Cheetah Experimental Platform Web 1.0: Cleaning Pupillary Data

Recently, researchers started using cognitive load in various settings, e.g., educational psychology, cognitive load theory, or human-computer interaction. Cognitive load characterizes a tasks' demand on the limited information processing capacity of the brain. The widespread adoption of eye-tracking devices led to increased attention for objectively measuring cognitive load via pupil dilation. However, this approach requires a standardized data processing routine to reliably measure cognitive load. This technical report presents CEP-Web, an open source platform to providing state of the art data processing routines for cleaning pupillary data combined with a graphical user interface, enabling the management of studies and subjects. Future developments will include the support for analyzing the cleaned data as well as support for Task-Evoked Pupillary Response (TEPR) studies

Lost in Time and Space: States of High Arousal Disrupt Implicit Acquisition of Spatial and Sequential Context Information

Biased cognition during high arousal states is a relevant phenomenon in a variety of topics: from the development of post-traumatic stress disorders or stress-triggered addictive behaviors to forensic considerations regarding crimes of passion. Recent evidence indicates that arousal modulates the engagement of a hippocampus-based “cognitive” system in favor of a striatum-based “habit” system in learning and memory, promoting a switch from flexible, contextualized to more rigid, reflexive responses. Existing findings appear inconsistent, therefore it is unclear whether and which type of context processing is disrupted by enhanced arousal. In this behavioral study, we investigated such arousal-triggered cognitive-state shifts in human subjects. We validated an arousal induction procedure (three experimental conditions: violent scene, erotic scene, neutral control scene) using pupillometry (Preliminary Experiment, n = 13) and randomly administered this method to healthy young adults to examine whether high arousal states affect performance in two core domains of contextual processing, the acquisition of spatial (spatial discrimination paradigm; Experiment 1, n = 66) and sequence information (learned irrelevance paradigm; Experiment 2, n = 84). In both paradigms, spatial location and sequences were encoded incidentally and both displacements when retrieving spatial position as well as the predictability of the target by a cue in sequence learning changed stepwise. Results showed that both implicit spatial and sequence learning were disrupted during high arousal states, regardless of valence. Compared to the control group, participants in the arousal conditions showed impaired discrimination of spatial positions and abolished learning of associative sequences. Furthermore, Bayesian analyses revealed evidence against the null models. In line with recent models of stress effects on cognition, both experiments provide evidence for decreased engagement of flexible, cognitive systems supporting encoding of context information in active cognition during acute arousal, promoting reduced sensitivity for contextual details. We argue that arousal fosters cognitive adaptation towards less demanding, more present-oriented information processing, which prioritizes a current behavioral response set at the cost of contextual cues. This transient state of behavioral perseverance might reduce reliance on context information in unpredictable environments and thus represent an adaptive response in certain situations

Clothes make the leader! How leaders can use attire to impact followers' perceptions of charisma and approval

Abstract Sneakers at a product launch, a leather jacket when heads of state meet, sunglasses at a formal reception. While popular media relishes leaders who catch the eye by way of such distinctive fashion, we know little about how this salient daily practice of dress specifically affects perceptions of leaders in their daily business. Addressing this gap, we investigated how dress impacts perceptions and approval of a leader. Firstly, we found formal attire to lead to ascriptions of prototypicality but not charisma (Study 1). Secondly, leaders' charisma and approval were higher when a person's clothing style contrasted their organization's culture (Study 2). Lastly, we replicated the impact of informal clothing on both leader approval and charisma in a sample of CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies (Studies 3 and 4). Findings lend support to the notion that leaders can manipulate their style of attire to actively shape their followers' impressions of themselves

Entrepreneurial leadership: An experimental approach investigating the influence of eye contact on motivation

Small, new firms lack the resources of most larger, established firms, which makes effectively motivating employees challenging. Charismatic leadership is effective in increasing the performance of both groups and entire organizations. Specifically, the impact of charismatic leadership practices on followers stems from nonverbal communication and construed immediacy. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of an entrepreneurial leader’s eye contact and smiling on followers’ objective motivation in an experimental leadership situation. A sample of 129 young adults was tested in a 2×2 (nonverbal tactics: high eye contact/low eye contact × high smile/low smile) experimental design. Motivation was measured by objective performance in a motoric reaction time task. The conditions were operationalized by manipulating gaze behavior and facial expressions of the leader in a staged instructional video, showing a start-up entrepreneur attempting to enhance the performance of his employees as part of a competitive comparison. Regardless of whether the leader smiled or not, participants showed faster responses and therefore performed more effectively when the leader maintained high eye contact.These findings support the hypothesis that increased eye contact is a strong nonverbal signal, which in the immediate context of leader-follower interactions, stimulates an increase in performance. In fact, eye contact could induce an increased level of motivational arousal in followers, resulting in improved confidence and self-reference when taking instructions. This study advances the existing research on learnable skills that can be used to appear more charismatic and thus potentially increasing follower performance by adopting simple nonverbal rules in communication behavior. This offers an invaluable and low-cost tool for leaders founding a start-up business

Towards Quantum-Safe VPNs and Internet

Estimating that in 10 years time quantum computers capable of breaking public-key cryptography currently considered safe could exist, this threat is already eminent for information that require secrecy for more than 10 years. Considering the time required to standardize, implement and update existing networks signifies the urgency of adopting quantum-safe cryptography. In this work, we investigate the trade-off between network and CPU overhead and the security levels defined by NIST. To do so, we integrate adapted OpenSSL libraries into OpenVPN, and perform experiments on a large variety of quantum-safe algorithms for respectively TLS versions 1.2 and 1.3 using OpenVPN and HTTPS independently. We describe the difficulties we encounter with the integration and we report the experimental performance results, comparing setting up the quantum-safe connection with setting up the connection without additional post-quantum cryptography

Overcoming automaticity through meditation

Objectives Meditation practice has recently moved into applied research to improve cognitive functions. However, it is a multifaceted practice, with focused attention meditation relying on a sharp focus, and open monitoring meditation relying on a diffuse awareness. This study aims to assess the effects of differential alterations of cognition following distinct meditative training and focuses on practitioners’ tendency to fall victim to erroneous automaticity in responding when faced with cognitive conflict. Methods Seventy-three individuals were randomly assigned to one of three intervention groups (internally focused attention meditation, externally focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation) or a wait list control group. The meditation groups were trained over the course of 4 weeks and eight sessions. Changes in proneness to erroneous automatic responding were tested using two cognitive performance tasks that induce learned or instructed automaticity (Dot Pattern Expectancy paradigm, NEXT-paradigm). Results Overall, meditation training generally improved overcoming learned automaticity (rs?=?.26–.36, ps?=?.002–.031) but not instructed automaticity compared to the control condition. Furthermore, data suggest open monitoring outperformed focused attention in overcoming learned automaticity in one task (rs?=?.31–.56, ps?=?.001–.009). Conclusions Our results provide evidence for meditative training to facilitate practitioners’ ability to select the most appropriate course of action against overlearned habits in light of the peculiarities of their current situation. Open monitoring meditation is a particularly promising avenue for reducing one’s liability to erroneous habits

Who fits into the digital workplace? mapping digital self-efficacy and agility onto psychological traits

Abstract: Today’s rapidly changing and volatile markets demand a novel set of skills from organizations and employees that allows them to agilely adapt to and surmount the ever-evolving challenges posed by the ongoing development of digital technologies and changes in market conditions. Previous research conducted on structured workplaces using traditional industrialist paradigms had established an ideal composition of employee traits. However, today’s contrasting fast-paced environments may have made those profiles obsolete, prompting the need to identify a profile of personalities and interests that enables organizations to assemble a workforce high in digital self-efficacy, which fundamentally drives organizations’ agility. We proposed and evaluated such a model by conducting two studies at international (Study 1, N = 309) and French (Study 2, N = 1,025) publicly traded organizations. The results indicate the personality dimensions openness to experience and emotional stability and investigative and realistic vocational interests are predispositions for the development of digital self-efficacy. Furthermore, we found corroborative evidence for digital self-efficacy to facilitate workforce agility. These findings offer novel insights into those individual psychological traits that foster an agile workforce and make it well-equipped to face the challenges of rapidly changing digital business environments today and in the future