Pushing the rules: effects and aftereffects of deliberate rule violations

Force reflections of auditory and tactile action-effect weighting in motor planning

Most voluntary actions have only few goals, which provides considerable freedom in the selection of action parameters. Recent studies showed that task-irrelevant aspects of the task context influence the motor parameters of the actions in a way which seems to reflect the relative importance of these aspects within the underlying action representation. The present study investigated how the intensity of auditory action-effects affected force exertion patterns in a self-paced action production task. Participants applied force impulses with their index finger on a force-sensitive resistor every three seconds. In four separate conditions, force impulses elicited no sound, or elicited tones with 69, 59 or 49 dB intensity. The results showed that participants applied more force when tone intensity was lower, and when tones were absent. These force differences were also present in the first 60 ms following tone onset, implying that these reflected differences in motor planning. The results are compatible with the notion that actions are represented in terms of their sensory effects, which are weighted differently-presumably to maintain an optimal level of overall auditory and tactile stimulation in the present case. These results hint at the potential usefulness of motor parameters as readouts of action intentions.

Practice reduces the costs of producing head fakes in basketball

Previous research indicates that performing passes with a head fake in basketball leads to increased response initiation times and errors as compared to performing a pass without a head fake. These so-called fake production costs only occurred when not given the time to mentally prepare the deceptive movement. In the current study, we investigated if extensive practice could reduce the cognitive costs of producing a pass with head fake. Twenty-four basketball novices participated in an experiment on five consecutive days. A visual cue prompted participants to play a pass with or without a head fake either to the left or right side. The cued action had to be executed after an interstimulus interval (ISI) of either 0 ms, 400 ms, 800 ms or 1200 ms, allowing for different movement preparation times. Results indicated higher response initiation times (ITs) and error rates (ERs) for passes with head fakes for the short preparation intervals (ISI 0 ms and 400 ms) on the first day but no difference for the longer preparation intervals (ISI 800 ms and 1200 ms). After only one day of practice, participants showed reduced fake production costs (for ISI 0 ms) and were even able to eliminate these cognitive costs when given time to mentally prepare the movement (for ISI 400 ms). Accordingly, physical practice can reduce the cognitive costs associated with head-fake generation. This finding is discussed against the background of the strengthening of stimulus response associations.

Following Affirmative and Negated Rules

Rules are often stated in a negated manner ("no trespassing") rather than in an affirmative manner ("stay in your lane"). Here, we build on classic research on negation processing and, using a finger-tracking design on a touchscreen, we show that following negated rather than affirmative rules is harder as indicated by multiple performance measures. Moreover, our results indicate that practice has a surprisingly limited effect on negated rules, which are implemented more quickly with training, but this effect comes at the expense of reduced efficiency. Only affirmative rules are thus put into action efficiently, highlighting the importance of tailoring how rules are communicated to the peculiarities of the human mind.

Producing deceptive actions in sports: The costs of generating head fakes in basketball

Typically, head fakes in basketball are generated to, and actually do, deteriorate performance on the side of the observer. However, potential costs at the side of the producer of a fake action have only rarely been investigated before. It is thus not clear yet if the benefit (i.e., slowed reactions in the observer) of performing a head fake is overestimated due to concurrently arising fake production costs (i.e., slowed performance in the producer of a head fake). Therefore, we studied potential head-fake production costs with two experiments. Novice participants were asked to generate passes to the left or right side, either with or without head fakes. In Experiment 1, these actions were determined by an auditory stimulus (i.e., a 440 Hz or 1200 Hz sinus or jigsaw wave). After an interstimulus interval (ISI) of either 0 ms, 800 ms, or 1500 ms, which served the preparation of the action, the cued action had to be executed. In Experiment 2, passing to the left or right, either with or without a head fake, was determined by a visual stimulus (i.e., a player with a red or blue jersey defending either the right or left side). After an ISI of either 0 ms, 400 ms, 800 ms, or 1200 ms, the cued action had to be executed. In both experiments, we observed higher reaction times (RTs) for passes with head fakes as compared to passes without head fakes for no and an intermediate preparation interval (from ISI 0 ms to 800 ms), but no difference for a long preparation interval (for an ISI of 1200 ms and 1500 ms). Both experiments show that generating fake actions produces performance costs, however, these costs can be overcome by a longer preparation phase before movement execution.

Taking the chance!-Interindividual differences in rule-breaking

While some individuals tend to follow norms, others, in the face of tempting but forbidden options, tend to commit rule-breaking when this action is beneficial for themselves. Previous studies have neglected such interindividual differences in rule-breaking. The present study fills this gap by investigating cognitive characteristics of individuals who commit spontaneous deliberative rule-breaking (rule-breakers) versus rule-followers. We developed a computerised task, in which 133 participants were incentivised to sometimes violate set rules which would-if followed-lead to a loss. While 52% of participants tended to break rules to obtain a benefit, 48% tended to follow rules even if this behaviour led to loss. Although rule-breakers experienced significantly more cognitive conflict (measured via response times and mouse movement trajectories) than rule-followers, they also obtained higher payoffs. In rule-breakers, cognitive conflict was more pronounced when violating the rules than when following them, and mainly during action planning. This conflict increased with frequent, recurrent, and early rule-breaking. Our results were in line with the Decision-Implementation-Mandatory switch-Inhibition model and thus extend the application of this model to the interindividual differences in rule-breaking. Furthermore, personality traits such as extroversion, disagreeableness, risk propensity, high impulsiveness seem to play a role in the appreciation of behaviours and cognitive characteristics of rule-followers and rule-breakers. This study opens the path towards the understanding of the cognitive characteristics of the interindividual differences in responses towards rules, and especially in spontaneous deliberative rule-breaking.

Who did I lie to that day? Deception impairs memory in daily life

Research has demonstrated that deceptive responses can undermine item and source memories. However, previous studies have often randomly assigned participants to an honest or deception group and asked them to respond in specific ways in an interview, rather than providing them a choice of what response to give. Moreover, little attention has been given to destination memory in previous research. Using a daily life paradigm, we investigated the effects of deception on memory. After completing a mock shopping task, participants were told that someone would ask them questions about their shopping lists. The participants voluntarily chose to tell the truth or lie in the interview and were encouraged to respond as they would in their daily lives. An item memory test, source memory test and destination memory test were given 48 h after the interview. Source and destination memories but not item memories were impaired for participants who chose to lie. Specifically, liars forgot the things about which they lied and mistakenly believed that they lied about many things that they did not, and they also did not remember to whom they lied. We conclude that deception can disrupt memory in daily life.

Temporal binding past the Libet clock: testing design factors for an auditory timer

Voluntary actions and causally linked sensory stimuli are perceived to be shifted towards each other in time. This so-called temporal binding is commonly assessed in paradigms using the Libet Clock. In such experiments, participants have to estimate the timing of actions performed or ensuing sensory stimuli (usually tones) by means of a rotating clock hand presented on a screen. The aforementioned task setup is however ill-suited for many conceivable setups, especially when they involve visual effects. To address this shortcoming, the line of research presented here establishes an alternative measure for temporal binding by using a sequence of timed sounds. This method uses an auditory timer, a sequence of letters presented during task execution, which serve as anchors for temporal judgments. In four experiments, we manipulated four design factors of this auditory timer, namely interval length, interval filling, sequence predictability, and sequence length, to determine the most effective and economic method for measuring temporal binding with an auditory timer.

Pictorial vs. linguistic negation: Investigating negation in imperatives across different symbol domains

The processing of negation is typically regarded as one of the most demanding cognitive processes as it often involves the reversal of input information. As negation is also regarded as a core linguistic process, to date, investigations of negation have typically been linguistic in nature. However, negation is a standard operator also within non-linguistic domains. For example, traffic signs often use negation to indicate a prohibition of specific actions (e.g., no left turn). In the current study, we investigate whether processing difficulties that are typically reported within the linguistic domain generalize to pictorial negation. Across two experiments, linguistic negation and pictorial negation were directly compared to their affirmative counterparts. In line with the literature, the results show that there is a general processing benefit for pictorial input. Most interestingly, the core process of negation also benefits from the pictorial input. Specifically, the processing difficulty in pictorial negation compared to affirmation is less pronounced than within the linguistic domain, especially concerning error rates. In the current experiments, pictorial negation did not result in increased error rates compared to the affirmative condition. Overall, the current results suggest that negation in pictorial conditions also results in a slowing of information processing. However, the use of pictorial negation can ease processing difficulty over linguistic negation.

Detecting faking-good response style in personality questionnaires with four choice alternatives

Deliberate attempts to portray oneself in an unrealistic manner are commonly encountered in the administration of personality questionnaires. The main aim of the present study was to explore whether mouse tracking temporal indicators and machine learning models could improve the detection of subjects implementing a faking-good response style when answering personality inventories with four choice alternatives, with and without time pressure. A total of 120 volunteers were randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups and asked to respond to the Virtuous Responding (VR) validity scale of the PPI-R and the Positive Impression Management (PIM) validity scale of the PAI via a computer mouse. A mixed design was implemented, and predictive models were calculated. The results showed that, on the PIM scale, faking-good participants were significantly slower in responding than honest respondents. Relative to VR items, PIM items are shorter in length and feature no negations. Accordingly, the PIM scale was found to be more sensitive in distinguishing between honest and faking-good respondents, demonstrating high classification accuracy (80–83%).

Design choices: Empirical recommendations for designing two-dimensional finger-tracking experiments

The continuous tracking of mouse or finger movements has become an increasingly popular research method for investigating cognitive and motivational processes such as decision-making, action-planning, and executive functions. In the present paper, we evaluate and discuss how apparently trivial design choices of researchers may impact participants' behavior and, consequently, a study's results. We first provide a thorough comparison of mouse- and finger-tracking setups on the basis of a Simon task. We then vary a comprehensive set of design factors, including spatial layout, movement extent, time of stimulus onset, size of the target areas, and hit detection in a finger-tracking variant of this task. We explore the impact of these variations on a broad spectrum of movement parameters that are typically used to describe movement trajectories. Based on our findings, we suggest several recommendations for best practice that avoid some of the pitfalls of the methodology. Keeping these recommendations in mind will allow for informed decisions when planning and conducting future tracking experiments.

Can We Prepare to Negate? Negation as a Reversal Operator

Negation is a critical cognitive operator that is investigated across a wide range of psychological phenomena (e.g., language, eating control, emotion control, stereotype processing). A core function of negation is reversing input information. In the current study, we investigated whether this reversing process benefits from temporal preparation. In Experiment 1, participants were first presented with either the negator "not" or the affirmative counterpart "now", and in a variable delay with the response indicating stimulus "left" or "right". Participants had to respond according to phrase meaning (e.g., "now right" ➔ right response; "not right" ➔ left response). The results showed a persisting negation effect of 150 ms that did not reduce with preparatory time. In Experiment 2, we replicated this study using non-linguistic input information (i.e. crosses, tick-marks and arrows). Again, despite standard temporal preparation effects being present, the reversal process itself did not benefit from preparatory time. In summary, these experiments suggest that capacity demanding reversal processes are not eased if we know that a reversal process is coming up soon. This is particularly interesting, as in the current experiments a very basic binary negation paradigm was implemented. The implications of these results for models of negation processing are discussed.

Performance Monitoring and Correct Response Significance in Conscientious Individuals

There is sufficient evidence to believe that variations in the error-related negativity (ERN) are linked to dispositional characteristics in individuals. However, explanations of individual differences in the amplitude of the ERN cannot be derived from functional theories of the ERN. The ERN has a counterpart that occurs after correct responses (correct-response negativity, CRN). Based on the assumption that ERN and CRN reflect an identical cognitive process, variations in CRN might be associated with dispositional characteristics as well. Higher CRN amplitudes have been found to reflect task engagement. In the present study, a simple-choice-reaction task was used to investigate ERN and CRN amplitudes in relation to their score on a conscientiousness scale. The task consisted of a simple rule that required pressing the left or right key when a circle or square appeared, respectively. During alternative conditions that occur infrequently, participants were instructed to violate or reverse the previously established response rules. Smaller ΔERN amplitudes (manifested in almost equal CRN and ERN amplitudes) and a tendency of better task performance from participants scoring high on the conscientiousness scale might indicate a greater focus on the task and higher motivation of responding correctly. In addition, higher Pc amplitudes directly following the CRN indicated that the response monitoring system of less conscientious participants showed a higher disengagement. The role of individual differences in CRN amplitude should be studied in future experiments on performance monitoring.

On the ball: Short-term consequences of movement fakes

In competitive situations, humans sometimes use fake actions. Fake actions are carried out to pretend a certain action goal, which however is not actually pursued, such as pump fakes in basketball, or drop shots in tennis. Here, we studied the short-term consequences of producing or observing fakes on the planning and detection of subsequent fake actions. Two players participated in a game, an attacker and a defender. Attackers had to either throw a ball into a target basket of the defender, or to mimic such a throw without actually throwing. Defenders had to discriminate between real throws and faked throws. Participants changed the roles of attacker and defender, and switched between real and faked throws randomly, on a trial-by-trial basis. We found that the (self-)observation of a fake action facilitated the detection of subsequent fake actions of opponents, but did not facilitate the subsequent planning of own fake actions. We conjecture that previous encounters of fake actions help to focus on the movement aspects that are most diagnostic for such fake actions. As a potential practical consequence, we recommend to not generate multiple fake actions in sports within a short time, to prevent potential short-term perceptual adaptation effects of defenders.

How Not to Fall for the White Bear: Combined Frequency and Recency Manipulations Diminish Negation Effects on Overt Behavior

Processing negated mental representations comes with a price: Not only are negations harder to resolve than affirmative statements, but they may even invoke ironic effects, producing the exact opposite of the intended outcome. Negation effects also behave ironically when subjected to high-frequency training; when they are confronted often, the difficulty to process negations strangely increases. Here we show that negation effects can be mitigated under certain circumstances. Based on models of cognitive control and conflict adaptation, we hypothesized that negation effects diminish when two criteria are met: negations have to be resolved not only frequently, but also just recently. We confirmed this prediction in two experiments by using an innovative, two-dimensional finger tracking design, in which we measured the influence of the original semantic content during negation processing via temporal and spatial measures. Negation effects were present throughout the experiment, but were reduced after recent negations, particularly during or after a high-frequency negation context. The combined influence of frequency and recency thus seems to be the most successful and promising attempt to mitigate ironic negation effects on overt behavior.

Risky business! Behavioral bias and motivational salience of rule-violations in children with conduct disorder

Conduct disorder is characterized by both habitual aggression as well as non-aggressive rule-breaking behavior. While a large body of research has focused on aggressive behavior to date, the subtype of non-aggressive rule-breaking behavior is poorly understood. The current study represents a first attempt to directly assess decision biases toward rule-breaking behavior, their motivational salience, and the association with interpersonal factors in conduct disorder. Participants (n = 20 children with conduct disorder and n = 20 healthy controls) played a video game with the goal to deliver a hot pizza by bicycle to a marked location on a two-dimensional city map. In each trial, participants decided whether to use the regular route (streets) or opt for a potential shortcut that was either permitted (bicycle lane) or prohibited (park). The efficiency of the shortcut was parametrically varied to assess individual decision functions. Consistent with our hypotheses, group differences emerged only when taking a shortcut represented a rule violation (park condition), with the conduct disorder group committing significantly more rule violations than controls. Furthermore, conduct disorder children showed a substantial frequency of rule violations even in the absence of shortcut related gains, indicating a pronounced insensitivity towards sanctions. Importantly, this tendency was associated with self-reported impulsivity and rule violations in real life.

Building Blocks of Psychology: on Remaking the Unkept Promises of Early Schools

The appeal and popularity of "building blocks", i.e., simple and dissociable elements of behavior and experience, persists in psychological research. We begin our assessment of this research strategy with an historical review of structuralism (as espoused by E. B. Titchener) and behaviorism (espoused by J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner), two movements that held the assumption in their attempts to provide a systematic and unified discipline. We point out the ways in which the elementism of the two schools selected, framed, and excluded topics of study. After the historical review, we turn to contemporary literature and highlight the persistence of research into building blocks and the associated framing and exclusions in psychological research. The assumption that complex categories of human psychology can be understood in terms of their elementary components and simplest forms seems indefensible. In specific cases, therefore, reliance on the assumption requires justification. Finally, we review alternative strategies that bypass the commitment to building blocks.

Action-effect related motor adaptation in interactions with everyday devices

Human action planning relies on integrated representations of motor acts and the associated consequences, which implies that changing the set of effects associated to a motor act might directly influence action planning and control. The present study investigated the hypothesis that action-effect manipulations also affected the motor components of the actions even when only a single action option was available. Participants performed simple everyday actions (pinched a plastic sheet, pressed a button, tapped on a table) in two conditions. In the motor-auditory condition actions resulted in the presentation of a tone, whereas no tones were presented in the motor condition. The applied force was softer in the motor-auditory than in the motor condition for all three types of actions. The temporal characteristics of force application showed that action-effect related motor adaptation occurred during action planning, but possibly also during action execution. This demonstrates that even in simple, well-defined interactions with everyday devices we take all (even seemingly task-irrelevant) action-effects into account during action planning, which affects the motor component of the action. The results also imply that in experiments manipulating contingent action effects, one cannot rely on the assumption that the motor part of the action is invariant between conditions.

This Is How To Be a Rule Breaker

Violating rules comes with cognitive conflict for the rule-breaker. Here, we probed for means to reduce the behavioral effects of this conflict by studying the combined impact of recency and frequency of rule violations. We found that violating a rule facilitated the initiation of a subsequent rule violation, while notable costs relative to rule-based responding remained in measures of response execution. Such costs during response execution vanished, however, when frequency and recency of rule violation worked in concert. That is, it is possible to overcome the costs of rule violation when (a) having violated this particular rule frequently and (b) having violated this particular rule very recently. Moreover, we demonstrated that recent rule violations reduce the costs of cognitive conflict in an unrelated interference task (Simon task). Based on these findings, we present a revised model of the cognitive processes underlying deliberate rule violations.

My mistake? Enhanced error processing for commanded compared to passively observed actions

We often ask other people to carry out actions for us in order to reach our goals. However, these commanded actions may sometimes go awry, and goal attainment is hindered by errors of the following person. Here, we investigated how the commanding person processes these errors of their follower. Because such errors indicate that the original goal of the command is not met, error processing for these actions should be enhanced compared to passively observing another person's actions. Participants thus either commanded another agent to perform one of four key press responses or they passively observed the agent responding. The agent could respond correctly or commit an error in either case. We compared error processing of commanded and passively observed actions using observation-related post-error slowing (oPES) as a behavioral marker and observed-error-related negativity (oN_E /oERN) and observed-error positivity (oP_E ) as electrophysiological markers. Whereas error processing, as measured via the oERN, was similarly pronounced for commanded and observed actions, commanded actions gave rise to stronger oPES and a stronger oP_E . These results suggest that enhanced monitoring is an automatic by-product of commanding another person's actions.

Behaviour versus performance: The veiled commitment of experimental psychology

The use and teaching of experimentation in psychology ought to accompany a discussion of what is within and what is beyond the reach of the method. I address this question by outlining the necessary restrictions that are prerequisite for conducting an experiment. The restrictions include establishing a fixed goal, the fulfillment of which represents successful participation in the experiment, a finite set of possible expressions for satisfying the goal, and a fixed assignment between each possible expression and how it should be performed. These restrictions entail rules that determine what counts as good participation (evaluation), and rules that determine whether a behaviour counts as participation at all (inclusion). Participants’ conformity to the rules makes experimentation possible and, more importantly, maintains the experimenter’s attention on features of performance. This selective attention, in turn, neglects participants’ capacities for adopting and violating rules, and possible alterations in their goals and interpretations. While these capacities fall beyond the scope of experimental psychology, their recognition is necessary for encountering what is not already understood at the start of a research project.

Rule-violations sensitise towards negative and authority-related stimuli

Rule violations have usually been studied from a third-person perspective, identifying situational factors that render violations more or less likely. A first-person perspective of the agent that actively violates the rules, on the other hand, is only just beginning to emerge. Here we show that committing a rule violation sensitises towards subsequent negative stimuli as well as subsequent authority-related stimuli. In a Prime-Probe design, we used an instructed rule-violation task as the Prime and a word categorisation task as the Probe. Also, we employed a control condition that used a rule inversion task as the Prime (instead of rule violations). Probe targets were categorised faster after a violation relative to after a rule-based response if they related to either, negative valence or authority. Inversions, however, primed only negative stimuli and did not accelerate the categorisation of authority-related stimuli. A heightened sensitivity towards authority-related targets thus seems to be specific to rule violations. A control experiment showed that these effects cannot be explained in terms of semantic priming. Therefore, we propose that rule violations necessarily activate authority-related representations that make rule violations qualitatively different from simple rule inversions.

Smooth criminal: convicted rule-breakers show reduced cognitive conflict during deliberate rule violations

Classic findings on conformity and obedience document a strong and automatic drive of human agents to follow any type of rule or social norm. At the same time, most individuals tend to violate rules on occasion, and such deliberate rule violations have recently been shown to yield cognitive conflict for the rule-breaker. These findings indicate persistent difficulty to suppress the rule representation, even though rule violations were studied in a controlled experimental setting with neither gains nor possible sanctions for violators. In the current study, we validate these findings by showing that convicted criminals, i.e., individuals with a history of habitual and severe forms of rule violations, can free themselves from such cognitive conflict in a similarly controlled laboratory task. These findings support an emerging view that aims at understanding rule violations from the perspective of the violating agent rather than from the perspective of outside observer.