Experimental Psychology

Thought Speed Induces Risk Taking

by Jesse Chandler

To judge a book by its weight you need to know its content: Knowledge moderates the use of embodied weight cues

by Jesse Chandler

Bad News for Conservatives? Moral Judgments and the 'Dark Triad'Personality Traits: A Correlational Study

by Marcus Arvan

forthcoming in Neuroethics

This study examined correlations between moral value judgments on a 17-item Moral Intuition Survey (MIS), and... more This study examined correlations between moral value judgments on a 17-item Moral Intuition Survey (MIS), and participant scores on the Short-D3 “Dark Triad” Personality Inventory – a measure of three related “dark and socially destructive” personality traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy. 567 participants (302 male, 257 female, 2 transgendered; median age 28) were recruited online through Amazon Mechanical Turk and Yale Experiment Month web advertisements. Different responses to MIS items were initially hypothesized to be “conservative” or “liberal” in line with traditional public divides. Our demographic data confirmed all of these hypothesized categorizations. We then tested two broad, exploratory hypotheses: (H1) the hypothesis that there would be “many” significant correlations between conservative MIS judgments and the Dark Triad, and (H2) the hypothesis that there would be no significant correlations between liberal MIS judgments and Machiavellianism or Psychopathy, but “some” significant correlations between liberal MIS judgments and Narcissism. Because our hypotheses were exploratory and we ran a large number of statistical tests (62 total), we utilized a Bonferroni Correction to set a very high threshold for significance (p=.0008). Our results broadly supported our two hypotheses. We found eleven significant correlations between conservative MIS judgments and the Dark Triad – all at significance level of p<.00001 – and no significant correlations between liberal MIS judgments and the Dark Triad. We believe that these results raise provocative moral questions about the personality bases of moral judgments. In particular, we propose that because the Short-D3 measures three “dark and antisocial” personality traits, our results raise some prima facie worries about the moral justification of some conservative moral judgments.

What does being initiated severely into a group do? The role of rewards

by Caroline Kamau

Kamau, C. (2012)

The fate of redundant cues during blocking and a simple discrimination

by Mark Haselgrove

In each of three experiments animals received blocking, A+ AX+, in which food was always presented after one stimulus,... more In each of three experiments animals received blocking, A+ AX+, in which food was always presented after one stimulus, A, that was occasionally accompanied by another stimulus, X. They also received a simple discrimination, AX+ BX-, in which the presence and absence of food was signaled by two compounds that contained one unique cue, A or B, and one common cue, X. In each of these designs, X can be said to be redundant relative to A as a signal for food. Test trials at the end of training revealed that responding during X was stronger after blocking than after the simple discrimination. These results contradict predictions from theories of learning that assume changes in associative strength of a stimulus are determined by a global error term based on the outcome predicted by all the stimuli that are present for a conditioning trial. The results are interpreted, instead, by assuming either that animals store a memory of every trial to which they have been exposed, or that learning is governed by an error term based on the significance of individual stimuli.

Simor P., Pajkossy P., Horváth K., Bódizs R.: Impaired executive functions in subjects with frequent nightmares as reflected by performance in different neuropsychological tasks

by Klára Horváth

Manuel d'études pratiques de psychologie:(1, Pratique de la recherche)

by Guy Tiberghien

El Experimento [The experiment]

by German Gutierrez

Gutiérrez, G. & Buriticá, J. (2011). El experimento. En P. Páramo (Ed.), Metodología de la Investigación en Ciencias Sociales. Bogotá: Universidad Piloto de Colombia.

Exploring workload and attention measurements with uLog mouse data

by annemiek van Drunen

I can't get no (epistemic) satisfaction: Why the hard problem of consciousness entails a hard problem of explanation

by Brian Earp

Earp, B. D. (2012). I can’t get no (epistemic) satisfaction: Why the hard problem of consciousness entails a hard problem of explanation. Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences, in press.

Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers’ (1995) assertion that there is a “hard problem of consciousness”... more Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers’ (1995) assertion that there is a “hard problem of consciousness” worth solving in the philosophy of mind. In this paper I defend Chalmers against Dennett on this point: I argue that there is a hard problem of consciousness, that it is distinct in kind from the so-called easy problems, and that it is vital for the sake of honest and productive research in the cognitive sciences to be clear about the difference. But I have my own rebuke for Chalmers on the point of explanation. Chalmers (1995, 1996) proposes to “solve” the hard problem of consciousness by positing qualia as fundamental features of the universe, alongside such ontological basics as mass and space-time. But this is an inadequate solution: to posit, I will urge, is not to explain. To bolster this view, I borrow from an account of explanation by which it must provide “epistemic satisfaction” to be considered successful (Rowlands, 2001; Campbell, 2009), and show that Chalmers’ proposal fails on this account. I conclude that research in the science of consciousness cannot move forward without greater conceptual clarity in the field.

Matlab & Psychtoolbox Intro (German)

by Jochen Laubrock

Use link below ("View on bit.ly") for latest version

Matlab and Psychophysics Toolbox Introduction (in German), extended version (2009, past version was 2007)
aimed... more Matlab and Psychophysics Toolbox Introduction (in German), extended version (2009, past version was 2007)
aimed at students, not experts

Not a paper but class material; put in this section because academia.edu provides nicer stats for papers than for teaching material.

Einführung in Matlab und die Psychophysics Toolbox.

Matlab & Psychtoolbox Intro (German)

by Jochen Laubrock

Use link below ("View on bit.ly") for latest version

Matlab and Psychophysics Toolbox Introduction (in German), extended version (2009, past version was 2007)
aimed... more Matlab and Psychophysics Toolbox Introduction (in German), extended version (2009, past version was 2007)
aimed at students, not experts

Not a paper but class material; put in this section because academia.edu provides nicer stats for papers than for teaching material.

Einführung in Matlab und die Psychophysics Toolbox.

Effects of Wearing Shoes on Balance

by Amanda Studebaker

Attention capture by faces and body parts

by Tarik N. Mohamed

Tarik N. Mohamed, Markus F. Neumann, and Stefan R. Schweinberger
Germany. Poster presented at TeaP in Jena, 2009

Recently, stronger attention capture was reported for faces and body parts when compared to other objects. In a... more Recently, stronger attention capture was reported for faces and body parts when compared to other objects. In a modified visual search paradigm we presented either faces or body parts together with five different object categories (birds, fruit, furniture, houses, mobile phones) in a circular array. Participants decided whether a randomly chosen target (surrounded by a green frame) belonged to a previously presented category. In half of the trials, an additional red frame surrounded a non-target singleton object. Consistent with earlier studies, participants responded faster to both face and body part targets than to other object targets. Singletons increased overall reaction times, but appeared to affect faces less than other targets. These results indicate greater attention capture by faces, and add evidence for similar mechanisms for body parts. A second experiment was conducted to replicate these findings, and to investigate potential differences in attention capture between “active” and “passive” body parts.

Body parts are unlike faces: Behavioral evidence from the singleton paradigm

by Tarik N. Mohamed

Tarik N. Mohamed, Markus F. Neumann and Stefan R. Schweinberger. Talk was taken place at SEPEX conference Gernada, April, 2010.

There is a debate in the literature showed that, faces are not the only category, can capture attention, and... more There is a debate in the literature showed that, faces are not the only category, can capture attention, and classified faster than other objects, but also body parts, showed the same advantages. However human bodies like faces carry important information about identity, gender and emotional status, and also facilities the social communication. This integration between bodies’ actions and facial expression is useful to transferee information from dispatcher to recipient. These human body parts are including different parts and there are common properties combined them together, for instant hands; legs and arms are the movement parts, whilst the other parts like as torso and shoulders are the static parts. In two Experiments, we utilize a modified visual search paradigm, to investigate i) whether body parts like faces can capture attention, and show the classification advantages compared to other objects ii) differentiate between Active (i.e. hand), and passive parts (torso) in classification advantages and attention capture. In the first experiment we presented either faces or body parts together with five different objects, but in the second Experiment we presented active or passive with the same categories which we used in Experiment1. Participants decided whether a randomly chosen target (surrounded by a green frame) belonged to a previously presented category. In half of the trials, an additional red frame surrounded a non‐target singleton object was appeared. Consistent with earlier studies, participants responded faster to face and passive targets than to others, showing that there is classification advantages related to faces and human passive parts, but when faces appeared as singletons, they attracted attention and increased reaction times more than body parts or other objects, whilst no difference was observed between active and passive parts. These results indicate greater attention capture by faces, and present strong evidence that body parts are unlike faces.

Spontaneous recovery and ABC renewal from retroactive cue interference

by Gonzalo Miguez

Miguez, G., Cham, H. X., & Miller, R. R. (2012). Spontaneous recovery and ABC renewal from retroactive cue interference. Learning & Behavior, 40, 42-53

Two conditioned suppression experiments with rats were conducted to determine whether the spontaneous recovery and... more Two conditioned suppression experiments with rats were conducted to determine whether the spontaneous recovery and renewal that are commonly observed in retroactive outcome interference (e.g., extinction) also occur in retroactive cue interference. Experiment 1 showed that a long delay between Phase 2 (the interfering phase) and testing produces a recovery from the cue interference (i.e., the delay enhanced responding to the target cue trained in Phase 1), which is analogous to the spontaneous recovery effect observed in extinction and other retroactive outcome interference procedures. Experiment 2 showed that, when target and interfering cues are trained in separate contexts and testing occurs in a different but familiar context, a recovery from the cue interference is also observed (i.e., the context shift enhanced responding to the target), which is analogous to ABC renewal from extinction. The results are discussed in terms of the possibility that similar associative mechanisms underlie cue and outcome interference.

Nomen est omen: Investigating the dominance of nouns in word comprehension with eye movement analyses

by John Rauthmann

INVESTIGATING WORD CLASS EFFECTS IN FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGES 1

by John Rauthmann

Anticipated violence, arousal, and enjoyment of movies: Viewers’ reactions to violent previews based on arousal seeking tendency

by Guang-Xin Xie

ABSTRACT. The authors investigated the effects of violent portrayals in movie previews on viewers’ arousal and... more ABSTRACT. The authors investigated the effects of violent portrayals in movie previews on viewers’ arousal and anticipated enjoyment of movies based on their arousal-seeking tendencies. A total of 159 college students watched 6 movie previews, each in a violent or nonviolent version, and reported their expectations of enjoying watching the movies. The results show that high arousal seekers reported a higher level of anticipated enjoyment
after watching the violent previews than the nonviolent previews. In contrast, low arousal seekers did not expect much difference in their enjoyment between the two versions. In line with the theory of optimal stimulation level, the results indicate that viewers’ anticipated enjoyment of movies after watching violent images in previews is moderated by individuals’
arousal-seeking tendencies.

Imperceptibly off-centre goalkeepers influence penalty-kick direction in soccer.

by john van der kamp

Masters, R.S.W., van der Kamp, J., & Jackson, R.C. (2007). In: Psychological Science, 18, 222-223.