Partitioning the Choice Task Makes Starbucks Coffee Taste Better

Consumers are often less satisfied with a product chosen from a large assortment than a limited one. Experienced choice difficulty presumably causes this as consumers have to engage in a great number of individual comparisons. In two studies we tested whether partitioning the choice task so that consumers decided sequentially on each individual attribute may provide a solution. In a Starbucks coffee house, consumers who chose from the menu rated the coffee as less tasty when chosen from a large rather than a small assortment. However, when the consumers chose it by sequentially deciding about one attribute at a time, the effect reversed. In a tailored-suit customization, consumers who chose multiple attributes at a time were less satisfied with their suit, compared to those who chose one attribute at a time. Sequential attribute-based processing proves to be an effective strategy to reap the benefits of a large assortment.

The asymmetrical influence of increasing time-on-task on attentional disengagement

Increasing time-on-task leads to fatigue and, as shown by previous research, differentially affects the deployment of visual attention towards the left and the right visual space. In healthy participants, an increasing rightward bias is commonly observed with increasing time-on-task. Yet, it is unclear whether specific mechanisms involved in the spatial deployment of visual attention are differentially affected by increasing time-on-task. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether prolonged time-on-task would affect a specific mechanism of visuo-spatial attentional deployment, namely attentional disengagement, in an asymmetrical fashion. For this purpose, we administered to healthy participants a prolonged gap/overlap saccadic paradigm, with left- and right-sided target stimuli. This oculomotor paradigm allowed to quantify disengagement costs according to the direction of the subsequent attentional shifts, and to evaluate the temporal development of disengagement costs with increasing time-on-task. Our results show that, with increasing time-on-task, participants demonstrated significantly lower disengagement costs for rightward compared to leftward saccades. These effects were specific, since concurring side differences of saccadic latencies were found for overlap trials (requiring attentional disengagement), but not for gap trials (requiring no or less attentional disengagement). Moreover, the results were paralleled by a non-lateralised decrease in saccadic peak velocity with increasing time-on-task, a common finding indicating an increasing level of fatigue. Our findings support the idea that non-spatial attentional aspects, such as fatigue due to increasing time-on-task, can have a substantial influence on the spatial deployment of visual attention, in particular on its disengagement, depending on the direction of the subsequent attentional shift.

Why misinformation is reported: evidence from a warning and a source-monitoring task

People report suggested misinformation about a previously witnessed event for manifold reasons, such as social pressure, lack of memory of the original aspect, or a firm belief to remember the misinformation from the witnessed event. In our experiments (N = 429), which follow Loftus's paradigm, we tried to disentangle the reasons for reporting a central and a peripheral piece of misinformation in a recognition task by examining (a) the impact a warning about possible misinformation has on the error rate, and (b) whether once reported misinformation was actually attributed to the witnessed event in a later source-monitoring (SM) task. Overall, a misinformation effect was found for both items. The warning strongly reduced the misinformation effect, but only for the central item. In contrast, reports of the peripheral misinformation were correctly attributed to the misinformation source or, at least, ascribed to guesswork much more often than the central ones. As a consequence, after the SM task, the initially higher error rate for the peripheral item was even lower than that of the central item. Results convincingly show that the reasons for reporting misinformation, and correspondingly also the potential to avoid them in legal settings, depend on the centrality of the misinformation.

Blue bananas: development of a task to investigate the representation of synaesthetic experiences

Research has mainly focussed on the perceptual nature of synaesthesia. However, synaesthetic experiences are also semantically represented. It was our aim to develop a task to investigate the semantic representation of the concurrent and its relation to the inducer in grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Non-synaesthetes were either tested with a lexical-decision (i.e., word / non-word) or a semantic-classification (i.e., edibility decision) task. Targets consisted of words which were strongly associated with a specific colour (e.g., banana - yellow) and words which were neutral and not associated with a specific colour (e.g., aunt). Target words were primed with colours: the prime target relationship was either intramodal (i.e., word - word) or crossmodal (colour patch - word). Each of the four task versions consisted of three conditions: congruent (same colour for prime and target), incongruent (different colour), and unrelated (neutral target). For both tasks (i.e., lexical and semantic) and both versions of the task (i.e., intramodal and crossmodal), we expected faster reaction times (RTs) in the congruent condition than in the neutral condition and slower RTs in the incongruent condition than the neutral condition. Stronger effects were expected in the intramodal condition due to the overlap in the prime target modality. The results suggest that the hypotheses were partly confirmed. We conclude that the tasks and hypotheses can be readily adopted to investigate the nature of the representation of the synaesthetic experiences.

Anticipatory and reactive forms of blame avoidance: of foxes and lions

Blame avoidance behavior (BAB) encompasses all kinds of integrity-protecting activities by officeholders in the face of potentially blame-attracting events. Although considered essential for a realistic understanding of politics and policymaking, a general understanding of this multi-faceted behavioral phenomenon and its implications has been lacking to date. We argue that this is due to the lack of careful conceptualization of various forms of BAB. Crucially, the difference between anticipatory and reactive forms of BAB is largely neglected in the literature. This paper links anticipatory and reactive forms of BAB as two consecutive decision situations. It exposes dependence relationships between the situations that trigger BAB, the rationalities at work, the resources and strategies applied by blame-avoiding actors, and the various consequences thereof. The paper concludes that anticipatory and reactive BAB are distinct phenomena that require specific research approaches to assess their relevance for the workings of polities.

Knowledge-Based Task Structure Planning for an Information Gathering Agent

An effective solution to model and apply planning domain knowledge for deliberation and action in probabilistic, agent-oriented control is presented. Specifically, the addition of a task structure planning component and supporting components to an agent-oriented architecture and agent implementation is described. For agent control in risky or uncertain environments, an approach and method of goal reduction to task plan sets and schedules of action is presented. Additionally, some issues related to component-wise, situation-dependent control of a task planning agent that schedules its tasks separately from planning them are motivated and discussed.

VISUAL MEMORY PROCESSING BY PRIMATES AND AVIANS IN A RELATIONAL TASK

Three rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and four pigeons (Columba livia) were trained in a visual serial probe recognition (SPR) task. A list of visual stimuli (slides) was presented sequentially to the subjects. Following the list and after a delay interval, a probe stimulus was presented that could be either from the list (Same) or not from the list (Different). The monkeys readily acquired a variable list length SPR task, while pigeons showed acquisition only under constant list length condition. However, monkeys memorized the responses to the probes (absolute strategy) when overtrained with the same lists and probes, while pigeons compared the probe to the list in memory (relational strategy). Performance of the pigeon on 4-items constant list length was disrupted when blocks of trials of different list lengths were imbedded between the 4-items blocks. Serial position curves for recognition at variable probe delays showed better relative performance on the last items of the list at short delays (0-0.5 seconds) and better relative performance on the initial items of the list at long delays (6-10 seconds for the pigeons and 20-30 seconds for the monkeys and a human adolescent). The serial position curves also showed reliable primacy and recency effects at intermediate probe delays. The monkeys showed evidence of using a relational strategy in the variable probe delay task. The results are the first demonstration of relational serial probe recognition performance in an avian and suggest similar underlying dynamic recognition memory mechanisms in primates and avians. ^

Emotional Content in Autobiographical Memory through an Attachment Theory Framework

The current study investigates the relationship between individual differences in attachment style and the recall of autobiographical memories. According to attachment theory, affect regulation strategies employed by individuals high in attachment anxiety and high in attachment avoidance are likely to influence how information about the past is recalled. This study examines how attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance relate to the presence of negative emotions in autobiographical memories of upsetting events with important relationship figures (i.e., mother, father, or roommate). Participants included 248 undergraduate students ranging from ages 18-22 that attend a public university in the northeast. As hypothesized, individuals with an avoidant attachment expressed less sadness in their responses to the written narrative task, especially when prompted for memories involving their primary caregiver. Contrary to the hypothesis, anxiously attached individuals did not display higher levels of worry/fear emotions in their responses to the written narrative. Attachment anxiety was related to some differences in emotional content; however, this varied by relationship partner. The results provide evidence linking attachment style to emotion selection and retrieval in autobiographical memories of ‘upsetting’ events. Implications for close relationships and therapy are discussed.

Cooperation & Competition Between Navigation Systems in the Rat Brain: The Role of the Hippocampus and Striatum During a Dissociative Maze Task

While many tend to think of memory systems in the brain as a single process, in reality several experiments have supported multiple dissociations of different forms of learning, such as spatial learning and response learning. In both humans and rats, the hippocampus has long been shown to be specialized in the storage of spatial and contextual memory whereas the striatum is associated with motor responses and habitual behaviors. Previous studies have examined how damage to hippocampus or striatum has affected the acquisition of either a spatial or response navigation task. However even in a very familiar environment organisms must continuously switch between place and response strategies depending upon circumstances. The current research investigates how these two brain systems interact under normal conditions to produce navigational behavior. Rats were tested using a task developed by Jacobson and colleagues (2006) in which the two types of navigation could be controlled and studied simultaneously. Rats were trained to solve a plus maze using both a spatial and a response strategy. A cue (flashing light) was employed to indicate the correct strategy on a given trial. When no light was present, the animals were rewarded for making a 90º right turn (motor response). When the light was on, the animals were rewarded for going to a specific goal location (place strategy). After learning the task, animals had a sham surgery or dorsal striatum or hippocampus damaged. In order to investigate the individual role of each brain system and evaluate whether these brain regions compete or cooperate for control over strategy, we utilized a within-animal comparisons. The configuration of the maze allowed for the comparison of behavior in individual animals before and after specific brain areas were damaged. Animals with hippocampal lesions showed selective deficits on place trials after surgery and learned the reversal of the motor response more rapidly than striatal lesioned or sham rats. Unlike previous findings regarding maze learning, animals with striatal lesions showed deficits in both place and response trials and had difficulty learning the reversal of motor response. Therefore, the effects of lesions on the ability to switch back and forth between strategies were more complex than previously suggested. This work may reveal important new insight on the integration of hippocampal and striatal learning systems, and facilitate a better understanding of the brain dynamics underlying similar navigational processes in humans.