Magic Curiosity Arousing Tricks (MagicCATs): a novel stimulus collection to induce epistemic emotions

There has been considerable interest in empirical research on epistemic emotions, i.e. emotions related to knowledge-generating qualities of cognitive tasks and activities such as curiosity, interest, and surprise. One big challenge when studying epistemic emotions is systematically inducting these emotions in restricted experimental settings. The current study created a novel stimulus set called Magic Curiosity Arousing Tricks (MagicCATs): a collection of 166 short magic trick video clips that aim to induce a variety of epistemic emotions. MagicCATs are available for research, and can be used in a variety of ways to examine epistemic emotions. Rating data also supports that the magic tricks elicit a variety of epistemic emotions with sufficient inter-stimulus variability, demonstrating good psychometric properties for their use in psychological experiments

When the solution is on the doorstep: better solving performance, but diminished Aha! experience for chess experts on the mutilated checkerboard problem

Insight problems are difficult because the initially activated knowledge hinders successful solving. The crucial information needed for a solution is often so far removed that gaining access to it through restructuring leads to the subjective experience of “Aha!”. Although this assumption is shared bymost insight theories, there is little empirical evidence for the connection between the necessity ofrestructuring an incorrect problem representation and the Aha! experience. Here, we demonstrate a rare case where previous knowledge facilitates the solving of insight problems but reduces the accompanying Aha! experience. Chess players were more successful than non-chess players at solving the mutilated checkerboard insight problem, which requires retrieval of chess-related informationabout the color of the squares. Their success came at a price, since they reported a diminished Aha! experience compared to controls. Chess players’ problem-solving ability was confined to that particular problem, since they struggled to a similar degree to non-chess players to solve another insight problem (the eight-coin problem), which does not require chess-related information for a solution. Here, chess players and non-chess players experienced the same degree of insight

Chorea-acanthocytosis: genetic linkage to chromosome 9q21

Chorea-acanthocytosis (CHAC) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by progressive neurodegeneration and unusual red-cell morphology (acanthocytosis), with onset in the third to fifth decade of life. Neurological impairment with acanthocytosis (neuroacanthocytosis) also is seen in abetalipoproteinemia and X-linked McLeod syndrome. Whereas the molecular etiology of McLeod syndrome has been defined (Ho et al. 1994), that of CHAC is still unknown. In the absence of cytogenetic rearrangements, we initiated a genomewide scan for linkage in 11 families, segregating for CHAC, who are of diverse geographical origin. We report here that the disease is linked, in all families, to a 6-cM region of chromosome 9q21 that is flanked by the recombinant markers GATA89a11 and D9S1843. A maximum two-point LOD score of 7.1 (\u398 = .00) for D9S1867 was achieved, and the linked region has been confirmed by homozygosity-by-descent, in offspring from inbred families. These findings provide strong evidence for the involvement of a single locus for CHAC and are the first step in positional cloning of the disease gene

Artificial creativity augmentation

Creativity has been associated with multifarious descriptions whereby one exemplary common definition depicts creativity as the generation of ideas that are perceived as both novel and useful within a certain social context. In the face of adversarial conditions taking the form of global societal challenges from climate change over AI risks to technological unemployment, this paper motivates future research on artificial creativity augmentation (ACA) to indirectly support the generation of requisite defense strategies and solutions. This novel term is of ambiguous nature since it subsumes two research directions: (1) artificially augmenting human creativity, but also (2) augmenting artificial creativity. In this paper, we examine and extend recent creativity research findings from psychology and cognitive neuroscience to identify potential indications on how to work towards (1). Moreover, we briefly analyze how research on (1) could possibly inform progress towards (2). Overall, while human enhancement but also the implementation of powerful AI are often perceived as ethically controversial, future ACA research could even appear socially desirable