The Role of Explicit Categorization in the Implicit Association Test

The present study investigated how task-irrelevant attributes of a stimulus affected responses in a multi-attribute version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Experiment 1, participants categorized images of Black and White male and female individuals on the basis of either race or gender. Both the race and gender of the individuals affected task performance regardless of which attribute was currently relevant to performing the task, yielding the IAT effects on both attributes. However, the influences of a task-irrelevant attribute depended on whether the taskrelevant attribute was categorized compatibly or incompatibly with the underlying implicit biases. These results suggest that individuals are still categorized implicitly based on taskirrelevant social attributes and that the explicit categorization required in the standard IAT has a considerable impact on implicit social biases. Experiment 2 considered a third, non-social attribute (the color of the picture frame) and reproduced task-irrelevant IAT effects and their dependence on explicit categorization. However, Experiments 3 and 4 suggested that the taskirrelevant IAT effects based on social attributes are determined by whether the task-relevant attribute is a social or non-social attribute. The results raise fundamental questions about the basic assumptions underpinning the interpretations of the results from the IAT

What Determines a Task-Switch Cost After Selectively Inhibiting a Response?

The present study was supported in part by the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/R005613/1). For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising. Raw experimental data and supplemental materials are available for reanalysis purposes from the Open Science Framework project page (https://osf.io/c8hw7/) or from UK Data ServicePreprin

Threat captures attention but does not affect learning of contextual regularities

Some of the stimulus features that guide visual attention are abstract properties of objects such as potential threat to one's survival, whereas others are complex configurations such as visual contexts that are learned through past experiences. The present study investigated the two functions that guide visual attention, threat detection and learning of contextual regularities, in visual search. Search arrays contained images of threat and non-threat objects, and their locations were fixed on some trials but random on other trials. Although they were irrelevant to the visual search task, threat objects facilitated attention capture and impaired attention disengagement. Search time improved for fixed configurations more than for random configurations, reflecting learning of visual contexts. Nevertheless, threat detection had little influence on learning of the contextual regularities. The results suggest that factors guiding visual attention are different from factors that influence learning to guide visual attention

Pushing Typists Back on the Learning Curve: Memory Chunking in the Hierarchical Control of Skilled Typewriting

Hierarchical control of skilled performance depends on the ability of higher level control to process several lower level units as a single chunk. The present study investigated the development of hierarchical control of skilled typewriting, focusing on the process of memory chunking. In the first 3 experiments, skilled typists typed words or nonwords under concurrent memory load. Memory chunks developed and consolidated into long-term memory when the same typing materials were repeated in 6 consecutive trials, but chunks did not develop when repetitions were spaced. However, when concurrent memory load was removed during training, memory chunks developed more efficiently with longer lags between repetitions than shorter lags. From these results, it is proposed that memory chunking requires 2 representations of the same letter string to be maintained simultaneously in short-term memory: 1 representation from the current trial, and the other from an earlier trial that is either retained from the immediately preceding trial or retrieved from long-term memory (i.e., study state retrieval)

Pushing typists back on the learning curve: Revealing chunking in skilled typewriting.

Theories of skilled performance propose that highly trained skills involve hierarchically structured control processes. The present study examined and demonstrated hierarchical control at several levels of processing in skilled typewriting. In the first two experiments, we scrambled the order of letters in words to prevent skilled typists from chunking letters, and compared typing words and scrambled words. Experiment 1 manipulated stimulus quality to reveal chunking in perception, and Experiment 2 manip-ulated concurrent memory load to reveal chunking in short-term memory (STM). Both experiments manipulated the number of letters in words and nonwords to reveal chunking in motor planning. In the next two experiments, we degraded typing skill by altering the usual haptic feedback by using a laser-projection keyboard, so that typists had to monitor keystrokes. Neither the number of motor chunks (Experiment 3) nor the number of STM items (Experiment 4) was influenced by the manipulation. The results indicate that the utilization of hierarchical control depends on whether the input allows chunking but not on whether the output is generated automatically. We consider the role of automaticity in hierarchical control of skilled performance

Is Your Color My Color? Dividing the Labor of the Stroop Task between Co-actors

Performing a task with other actors involves two opposing forces, division of labor between co-acting individuals and integration of divided parts of the task into a shared mental representation (co-representation). Previous studies have focused primarily on the integration of task representations and limited attention has paid to the division of labor. The present study devised a test of the integration and the division in a joint task setting. A joint version of the Stroop task was developed, in which pairs of actors were assigned different sets of target colors. If the actors integrate their co-actor’s task, the colors assigned to their co-actor should be represented as if they were the actor’s own target colors; the Stroop effect should be as large when distractor color words denote their co-actor’s target colors as when these words denote the actor’s own target colors. If the actors divide the labor of the Stroop task, the colors assigned to their partner should be represented as non-target colors; the Stroop effect should be smaller when the distractor color words denote the co-actor’s target colors than when these words denote the actor’s own target colors. The results of response time did not provide clear support for either position, while those of response accuracy supported the division of labor. Possible cognitive mechanisms that support the division of labor and the integration of task representation are discussed

Modes of Spatial Coding in the Simon Task

Many models of the Simon effect assume that categorical spatial representations underlie the phenomenon. The present study tested this assumption explicitly in two experiments, both of which involved eight possible spatial positions of imperative stimuli arranged horizontally on the screen. In Experiment 1, the eight stimulus locations were marked with eight square boxes that appeared at the same time during a trial. Results showed gradually increasing Simon effects from the central locations to the outer locations. In Experiment 2, the eight stimulus locations consisted of a combination of three frames of spatial reference (hemispace, hemifield, and position relative to the fixation), with each frame appearing in different timings. In contrast to Experiment 1, results showed an oscillating pattern of the Simon effect across the horizontal positions. These findings are discussed in terms of grouping factors involved in the Simon task. The locations seem to be coded as a single continuous dimension when all are visible at once as in Experiment 1, but they are represented as a combination of the lateral categories (“left” vs. “right”) with multiple frames of reference when the reference frames are presented successively as in Experiment 2

Top-Down Contributions to Attention Shifting and Disengagement: A Template Model of Visual Attention

Two separate systems are involved in the control of spatial attention; one that is driven by a goal, and the other that is driven by stimuli. While the goal- and stimulus-driven systems follow different general principles, they also interplay with each other. However, the mechanism by which the goal-driven system influences the stimulus-driven system is still debated. The present study examined top-down contributions to two components of attention orienting, shifting and disengagement, with an experimental paradigm in which participants held a visual item in short-term memory (STM) and performed a prosaccade task with a manipulation of the gap between fixation offset and target onset. Four experiments showed that the STM content accelerated shifting and impaired disengagement, but the influence on disengagement depended on the utility of STM in guiding attention toward the target. Thus, the use of STM was strategic. Computational models of visual attention were fitted to the experimental data, which suggested that the top-down contributions to shifting was more prominent than those to disengagement. The results indicate that the current modeling framework was particularly useful when examining the contributions of theoretical constructs for the control of visual attention, but it also suggests limitations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved

Action-Effect Sharing Induces Task-Set Sharing in Joint Task Switching

A central issue in the study of joint task performance has been one of whether co-acting individuals perform their partner’s part of the task as if it were their own. The present study addressed this issue by using joint task switching. A pair of actors shared two tasks that were presented in a random order, whereby the relevant task and actor were cued on each trial. Responses produced action effects that were either shared or separate between co-actors. When co-actors produced separate action effects, switch costs were obtained within the same actor (i.e., when the same actor performed consecutive trials) but not between co-actors (when different actors performed consecutive trials), implying that actors did not perform their co-actor’s part. When the same action effects were shared between co-actors, however, switch costs were also obtained between co-actors, implying that actors did perform their co-actor’s part. The results indicated that shared action effects induce task-set sharing between co-acting individuals