Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung最新文献

Recent work suggests that the pointing hand on an outstretched arm is possibly a more powerful cue than the gaze-cue, suggesting these embodied social cues are not equal. The aim of this study is to investigate differences between gaze- and pointing-cue, looking specifically at saliency, spatial proximity, and trial context. A cartoon figure was used to present four types of cues: (1) a gaze-cue, (2) a peripheral pointing cue on an outstretched arm, (3) a central pointing cue presented over the torso of the body, and (4) a flower cue matched for low-level features to the peripheral pointing cue. Validity was non-predictive. To test the impact of trial context on the impact of the cues, different cue types were presented randomly within blocks (Experiment 1) or tested in separate blocks (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, gaze and gesture cues were intermixed within blocks, but the number of gaze-cue trials was balanced with the pointing cues, ensuring that the gaze-cue occurred equally often as the gesture cues. The results showed that the pointing cue was much more effective in directing attention than the gaze-cue, especially when cues could not be predicted (Experiment 1 and 3). Blocked conditions (Experiment 2) yielded more effective cue-effects compared to mixed conditions (Experiment 1) and even yielded reliable cue effects for stimuli without intuitive directional meaning (i.e., flower cue). Across all three experiments, the results showed that the impact of the pointing cue could not be explained by low-level salience or spatial proximity to the target. Trial context affected the effectiveness of the cues, suggesting that spatial cueing is shaped by expectations; however, the advantage of the pointing cue over the gaze cue emerged independently of trial context. Together, these results challenge the idea that embodied cues influence attention uniformly, revealing systematic variation in effectiveness, with the pointing cue especially robust.

The present study examines the role of spatial abilities in numerical processing in children using an application administered on parents' smartphones. The study comprised four tasks: (1) spatial short-term memory (2) spatial working memory (3) non-symbolic comparison, and (4) symbolic comparison. A total of 541 children performed all four tasks (mean age = 6.41, SD = 4.05), and a conjunction analysis was conducted on the data collected from all four tasks. One of the main goals of the present study was to understand the role of spatial abilities in numerical processing and the modulating effect of age on the relationship between them. We found that quantity comparison tasks are directly associated, primarily, with spatial short-term memory and also (but to a lesser degree) with spatial working memory. These two associations decrease with age. We suggest that younger children tend to use a spatial strategy during numerical comparison tasks. However, when symbolic and non-symbolic comparisons were combined into a unified model, no direct links were found between symbolic comparison and spatial abilities. Furthermore, in the unified model, age affected the non-symbolic comparison abilities, but not the symbolic comparison abilities. These results suggest that in young children, there is no direct link between symbolic numerical representations and spatial abilities. Accordingly, these results uniquely demonstrate that symbolic representation is built upon non-symbolic representation.

People differ in their ability to distinguish visually similar items, a domain-general ability known as o Richler (Psychological Review 126:226-251, 2019). While o typically involves extracting invariant object properties, we investigated whether it also relates to long-term memory for episodic information extrinsic to object identity, specifically, object location. We further examined whether this relationship is influenced by stimulus meaningfulness, a factor known to enhance long-term memory, by using both high- and low-meaning stimuli. Participants completed a location memory test, a series of visual object-recognition tasks assessing o, and other cognitive covariate measures. Results showed a positive correlation between o and location memory, which was stronger for high-meaning than for low-meaning stimuli. This suggests that semantic content may enhance the link between object recognition and episodic location memory. Importantly, these effects remained after controlling for age, gender, low-level visual perception, working memory, and general intelligence. Our findings indicate that domain-general object recognition ability contributes to episodic memory by supporting the binding of meaningful objects to their spatial context. This challenges traditional cognitive boundaries by integrating current knowledge about individual differences in perception and memory, with semantic meaning acting as a significant moderator.

When we perceive language cues, they are processed with a high degree of automaticity and can thus guide the processing of subsequent perceptions. We investigated here how associated and categorically congruent prime words influence responses in a semantic picture categorization task. A hierarchical diffusion model is applied to disentangle the underlying cognitive processes. In the experiment, participants were asked to categorize target pictures as living or non-living. These target pictures were preceded by prime words, for which associations and semantic category match with targets were manipulated. Results indicate robust priming effects of category congruency for both response times (RT) and error rates (ER), whereas associations only show an effect on response times (RT). Diffusion model analysis revealed different cognitive processes for both types of prime-target relations: Specifically, associative priming maps to non-decision times, suggesting a head start in visuo-semantic picture processing, whereas categorical priming was found to affect drift rate, suggesting facilitation of the decision-making process. These results suggest that priming effects in picture classification differ from cognitive processes involved in word-word priming. The implications for theoretical models of priming are discussed.

Cognitive flexibility (CF) allows individuals to adapt their behavior to changing environmental demands. As task complexity increases, CF may substantially impact performance by facilitating a shift towards more efficient information processing strategies. However, its role in tasks with high cognitive demands remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, while CF is associated with inhibitory control and working memory functions, their precise relationship under task demands is not yet fully understood. To address this gap, we investigated how CF and inhibition metrics are associated with different levels of mental attentional demand (Md), as well as СF. Additionally, we explored differences in eye-movement indices associated with high and low CF in tasks with varied levels of Md. Analyzing data from 42 young participants performing CF, inhibition, and mental attention tasks with eye movement recording for the last task, we found that multidimensional switching (i.e., switching between three rules) correlated with mental attentional capacity, whereas two-dimensional switching (i.e., switching between two rules) correlated with inhibitory control. Individuals with low and high switching scores differed in task performance and eye-movement patterns of mental attentional demand (i.e., difficulty). Specifically, those with high efficiency in multidimensional switching exhibited superior performance across all levels of mental attentional demand. Further, high-efficiency performers employed eye-movement patterns characterized by an increased number of fixations, shorter fixation durations, and decreased blink rates, with significant differences observed at higher levels of mental-attention demand. Our findings offer new insights into psychophysiological metrics related to higher-order cognitive processes, discussed in terms of cognitive theory and practical significance.