Cognitive Processing最新文献

The present study examined the persuasive impact of conspiracy theories (CTs) in relation to two distinct communicative strategies: argumentation and narrative. The final sample consisted of 160 participants, randomly assigned to three groups: a first group (N = 56) watched a video in which a conspiracy theory related to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion was presented in a predominantly argumentative form (mostly argumentative group: MAG); a second group (N = 53) who watched a video in which the same conspiracy theory was presented in a predominantly narrative form (mostly narrative group: MNG); and a third control group (CG) (N = 51) who watched a video on non-conspiracy topics. The experiment was conducted online by the participants. The scores obtained on the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs (GCB) scale (Brotherton et al. in Front Psychol 4:279, 2013) at T0 (before exposure to the persuasive message) and T1 (after exposure) in three groups of participants were evaluated. Furthermore, the level of education, subclinical psychiatric symptoms (depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism), paranoid persecution, and paranoid reference, as well as the level of transportation, were also assessed. The primary findings indicated that there was a greater endorsement of conspiratorial beliefs at T1 than at T0 in the MAG. In contrast, no change was observed in the total score of the GCB scale at T1 compared to T0 in the MNG. However, in the MNG there was an increase in one subscale of the GCB, which related to government malfeasance. Overall, these results indicate that both conspiracy arguments and conspiracy narratives can influence audience beliefs. However, argumentation appears to have a more pronounced effect than narrative.

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a phenomenon that individuals respond more slowly when the target is presented in the previously cued location in a cue-target paradigm. Although there is a large amount of evidence to support the "reorienting hypothesis" of IOR, it is still continuously challenged in the visual single-modal domain. However, it is unclear whether the occurrence of IOR under cross-modality is consistent with the reorienting hypothesis. In the present study, we used a variant of the cue-target paradigm to investigate the effect of attentional orienting as modulated by the central reorienting cue on IOR within the visual modality (Experiment 1) and across auditory-visual modalities (Experiment 2). The results showed that IOR triggered by the peripheral cue and attentional orienting triggered by the central reorienting cue directionality occurred in both the visual single-modal condition and the auditory-visual cross-modal condition, but there was no interaction between them. These results indicated that attentional reorienting may not be the cause of IOR in either single-modal or cross-modal auditory-visual conditions.

Visual selection for external stimuli, guided by a cue that prioritizes goal-related as well as feature matching stimuli, is modulated by stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) after the cue. However, whether or not the modulation effect of SOA can occur when attention is directed to internal representations in working memory remains unclear. In two experiments, we explored the influences of SOA after a retrospective cue (retro-cue) that simultaneously incurs goal-directed and stimulus-driven priority on internal attention to working memory representations during orientation (Experiment 1) and color (Experiment 2) reproducing tasks. Results of the two experiments suggested that SOA modulated goal-directed attention to working memory representations, with greater goal-directed priority when SOA was longer. Stimulus-driven attention was possibly modulated by SOA, as was suggested by the SOA modulation effect on stimulus-driven priority in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2. This study uncovered the temporal dynamics of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention to working memory representations, suggesting that the SOA effect on goal-directed attentional priority is robust across different feature domains.

The development of virtual reality (VR) research and innovation has mainly revolved around graphic enhancement and novel ways of human-computer interaction. In recent years, many VR researchers have urgently started to investigate methods to assess elements of the spatial experience of VR, such as presence and affordances. In the recent two decades, while VR researchers began to learn to measure such elements within the VR environment, studies of these elements have already been common in architecture, although the methods might differ. Therefore, this study reviews different techniques to study affordances in architecture and VR research through a mixed-method review. First, we conducted a systematic review on the methods used to study affordances in VR environments. Then, we proceeded to undertake a traditional literature review on those methods which assess spatial affordances in architecture. This study identifies the merits of current techniques of measuring affordances in both physical and virtual spaces. Through this study, we would like to suggest three methods employed in architecture as an alternative with which to assess affordances when studying spatial experience in VR environments.

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are two critical executive function components that support children's analogical reasoning. WM provides a workspace for storing and manipulating relational information, while IC helps suppress irrelevant details and manage competing information. Despite their established roles, the specific mechanisms by which WM and IC influence analogical reasoning in preschoolers remain unclear. To address this gap, we proposed the mediating roles of vocabulary knowledge and visual perception in the relationships of WM, IC with analogical reasoning. Given that WM and IC are also crucial for developing vocabulary and visual processing skills, mediation analysis offers a comprehensive framework to reveal how these cognitive processes interact in preschoolers' analogical reasoning. A total of 180 Chinese preschoolers were recruited for this study, with ages ranging from 3 to 6 years (39.11-81.26 months; K1-K3). Results showed that after controlling for the child's age, gender, and IQ, WM was still positively correlated with children's analogical reasoning, and the role of IC was not significant. Moreover, vocabulary knowledge and visual perception played mediating roles in the linkage between WM, IC, and analogical reasoning. These findings emphasized the roles of visual perception and vocabulary in supporting children's acquisition of analogical reasoning. This could offer practical implications for effectively enhancing children's analogical reasoning skills.

Sense of direction, a self-reported navigation ability, is essential in daily life for efficient navigation. Research has shown that individual difference factors may contribute to variability in this aspect, with accident proneness being one of them. The main aim of the current study was to examine whether proneness to injury-related behavior, with its different facets, is related to self-reported navigation ability. A total of 412 participants, from 20 to 86 years of age (215 women), filled a questionnaire on sense of direction and another on injury-related behavior, assessing propensity for errors behaviors, risky behaviors and dangers evaluation. Fluid reasoning and Mental rotations tasks were also completed. The results of regression models showed that significant predictors of self-reported navigation scores were gender (men having higher ratings), age (older age was associated with higher ratings), injury-related behavior in terms of errors (a higher score in error was associated with lower ratings) and risk (a higher score of risky behaviors is associated with greater ratings). Overall, the study shows that self-reported navigation ability is positively related with risk proneness and negatively with error proneness, offering fresh evidence for a deeper understanding of variability in people's sense of direction.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that variations in streets' topological characteristics impact the degree to which people perceive the structure of urban environments. Accordingly, this systematic review aimed to evaluate how the topological parameters affect human spatial cognition, and also analyze the study methods used in studies. The PRISMA reporting guidelines were used in this regard. We systematically searched the Web of Science and Scopus until April 19, 2024. Two researchers independently screened the title, abstract, and full text for the eligibility criteria. A total of 39 articles met our eligibility criteria. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used to assess the quality of the included articles. The studies have followed four objectives: wayfinding, pedestrian volume, route choice, and spatial representation. Quantitative descriptive, quantitative non-randomized, and observational methodologies were mostly employed. The evaluations mostly used space syntax theory, and accordingly, Depthmap, DepthmapX, and GIS-based toolboxes were used to analyze the topological parameters. Base and blank maps, street photos, and questionnaires have been used in many studies as experiment tools, while virtual reality tools have been less considered. The control variables have been rarely applied in the evaluations. The results indicated that integrated streets and streets with high choice values enhance human spatial cognition. Dense and intelligible street networks and streets with high-directional connectivity also enhance human spatial cognition; however, very few studies evaluated these parameters' influence. The results of evaluating the impact of the other parameters were very heterogeneous. The heterogeneity was mainly related to differences in the study designs, trip purpose, objectives, and spatial scales. Seldom studies have compared how different topological parameters influence spatial cognition. In conclusion, further research, especially experimental quantitative randomized controlled trials, is warranted to discover the impact of street network topology on human spatial cognition.

For both native speakers and second language (L2) learners, variation in the relative order of acquisition of inflectional morphemes has been shown in the literature. Previous studies employing the simple lexical decision task have also shown effects of suffixal characteristics on word recognition of both derived and inflected words such that some inflectional suffixes trigger whole-word processing while others contribute to decomposition. Additionally, evidence from the masked priming paradigm shows that suffixal characteristics affect the efficiency of morphological decomposition of derived words during early-stage processing. However, very little work has systematically examined the early stages of processing inflected words with different suffixes, leaving our understanding of the factors that impact the early-stage processing of inflected words incomplete at best. We argue that the overwhelming focus on the past tense -ed suffix in previous L2 studies risks exacerbating already serious generalizability issues in the realm of L2 research. Future studies would therefore do well to include and compare a wider range of inflectional suffixes, which may well require looking beyond English. This is essential for the field to make progress toward a more complete understanding of the processing of morphologically complex words.

Climate change poses immense global challenges. To meet these challenges, there has been increased research interest in climate change psychology. An emerging field of research has studied the degree to which attention is captured by different types of climate change relevant information. The current review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the research that focuses on the capture of attention by climate change relevant information and the factors that moderate this capture of attention. We thoroughly examined 12 empirical studies (18 experiments, 2164 participants) from the literature that investigated the relationship between attention and various types of climate-relevant information. The results revealed that climate change information is captured by attention in the majority of the experiments included in the review. This finding is consistent across different types of stimuli (such as images, text, and graphs) and measurements (such as reaction time, eye movement, and accuracy). Moreover, individual differences, such as implicit climate attitudes, liberal political orientation, and dispositional optimism may moderate the level of attentional capture by climate-relevant information. The review also provides insight and directions for future research and calls for action to translate the current findings at the cognitive level into impactful changes at the public level.

Can the activation of a motor programme help find object? On the assumption that knowledge about the way of acting with an object is included in its general representation, in the naming and categorization tasks a compatibility effect was obtained. Since during visual search an attention template is formed on the basis of theobject representation, the question of the occurrence of compatibility effect within a visual search task arises. This study focuses on the issue of the emergence of compatibility effects in visual search using subsequent search misses (SSM) paradigm. In a visual search task, subjects had to find a target stimulus (images of real objects) among distractors. There could be two, one, or none targets. During the search, subjects performed a differentiated grasping or pinching movements that were congruent, incongruent, and partially congruent to the target object. Additionally, an experiment was conducted where subjects didn't perform any movement while searching for the same objects. The results demonstrated that visual search efficiency for the first or single target depends on perceptual features of objects rather than motor program congruency. Moreover, reaction time for the second target or reporting its absence linked with the search efficiency of the first or single ones: the more time spent searching for the first or single target, the less time was required for the second or for reporting absence. Generally speaking, activation of motor program has no impact on visual search for images of real objects in SSM paradigm.