Attention Restraint, Working Memory Capacity, and Mind Wandering: Do Emotional Valence or Intentionality Matter?

Attention restraint appears to mediate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and mind wandering (Kane et al., 2016). Prior work has identifed two dimensions of mind wandering—emotional valence and intentionality. However, less is known about how WMC and attention restraint correlate with these dimensions. Te current study examined the relationship between WMC, attention restraint, and mind wandering by emotional valence and intentionality. A confrmatory factor analysis demonstrated that WMC and attention restraint were strongly correlated, but only attention restraint was related to overall mind wandering, consistent with prior fndings. However, when examining the emotional valence of mind wandering, attention restraint and WMC were related to negatively and positively valenced, but not neutral, mind wandering. Attention restraint was also related to intentional but not unintentional mind wandering. Tese results suggest that WMC and attention restraint predict some, but not all, types of mind wandering

THE EFFECTS OF IDEA ELABORATION ON UNCONSCIOUS PLAGIARISM

Rates of unconscious plagiarism were investigated using Brown and Murphy's 3-stage paradigm. Initially, participants completed the creative Alternate Uses Test (generation phase) and then at test, recalled their original ideas (recall-own phase) and generated new ideas (generate-new phase). In both of the testing phases, participants plagiarised by reporting someone else's ideas as either their own idea or a new idea. Plagiarism rates increased over a one week retention interval (Experiment 2) and both active and passive participants were equally likely to plagiarise someone else's idea as a new idea (Experiment 1). When an elaboration phase was incorporated into the paradigm, following idea generation, different types of elaboration had clear and consistent effects on participant performance. Elaboration by rating ideas positively and negatively improved correct recall (Experiment 3) and rating the imaginability of ideas (Imagery-elaboration IE) and improving the ideas in three ways (generative-elaboration GE) also increased correct recall to a comparable degree (Experiment 4). In the generate-new phase, these different types of elaboration either reduced plagiarism (Experiment 4) or did not affect the level of plagiarism relative to control (Experiment 3, 5, 6, 7 & 8). However, in the recall-own phase, the GE alone consistently led to the highest levels of unconscious plagiarism (relative to IE or control, Experiment 4, 5, 6, 8). This pattern prevailed when participants were encouraged not to plagiarise by means of a financial incentive (Experiment 5) or when their memory was assessed more stringently by a source monitoring task (Experiment 9). IE did not result in such recalled intrusions, even when it was matched in terms of content to the GE (Experiment 6) or when IE was repeated (3 days after generation) and thus strengthened (Experiment 7). Also, strengthening IE did not affect plagiarism levels in a source monitoring task (Experiment 11). Strengthening GE, on the other hand served to dramatically inflate the observable intrusions in both a recall-own task (Experiment 8) and in a source monitoring task (Experiment 10). Therefore, contrary to a strength account, the probability of plagiarising another's ideas as one's own is linked to the generative nature of the elaboration performed on that idea, rather than its familiarity. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings will be discussed.Economic and Social Research Counci

Inattentional blindness in eyewitnesses to crime: Consequences for eyewitness safety, memory and credibility

When attention is focused elsewhere, individuals may fail to notice unexpected events in plain sight, a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness (IB: Mack & Rock, 1998). In legal settings, eyewitnesses may experience IB and fail to notice entire crimes occurring (Hyman, 2016). The current thesis aimed to assess the impact of IB on eyewitness safety, memory, and credibility. In the first two studies, IB for an assault crime was measured. The presence of a weapon was manipulated (Study 1), and memory for the crime was assessed (Study 1 & Study 2). The results showed that weapon presence did not impact rates of IB. Study 1 found that IB impacted the quantity, but not quality, of witness memory. However, when manipulating the recall instructions in Study 2, IB negatively affected both the quantity and quality of memory. Given that witnesses who experience IB may testify in court, subsequent studies were conducted to explore perceptions of eyewitness IB. In Study 3, lawyers, psychology students, and members of the public were surveyed regarding their beliefs about IB in legal scenarios. All populations overestimated visual detection across most legal scenarios. In Studies 4 and 5, mock-jurors read a trial containing two key witnesses: one who saw the crime, and one who experienced IB. Both studies showed that the witness who experienced IB was perceived as less credible than the witness who saw the crime. In Study 5, several factors (witness role, witness familiarity with defendant, and expert testimony) did not influence the negative perceptions of IB. Therefore, Studies 6 and 7 aimed to determine whether demonstrating IB and providing expert testimony on IB would improve perceptions of witness IB. Neither demonstrating IB nor expert testimony rectified the negative perceptions of witness IB. The findings within this thesis indicate that IB among eyewitnesses presents a unique challenge in criminal settings

Is attention both necessary and sufficient for consciousness?

Theoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 399-436.1. Q: Is attention both necessary and sufficient for consciousness? -- PART I. (RE-) LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS: 2. Phenomenal consciousness -- 3. The many faces of attention -- 4. Relationships -- 5. Working memory -- PART II. ADDRESSING Q: 6. Pulling attention and consciousness apart -- 7. Phenomenal overflow -- 8. Triangulating capacity limitations -- 9. Answer(s) to Q -- Appendices -- BibliographyIs attention both necessary and sufficient for consciousness? Call this central question of this treatise, "Q." We commonly have the experience of consciously paying attention to something, but is it possible to be conscious of something you are not attending to, or to attend to something of which you are not conscious? Where might we find examples of these? This treatise is a quest to find an answer to Q in two parts. Part I reviews the foundations upon which the discourse on Q is built. Different inputs to Q produce different answers. After consideration of the many ways "attention" and "consciousness" have been defined, I settle upon phenomenal consciousness and Executive Attention (defined as a suite of strategies for structuring cognition for further processing implemented by the executive of working memory) as the most interesting inputs to Q, and the ones on which Part II focuses. Attention without consciousness seems relatively easy to establish empirically, but consciousness without attention is much harder. The putative candidates all seem to have major problems, but I build a strong abductive case for the hitherto ignored case of foveal phenomenal overflow. We consciously see far more detail in our foveal fields than we can Executively Attend, although there is a serious obstacle to our ever confirming that empirically - identifying conscious content relies on Executive Attentional report. Triangulating the capacity limitations of attention, consciousness, and working memory strengthens this case for consciousness without attention, and suggests that cognition must work something like my "Witches' Hat Model," on which con tent can become conscious outside of Executive Attention or working memory. I conclude with some reflections on the implications of my arguments for the discourse on Q, and for other discourses such as the ontologies of attention and consciousness, theories of consciousness, some other cognitive concepts, and ethical considerations in humans, animals, and machines. A conclusive answer to Q continue s to elude us. It may perhaps be an ultimately insoluble conundrum. But it is the very essence of humanity to seek an answer, and in so doing, to improve our understanding of our own nature : "The proper study of mankind is man."1 online resource (436 pages

EBook proceedings of the ESERA 2011 conference : science learning and citizenship

This ebook contains fourteen parts according to the strands of the ESERA 2011 conference. Each part is co-edited by one or two persons, most of them were strand chairs. All papers in this ebook correspond to accepted communications during the ESERA conference that were reviewed by two referees. Moreover the co-editors carried out a global reviewing of the papers.ESERA - European Science Education Research Associatio