "good" actions as those that emanate from within the individual and proactively influence the environment. In Study 2, we examined interviews with 79 survivors and found that leavers and stayers relied on divergent model... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495195 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495195 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2495194&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02387.x This article suggests that a social-psychological process whereby people seek to establish common ground with their conversation partners causes familiar elements of culture to increase in prominence, independently of performance or quality. Two studies tested this hypothesis in the context of professional baseball, showing that common ground predicted the cultural prominence of baseball players better than their performance, even though clear performance metrics are available in this domain. Regardless of performance, familiar players, who represented common ground, were discussed more often than lesser-known players, both in a dyadic experiment (Study 1) and in natural discussions on the Internet (Study 2). Moreover, these conversations mediated the positive link between familiarity and ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2495194 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100 2495194 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2466570&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02381.x In this study, we evaluated the validity of self-reported posttraumatic growth (PTG) by assessing the relation between perceived growth and actual growth from pre- to posttrauma. Undergraduate students completed measures tapping typical PTG domains at Time 1 and Time 2 (2 months later). We compared change in those measures with scores on the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996) for those participants who reported a traumatic event between Time 1 and Time 2 (n= 122). PTGI scores generally were unrelated to actual growth in PTG-related domains. Moreover, perceived growth was associated with increased distress from pre- to posttrauma, whereas actual growth was related to decreased distress, a pattern suggesting that perceived and actual growth reflect different proc... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2466570 Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2466570 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2466574&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02377.x We examined language development and false-belief understanding in deaf learners of an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. The use of mental-state vocabulary and performance on a low-verbal false-belief task were assessed, over 2 years, in adult and adolescent users of Nicaraguan Sign Language. Results show that those adults who acquired a nascent form of the language during childhood produce few mental-state signs and fail to exhibit false-belief understanding. Furthermore, those whose language developed over the period of the study correspondingly developed in false-belief understanding. Thus, language learning, over and above social experience, drives the development of a mature theory of mind. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2466574 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2466574 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2466573&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02378.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Sixty-six children between 4.5 and 6 years of age were tested in a resource-allocation game with three different recipients. When the recipient was a friend, children made equitable decisions and shared as much when there was a cost to themselves as when there was no cost. When the recipient was another familiar child who was not a friend, children were less likely to allocate resources to that child. When the recipient was a stranger, children allocated resources as much as with a friend and more than with a nonfriend when there was no cost to themselves. However, when there was a cost to themselves, children treated strangers like nonfriends. These results show that resource-allocation decisions made by young children depend on the recipient. Young children prefer equitabl... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2466573 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2466573 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2466572&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02379.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Recent work has found support for two dissociable and parallel neural subsystems underlying object and shape recognition in the visual domain: an abstract-category subsystem that operates more effectively in the left cerebral hemisphere than in the right, and a specific-exemplar subsystem that operates more effectively in the right hemisphere than in the left. Evidence of this asymmetry has been observed for linguistic stimuli (words, pseudoword forms) and nonlinguistic stimuli (objects). In the auditory domain, we previously found hemispheric asymmetries in priming effects using linguistic stimuli (spoken words). In the present study, we conducted four long-term repetition-priming experiments to investigate whether such hemispheric asymmetries would be observed for nonlingu... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2466572 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2466572 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2466571&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02380.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The problem of mapping differing sensory stimuli onto a common category is fundamental to human cognition. Listeners perceive stable phonetic categories despite many sources of acoustic variability. What are the neural mechanisms that underlie this perceptual stability? In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, a short-interval habituation paradigm was used to investigate neural sensitivity to acoustic changes within and between phonetic categories. A region in the left inferior frontal sulcus showed a pattern of activation consistent with phonetic invariance: insensitivity to acoustic changes within a phonetic category and sensitivity to changes between phonetic categories. Left superior temporal regions, in contrast, showed graded sensitivity to both within- and... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2466571 Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2466571 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2461706&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02376.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Research has shown that experience acquired in infancy dramatically affects face-discrimination abilities. Yet much less is known about whether face processing retains any flexibility after the 1st year of life. Here, we show that early experience with an individual infant face can modulate the recognition performance of 3-year-old children and the perceptual processes they use to recognize infant faces (Experiment 1). Similar experience acquired in adulthood does not produce measurable effects (Experiment 2). We also show that the effects of early-acquired experience with an infant face become dormant during development in the absence of continued experience (Experiment 3) and can be reactivated in adulthood by reexposure to the original experience (Experiment 2). Overall, ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2461706 Sun, 07 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2461706 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2461710&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02372.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Many prominent models propose that self-control requires deliberative control of impulses. We propose that people's subjective mental construals of events can alter temptation impulses without requiring conscious deliberation. Research has indicated that high-level construals (subjective mental representations that capture the core, essential, and abstract features of events) lead to greater self-control than low-level construals (representations that capture secondary, incidental, and concrete features). We demonstrate that higher-level construals make it easier for people to associate temptations with negativity, as measured by the Implicit Association Test, and that, in turn, these construal-dependent changes in evaluative associations promote self-control. These findings... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2461710 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2461710 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2461709&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02373.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Little is known about neural responses in the early automatic-stage processing of rejection cues from a partner. Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer a window to study processes that may be difficult to detect via behavioral methods. We focused on the N400 ERP component, which reflects the amount of semantic processing prompted by a target. When participants were primed by attachment-related contexts ("If I need help from my partner, my partner will be [hellip]"), rejection-related words (e.g., dismissing) elicited greater N400 amplitudes than acceptance-related words (e.g., supporting). Analyses of results for nonattachment primes suggest that these findings were not simply caused by target valence; the brain responds differentially to cues of partner rejection (vs. accept... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2461709 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2461709 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2461708&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02374.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Gene-environment interactions involving exogenous environmental factors are known to shape behavior and personality development. Although gene-environment interactions involving endogenous environmental factors are hypothesized to play an equally important role, this conceptual approach has not been empirically applied in the study of early-developing temperament in humans. Here we report evidence for a gene-endoenvironment (i.e., resting frontal brain electroencephalogram, EEG, asymmetry) interaction in predicting child temperament. The dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene (long allele vs. short allele) moderated the relation between resting frontal EEG asymmetry (left vs. right) at 9 months and temperament at 48 months. Children who exhibited left frontal EEG asymmetry at 9 mo... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2461708 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2461708 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2461707&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02375.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Stereotypes can influence social perceptions in many ways. The current research examined a previously unexplored possibility[mdash]that activation of a stereotype can validate thoughts about other people when the thoughts are stereotype consistent (i.e., that stereotype activation can increase people's confidence in their previous stereotype-consistent thoughts). Given previous results for other forms of metacognition, this thought validation from stereotype activation should be most likely when people have the cognitive capacity to carefully process individuating information. In two experiments, participants were given information about a target person and then a description designed to activate a stereotype. When processing capacity was high, confidence in thoughts was gre... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2461707 Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2461707 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2430705&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02371.x ABSTRACT[mdash]We used contagion theory as a framework for studying the influence of spread of qualities in a group. We found that people's preferences change depending on how objects are arranged in a group. They prefer to choose from a closely arranged group if one unidentified object in that group has a positive quality, but prefer to choose from a group in which objects are farther apart if one unidentified object in that group has a negative quality. We call this pattern of preference the group-contagion effect. We also found that the magnitude of the effect increases if the number of objects possessing the positive or negative quality increases. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2430705 Sun, 24 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2430705 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2430709&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02367.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The classical Simon effect shows that actions are carried out faster if they spatially correspond to the stimulus signaling them. Recent studies revealed that this is the case even when the two actions are carried out by different people; this finding has been taken to imply that task representations are socially shared. In work described here, we found that the "interactive" Simon effect occurs only if actor and coactor are involved in a positive relationship (induced by a friendly-acting, cooperative confederate), but not if they are involved in a negative relationship (induced by an intimidating, competitive confederate). This result suggests that agents can represent self-generated and other-generated actions separately, but tend to relate or integrate these representati... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2430709 Thu, 21 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2430709 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2430708&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02368.x This study provides new estimates of the criterion-related validity of SAT scores and high school GPAs, and highlights the care that must be taken in choosing appropriate criteria in validity studies. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2430708 Thu, 21 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2430708 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2430707&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02369.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Two experiments examined how rendering different intergroup ideologies salient affects dominant- and minority-group members' behavior during, and experience of, intergroup interactions. We hypothesized that ideologies that encourage an outward focus on appreciating out-group members' distinctive qualities (multiculturalism) would have more positive implications than ideologies that encourage a self-control focus on ignoring social categories and avoiding inappropriate behavior (color blindness and antiracism). As predicted, in both ostensible (Study 1) and actual face-to-face (Study 2) intergroup interactions, the multicultural ideological prompt led dominant- and minority-group members to adopt a more outward focus and hence to direct more positive other-directed comments t... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2430707 Thu, 21 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2430707 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2430706&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02370.x We examined the contrary prediction that positive self-statements can be ineffective or even harmful. A survey study confirmed that people often use positive self-statements and believe them to be effective. Two experiments showed that among participants with low self-esteem, those who repeated a positive self-statement ("I'm a lovable person") or who focused on how that statement was true felt worse than those who did not repeat the statement or who focused on how it was both true and not true. Among participants with high self-esteem, those who repeated the statement or focused on how it was true felt better than those who did not, but to a limited degree. Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, but backfire for the very people who "need" them the most. (Source: Ps... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2430706 Thu, 21 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2430706 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2420680&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02382.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2420680 Tue, 19 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2420680 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2420685&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02362.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Perceived emotional support from close relationship partners in times of stress is a major predictor of well-being. However, recent research has suggested that, beyond emotional support, perceived support for achieving personal goals is also important for well-being. The present study extends such research by demonstrating that associations of perceived goal support with well-being differ depending on how people represent their goals and the general motivational context in which they pursue these goals. Among unmarried romantic partners, for whom the context of the relationship presumably is largely attainment oriented, perceived support for attainment-relevant (or promotion-focused) goals independently predicted relationship and personal well-being, whereas perceived suppor... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2420685 Fri, 15 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2420685 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2420684&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02363.x ABSTRACT[mdash]In this research, we varied the composition of 4-member groups. One third of the groups consisted exclusively of "locomotors," individuals predominantly oriented toward action. Another third of the groups consisted exclusively of "assessors," individuals predominantly oriented toward evaluation. The final third of the groups consisted of a mix of locomotors and assessors. We found that the groups containing only locomotors were faster than the groups containing only assessors, and the groups containing only assessors were more accurate than the groups containing only locomotors. The groups containing a mix of assessors and locomotors were as fast as the groups containing only locomotors and as accurate as the groups containing only assessors. These results echo findings at t... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2420684 Fri, 15 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2420684 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2420683&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02364.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Models of eye guidance in reading rely on the concept of the perceptual span[mdash]the amount of information perceived during a single eye fixation, which is considered to be a consequence of visual and attentional constraints. To directly investigate attentional mechanisms underlying the perceptual span, we implemented a new reading paradigm[mdash]parafoveal magnification (PM)[mdash]that compensates for how visual acuity drops off as a function of retinal eccentricity. On each fixation and in real time, parafoveal text is magnified to equalize its perceptual impact with that of concurrent foveal text. Experiment 1 demonstrated that PM does not increase the amount of text that is processed, supporting an attentional-based account of eye movements in reading. Experiment 2 exp... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2420683 Fri, 15 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2420683 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2420682&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02365.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Analyses of adult semantic networks suggest a learning mechanism involving preferential attachment: A word is more likely to enter the lexicon the more connected the known words to which it is related. We introduce and test two alternative growth principles: preferential acquisition[mdash]words enter the lexicon not because they are related to well-connected words, but because they connect well to other words in the learning environment[mdash]and the lure of the associates[mdash]new words are favored in proportion to their connections with known words. We tested these alternative principles using longitudinal analyses of developing networks of 130 nouns children learn prior to the age of 30 months. We tested both networks with links between words represented by features and ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2420682 Fri, 15 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2420682 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2420681&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02366.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Evidence suggests that children's self-perceptions of their abilities predict their school achievement even after one accounts for their tested cognitive ability (IQ). However, the roles of nature and nurture in the association between school achievement and self-perceived abilities (SPAs), independent of IQ, is unknown. Here we reveal that there are substantial genetic influences on SPAs and that there is genetic covariance between SPAs and achievement independent of IQ. Although it has been assumed that the origins of SPAs are environmental, this first genetic analysis of SPAs yielded a heritability of 51% in a sample of 3,785 pairs of twins, whereas shared environment accounted for only 2% of the variance in SPAs. Moreover, multivariate genetic analyses indicated that SPA... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2420681 Fri, 15 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2420681 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394710&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02361.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394710 Thu, 07 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394710 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394719&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02352.x We examined the effects of changes in conception risk across the menstrual cycle on intergroup bias and found that increased conception risk was positively associated with several measures of race bias. This association was particularly strong when perceived vulnerability to sexual coercion was high. Our findings highlight the potential for hypotheses informed by an evolutionary perspective to generate new knowledge about current social problems[mdash]an avenue that may lead to new predictions in the study of intergroup relations. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394719 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394719 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394718&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02353.x ABSTRACT[mdash]People often get what they want from the social system, and that process is aided by social popularity or by having money. Money can thus possibly substitute for social acceptance in conferring the ability to obtain benefits from the social system. Moreover, past work has suggested that responses to physical pain and social distress share common underlying mechanisms. Six studies tested relationships among reminders of money, social exclusion, and physical pain. Interpersonal rejection and physical pain caused desire for money to increase. Handling money (compared with handling paper) reduced distress over social exclusion and diminished the physical pain of immersion in hot water. Being reminded of having spent money, however, intensified both social distress and physical p... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394718 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394718 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394717&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02354.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Recent studies indicate that emotion enhances early vision, but the generality of this finding remains unknown. Do the benefits of emotion extend to all basic aspects of vision, or are they limited in scope? Our results show that the brief presentation of a fearful face, compared with a neutral face, enhances sensitivity for the orientation of subsequently presented low-spatial-frequency stimuli, but diminishes orientation sensitivity for high-spatial-frequency stimuli. This is the first demonstration that emotion not only improves but also impairs low-level vision. The selective low-spatial-frequency benefits are consistent with the idea that emotion enhances magnocellular processing. Additionally, we suggest that the high-spatial-frequency deficits are due to inhibitory in... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394717 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394717 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394716&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02355.x ABSTRACT[mdash]We tested the theory that central serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, or 5-HT) activity regulates aggression by modulating response to provocation. Eighty men and women (40 with and 40 without a history of aggression) were randomly assigned to receive either 40 mg of paroxetine (to acutely augment serotonergic activity) or a placebo, administered using double-blind procedures. Aggression was assessed during a competitive reaction time game with a fictitious opponent. Shocks were selected by the participant and opponent before each trial, with the loser on each trial receiving the shock set by the other player. Provocation was manipulated by having the opponent select increasingly intense shocks for the participant and eventually an ostensibly severe shock toward the end of the t... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394716 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394716 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394715&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02356.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Recent studies suggest that human memory systems are "tuned" to remember information that is processed in terms of its fitness value. When people are asked to rate the relevance of words to a survival scenario, performance on subsequent surprise memory tests exceeds that obtained after most other known encoding techniques. The present experiments explored this effect using survival scenarios designed to mimic the division of labor thought to characterize early hunter-gatherer societies. It has been suggested that males and females have different cognitive specializations due to the unique survival tasks (hunting and gathering, respectively) they typically performed during periods of human evolution; the present experiments tested whether such specializations might be apparen... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394715 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394715 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394714&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02357.x ABSTRACT[mdash]We investigated the facial information that socially anxious and nonanxious individuals utilize to judge emotions. Using a reversed-correlation technique, we presented participants with face images that were masked with random bubble patterns. These patterns determined which parts of the face were visible in specific spatial-frequency bands. This masking allowed us to establish which locations and spatial frequencies were helping participants to successfully discriminate angry faces from neutral ones. Although socially anxious individuals performed as well as nonanxious individuals on the emotion-discrimination task, they did not utilize the same facial information for the task. The fine details (high spatial frequencies) around the eyes were discriminative for both groups, ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394714 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394714 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394713&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02358.x This study emphasizes the need to consider physical symptoms of the menstrual cycle to better understand premenstrual depressive symptoms, and suggests that the contribution of the menstrual cycle to depressive symptoms in the general population is underrecognized. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394713 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394713 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394712&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02359.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) region plays an important role in the perception of social acts, although its full role has not been completely clarified. This functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment examined activity in the STS region as participants viewed actions that were congruent or incongruent with intentions established by a previous emotional context. Participants viewed an actress express either a positive or a negative emotion toward one of two objects and then subsequently pick up one of them. If the object that was picked up had received positive regard, or if the object that was not picked up had received negative regard, the action was congruent; otherwise, the action was incongruent. Activity in the right posterior STS region was sensiti... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394712 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394712 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2394711&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02360.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Efficient goal-directed behavior in a crowded world is crucially mediated by visual selective attention (VSA), which regulates deployment of cognitive resources toward selected, behaviorally relevant visual objects. Acting as a filter on perceptual representations, VSA allows preferential processing of relevant objects and concurrently inhibits traces of irrelevant items, thus preventing harmful distraction. Recent evidence showed that monetary rewards for performance on VSA tasks strongly affect immediately subsequent deployment of attention; a typical aftereffect of VSA (negative priming) was found only following highly rewarded selections. Here we report a much more striking demonstration that the controlled delivery of monetary rewards also affects attentional processing... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2394711 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2394711 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2378957&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02351.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Alcohol consumption alters consciousness in ways that make drinking both alluring and hazardous. Recent advances in the study of consciousness using a mind-wandering paradigm permit a rigorous examination of the effects of alcohol on experiential consciousness and metaconsciousness. Fifty-four male social drinkers consumed alcohol (0.82 g/kg) or a placebo beverage and then performed a mind-wandering reading task. This task indexed both self-caught and probe-caught zone-outs to distinguish between mind wandering inside and outside of awareness. Compared with participants who drank the placebo, those who drank alcohol were significantly more likely to report that they were zoning out when probed. After this increase in mind wandering was accounted for, alcohol also lowered the... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2378957 Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2378957 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2378961&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02347.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Proponents of unconscious-thought theory assert that letting the unconscious "mull it over" can enhance decisions. In a series of recent studies, researchers demonstrated that participants whose attention was focused on solving a complex problem (i.e., those using conscious thought) made poorer choices, decisions, and judgments than participants whose attention was distracted from the problem (i.e., those purportedly using unconscious thought). We argue that this finding, rather than establishing the existence of a deliberation-without-attention effect, is explained more compellingly in terms of the well-established distinction between on-line and memory-based judgments. In Experiment 1, we reversed the recent finding by simply changing participants' on-line processing goal ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2378961 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2378961 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2378960&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02348.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Experience with certain types of faces during the first year of development defines which types of faces are more efficiently recognized later in life. In work described here, we found that infants who learned to recognize six monkey faces individually (i.e., each face was individually labeled) over a 3-month period maintained the ability to discriminate monkey faces. However, infants who learned these same six faces categorically (i.e., all faces were labeled "monkey") or were simply exposed to these faces (i.e., faces were not labeled) showed a decline in the ability to discriminate monkey faces. These results suggest that experience individuating faces from 6 to 9 months of age, via labeling, critically shapes the perceptual representation that is responsible for later re... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2378960 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2378960 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2378959&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02349.x This article examines three possible mechanisms for this recently documented uncertainty effect (UE): First, awareness of the better outcome may devalue the worse one. Second, the UE may have arisen in the original demonstration of this effect because participants misunderstood the instructions. Third, the UE may be due to direct risk aversion, that is, actual distaste for uncertainty. In Experiment 1, the UE was observed even though participants in the certainty condition were also aware of the better outcome; this result eliminates the first explanation. Experiment 2 shows that most participants understand the instructions used in the original study and that the UE is not caused by the few who do not. Overall, the experiments demonstrate that the UE is robust, large (prospects are valued... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2378959 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2378959 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2378958&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02350.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Mimicry facilitates the ability to understand what other people are feeling. The present research investigated whether this is also true when the expressions that are being mimicked do not reflect the other person's true emotions. In interactions, targets either lied or told the truth, while observers mimicked or did not mimic the targets' facial and behavioral movements. Detection of deception was measured directly by observers' judgments of the extent to which they thought the targets were telling the truth and indirectly by observers' assessment of targets' emotions. The results demonstrated that nonmimickers were more accurate than mimickers in their estimations of targets' truthfulness and of targets' experienced emotions. The results contradict the view that mimicry fa... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2378958 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2378958 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2366605&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02330.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Accumulating evidence suggests that targets' displays of emotion shape perceivers' impression of those targets. Prior research has highlighted generalization effects, such as an angry display prompting an impression of hostility. In two studies, we went beyond generalization to examine the interaction of displays and behaviors, finding new evidence of augmenting effects (behavior-correspondent inferences are stronger when behavior is accompanied by positive affect) and discounting effects (such inferences are weaker when behavior is accompanied by negative affect). Thus, the same display can have different effects on impressions depending on the behavior it accompanies. We found evidence that these effects are mediated by ascribed intentions and that they have a boundary: Wh... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2366605 Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2366605 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2344732&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02346.x ABSTRACT[mdash]One of the defining features of human language is displacement, the ability to make reference to absent entities. Here we show that prelinguistic, 12-month-old infants already can use a nonverbal pointing gesture to make reference to absent entities. We also show that chimpanzees[mdash]who can point for things they want humans to give them[mdash]do not point to refer to absent entities in the same way. These results demonstrate that the ability to communicate about absent but mutually known entities depends not on language, but rather on deeper social-cognitive skills that make acts of linguistic reference possible in the first place. These nonlinguistic skills for displaced reference emerged apparently only after humans' divergence from great apes some 6 million years ago. ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2344732 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2344732 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2336776&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02341.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Children use syntax to guide verb learning. We asked whether the syntactic structure in which a novel verb occurs is meaningful to children even without a concurrent scene from which to infer the verb's semantic content. In two experiments, 2-year-olds observed dialogues in which interlocutors used a new verb in transitive ("Jane blicked the baby!") or intransitive ("Jane blicked!") sentences. The children later heard the verb in isolation ("Find blicking!") while watching a one-participant event and a two-participant event presented side by side. Children who had heard transitive dialogues looked reliably longer at the two-participant event than did those who had heard intransitive dialogues. This effect persisted even when children were tested on a different day, but disap... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2336776 Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2336776 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2336780&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02337.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Titchener (1928) suggested that briefly glancing at a scene could make it appear strangely familiar when it was fully processed moments later. The closest laboratory demonstration used words as stimuli, and showed that briefly glancing at a to-be-judged word increased the subject's belief that it had been presented in an earlier study list (Jacoby & Whitehouse, 1989). We evaluated whether a hasty glance could elicit a false belief in a prior encounter, from a time and place outside of the experiment. This goal precluded using word stimuli, so we had subjects evaluate unfamiliar symbols. Each symbol was preceded by a brief exposure to an identical symbol, a different symbol, or no symbol. A brief glance at an identical symbol increased attributions to preexperimental experien... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2336780 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2336780 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2336779&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02338.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Although it is estimated that as many as 4% of people experience some form of enhanced cross talk between (or within) the senses, known as synaesthesia, very little is understood about the level of information processing required to induce a synaesthetic experience. In work presented here, we used a well-known multisensory illusion called the McGurk effect to show that synaesthesia is driven by late, perceptual processing, rather than early, unisensory processing. Specifically, we tested 9 linguistic-color synaesthetes and found that the colors induced by spoken words are related to what is perceived (i.e., the illusory combination of audio and visual inputs) and not to the auditory component alone. Our findings indicate that color-speech synaesthesia is triggered only when ... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2336779 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2336779 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2336778&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02339.x ABSTRACT[mdash]The present study tested the effect of conscientiousness and neuroticism on health and physical limitations in a representative sample of older couples (N= 2,203) drawn from the Health and Retirement Study. As in past research, conscientiousness predicted better health and physical functioning, whereas neuroticism predicted worse health and physical functioning. Unique to this study was the finding that conscientiousness demonstrated a compensatory effect, such that husbands' conscientiousness predicted wives' health outcomes above and beyond wives' own personality. The same pattern held true for wives' conscientiousness as a predictor of husbands' health outcomes. Furthermore, conscientiousness and neuroticism acted synergistically, such that people who scored high for both... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2336778 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2336778 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2336777&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02340.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Researchers have studied whether some youth are "addicted" to video games, but previous studies have been based on regional convenience samples. Using a national sample, this study gathered information about video-gaming habits and parental involvement in gaming, to determine the percentage of youth who meet clinical-style criteria for pathological gaming. A Harris poll surveyed a randomly selected sample of 1,178 American youth ages 8 to 18. About 8% of video-game players in this sample exhibited pathological patterns of play. Several indicators documented convergent and divergent validity of the results: Pathological gamers spent twice as much time playing as nonpathological gamers and received poorer grades in school; pathological gaming also showed comorbidity with atten... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2336777 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2336777 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316505&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02336.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Based on Lewinian goal theory in general and self-completion theory in particular, four experiments examined the implications of other people taking notice of one's identity-related behavioral intentions (e.g., the intention to read law periodicals regularly to reach the identity goal of becoming a lawyer). Identity-related behavioral intentions that had been noticed by other people were translated into action less intensively than those that had been ignored (Studies 1[ndash]3). This effect was evident in the field (persistent striving over 1 week's time; Study 1) and in the laboratory (jumping on opportunities to act; Studies 2 and 3), and it held among participants with strong but not weak commitment to the identity goal (Study 3). Study 4 showed, in addition, that when o... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316505 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316505 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316509&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02332.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316509 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316509 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316508&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02333.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316508 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316508 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316507&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02334.x (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316507 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316507 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316506&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02335.x We describe a computational model of word learning that solves these two inference problems in parallel, rather than relying exclusively on either the inferred meanings of utterances or cross-situational word-meaning associations. We tested our model using annotated corpus data and found that it inferred pairings between words and object concepts with higher precision than comparison models. Moreover, as the result of making probabilistic inferences about speakers' intentions, our model explains a variety of behavioral phenomena described in the word-learning literature. These phenomena include mutual exclusivity, one-trial learning, cross-situational learning, the role of words in object individuation, and the use of inferred intentions to disambiguate reference. (Source: Psychological Sc... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316506 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316506 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316513&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02327.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Efficient word recognition depends on detecting critical phonetic differences among similar-sounding words, or sensitivity to phonological distinctiveness, an ability evident at 19 months of age but unreliable at 14 to 15 months of age. However, little is known about phonological constancy, the equally crucial ability to recognize a word's identity across natural phonetic variations, such as those in cross-dialect pronunciation differences. We show that 15- and 19-month-old children recognize familiar words spoken in their native dialect, but that only the older children recognize familiar words in a dissimilar nonnative dialect, providing evidence for emergence of phonological constancy by 19 months. These results are compatible with a perceptual-attunement account of devel... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316513 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316513 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316512&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02328.x ABSTRACT[mdash]Object-substitution masking (OSM) refers to reduced target discrimination when the target is surrounded by a sparse mask that does not overlap with the target in space but trails it in time. In four experiments, we used a novel paradigm to investigate the extent of processing of a masked target in OSM. We measured response-compatibility effects between target and mask, both when the offsets were simultaneous and when the offset of the mask was delayed. Evidence for both OSM and a dissociation between perception and awareness was found when detecting the match between the target and the mask required feature but not categorical analyses. Our results suggest that the locus of disruption in OSM is likely to be beyond feature analysis of the unreported target. (Source: Psycholog... Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316512 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316512 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2316511&cid=s_27174_36_f&fid=27174&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1111%252Fj.1467-9280.2009.02329.x We describe a layered neural architecture that implements encoding and maintenance, and links these processes to a plausible comparison process. In addition, the model makes the novel prediction that change detection will be enhanced when metrically similar features are remembered. Results from experiments probing memory for color and for orientation were consistent with this novel prediction. These findings place strong constraints on models addressing the nature of visual working memory and its underlying mechanisms. (Source: Psychological Science) Psychological Science journals http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2316511 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0100 2316511