Second Chances in Learning: Does a Resit Prospect Lower Study-Time Investments on a First Test?

Previous studies have shown that the prospect of a resit opportunity lowers hypothetical study-time investments for a first exam, as compared to a single-chance exam (i.e., the resit effect). The present paper describes a first experiment in which we aimed to generalize this effect from hypothetical study-time investments to a learning task allowing for the optimization of actual study-time investments while participants studied pairs of pseudowords for a subsequent multiple-choice test, given either a single chance or two chances to pass. Against our expectations, the results of the experiment showed no resit effect for the amount of actual time participants spent studying the materials in the experimental learning task. To better allow for the optimization of study-time investments, the learning task was adapted for a second experiment to include an indication of passing probability. These results, however, also did not show a resit effect. A third experiment addressed whether it was the investment of actual time that led to this absence of a resit effect with the learning task. The results suggested, however, that it was most likely the lack of a priori deliberation that caused this absence of the effect. Taken together with findings from a fourth questionnaire study showing that students seem to take a resit prospect into account by indicating they would have studied more for an exam if the option to resit would not have been available, these findings lead us to argue that a resit prospect may primarily affect advance study-time allocation decisions.

Towards a unified understanding of lateralized vision: A large-scale study investigating principles governing patterns of lateralization using a heterogeneous sample.

While functional lateralization of the human brain has been a widely studied topic in the past decades, few studies to date have gone further than investigating lateralization of single, isolated processes. With the present study, we aimed to arrive at a more unified view by investigating lateralization patterns in face and word processing, and associated lower-level visual processing. We tested a large and heterogeneous participant group, and used a number of tasks that had been shown to produce replicable indices of lateralized processing of visual information of different types and complexity. Following Bayesian statistics, group-level analyses showed the expected right hemisphere (RH) lateralization for face, global form, low spatial frequency processing, and spatial attention, and left hemisphere (LH) lateralization for visual word and local feature processing. Compared to right-handed individuals, lateralization patterns of left-handed and especially those who are RH-dominant for language deviated from this 'typical' pattern. Our results support the notion that face and word processes come to be lateralized to homologue areas of the two hemispheres, under influence of the RH- and LH-specializations in global form, local feature, and low and high spatial frequency processing. As such, we present a more unified understanding of lateralized vision, providing evidence for the input asymmetry and causal complementarity principles of lateralized visual information processing. The absence of correlations between spatial attention and lateralization of the other processes supports the notion of their independent lateralization, conform the statistical complementarity principle.

Media multitasking, mind-wandering, and distractibility: A large-scale study.

Previous studies suggest that frequent media multitasking - the simultaneous use of different media at the same time - may be associated with increased susceptibility to internal and external sources of distraction. At the same time, other studies found no evidence for such associations. In the current study, we report the results of a large-scale study (N=261) in which we measured media multitasking with a short media-use questionnaire and measured distraction with a change-detection task that included different numbers of distractors. To determine whether internally generated distraction affected performance, we deployed experience-sampling probes during the change-detection task. The results showed that participants with higher media multitasking scores did not perform worse as distractor set size increased, they did not perform worse in general, and their responses on the experience-sampling probes made clear that they also did not experience more lapses of attention during the task. Critically, these results were robust across different methods of analysis (i.e., Linear Mixed Modeling, Bayes factors, and extreme-groups comparison). At the same time, our use of the short version of the media-use questionnaire might limit the generalizability of our findings. In light of our results, we suggest that future studies should ensure an adequate level of statistical power and implement a more precise measure for media multitasking.

Reproducibility of visual-field asymmetries: Nine replication studies investigating lateralization of visual information processing.

Numerous behavioral studies suggest that the processing of various types of visual stimuli and features may be more efficient in either the left or the right visual field. However, not all of these visual-field asymmetries (VFAs) have been observed consistently. Moreover, it is typically unclear whether a failure to observe a particular VFA can be ascribed to certain characteristics of the participants and stimuli, to a lack of statistical power, or to the actual absence of an effect. To increase our understanding of lateralization of visual information processing, we have taken a rigorous methodological and statistical approach to examine the reproducibility of various previously reported VFAs. We did so by performing (near-)exact replications of nine representative previous studies, aiming for sufficient power to detect the effects of interest, and taking into consideration all relevant dependent variables (reaction times and error rates). Following Bayesian analyses -on our data alone as well as on the combined evidence from the original and replication studies- we find precise and reliable evidence that support VFAs in the processing of faces, emotional expressions, global and local information, words, and in the distribution of spatial attention. In contrast, we find less convincing evidence for VFAs in processing of high and low spatial frequencies. Finally, we find no evidence for VFAs in categorical perception of color and shape oddballs, and in the judgments of categorical and coordinate spatial relations. We discuss our results in the light of their implications for theories of visual lateralization.

Working memory consolidation: insights from studies on attention and working memory.

Working memory, the system that maintains a limited set of representations for immediate use in cognition, is a central part of human cognition. Three processes have recently been proposed to govern information storage in working memory: consolidation, refreshing, and removal. Here, we discuss in detail the theoretical construct of working memory consolidation, a process critical to the creation of a stable working memory representation. We present a brief overview of the research that indicated the need for a construct such as working memory consolidation and the subsequent research that has helped to define the parameters of the construct. We then move on to explicitly state the points of agreement as to what processes are involved in working memory consolidation.

Enhanced recognition of memorable pictures in ultra-fast RSVP.

Long-term recognition memory for some pictures is consistently better than for others (Isola, Xiao, Parikh, Torralba, & Oliva, IEEE Transaction on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI), 36(7), 1469-1482, 2014). Here, we investigated whether pictures found to be memorable in a long-term memory test are also perceived more easily when presented in ultra-rapid RSVP. Participants viewed 6 pictures they had never seen before that were presented for 13 to 360 ms per picture in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sequence. In half the trials, one of the pictures was a memorable or a nonmemorable picture and perception of this picture was probed by a visual recognition test at the end of the sequence. Recognition for pictures from the memorable set was higher than for those from the nonmemorable set, and this difference increased with increasing duration. Nonmemorable picture recognition was low initially, did not increase until 120 ms, and never caught up with memorable picture recognition performance. Thus, the long-term memorability of an image is associated with initial perceptibility: A picture that is hard to grasp quickly is hard to remember later.

Controlling the Resit Effect by Means of Investment Depreciation.

In accordance with a rational model of study-time investment, we previously found that the prospect of a resit exam leads to lower investments of fictional study-time for a first exam opportunity in an investment game utilizing simulated exams. In the current study, we investigated whether the depreciation of one's first-exam investment reduces the resit effect. Specifically, we investigated study-time investments for a simulated multiple-choice exam in which 0, 50, or 100% of the initial study-time investment was lost before the resit exam. In accordance with our predictions, we found that the magnitude of the resit effect decreased as investment depreciation increased. This finding suggests that the negative effect of resit exams on study-time investment may be countered by creating conditions under which investment depreciation (i.e. forgetting) is expected to occur, for instance, by increasing the temporal interval between the first attempt and resit exam.

Correction to: Cognitive control in media multitaskers: Two replication studies and a meta-Analysis.

In the original article, the number of HMMs and LMMs who took part in the first study was reported to have been 13and 10, respectively (p. 2624).

Hemispheric specialization for global and local processing: A direct comparison of linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli.

It is often assumed that the human brain processes the global and local properties of visual stimuli in a lateralized fashion, with a left hemisphere (LH) specialization for local detail, and a right hemisphere (RH) specialization for global form. However, the evidence for such global-local lateralization stems predominantly from studies using linguistic stimuli, the processing of which has shown to be LH lateralized in itself. In addition, some studies have reported a reversal of global-local lateralization when using non-linguistic stimuli. Accordingly, it remains unclear whether global-local lateralization may in fact be stimulus-specific. To address this issue, we asked participants to respond to linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli that were presented in the right and left visual fields, allowing for first access by the LH and RH, respectively. The results showed global-RH and local-LH advantages for both stimulus types, but the global lateralization effect was larger for linguistic stimuli. Furthermore, this pattern of results was found to be robust, as it was observed regardless of two other task manipulations. We conclude that the instantiation and direction of global and local lateralization is not stimulus-specific. However, the magnitude of global,-but not local-, lateralization is dependent on stimulus type.

Cognitive control in media multitaskers: Two replication studies and a meta-Analysis.

Ophir, Nass, and Wagner (2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(37), 15583-15587) found that people with high scores on the media-use questionnaire-a questionnaire that measures the proportion of media-usage time during which one uses more than one medium at the same time-show impaired performance on various tests of distractor filtering. Subsequent studies, however, did not all show this association between media multitasking and distractibility, thus casting doubt on the reliability of the initial findings. Here, we report the results of two replication studies and a meta-analysis that included the results from all published studies into the relationship between distractor filtering and media multitasking. Our replication studies included a total of 14 tests that had an average replication power of 0.81. Of these 14 tests, only five yielded a statistically significant effect in the direction of increased distractibility for people with higher scores on the media-use questionnaire, and only two of these effects held in a more conservative Bayesian analysis. Supplementing these outcomes, our meta-analysis on a total of 39 effect sizes yielded a weak but significant association between media multitasking and distractibility that turned nonsignificant after correction for small-study effects. Taken together, these findings lead us to question the existence of an association between media multitasking and distractibility in laboratory tasks of information processing.

Digit-color synaesthesia only enhances memory for colors in a specific context: A new method of duration thresholds to measure serial recall.

For digit-color synaesthetes, digits elicit vivid experiences of color that are highly consistent for each individual. The conscious experience of synaesthesia is typically unidirectional: Digits evoke colors but not vice versa. There is an ongoing debate about whether synaesthetes have a memory advantage over non-synaesthetes. One key question in this debate is whether synaesthetes have a general superiority or whether any benefit is specific to a certain type of material. Here, we focus on immediate serial recall and ask digit-color synaesthetes and controls to memorize digit and color sequences. We developed a sensitive staircase method manipulating presentation duration to measure participants' serial recall of both overlearned and novel sequences. Our results show that synaesthetes can activate digit information to enhance serial memory for color sequences. When color sequences corresponded to ascending or descending digit sequences, synaesthetes encoded these sequences at a faster rate than their non-synaesthetes counterparts and faster than non-structured color sequences. However, encoding color sequences is approximately 200 ms slower than encoding digit sequences directly, independent of group and condition, which shows that the translation process is time consuming. These results suggest memory advantages in synaesthesia require a modified dual-coding account, in which secondary (synaesthetically linked) information is useful only if it is more memorable than the primary information to be recalled. Our study further shows that duration thresholds are a sensitive method to measure subtle differences in serial recall performance. (PsycINFO Database Record

Retro-Active Emotion: Do Negative Emotional Stimuli Disrupt Consolidation in Working Memory?

While many studies have shown that a task-irrelevant emotionally arousing stimulus can interfere with the processing of a shortly following target, it remains unclear whether an emotional stimulus can also retro-actively interrupt the ongoing processing of an earlier target. In two experiments, we examined whether the presentation of a negative emotionally arousing picture can disrupt working memory consolidation of a preceding visual target. In both experiments, the effects of negative emotional pictures were compared with the effects of neutral pictures. In Experiment 1, the pictures were entirely task-irrelevant whereas in Experiment 2 the pictures were associated with a 2-alternative forced choice task that required participants to respond to the color of a frame surrounding the pictures. The results showed that the appearance of the pictures did not interfere with target consolidation when the pictures were task-irrelevant, whereas such interference was observed when the pictures were associated with a 2-AFC task. Most importantly, however, the results showed no effects of whether the picture had neutral or emotional content. Implications for further research are discussed.

Do Resit Exams Promote Lower Investments of Study Time? Theory and Data from a Laboratory Study.

Although many educational institutions allow students to resit exams, a recently proposed mathematical model suggests that this could lead to a dramatic reduction in study-time investment, especially in rational students. In the current study, we present a modification of this model in which we included some well-justified assumptions about learning and performance on multiple-choice tests, and we tested its predictions in two experiments in which participants were asked to invest fictional study time for a fictional exam. Consistent with our model, the prospect of a resit exam was found to promote lower investments of study time for a first exam and this effect was stronger for participants scoring higher on the cognitive reflection test. We also found that the negative effect of resit exams on study-time investment was attenuated when access to the resit was made uncertain by making it probabilistic or dependent on obtaining a minimal, non-passing grade for the first attempt. Taken together, these results suggest that offering students resit exams may compromise the achievement of learning goals, and they raise the more general implication that second chances promote risky behavior.

Red, green, blue equals 1, 2, 3: Digit-color synesthetes can use structured digit information to boost recall of color sequences.

Digit-color synesthetes report experiencing colors when perceiving letters and digits. The conscious experience is typically unidirectional (e.g., digits elicit colors but not vice versa) but recent evidence shows subtle bidirectional effects. We examined whether short-term memory for colors could be affected by the order of presentation reflecting more or less structure in the associated digits. We presented a stream of colored squares and asked participants to report the colors in order. The colors matched each synesthete's colors for digits 1-9 and the order of the colors corresponded either to a sequence of numbers (e.g., [red, green, blue] if 1 = red, 2 = green, 3 = blue) or no systematic sequence. The results showed that synesthetes recalled sequential color sequences more accurately than pseudo-randomized colors, whereas no such effect was found for the non-synesthetic controls. Synesthetes did not differ from non-synesthetic controls in recall of color sequences overall, providing no evidence of a general advantage in memory for serial recall of colors.

Irrelevant auditory and visual events induce a visual attentional blink.

In the present study we investigated whether a task-irrelevant distractor can induce a visual attentional blink pattern. Participants were asked to detect only a visual target letter (A, B, or C) and to ignore the preceding auditory, visual, or audiovisual distractor. An attentional blink was observed regardless of the distractor modality. The magnitude of the attentional blink was greater when the target was preceded by a visual or an audiovisual distractor than when the target letter was preceded by an auditory distractor. The presence of a distractor-induced attentional blink regardless of the distractor modality suggests that the attentional blink phenomenon is at least partly due to an amodal processing limitation.

Temporal target integration underlies performance at Lag 1 in the attentional blink.

When two targets follow each other directly in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), they are often identified correctly but reported in the wrong order. These order reversals are commonly explained in terms of the rate at which the two targets are processed, the idea being that the second target can sometimes overtake the first in the race toward conscious awareness. The present study examined whether some of these order reversals might alternatively be due to a mechanism of temporal integration whereby targets appearing closely in time may be merged into a single representation. To test this integration account, we used an attentional blink task in which the two targets could be combined perceptually in a meaningful way such that the conjunction of the two target elements constituted a possible target stimulus itself. The results showed that when targets appeared at Lag 1, observers frequently reported seeing only a single merged target stimulus, and these reports occurred up to approximately three times as often as (real) order reversals. When the possibility to report the integrated percept was removed, order reversals consequently tripled. These results suggest that integration may actually be the primary cause of order reversals in dual-target RSVP tasks.

Quick minds slowed down: effects of rotation and stimulus category on the attentional blink.

BACKGROUND: Most people show a remarkable deficit to report the second of two targets when presented in close temporal succession, reflecting an attentional restriction known as the 'attentional blink' (AB). However, there are large individual differences in the magnitude of the effect, with some people showing no such attentional restrictions. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we present behavioral and electrophysiological evidence suggesting that these 'non-blinkers' can use alphanumeric category information to select targets at an early processing stage. When such information was unavailable and target selection could only be based on information that is processed relatively late (rotation), even non-blinkers show a substantial AB. Electrophysiologically, in non-blinkers this resulted in enhanced distractor-related prefrontal brain activity, as well as delayed target-related occipito-parietal activity (P3). CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings shed new light on possible strategic mechanisms that may underlie individual differences in AB magnitude and provide intriguing clues as to how temporal restrictions as reflected in the AB can be overcome.

Audiovisual semantic interference and attention: evidence from the attentional blink paradigm.

In the present study we investigate the role of attention in audiovisual semantic interference, by using an attentional blink paradigm. Participants were asked to make an unspeeded response to the identity of a visual target letter. This target letter was preceded at various SOAs by a synchronized audiovisual letter-pair, which was either congruent (e.g. hearing an "F" and viewing an "F") or incongruent (e.g. hearing an "F" and viewing a "Z"). In Experiment 1, participants were asked to match the members of the audiovisual letter-pair. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to ignore the synchronized audiovisual letter-pairs altogether and only report the visual target. In Experiment 3, participants were asked to identify only one of the audiovisual letters (identify the auditory letter, and ignore the synchronized visual letter, or vice versa). An attentional blink was found in all three experiments indicating that the audiovisual letter-pairs were processed. However, a congruency effect on subsequent target detection was observed in Experiments 1 and 3, but not in Experiment 2. The results indicate that attention to the semantic contents of at least one modality is necessary to establish audiovisual semantic interference.

Unmasking the attentional blink.

When asked to identify 2 visual targets (T1 and T2 for the 1st and 2nd targets, respectively) embedded in a sequence of distractors, observers will often fail to identify T2 when it appears within 200-500 ms of T1--an effect called the attentional blink. Recent work shows that attention does not blink when the task is to encode a sequence of consecutive targets, suggesting that distractor interference plays a causal role in the attentional blink. Here, however, the authors show that an attentional blink occurs even in the absence of distractors, with 2 letter targets separated by a blank interval. In addition, the authors found that the impairment for identification of the 2nd of 2 targets separated by a blank interval is substantially attenuated either when the intertarget interval is filled with additional target items or when the 2nd target is precued by an additional target. These findings show that the root cause of the blink lies in the difficulty of engaging attention twice within a short period of time for 2 temporally discrete target events.

Cross-task repetition amnesia: Impaired recall of RSVP targets held in memory for a secondary task.

People often fail to select and encode the second of two targets presented within less than 500ms in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), an effect known as the attentional blink. We investigated how report of the two targets is affected when one of them is maintained in working memory for a secondary, memory-search task. The results showed that report of either target was impaired when it was a member of the memory set relative to when it was not. This effect was independent of both the temporal interval separating the RSVP target from the presentation of the memory set and the interval separating the targets. We propose that the deficit in recall occurs because the association between a target and the memory-search task interferes with the formation of a new association between that target and the following RSVP task, with the result that observers may be biased to ascribe the target only to the memory set.