Experimental psychology最新文献

Working memory performance is markedly disrupted when task-irrelevant sound is played during item presentation or retention. In a preregistered replication study, we systematically examined the role of intensity in two types of auditory distraction. The first type of distraction is the changing-state effect (i.e., increased disruption by changing-state relative to steady-state sequences). The second type is the auditory deviant effect (i.e., increased disruption by auditory deviant relative to steady-state sequences). In previous experiments, the changing-state effect was independent of intensity. Whether a deviation in intensity leads to an increase in disruption has not yet been examined. We replicated the classic finding that the increased disruption by changing-state relative to steady-state sequences is independent of intensity. Contrary to previous studies, we found an unexpected main effect of intensity. Steady-state and changing-state sequences presented at 75 dB(A) were more disruptive than presented at 45 dB(A), suggesting that intensity plays a more important role than previously assumed in the disruption of working memory performance. Furthermore, we tested the prediction of the violation of expectancy account, according to which deviant distractors at a lower and higher intensity than the rest of the sequence should be equally disruptive. Our results were consistent with this prediction.

Many occupational settings require individuals to make important decisions immediately after awakening. Although a plethora of psychological research has separately examined both sleep and anchoring effects on decision-making, little is known about their interaction. In the present study, we seek to shed light on the link between sleep inertia, the performance impairment immediately after awakening, and individuals' susceptibility to the anchoring bias. We proposed that sleep inertia would moderate participants' adjustment from anchors because sleep inertia leads to less cognitive effort invested, resulting in a stronger anchoring effect. One hundred four subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental group that answered anchoring tasks immediately after being awakened at nighttime or a control group that answered anchoring tasks at daytime. Our findings replicated the well-established anchoring effect in that higher anchors led participants to higher estimates than lower anchors. We did not find significant effects of sleep inertia. While the sleep inertia group reported greater sleepiness and having invested less cognitive effort compared to the control group, no systematic anchoring differences emerged, and cognitive effort did not qualify as a mediator of the anchoring effect. Bayesian analyses provide empirical evidence for these null findings. Implications for the anchoring literature and future research are discussed.

Beliefs about how memory works explain several effects on prospective metamemory judgments (e.g., the effect of font size on judgments of learning; JOLs). Less is known about the effect of beliefs on retrospective judgments (i.e., confidence). Here, we tested whether font size also affects confidence ratings and whether beliefs play a similar role in confidence than in JOLs. In two experiments, participants studied words in small and large size, rated JOLs, and completed a font-size test in which they indicated the font size at study and a standard old/new recognition test. The results confirmed that font size affected both JOLs and confidence ratings. The presentation of the counter-belief that memory is better for words in small font size in Experiment 2 and the analyses of confidence for participants who did not believe that large fonts improved memory suggested that the effect of font size on confidence was based on beliefs. This research shows that the debate on theory-based and experience-based factors should not be limited to prospective metamemory judgments but also encompass retrospective judgments.

How words are interrelated in the human mind is a scientific topic on which there is still no consensus, with different views on how word co-occurrence and semantic relatedness mediate word association. Recent research has shown that lexical associations are strongly predicted by the similarity of those words in terms of valence, arousal, and concreteness ratings. In the current study, we aimed at extending these results to more complex and realistic linguistic scenarios, since human communication is not done with word pairs, but rather through sentences. Hence, the aim of the current study was to verify whether valence, arousal, and concreteness also articulate sentence-level lexical representations. To this end, 32 native Spanish speakers were given cue words and asked to use them in sentences that would provide a meaningful context. The content words of the written sentences were then analyzed. Our results showed that the emotional dimensions (valence and arousal) and concreteness values of the cue words effectively predicted the same values of said dimensions of their sentences' words. In sum, the similarity in the emotional dimensions and concreteness are crucial mechanisms behind word association in the human mind.