Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung最新文献

Literature on grounded cognition argues that mental representations of concepts, even abstract concepts, involve modal simulations. These modalities are typically assumed to reside within the body, such as in the sensorimotor system. A recent proposal argues that physical invariants, such as momentum or gravity, can also be substrates in which concepts can be grounded, expanding the assumed limits of grounding beyond the body. We here experimentally assessed this proposal by exploiting the representational momentum effect and the abstract concept of success. If success is grounded in the physical invariant momentum, the representational momentum effect should be larger for successful targets. We tested this hypothesis across four experiments (three pre-registered). In a surprising finding, we find hints that large trial numbers may hinder being able to find a representational momentum effect, which should be further investigated in future research. Regarding the central hypothesis, although only one experiment found statistically significant support, the effect tended toward the same direction in the three others as well. In order to draw robust conclusions about the results, we performed a mini meta, which aggregates the effects and inference statistics across the N = 271 participants. Across the four experiments, this effect was statistically significant, suggesting evidence in favor of the central hypothesis. These results should be interpreted with caution as there was inconsistency across experiments, suggesting the magnitude of the effect is small, and when asked who they believe moved faster, participants did not reliably indicate the successful target.

Solving arithmetic word problems requires individuals to create a correct mental representation, and this involves both text processing and number processing. The latter comprises understanding the semantic meaning of numbers (i.e., their magnitudes) and potentially executing the appropriate mathematical operation. However, it is not yet clear whether number processing occurs after text processing or both take place simultaneously. We hypothesize that number processing occurs early and simultaneously with other problem-solving processes such as text processing. To test this hypothesis, we created non-solvable word problems that do not require any number processing and we manipulated the calculation difficulty using carry/borrow vs. non-carry/non-borrow within addition and subtraction problems. According to a strictly sequential model, this manipulation should not matter, because when problems are non-solvable, no calculation is required. In contrast, according to an interactive model, attention to numbers would be higher when word problems require a carry/borrow compared to a non-carry/non-borrow operation. Eye-tracking was used to measure attention to numbers and text in 63 adults, operationalized by static (duration and count of fixations and regressions) and dynamic measures (count of transitions). An interaction between difficulty and operation was found for all static and dynamic eye-tracking variables as well as for response times and error rates. The observed number processing in non-solvable word problems, which indicates that it occurs simultaneously with text processing, is inconsistent with strictly sequential models.

From an embodied perspective of cognition, number processing influences the spatial organization of motor responses showing faster left/right responses to small/large numbers. Recent evidence suggests that such spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) along the transverse and sagittal planes are mutually exclusive with respect to the spatial reference frames used by the participant. Specifically, in egocentric and allocentric frames, SNAs appear along the sagittal and transverse plane, respectively. The first aim of this study was to replicate previous findings. The second aim was to explore the role of switching spatial reference frames in SNAs occurrence according to the processed plane. Consequently, during a referential frame switching (RFS) training, participants were required to identify targets based on an embodied avatar's perspective. Using a random number generation (RNG) task after observing an avatar's displacement, we investigated the effect of RFS training on SNAs organization across the different planes (Experiment 1 & 2 for the egocentric and allocentric perspectives, respectively). Both experiments replicated previous results, but more importantly, RFS training enables the development of new situated cognition strategies from egocentric perspectives and the generalization of transverse SNAs to other planes from allocentric perspectives.

Each perceptual process is accompanied with an evaluation regarding the reliability of what we are perceiving. The close connection between confidence in perceptual judgments and planning of actions has been documented in studies investigating visual perception. Here, we extend this investigation to auditory perception by focusing on spatial hearing, in which the interpretation of auditory cues can often present uncertainties. We asked if confidence in perceived sound position changes when we interact with the sound source by planning a sound-directed motor action (reaching) vs. a verbal response (naming). We tested 30 participants in a sound localization task in which they were both asked to localize sound sources by reaching them or by naming the labels above them in a within-participants experimental design. Participants performed the task with binaural hearing and with one ear plugged to increase errors and reduce confidence. Results showed that sound localization performance did not differ between reaching and naming, and yet participants felt more confident and required less time to complete the trial when reaching to the sources compared to naming them, regardless of the listening condition. Moreover, we found that during monaural listening the coherence between performance and confidence was reduced in each trial, irrespective of response type, suggesting increased difficulties in metacognitive monitoring. These findings suggest that, even in the case of spatial hearing, motor action planning plays a role in the formulation of confidence judgments, alongside sensory inputs and decision-making processes and stress the importance of including metacognitive measurements into spatial hearing research.

The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect refers to the phenomenon of faster left-hand responses to smaller numbers and faster right-hand responses to larger ones. The current study examined the possible long-lasting effects of magnitude-relevant stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) practices on the SNARC effect in a transfer paradigm. Participants performed a magnitude classification task including either SNARC-compatible or SNARC-incompatible trials as practice. They performed a parity judgment task in the subsequent transfer session, administered five minutes, one day or a week after the practice session. Results revealed significant SNARC effects after compatible practices and significant reverse SNARC effects after incompatible practices in all time-interval conditions. However, a control group without practice showed no reliable SNARC effect. These findings suggest that the SNARC effect can be influenced by magnitude-relevant associations formed a week previously, highlighting the long-lasting effects of magnitude-relevant SRC practices on the SNARC effect.

Extrinsic motivation can foster effortful cognitive control. Moreover, the selective coupling of extrinsic motivation on low- versus high-control demands tasks would exert an additional impact. However, to what extent their influences are further modulated by the level of Need for Cognition (NFC) remains unclear. Thus, the current study sought to address this question. To this end, we conducted two behavioral experiments wherein cognitive control was triggered by the confound-minimized Stroop task and the NFC questionnaire was administered. Two different forms of extrinsic motivation were manipulated at the block level. In Experiment 1, extrinsic motivation was triggered by evaluative feedback. In Experiment 2, extrinsic motivation was triggered by reward incentives, while evaluative feedback was selectively coupled with low (congruent)- or high (incongruent)- control demands trials. The results indicated that two forms of extrinsic motivation (evaluative feedback vs. reward incentives) presented distinctive effects on effortful cognitive control; while their benefits on overall performance were further influenced by NFC. Interestingly, when incongruent rather than congruent trials were selectively coupled with reward incentives, not only conflict processing, but also overall performance for low-NFC participants only, benefited from this scenario. Taken together, the current study shows that extrinsic motivation can boost cognitive control, which gain was further reduced by high NFC.

Efficient and flexible responses are essential for successfully interacting with the environment. These interactions require an instantaneous integration of visual stimuli and responses, known as 'stimulus-response binding' (SR binding). SR binding is considered part of a holistic temporary representation, the event file, that integrates the stimulus, the response, and the action effect produced by this response. It is commonly assumed that an event file (or at least the SR binding) would end with the execution of the response or its action effect. This, however, has never been directly tested. Here, we tested whether the SR binding can be formed between another temporally close stimulus that people didn't respond to by implementing a sequence of two stimuli where participants needed to respond only to the first or second stimulus. Our results indicate that a binding between the response and this temporally close stimulus can occur, but only when it's placed after, and not before, the response execution. This finding suggests that the event file might operate a temporal binding window that is not decisively terminated by the response execution. Further, this insight into the temporal dynamics of the event file highlights the temporal flexibility of the SR binding and, thus, the need for careful consideration of its sub-structures and durability.

Introduction: Music is known to impact attentional state without conscious awareness. Listening to music encourages the brain to secrete neurotransmitters improving cognition and emotion.

Aim of work: Analysis of QEEG band width while listening to two music types, identifying different cortical areas activated and which genre has a similar effect to relaxed EEG.

Methods: This is a cross-section interventional analytic study including 76 normal subjects, 55 of them are females (72.37%). Participants listened to 10 min of a single audio track during EEG recording, consisting of (1 min of silence, 3 min of Egyptian folk music, 3 min of silence, then 3 min of Egyptian instrumental classic music (without any lyrics). We analyzed QEEG bands at each brain region during different tracks. The power ratio index (PRI) was calculated for each region, and then the interhemispheric difference was compared.

Results: The participants' ages ranged from 15 to 26 with a mean 16.73 ± 2.37 years. PRI showed a significant increase in the frontal and occipital regions during listening to folk music compared to the silent epoch, where p < 0.001 and p = 0.023, respectively. In the frontal and temporal regions, the classic music epoch evoked the highest PRI interhemispheric difference compared to the folk music epoch, where p = 0.004 and p < 0.001, respectively.

Conclusion: Egyptian folk music has significantly slowed the brain rhythm, particularly in the frontal region, compared to classic music, supporting the hypothesis of a momentary reduction of cognitive capacities by the noise. Classic music was evidently associated with a relaxed state EEG.

The present study investigated the role of inhibition in peripheral cueing by nonpredictive cues. Based on past findings, we investigated the possibility that inhibition of learned irrelevant cue colors is typical of short cue-target intervals, with more competition for attention capture between cue versus target. In line with the expectation, in a modified contingent-capture protocol, with short cue-target intervals, we found same-location costs (SLCs) - that is, disadvantages for validly cued targets (cue = target position) compared to invalidly cued targets (cue ≠ target position) with consistently colored non-matching cues. In contrast, no such effects for inconsistently colored non-matching cues were observed with short intervals. In a control condition, with longer intervals, the differences between consistently and inconsistently colored cues were no longer observed. We argue that this effect is due to participants proactively inhibiting consistently colored non-matching cues with short intervals but not with long intervals, but that inhibition failed with inconsistently colored non-matching cues that could take on different possible colors. Alternative explanations in terms of object-updating costs or masking were ruled out. We conclude that the currently found type of inhibition of peripheral cues most likely reflected the limitation of proactively established control structures that could be used at the same time.