Penny L. Yee

Individual Differences in Attention

Publisher Summary Two of the most widely discussed concepts in psychology are attention and intelligence. Intelligence is regarded as a relatively stable individual trait. There are reliable correlations among very different attention-demanding tasks present in the auditory or visual modality.Similar correlations are present among measures of attention to external stimuli and measures of attention to the interpretation of stimuli. This chapter discusses the relation between a generalized ability to control attention and other interindividual variables. The ability to control attention is statistically related to measures of fluid intelligence. Numerous authors have pointed out that age and illness can influence measures that appear to be attention-demanding. It has even been suggested, with evidence, that the decline in fluid intelligence that is associated with age is in a large part because of a decline in the ability to maintain attention.

Self-evaluative intrusive thoughts impede successful searching on the Internet

This study examined the association between self-evaluative intrusive thoughts and performance in an Internet search task. Participants performed an information search on the Internet, completed the Cognitive Interference Questionnaire [CIQ; Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 46 (1978), 102], and then responded to a self-assessment questionnaire on their search performance. Participants reported fewer self-evaluative than other task-related intrusive thoughts; however, higher levels of self-evaluative intrusions were predictive of poorer search performance. Participants who experienced more self-evaluative intrusive thoughts were also less satisfied with their search performance. Other task-related thoughts were unrelated to measures of search performance or participant satisfaction with their searches. These results are discussed in the context of information processing and self-regulatory models of cognitive interference and performance and provide one explanation for how concerns with self-evaluation can undermine performance in Internet search tasks.

Cognitive effects of life stress and learned helplessness

Abstract Stressful life events and learned helplessness attributional styles have been shown to impact a variety of personal outcomes. This study examined how these factors influence two classes of cognitive behaviors: the occurrence of intrusive thoughts and performance in memory and verbal-spatial reasoning tasks. Negative life change and attributions for negative events predicted different types of cognitive responses. Individuals reporting higher levels of life stress were more likely to experience distracting thoughts that were unrelated to the current task, whereas individuals with learned helplessness attributional styles tended to have more worrisome thoughts about their task performance. In general, individuals reporting high levels of negative life stress tended to perform more poorly in tasks, whereas individuals with learned helplessness attributional styles tended to perform better than those who did not share this explanatory style. These results suggest that life stress and attributional style have important influecnes on cognitive processes, and that a learned helplessness attributional style can have beneficial effects on behavior in some situations.

Deeper processing at target selection increases the magnitude of negative priming

Do deeper levels of processing produce equivalent priming effects at all stages of task performance? In Experiment 1, we varied the level of processing factorially across two task stages—target selection and response selection. Each stage required perceptual (e.g., color) or conceptual (e.g., friendliness) processing of stimulus items (i.e., animal names). Negative priming was substantially greater when deeper processing was required at thetarget selection stage, but it was unaffected by the level of processing at the response selection stage. In contrast, positive priming was greater when deeper processing was required at theresponse selection stage, but it was unaffected by processing at the target selection stage. In Experiment 2, we generalized this finding using a task in which numeric targets were selected on the basis of their parity. As in Experiment 1, the deeper level of processing at the target selection stage produced a larger negative priming effect. These results illuminate the role of target selection demands in modulating the strength of negative priming.

LEARNED HELPLESSNESS ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE AND EXAMINATION PERFORMANCE: ENHANCEMENT EFFECTS ARE NOT NECESSARILY MODERATED BY PRIOR FAILURE

Studies have replicated both negative and positive associations between helpless attributional style and academic performance. Laboratory studies indicate that when enhancement effects occur, they may be moderated by the degree of failure individuals experience prior to task performance. In a longitudinal study of 96 college students who completed four examinations in two introductory psychology courses, we examined the relationship between helpless attributional style and examination performance across the semester, and whether prior examination failure moderated this association. Correlational analyses revealed that helpless attributional style was unrelated to exam performance in the first half of the semester and was positively related to improvements in performance in the second half. Regression analyses indicated that these enhancement effects were not moderated by previous performance on examinations in the course. The present findings underscore the need for longitudinal studies that investigate the pattern of associations between helpless attributional style and performance across time in real-life contexts.

Information Processing Approaches to the Study of Relationship and Social Support Schemata

In 15 minutes, Sam would be leaving to begin his first year in college. As he buckled the last straps on his bags, his father popped his head into the room and said, “Hey, give us a call when you arrive.” Sam recognized the tone of his dad’s voice. He was still uncertain about Sam’s ability to cope with the challenges of college life. Sam had already decided not to call home for several weeks—not until he was completely settled into his classes and could prove his ability to handle the demands of college.

Using PsyScope for demonstrations and student-designed experiments in cognitive psychology courses

We describe a plan for integrating an experimental control language, PsyScope, into under-graduate laboratory exercises of perceptual and cognitive experiments on Macintosh computers. PsyScope is a powerful and versatile system with which students can modify standard research paradigms and execute experiments of their own design, thus facilitating student-initiated independent research. Data are summarized with a general-purpose program, PsySquash, for import into Statview or SuperAnova for further analysis. This system provides an effective means of implementing student projects.

A Web-accessible tutorial for PsyScope based on classic experiments in human cognition

PsyScope is a graphically oriented, script-based program for the control of experiments on Macintosh computers that has been made freely available to the psychology community by its developers (Cohen, MacWhinney, Flatt, & Provost, 1993) at Carnegie Mellon Univeristy. We describe a graduated tutorial that was written for new users of PsyScope (instructors or students); the text and scripts can be retrieved from a website at Hamilton College (http://cogito.hamilton.edu/tutorial/). The tutorial examples may be used as classroom demonstrations or as pedagogical aids in teaching students how to use PsyScope in their own research projects. The four examples include a Stroop test, simple and choice reaction time, and a sentence-verification task.

The Coordination of Compensatory Tracking and Anticipatory Timing Tasks.

Abstract Two experiments investigated the presence of a coordination factor in a task consisting of compensatory tracking and anticipatory timing components. The task (Intercept task) resembles a computer game in which a rocket must be aimed and fired to shoot an incoming missile. The studies were designed to determine if a coordinating ability exists above and beyond the abilities needed to perform the component tasks alone. We also investigated the nature of coordination abilities through correlations with other types of coordination tasks and measures of intelligence. Is coordination a general cognitive ability that contributes to performance in a wide range of coordination tasks, or is coordination ability task specific? Multiple regression analyses indicated the existence of a coordination ability in the Intercept task. This coordination ability, however, was shown to be unrelated to the coordination of visual and linguistic processing and to psychometric measures of intelligence as assessed by the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). Coordination of visual and linguistic processing correlated with a component of the ASVAB measuring perceptual speed. We conclude that, although the ability to integrate separate components of a complex task draws on a coordination ability, this ability is domain specific and thus varies depending on the nature of the component tasks.

PsySquash: A program for the analysis of PsyScope data files

Many experiment-running programs generate output files that require selection, reduction, and formatting of the raw data before the numbers are suitable for input into statistical packages. PsySquash is a Macintosh program for the selection, organization, and summary of the tabular data that are produced by a widely used freeware data acquisition system, PsyScope. PsySquash serves as a bridge between PsyScope’s output data format and the input formats required by common statistical packages such as SAS, SPSS, and SuperAnova. An extension of PsySquash is proposed for use with arbitrary tabular data.