Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society — Volume 14 — November ...

Friday Morning Papers 8–14
trials, specific to the current task. Here, we explored whether an externally
adjudicated reward–loss schedule linked to specific visual features
modulates these intertrial attentional biases. Somewhat surprisingly, the
DPE was entirely eliminated when this external reward–loss schedule
was put in place. Instead, we observed a very strong within-trial attentional
bias that was consistent with the reward schedule (attention moved
toward rewarded features and away from penalized features) and totally
amnesic of recent experience.
8:40–8:55 (8)
Task-Based Working Memory Guidance of Visual Attention. ZHE
CHEN, University of Canterbury—Recent research has shown a close
link between attention and working memory (WM), such that the content
of WM facilitates the deployment of visual attention to stimuli that are
identical or related to the object representations held in WM. So far,
prior studies have focused on memory-based attentional guidance when
the remembered item is a specific stimulus. The present study examined
whether holding a specific task in memory would also influence participants’
deployment of visual attention in favor of the stimuli associated
with the task in memory and whether the effect of WM was caused primarily
by early attentional capture or by delayed attentional disengagement.
The results support task-based WM guidance of visual attention.
Furthermore, participants showed evidence that was consistent with both
early attentional capture and delayed attentional disengagement.
9:00–9:15 (9)
Cross-Modal Distraction by Auditory Oddball Stimuli: The Course
and Aftermath of Novelty and Semantic Effects. FABRICE B. R.
PARMENTIER, University of the Balearic Islands, & JACQUELINE
TURNER & JANE V. ELSLEY, University of Plymouth—The unexpected
occurrence of an oddball auditory stimulus (novel) among an
otherwise repeated stream of sounds (standards) is known to negatively
affect participants’ performance in an unrelated visual task. Here, participants
categorized the direction of visual arrows preceded by a taskirrelevant
sound. Rare auditory novels consisted of the words left or
right, which were either congruent or incongruent with the upcoming
target. The data confirmed the slowing of response in the face of a novel
(novelty distraction), as well as on incongruent trials, a further delay due
to cross-talk interference between distractor and target (semantic effect).
The semantic effect, but not novelty distraction, increased with the time
interval between distractor and target. Furthermore, the production of
a response on the first standard trial following a novel trial was slowed
if that response required the activation of a recently inhibited network
(postnovelty semantic effect).
9:20–9:35 (10)
Oculomotor Inhibition of Return. RAYMOND M. KLEIN & MAT-
THEW HILCHEY, Dalhousie University, ANA CHICA, University of
Granada, JASON IVANOFF, Saint Mary’s University, & TRACY L.
TAYLOR, Dalhousie University—Although inhibition of return (IOR)
was first demonstrated as an aftermath of covert, exogenously controlled
orienting (a shift of attention in the absence of an eye movement) having
effects on the processing of nearby targets calling for a speeded manual
detection response (also in the absence of an eye movement), it was recognized
very early on that there was a profound relation between IOR
and the oculomotor system. Research will be presented on the role of
oculomotor processes in causing IOR, on the different flavors of IOR
that are generated when oculomotor processes are or are not inhibited,
and on the effects of IOR on oculomotor behavior.
Reasoning and Problem Solving
Republic Ballroom, Friday Morning, 8:00–9:55
Chaired by Sam Glucksberg, Princeton University
8:00–8:15 (11)
Implicit Generics Underlie Inferences From the General to the Particular.
SANGEET KHEMLANI, SAM GLUCKSBERG, & SARAH-
JANE LESLIE, Princeton University (read by Sam Glucksberg)— People
2
readily assent to generic assertions, such as dogs have tails, ducks lay
eggs, and ticks carry Lyme disease, even though the numbers of category
members that display the relevant property in each of these cases vary
widely. Virtually all normal dogs have tails, a minority of ducks lay eggs,
and only a tiny minority of ticks actually carry Lyme disease. To what
extent do people attribute a property of the generic category to an arbitrary
member of the kind? People were given examples of a kind—for
example, Jumpy is a tick. They were then asked whether Jumpy carries
Lyme disease. People were prone to judge that Jumpy carried the disease,
even though the underlying generic about ticks and Lyme disease
had not been made explicit. We conclude that agreement with a generic
disposes people to infer, by default, that a given member of a kind has
the relevant property.
8:20–8:35 (12)
Assessing the Belief Bias Effect With ROCs: It’s a Response Bias
Effect. CHAD DUBE & CAREN M. ROTELLO, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, & EVAN HEIT, University of California, Merced
(read by Caren M. Rotello)—A belief bias effect in syllogistic reasoning
(Evans, Barston, & Pollard, 1983) is observed when subjects accept
more valid than invalid arguments, accept more believable than
unbelievable conclusions, and show greater overall accuracy judging
arguments with unbelievable conclusions. The effect is measured with
a contrast of contrasts, comparing the acceptance rates for valid and
invalid arguments with believable and unbelievable conclusions. This
measure entails the assumption of a threshold model, which predicts
linear receiver operating characteristics (ROCs). In three experiments,
subjects made valid/invalid responses to syllogisms, followed by confidence
ratings that allowed the construction of empirical ROCs. The form
of those ROCs is inconsistent with the predictions of Klauer, Musch, and
Naumer’s (2000) multinomial model of belief bias. More appropriate,
signal-detection-based measures of decision accuracy and response bias
demonstrate that the belief bias effect is simply a response bias effect;
unjustified use of the contrast-of-contrast measure produces the apparent
accuracy difference.
8:40–8:55 (13)
The Origins of Insight in Resting-State Brain Activity. JOHN
KOUNIOS, Drexel University, & MARK BEEMAN, Northwestern
University—People can solve problems in more than one way. Two general
strategies involve (1) methodical, conscious search of problem-state
transformations and (2) sudden insight, with abrupt emergence of the
solution into consciousness. This study elucidated the influence of initial
resting brain state on subjects’ subsequent strategy choices. High-density
electroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded from subjects at rest who
were subsequently directed to solve a series of anagrams. Subjects were
divided into two groups on the basis of the proportion of anagram solutions
derived with self-reported insight versus search. Reaction time and
accuracy results were consistent with insight different cognitive problemsolving
strategies used for solving anagrams with insight versus without
insight. Spectral analyses yielded group differences in resting-state
EEG, supporting hypotheses concerning insight-related attentional diffusion
and right-lateralized hemispheric asymmetry. These results reveal
a relationship between resting-state brain activity and problem-solving
strategy and, more generally, a dependence of event-related neural computations
on the preceding resting state.
9:00–9:15 (14)
Strategy Selection and Executive Function: Study in Arithmetic Problem
Solving. PATRICK LEMAIRE & MIREILLE LECACHEUR, CNRS
and University of Provence—One hundred twenty participants ranging in
age from 20 to 90 years were asked to do computational estimation tasks
on two-digit multiplication problems (e.g., give approximate answers to
38 3 74). On each problem, participants were asked to choose the best of
two strategies, rounding down (doing 30 3 70 5 2,100) or rounding up
(doing 40 3 80 5 3,200). Participants’ executive functions were assessed
with Stroop, Wisconsin Card Sorting, Trail Making, and Excluded Letter
Fluency tests. The most important results showed (1) age-related changes
in measures of executive functions and of skills involved in selecting