Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology

Inverse reference in adults-elementary arithmetic.
Mauro, LeFevre, and Morris (2003) and Campbell (2008) manipulated problem format to assess university students' simple division and subtraction. Large division problems (dividend > 25; e.g., 42 ÷ 6 = _) and large subtraction problems (minuend > 10; e.g., 13 − 6 = _), but not small problems, were solved more quickly when presented in inverse operation format (e.g., 6 × _ = 42 for division; 6 + _ = 13 for subtraction). They concluded that adults often solve large simple division and subtraction problems by reference to the inverse operation but rely on direct memory retrieval for smaller problems. Their findings, however, might have resulted from unequal practice or mixing of the inverse operations. Here, in Experiment 1 (division) and Experiment 2 (subtraction) normal and inverse formats received equal practice and only one operation was practiced (i.e., division or subtraction). Large divisions and subtractions were solved substantially faster when presented in inverse format, but there was also evidence that subtraction ties (e.g., 12 − 6 = 6) and small subtractions (minuend ≤10) benefited from inverse format. The results affirm that inverse reference is an important element in adult's performance of elementary subtraction and division. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Reflections on blindsight: Neuroimaging and behavioural explorations clarify a case of reversed localisation in the blind field of a patient with hemianopia.
Blindsight refers to residual visual abilities of patients with primary visual cortex lesions. Most of this research uses single case studies, most famously patient GY. We examined a patient (DC) after surgical resection of V1 who demonstrated robust but reversed blind field target localisation, mislocalising midline blind field targets to the periphery and vice versa. This pattern was reliable across multiple sessions and was not because of extraocular light scatter. We then used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine neural responses to blind field motion stimuli with no evidence of motion-selective activation in DC's extrastriate cortex in the damaged hemisphere, in stark contrast to GY who showed robust bilateral activation in response to blind field stimuli. This suggests that DC's blind field performance may not represent true blindsight. Follow-up testing with the target—background contrast reversed (i.e., black targets/white background), eliminated DC's reversed localisation, strongly suggesting that she was employing an unusual decision criterion based on intraocular light scatter. DC's failure to demonstrate true blindsight may be related to the age at which she acquired her lesion—much later in life than GY. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Temporal judgments of immediate and delayed consequences of self-initiated movements.
This study was designed to examine the impact of a delay between a self-initiated movement and a subsequent auditory event on temporal judgements of movement or sound onset. Participants watched a red dot move in a clockwise direction around a circle displayed on a computer screen and reported when they had pressed the spacebar or heard a tone. In other conditions, the movement and tone both occurred. Specifically, the tone followed the button press either immediately or after delays of 100, 250, or 400 ms. On some trial blocks, participants were asked to judge the time of the button press and on other blocks the time of the tone. When the tone occurred alone, participants' judgements were accurate. When the movement occurred alone participants exhibited an anticipatory bias. Although a delayed tone had a modest impact on judgements movement initiation, button press judgements were anticipatory in all tone delay conditions. Thusly temporal judgements associated with event binding are affected more by voluntary action than the auditory consequences of that action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Does it matter where we meet? The role of emotional context in evaluative first impressions.
We investigated how emotionality of visual background context influenced perceptual ratings of faces. In two experiments participants rated how positive or negative a face, with a neutral expression (Experiment 1), or unambiguous emotional expression (happy/angry; Experiment 2), appeared when viewed overlaid onto positive, negative, or neutral background context scenes. Faces viewed in a positive context were rated as appearing more positive than when in a neutral or negative context, and faces in negative contexts were rated more negative than when in a positive or neutral context, regardless of the emotional expression portrayed. Notably, congruency of valence in face expression and background context significantly influenced face ratings. These findings suggest that human judgements of faces are relative, and significantly influenced by contextual factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
More data-driven processing at retrieval reduces age-related memory deficits.
The environmental support hypothesis postulates that it may be possible to reduce older adults' deficits in episodic memory by providing environmental support at the encoding and/or retrieval phases. To examine the validity of this hypothesis, we varied the amount of retrieval support by manipulating data-driven processes. Young and older adults performed a word-stem cued recall task under a low data-driven condition (LDDC) in which the retrieval cue comprised 3 letters, and a higher data-driven condition (HDDC) in which the cue comprised 4 letters. Older adults benefitted more than younger adults from the additional support. Older adults exhibited a large deficit relative to younger adults in the LDDC condition but no age differences were found in the HDDC condition. These findings demonstrate that age-related memory deficits can be reduced by increasing the environmental support at retrieval associated with the data-driven component of retrieval processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Attentional capture by working memory contents.
There has been controversy on whether working memory (WM) contents automatically guide attention. The present study tried to replicate the effect of WM-based attentional capture using an adaption of Downing's (2000) paradigm, in which WM and attentional capture were combined. Subjects were presented with an attention display containing two objects, one of which could be precued by a matching item being held in WM. As measured by a probe discrimination task, the memory-matching object had a privileged status to capture attention regardless of the stimulus onset asynchronies between the memory cue and the attention display, even when there was absolutely no benefit for subjects to bias attention in favour of the memory match. These results suggest that WM contents guide attention in an involuntary manner. The implications of current findings for understanding of WM effects on visual selection are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
The target of task switching.
Task switching involves processing target stimuli in accordance with a frequently changing series of tasks. An outstanding issue is whether this processing is tailored to the perceptual or categorical representation of targets. To address this issue, the authors compared switch costs in responding to targets that were perceptually distinct (words and images) but associated with the same categories (colors and shapes). In four experiments that varied the degree to which words and images were mixed together, no differences in switch costs were observed. These results support the idea that categorical target representations are central to task switching. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Émotion et cognition incarnée: La dimension motrice des réponses verbales «oui» et «non». / Emotion and incarnated cognition: The driving dimension of the verbal answers “yes” and “no”.
Theories of embodied cognition make the hypothesis that all cognitive operations, including high-level ones, are fundamentally rooted in the current state of the body and in the sensory-motor systems of the brain. Related experimental work has been concerned solely with the link between automatic cognitive processes and motor responses. This link has never been supposed to result from the production of verbal responses, such as the responses “yes” and “no.” However, a great many tasks require a verbal response along with a motor response. In this study, we have demonstrated that cognitive and automatic evaluation of the valence of words involves a close link with the motor responses of “pull” and “push”, as well as the verbal responses “yes” and “no” when the task requires answering “yes” or “no” whether there is the letter “a” in a word. Moreover, the results obtained show that the verbal responses “yes” and “no” interact with the motor responses of “pull” and “push”. This interaction supports the idea that positive and negative verbal responses present a motor component, as contemplated in embodied cognition theories (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Scorolli & Borghi, 2007; Barsalou, 2008). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Les nuages sont un troupeau de moutons: À quel âge les enfants comprennent-ils qu'il n'y pas de moutons dans le ciel? / The clouds are a herd of sheep: At which age do children understand that they are not sheep in the sky?
This study examined the evolution of metaphor understanding in 4- to 7-year-old children. In Experiment 1, children listened to metaphoric and literal statements that were preceded by a context, and then had to choose among three proposed interpretations (literal, contextual, and correct for metaphors; one correct and two erroneous for literal statements), which one corresponded to the statement. Results showed that, between 4 and 7, children improved at choosing the correct interpretation only for metaphors, and that they frequently chose contextual interpretations. The metaphor-specific improvement might be explained in terms of a gain in cognitive flexibility, since for these statements, three acceptable interpretations were proposed compared to only one for literal statements. In Experiment 2, for all statements, children had to choose between three proposed interpretations, one correct and two erroneous. The difference between metaphors and literal statements was replicated. Metaphor understanding thus evolves between 4 and 7; depending on their age, children use the context or perform a semantic analysis of the words composing the statements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale - Vol 64, Iss 2