Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology

Looks can be deceiving: Investigating change blindness in an online setting.
In the real world, we often fail to notice changes in our environment. In some cases, such as not noticing a car moving into our lane, the results can be catastrophic. This so-called change blindness has been seen experimentally both through failing to notice changes to images on-screen as well as failing to notice a change in other people’s identity. However, less is known regarding how change blindness manifests in virtual settings varying in visual clutter or with varying types of interaction with someone prior to the change. Across two studies (n = 134), participants engaged in an online video chat with a confederate, with two levels of visual clutter (none, a lot) and three levels of interaction (none, light conversations about weather/TV, deeper conversations about goals/greatest regrets). We found no modulation of change blindness rates across perceptual clutter. Curiously, we found a large discrepancy in change blindness rates in Experiment 1 (79%; 52/66) versus Experiment 2 (16%; 11/68) that we explored, leading to some evidence that increasing the level of interaction led to greater change blindness rates, but only for pairs who identified as belonging to different ethnicities. Taken together, our work suggests that we may pay attention to people differently in virtual settings compared to in-person, that in-group and out-group biases may have an effect on change blindness rates, and that while clutter does not seem to affect change blindness rates, one’s level of interaction just might. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Set size and the orthographic/phonological neighbourhood size effect in serial recognition: The importance of randomization.
The neighbourhood size effect refers to the finding of better memory for words with more orthographic/phonological neighbours than otherwise comparable words with fewer neighbours. Although many studies have replicated this result with serial recall, only one has used serial recognition. Greeno et al. (2022) found no neighbourhood size effect when a large stimulus pool was used and a reverse effect—better performance for small neighbourhood words—when a small stimulus pool was used. We reexamined these results but made two methodological changes. First, for the large pool, we randomly generated lists for each subject rather than creating one set of lists that all subjects experienced. Second, for the small pool, we randomly generated a small pool for each subject rather than using one small pool for all subjects. In both cases, we observed a neighbourhood size effect consistent with results from the serial recall literature. Implications for methodology and theoretical accounts of both the neighbourhood size effect and serial recognition are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Facial emotional congruence in healthy adults and patients suffering from a psychiatric or neurological disorder.
The production of facial emotions is an important conveyor of social communication. The present review of the literature concerns the congruence of facial emotions, that is the facial muscular activation that takes place in response to the emotional facial expression perceived in others. Although scientific interest in facial emotions has increased exponentially in the last few years, the production of facial emotions is still underexplored as compared to emotional perception. Several studies, mainly conducted with electromyography, have shown that facial emotional congruence exists in a robust way, largely for anger and happiness. While facial emotional congruence was long considered as innate and automatic, recent work has demonstrated that several sociocultural factors may influence or reduce this ability, challenging its automaticity. From a neuroanatomical point of view, studies have clearly highlighted the implication of mirror neurons but our knowledge is still limited because of the few methodologies assessing this system and the lack of homogeneity between the protocols used. Many explanatory, and probably not mutually exclusive, theories of emotional facial congruence have been put forward. In experimental neuropsychology, emotional facial congruence has seldom been investigated but the few available results suggest an impairment in psychiatric and neurological patients. In view of the important role of emotional facial productions in human relations and social interactions, new methods for easy clinical assessment need to be designed for the diagnosis and the cognitive care of these abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Face processing in ADHD: A review of the N170 event-related potential.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with deficits in social functioning, including peer difficulties and poor relationship quality. Little is known, however, about the integrity of foundational sociocognitive abilities that support interpersonal interactions in ADHD. Face processing—a fundamental component of social cognition—has been a popular topic of recent investigations in this area. Researchers have attempted to delineate face processing mechanisms in ADHD to elucidate social deficits often seen in the disorder. Investigating the N170 event-related potential, a neural marker of face processing, has been a popular approach in this endeavour. Here, we present two accounts that offer competing views of how social deficits might arise in those with ADHD. Next, we systematically review and synthesise the literature on the N170 in ADHD to identify whether atypicalities in sociocognitive domains like face processing occur in this patient population. Gaps in the literature are identified and concrete solutions are offered to improve future research in this area. We end by discussing immediate implications for treatment approaches designed to address widely observed social deficits in individuals with ADHD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Active or passive? Investigating different types of cognitive fatigue.
Research in cognitive fatigue has identified the negative impact that cognitive exertion can have on subsequent task performance. An underexamined question is whether there are different types of fatigue, particularly: active fatigue, similar to cognitive fatigue, and passive fatigue, similar to boredom. This online study examined whether active and passive fatigue can be elicited and differentiated using computerized cognitive tasks. We compared subjective and behavioural outcomes to look for distinctions between fatigue types in response to different cognitive tasks. A sample of 122 participants (53% male; age 30.04 ± 3.50 years) rated their subjective state before and after one of three 8-min cognitive task conditions (TloadDback, Mackworth Clock, Documentary/Control). Next, participants also completed a second cognitive task (Flanker task). The task expected to be actively fatiguing (TloadDback) was rated the most difficult, effortful, and mentally and temporally demanding. The task expected to be passively fatiguing (Mackworth Clock) had the greatest increases in subjective fatigue, boredom, and sleepiness, and the greatest decrease in “want-to” motivation. There were no differences between conditions for Flanker performance. We showed that different fatigue types could be elicited using different computerized cognitive tasks. The passively fatiguing task had the most negative influence on subjective fatigue and motivation, suggesting a nonengaging or “boringly fatiguing” task induces a more detrimental type of fatigue. A key next step is to examine longer cognitive tasks to determine whether effects from different fatigue types become more prominent with time-on-task. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale - Vol 78, Iss 1