Translating experimental paradigms into individual-differences research: Contributions, challenges, and practical recommendations

Flexible letter-position coding in Chinese-English L2 bilinguals: Evidence from eye movements

Theories suggest that efficient recognition of English words depends on flexible letter-position coding, demonstrated by the fact that transposed-letter primes (e.g., JUGDE-judge) facilitate written word recognition more than substituted-letter primes (e.g., JUFBE-judge). The multiple route model predicts that reading experience should drive more flexible letter-position coding as readers transition from decoding words letter-by-letter to recognising words as wholes. This study therefore examined whether letter-position is coded flexibly in second-language English sentence reading for native Chinese speakers, and if this is influenced by English proficiency. Eye movements were measured while 54 adult native Chinese speakers read English sentences including either a real word (e.g., cheaply), a transposed-letter nonword (e.g., "chepaly"), or a substituted-letter nonword (e.g., "chegely"). Flexible letter-position coding was observed in initial and later processing stages-reading times were longer for substituted-letter than transposed-letter nonwords. In addition, reading times were longer in both initial and later processing stages for transposed-letter nonwords than real words, indicating that, despite encoding letter-position flexibly, readers processed letter-position. Although pre-registered frequentist analyses suggested that English proficiency did not predict overall reading times, Bayes Factors indicated that there was evidence for such a relationship. It is therefore likely that this proficiency analysis suffered from low power. Finally, neither frequentist nor Bayes Factor analyses suggested that English proficiency influenced the difference in reading times between different target word types, i.e., the nature of letter-position coding. Overall, these results suggest that highly proficient L2 learners code letter-position flexibly.

Contextual diversity and anchoring: Null effects on learning word forms and opposing effects on learning word meanings

Words that appear in many contexts/topics are recognised faster than those occurring in fewer contexts. However, contextual diversity benefits are less clear in word learning studies. Mak et al. proposed that diversity benefits might be enhanced if new word meanings are anchored before introducing diversity. In our study, adults (N = 288) learned meanings for eight pseudowords, four experienced in six topics (high diversity) and four in one topic (low diversity). All items were first experienced five times in one topic (anchoring phase), and results were compared to Norman et al. which used a similar paradigm without an anchoring phase. An old-new decision post-test (did you learn this word?) showed null effects of contextual diversity on written form recognition accuracy and response time, mirroring Norman et al. A cloze task involved choosing which pseudoword completed a sentence. For sentences situated in a previously experienced context, accuracy was significantly higher for pseudowords learned in the low diversity condition, whereas for sentences situated in a new context, accuracy was non-significantly higher for pseudowords learned in the high diversity condition. Anchoring modulated these effects. Low diversity item accuracy was unaffected by anchoring. However, for high-diversity items, accuracy in familiar contexts was better in the current experiment (anchoring) than in Norman et al. (non-anchoring), but accuracy in new contexts did not differ between the two experiments. These results suggest that anchoring facilitates meaning use in familiar contexts, but not generalisation to new contexts, nor word recognition in isolation.

Distinct but related abilities for visual and haptic object recognition

People vary in their ability to recognize objects visually. Individual differences for matching and recognizing objects visually is supported by a domain-general ability capturing common variance across different tasks (e.g., Richler et al., Psychological Review, 126, 226-251, 2019). Behavioral (e.g., Cooke et al., Neuropsychologia, 45, 484-495, 2007) and neural evidence (e.g., Amedi, Cerebral Cortex, 12, 1202-1212, 2002) suggest overlapping mechanisms in the processing of visual and haptic information in the service of object recognition, but it is unclear whether such group-average results generalize to individual differences. Psychometrically validated measures are required, which have been lacking in the haptic modality. We investigate whether object recognition ability is specific to vision or extends to haptics using psychometric measures we have developed. We use multiple visual and haptic tests with different objects and different formats to measure domain-general visual and haptic abilities and to test for relations across them. We measured object recognition abilities using two visual tests and four haptic tests (two each for two kinds of haptic exploration) in 97 participants. Partial correlation and confirmatory factor analyses converge to support the existence of a domain-general haptic object recognition ability that is moderately correlated with domain-general visual object recognition ability. Visual and haptic abilities share about 25% of their variance, supporting the existence of a multisensory domain-general ability while leaving a substantial amount of residual variance for modality-specific abilities. These results extend our understanding of the structure of object recognition abilities; while there are mechanisms that may generalize across categories, tasks, and modalities, there are still other mechanisms that are distinct between modalities.

Openness to experience predicts eye movement behavior during scene viewing

Individuals' abilities to perform goal-directed spatial deployments of attention are distinguishable from their broader preferences for how they use spatial attention when circumstances do not compel a specific deployment strategy. Although these preferences are likely to play a major role in how we interact with the visual world during daily life, they remain relatively understudied. This exploratory study investigated two key questions about these preferences: firstly, are individuals consistent in their preferences for how they deploy their spatial attention when making shifts of attention versus adopting an attentional breadth? Secondly, which other factors are associated with these preferences? Across two experiments, we measured how participants preferred to deploy both attentional breadth (using an adapted Navon task) and eye movements (using a free-viewing task). We also measured participants' working memory capacities (Experiment 1), and their personalities and world beliefs (Experiment 2). In both experiments, there were consistent individual differences in preference for attentional breadth and eye movement characteristics, but these two kinds of preference were unrelated to each other. Working memory capacity was not linked to these preferences. Conversely, the personality trait of Openness to Experience robustly predicted two aspects of eye movement behavior preference, such that higher levels of Openness predicted smaller saccades and shorter scan paths. This suggests that personality dimensions may predict preferences for more absorbed engagement with visual information. However, it appears that individuals' preferences for shifts of attention during scene viewing do not necessarily relate to the breadth of attention they choose to adopt.

Understanding visual perception in visual snow syndrome: a battery of psychophysical tests plus the 30-day clinical diary

Patients with visual snow syndrome (VSS) experience uncountable flickering tiny dots in the entire visual field. Symptoms often persist over the years. Very little is known about altered perception in VSS. VSS is diagnosed based on subjective reports because there is no manual with objective measures. In this study, 20 patients with VSS and 17 healthy controls performed a battery of tests assessing visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, illusion perception, spatial-temporal vision, motion perception, visual attention, and selective attention. Surprisingly, except for one test, which is the honeycomb illusion, patients performed at the same level as controls. Patients reporting black and white visual snow performed better in the Stroop test compared to patients reporting other visual snow colours. In addition to a clinical visit, the 30-day clinical diary was administered to patients to broadly measure their symptom severity. We found that better performance in the tests, in particular in the contrast and coherent motion tests, was correlated with lower VSS symptoms, weaker VS characteristics (e.g. density and size) and lower VS severity. Our results suggest that, even if visual abilities are not deteriorated by VSS, they can determine how severe symptoms are, and show that VSS is an heterogenous disorder where symptoms and visual abilities vary between patients, for instance depending on the VS colour. The study was primarily designed to identify tests where performance differs between controls and patients. In addition, exploratory analyses were conducted to initiate an understanding of the overall pattern of relationships between patients' visual abilities and symptoms, which is of clinical relevance. Future studies with more power are necessary to validate our findings.

A meta-analysis on the relationship between subjective cognitive failures as measured by the cognitive failures questionnaire (CFQ) and objective performance on executive function tasks

The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) has been widely used as a measure of subjective cognitive function in everyday life for decades. However, the evidence on how it relates to objective performance on executive function tasks is mixed. One possible reason for these mixed results is that the CFQ has selective relationships with some aspects of executive function and not others. Here, therefore, we classified tasks according to an influential framework of executive functions-switching, updating, inhibition, and we also considered the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) as a category because it was custom designed to gauge cognitive failures. We synthesized a large body of available evidence and performed four Bayesian meta-analyses on the relationship between CFQ scores and objective performance on executive function tasks in these four categories. Results suggested that CFQ scores were associated with objective performance on SART (18 effect sizes, μ = -.19, BF10 = 18.03, i.e., 18.03 times more evidence of a relationship versus no relationship), updating working memory (49 effect sizes, μ = -.06, BF10 = 17.80), and inhibition tasks (41 effect sizes, μ = -.07, BF10 = 15.40), whereas there was not definitive evidence regarding switching (34 effect sizes, μ = -.06, BF10 = .50, i.e., two times greater evidence for no relationship). This suggests that subjective cognitive function can predict objective performance on at least some executive function tasks. We discuss methodological and theoretical factors that constrain the maximum observable correlation and consider the relative insights that subjective measures versus task performance provide.

Individual differences in visual search: A systematic review of the link between visual search performance and traits or abilities

Visual search (VS) comprises a class of tasks that we typically perform several times during a day and requires intentionally scanning (with or without moving the eyes) the environment for a specific target (be it an object or a feature) among distractor stimuli. Experimental research in lab-based or real-world settings has offered insight into its underlying neurocognitive mechanisms from a nomothetic point of view. A lesser-known but rapidly growing body of quasi-experimental and correlational research has explored the link between individual differences and VS performance. This combines different research traditions and covers a wide range of individual differences in studies deploying a vast array of VS tasks. As such, it is a challenge to determine whether any associations highlighted in single studies are robust when considering the wider literature. However, clarifying such relationships systematically and comprehensively would help build more accurate models of VS, and it would highlight promising directions for future research. This systematic review provides an up to date and comprehensive synthesis of the existing literature investigating associations between common indices of performance in VS tasks and measures of individual differences mapped onto four categories of cognitive abilities (short-term working memory, fluid reasoning, visual processing and processing speed) and seven categories of traits (Big Five traits, trait anxiety and autistic traits). Consistent associations for both traits (in particular, conscientiousness, autistic traits and trait anxiety - the latter limited to emotional stimuli) and cognitive abilities (particularly visual processing) were identified. Overall, however, informativeness of future studies would benefit from checking and reporting the reliability of all measurement tools, applying multiplicity correction, using complementary techniques, study preregistration and testing why, rather than only if, a robust relation between certain individual differences and VS performance exists.

Individual differences in emotion-induced blindness: Are they reliable and what do they measure?

The emotion-induced-blindness (EIB) paradigm has been extensively used to investigate attentional biases to emotionally salient stimuli. However, the low reliability of EIB scores (the difference in performance between the neutral and emotionally salient condition) limits the effectiveness of the paradigm for investigating individual differences. Here, across two studies, we investigated whether we could improve the reliability of EIB scores. In Experiment 1, we introduced a mid-intensity emotionally salient stimuli condition, with the goal of obtaining a wider range of EIB magnitudes to promote reliability. In Experiment 2, we sought to reduce the attentional oddball effect, so we created a modified EIB paradigm by removing the filler images. Neither of these approaches improved the reliability of the EIB scores. Reliability for the high- and mid-intensity EIB difference scores were low, while reliability of the scores for absolute performance (neutral, high-, and mid-intensity) were high and the scores were also highly correlated, even though overall performance in the emotionally salient conditions were significantly worse than in the neutral conditions. Given these results, we can conclude that while emotionally salient stimuli impair performance in the EIB task compared with the neutral condition, the strong correlation between the emotionally salient and neutral conditions means that while EIB can be used to investigate individual differences in attentional control, it is not selective to individual differences in attentional biases to emotionally salient stimuli.

Mindreading quality versus quantity: A theoretically and empirically motivated two-factor structure for individual differences in adults' mindreading

Existing methods for studying individual differences in adults' mindreading often lack good psychometric characteristics. Moreover, it remains unclear, even in theory, how mindreading varies in adults who already possess an understanding of mental states. In this pre-registered study, it was hypothesised that adults vary in their motivation for mindreading and in the degree to which their answers on mindreading tasks are appropriate (context-sensitive). These factors are confounded in existing measures as they do not differentiate between the frequency of mental state terms (MST), indicative of motivation, and the quality of an explanation. Using an innovative scoring system, the current study examined whether individual differences in adult undergraduate psychology students' (N = 128) answer quality and / or quantity of explicit references to others' mental states on two open-ended response mindreading tasks were separable constructs, accounted for by mindreading motivation, and related differentially to measures previously linked with mindreading (e.g., religiosity, loneliness, social network size). A two-factor and one-factor model both provided acceptable fit. Neither model showed significant associations with mindreading motivation. However, a two-factor model (with MST and response appropriateness loading onto separate factors) provided greater explanatory power. Specifically, MST was positively associated with religiosity and response appropriateness was negatively associated with religiosity, whilst the one-factor solution did not predict any socially relevant outcomes. This provides some indication that mindreading quantity and mindreading quality may be distinguishable constructs in the structure of individual differences in mindreading.

The common factor of executive functions measures nothing but speed of information uptake

There is an ongoing debate about the unity and diversity of executive functions and their relationship with other cognitive abilities such as processing speed, working memory capacity, and intelligence. Specifically, the initially proposed unity and diversity of executive functions is challenged by discussions about (1) the factorial structure of executive functions and (2) unfavorable psychometric properties of measures of executive functions. The present study addressed two methodological limitations of previous work that may explain conflicting results: The inconsistent use of (a) accuracy-based vs. reaction time-based indicators and (b) average performance vs. difference scores. In a sample of 148 participants who completed a battery of executive function tasks, we tried to replicate the three-factor model of the three commonly distinguished executive functions shifting, updating, and inhibition by adopting data-analytical choices of previous work. After addressing the identified methodological limitations using drift-diffusion modeling, we only found one common factor of executive functions that was fully accounted for by individual differences in the speed of information uptake. No variance specific to executive functions remained. Our results suggest that individual differences common to all executive function tasks measure nothing more than individual differences in the speed of information uptake. We therefore suggest refraining from using typical executive function tasks to study substantial research questions, as these tasks are not valid for measuring individual differences in executive functions.

Individual and Age Differences in Item and Context Memory

We investigated whether individuals who are good at recognizing previously presented items are also good at recognizing the context in which items were presented. We focused specifically on whether the relation between item recognition and context recognition abilities differs in younger and older adults. It has been hypothesized that context memory declines more rapidly in older adults due to an age-related deficit in associative binding or recollection. To test this hypothesis, younger and older adults were asked to remember lists of names and objects, as well as the context (i.e. their size, location, and color) that accompanied those items. Following presentation of each list, recognition tests for items and context were administered. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models analyzing both item and context scores together provided no evidence of separate factors for item and context memory. Instead, the best-fitting model separated performance by item-type, regardless of context, and no differences were found in the structure of these abilities in younger and older adults. These findings are consistent with the limited previous latent variable research on context memory in aging suggesting that there is no context recognition memory ability separable from item memory in younger nor older adults. Instead, individual differences in recognition memory abilities may be specific to the domain of the studied stimulus.

Designing and evaluating tasks to measure individual differences in experimental psychology: a tutorial

Experimental psychology is witnessing an increase in research on individual differences, which requires the development of new tasks that can reliably assess variations among participants. To do this, cognitive researchers need statistical methods that many researchers have not learned during their training. The lack of expertise can pose challenges not only in designing good, new tasks but also in evaluating tasks developed by others. To bridge the gap, this article provides an overview of test psychology applied to performance tasks, covering fundamental concepts such as standardization, reliability, norming and validity. It provides practical guidelines for developing and evaluating experimental tasks, as well as for combining tasks to better understand individual differences. To further address common misconceptions, the article lists 11 prevailing myths. The purpose of this guide is to provide experimental psychologists with the knowledge and tools needed to conduct rigorous and insightful studies of individual differences.

Weak correlations between visual abilities in healthy older adults, despite long-term performance stability

Using batteries of visual tests, most studies have found that there are only weak correlations between the performance levels of the tests. Factor analysis has confirmed these results. This means that a participant excelling in one test may rank low in another test. Hence, there is very little evidence for a common factor in vision. In visual aging research, cross-sectional studies have repeatedly found that healthy older adults' performance is strongly deteriorated in most visual tests compared to young adults. However, also within the healthy older population, there is no evidence for a visual common factor. To investigate whether the weak between-tests correlations are due to fluctuations in individual performance throughout time, we conducted a longitudinal study. Healthy older adults performed a battery of eight visual tests, with two re-tests after approximately four and seven years. Pearson's, Spearman's and intraclass correlations of most visual tests were significant across the three testing, indicating that the tests are reliable and individual differences are stable across years. Yet, we found low between-tests correlations at each visit, which is consistent with previous studies finding no evidence for a visual common factor. Our results exclude the possibility that the weak correlations between tests are due to high within-individual variance across time.

Comparison of two reaction-time-based and one foraging-based behavioral approach-avoidance tasks in relation to interindividual differences and their reliability

Approaching rewards and avoiding punishments is a fundamental aspect of behavior, yet individuals differ in the extent of these behavioral tendencies. One popular method to assess differences in approach-avoidance tendencies and even modify them, is using behavioral tasks in which spontaneous responses to differently valenced stimuli are assessed (e.g., the visual joystick and the manikin task). Understanding whether these reaction-time-based tasks map onto the same underlying constructs, how they predict interindividual differences in theoretically related constructs and how reliable they are, seems vital to make informed judgements about current findings and future studies. In this preregistered study, 168 participants (81 self-identified men, 87 women) completed emotional face versions of these tasks as well as an alternative, foraging-based paradigm, the approach-avoidance-conflict task, and answered self-report questionnaires regarding anxiety, aggression, depressive symptoms, behavioral inhibition and activation. Importantly, approach-avoidance outcome measures of the two reaction-time-based tasks were unrelated with each other, showed little relation to self-reported interindividual differences and had subpar internal consistencies. In contrast, the approach-avoidance-conflict task was related to behavioral inhibition and aggression, and had good internal consistencies. Our study highlights the need for more research into optimizing behavioral approach-avoidance measures when using task-based approach-avoidance measures to assess interindividual differences.

The non-unitary nature of information preference

Factors affecting information-seeking behaviour can be task-endogenous (e.g., probability of winning a gamble), or task-exogenous (e.g., personality trait measures). Various task-endogenous factors affecting non-instrumental information-seeking behaviour have been identified, but it is unclear how task-exogenous factors affect such behaviour, and if they interact with task-endogenous factors. In an online information seeking experiment (N = 279), we focus on the role that outcome probability, as a task-endogenous factor, has on information preferences. We find reliable preference for advance information on highly probable gains and low preference for highly probable losses. Comparisons with individual trait measures of information preference (e.g., intolerance of uncertainty scale, obsessive-compulsive inventory, information preferences scale) reveal minimal association between these task-exogenous factors with choice task performance. We also find minimal interaction between outcome probability and individual trait measures. Despite the choice task and trait measures purportedly tapping the same (or similar) construct, the absence of clear relationships ultimately suggests a multi-dimensional nature of information preference.

Studying Individual Differences in Language Comprehension: The Challenges of Item-Level Variability and Well-Matched Control Conditions

Translating experimental tasks that were designed to investigate differences between conditions at the group-level into valid and reliable instruments to measure individual differences in cognitive skills is challenging (Hedge et al., 2018; Rouder et al., 2019; Rouder & Haaf, 2019). For psycholinguists, the additional complexities associated with selecting or constructing language stimuli, and the need for appropriate well-matched baseline conditions make this endeavour particularly complex. In a typical experiment, a process-of-interest (e.g. ambiguity resolution) is targeted by contrasting performance in an experimental condition with performance in a well-matched control condition. In many cases, careful between-condition matching precludes the same participant from encountering all stimulus items. Unfortunately, solutions that work for group-level research (e.g. constructing counterbalanced experiment versions) are inappropriate for individual-differences designs. As a case study, we report an ambiguity resolution experiment that illustrates the steps that researchers can take to address this issue and assess whether their measurement instrument is both valid and reliable. On the basis of our findings, we caution against the widespread approach of using datasets from group-level studies to also answer important questions about individual differences.

Test-retest reliability of eye tracking measures in a computerized Trail Making Test

The Trail Making Test (TMT) is a frequently applied neuropsychological test that evaluates participants' executive functions based on their time to connect a sequence of numbers (TMT-A) or alternating numbers and letters (TMT-B). Test performance is associated with various cognitive functions ranging from visuomotor speed to working memory capabilities. However, although the test can screen for impaired executive functioning in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders, it provides only little information about which specific cognitive impairments underlie performance detriments. To resolve this lack of specificity, recent cognitive research combined the TMT with eye tracking so that eye movements could help uncover reasons for performance impairments. However, using eye-tracking-based test scores to examine differences between persons, and ultimately apply the scores for diagnostics, presupposes that the reliability of the scores is established. Therefore, we investigated the test-retest reliabilities of scores in an eye-tracking version of the TMT recently introduced by Recker et al. (2022). We examined two healthy samples performing an initial test and then a retest 3 days (n = 31) or 10 to 30 days (n = 34) later. Results reveal that, although reliabilities of classic completion times were overall good, comparable with earlier versions, reliabilities of eye-tracking-based scores ranged from excellent (e.g., durations of fixations) to poor (e.g., number of fixations guiding manual responses). These findings indicate that some eye-tracking measures offer a strong basis for assessing interindividual differences beyond classic behavioral measures when examining processes related to information accumulation processes but are less suitable to diagnose differences in eye-hand coordination.

Challenges and Solutions to the Measurement of Neurocognitive Mechanisms in Developmental Settings

Identifying early neurocognitive mechanisms that confer risk for mental health problems is one important avenue as we seek to develop successful early interventions. Currently, however, we have limited understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms involved in shaping mental health trajectories from childhood through young adulthood, and this constrains our ability to develop effective clinical interventions. In particular, there is an urgent need to develop more sensitive, reliable, and scalable measures of individual differences for use in developmental settings. In this review, we outline methodological shortcomings that explain why widely used task-based measures of neurocognition currently tell us little about mental health risk. We discuss specific challenges that arise when studying neurocognitive mechanisms in developmental settings, and we share suggestions for overcoming them. We also propose a novel experimental approach-which we refer to as "cognitive microscopy"-that involves adaptive design optimization, temporally sensitive task administration, and multilevel modeling. This approach addresses some of the methodological shortcomings outlined above and provides measures of stability, variability, and developmental change in neurocognitive mechanisms within a multivariate framework.

Serial dependence in visual perception: A meta-analysis and review

Positive sequential dependencies are phenomena in which actions, perception, decisions, and memory of features or objects are systematically biased toward visual experiences from the recent past. Among many labels, serial dependencies have been referred to as priming, sequential dependencies, sequential effects, or serial effects. Despite extensive research on the topic, the field still lacks an operational definition of what counts as serial dependence. In this meta-analysis, we review the vast literature on serial dependence and quantitatively assess its key diagnostic characteristics across several different domains of visual perception. The meta-analyses fully characterize serial dependence in orientation, face, and numerosity perception. They show that serial dependence is defined by four main kinds of tuning: serial dependence decays with time (temporal-tuning), it depends on relative spatial location (spatial-tuning), it occurs only between similar features and objects (feature-tuning), and it is modulated by attention (attentional-tuning). We also review studies of serial dependence that report single observer data, highlighting the importance of individual differences in serial dependence. Finally, we discuss a range of outstanding questions and novel research avenues that are prompted by the meta-analyses. Together, the meta-analyses provide a full characterization of serial dependence as an operationally defined family of visual phenomena, and they outline several of the key diagnostic criteria for serial dependence that should serve as guideposts for future research.

Can we measure individual differences in cognitive measures reliably via smartphones? A comparison of the flanker effect across device types and samples

Research deployed via the internet and administered via smartphones could have access to more diverse samples than lab-based research. Diverse samples could have relatively high variation in their traits and so yield relatively reliable measurements of individual differences in these traits. Several cognitive tasks that originated from the experimental research tradition have been reported to yield relatively low reliabilities (Hedge et al., 2018) in samples with restricted variance (students). This issue could potentially be addressed by smartphone-mediated administration in diverse samples. We formulate several criteria to determine whether a cognitive task is suitable for individual differences research on commodity smartphones: no very brief or precise stimulus timing, relative response times (RTs), a maximum of two response options, and a small number of graphical stimuli. The flanker task meets these criteria. We compared the reliability of individual differences in the flanker effect across samples and devices in a preregistered study. We found no evidence that a more diverse sample yields higher reliabilities. We also found no evidence that commodity smartphones yield lower reliabilities than commodity laptops. Hence, diverse samples might not improve reliability above student samples, but smartphones may well measure individual differences with cognitive tasks reliably. Exploratively, we examined different reliability coefficients, split-half reliabilities, and the development of reliability estimates as a function of task length.

The neural correlates of domain-general visual ability

People vary in their general ability to compare, identify, and remember objects. Research using latent variable modeling identifies a domain-general visual recognition ability (called o) that reflects correlations among different visual tasks and categories. We measure associations between a psychometrically-sensitive measure of o and a neurometrically-sensitive measure of visual sensitivity to shape. We report evidence for distributed neural correlates of o using functional and anatomical regions-of-interest (ROIs) as well as whole brain analyses. Neural selectivity to shape is associated with o in several regions of the ventral pathway, as well as additional foci in parietal and premotor cortex. Multivariate analyses suggest the distributed effects in ventral cortex reflect a common mechanism. The network of brain areas where neural selectivity predicts o is similar to that evoked by the most informative features for object recognition in prior work, showing convergence of 2 different approaches on identifying areas that support the best object recognition performance. Because o predicts performance across many visual tasks for both novel and familiar objects, we propose that o could predict the magnitude of neural changes in task-relevant areas following experience with specific task and object category.

Evaluating individual differences in rewarded Stroop performance: reliability and associations with self-report measures

In three separate experiments, we examined the reliability of and relationships between self-report measures and behavioral response time measures of reward sensitivity. Using a rewarded-Stroop task we showed that reward-associated, but task-irrelevant, information interfered with task performance (MIRA) in all three experiments, but individual differences in MIRA were unreliable both within-session and over a period of approximately 4 weeks, providing clear evidence that it is not a good individual differences measure. In contrast, when the task-relevant information was rewarded, individual differences in performance benefits were remarkably reliable, even when examining performance one year later, and with a different version of a rewarded Stroop task. Despite the high reliability of the behavioral measure of reward responsiveness, behavioral reward responsiveness was not associated with self-reported reward responsiveness scores using validated questionnaires but was associated with greater self-reported self-control. Results are discussed in terms of what is actually being measured in the rewarded Stroop task.

Unfamiliar face matching ability predicts the slope of face learning

We provide the first examination of individual differences in the efficiency of face learning. Investigating individual differences in face learning can illuminate potential mechanisms and provide greater understanding of why certain individuals might be more efficient face learners. Participants completed two unfamiliar face matching tasks and a learning task in which learning was assessed after viewing 1, 3, 6, and 9 images of to-be-learned identities. Individual differences in the slope of face learning (i.e., increases in sensitivity to identity) were predicted by the ability to discriminate between matched (same-identity) vs. mismatched (different-identity) pairs of wholly unfamiliar faces. A Dual Process Signal Detection model showed that three parameters increased with learning: Familiarity (an unconscious type of memory that varies in strength), recollection-old (conscious recognition of a learned identity), and recollection-new (conscious/confident rejection of novel identities). Good (vs. poor) matchers had higher Recollection-Old scores throughout learning and showed a steeper increase in Recollection-New. We conclude that good matchers are better able to capitalize on exposure to within-person variability in appearance, an effect that is attributable to their conscious memory for both learned and novel faces. These results have applied implications and will inform contemporary and traditional models of face identification.

Differential Recruitment of Inhibitory Control Processes by Directed Forgetting and Thought Substitution

Humans have the ability to intentionally forget information via different strategies, included suppression of encoding (directed forgetting) and mental replacement of the item to encode (thought substitution). These strategies may rely on different neural mechanisms; namely, encoding suppression may induce prefrontally mediated inhibition, whereas thought substitution is potentially accomplished through modulating contextual representations. Yet, few studies have directly related inhibitory processing to encoding suppression, or tested its involvement in thought substitution. Here, we directly tested whether encoding suppression recruits inhibitory mechanisms with a cross-task design, relating the behavioral and neural data from male and female participants in a Stop Signal task (a task specifically testing inhibitory processing) to a directed forgetting task with both encoding suppression (Forget) and thought substitution (Imagine) cues. Behaviorally, Stop Signal task performance (stop signal reaction times) was related to the magnitude of encoding suppression, but not thought substitution. Two complementary neural analyses corroborated the behavioral result. Namely, brain-behavior analysis demonstrated that the magnitude of right-frontal beta activity following stop signals was related to stop signal reaction times and successful encoding suppression, but not thought substitution; and classifiers trained to discriminate successful and unsuccessful stopping in the Stop Signal task could also classify successful and unsuccessful forgetting following Forget cues, but not Imagine cues. Importantly, inhibitory neural mechanisms were engaged following Forget cues at a later time than motor stopping. These findings not only support an inhibitory account of directed forgetting, and that thought substitution engages separate mechanisms, but also potentially identify a specific time in which inhibition occurs when suppressing encoding.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Forgetting often seems like an unintended experience, but forgetting can be intentional, and can be accomplished with multiple strategies. These strategies, including encoding suppression and thought substitution, may rely on different neural mechanisms. Here, we test the hypothesis that encoding suppression engages domain-general prefrontally driven inhibitory control mechanisms, while thought substitution does not. Using cross-task analyses, we provide evidence that encoding suppression engages the same inhibitory mechanisms used for stopping motor actions, but these mechanisms are not engaged by thought substitution. These findings not only support the notion that mnemonic encoding processes can be directly inhibited, but also have broad relevance, as certain populations with disrupted inhibitory processing may be more successful accomplishing intentional forgetting through thought substitution strategies.

Stable individual differences in unfamiliar face identification: Evidence from simultaneous and sequential matching tasks

Matching identity in images of unfamiliar faces is difficult: Images of the same person can look different and images of different people can look similar. Recent studies have capitalized on individual differences in the ability to distinguish match (same ID) vs. mismatch (different IDs) face pairs to inform models of face recognition. We addressed two significant gaps in the literature by examining the stability of individual differences in both sensitivity to identity and response bias. In Study 1, 210 participants completed a battery of four tasks in each of two sessions separated by one week. Tasks varied in protocol (same/different, lineup, sorting) and stimulus characteristics (low vs. high within-person variability in appearance). In Study 2, 148 participants completed a battery of three tasks in a single session. Stimuli were presented simultaneously on some trials and sequentially on others, introducing short-term memory demands. Principal components analysis revealed two components that were stable across time and tasks: sensitivity to identity and bias. Analyses of response times suggest that individual differences in bias reflect decision-making processes. We discuss the implications of our findings in applied settings and for models of face recognition.

What about "space" is important for episodic memory?

Early cognitive neuroscientific research revealed that the hippocampus is crucial for spatial navigation in rodents, and for autobiographical episodic memory in humans. Researchers quickly linked these streams to propose that the human hippocampus supports memory through its role in representing space, and research on the link between spatial cognition and episodic memory in humans has proliferated over the past several decades. Different researchers apply the term "spatial" in a variety of contexts, however, and it remains unclear what aspect of space may be critical to memory. Similarly, "episodic" has been defined and tested in different ways. Naturalistic assessment of spatial memory and episodic memory (i.e., episodic autobiographical memory) is required to unify the scale and biological relevance in comparisons of spatial and mnemonic processing. Limitations regarding the translation of rodent to human research, human ontogeny, and inter-individual variability require greater consideration in the interpretation of this literature. In this review, we outline the aspects of space that are (and are not) commonly linked to episodic memory, and then we discuss these dimensions through the lens of individual differences in naturalistic autobiographical memory. Future studies should carefully consider which aspect(s) of space are being linked to memory within the context of naturalistic human cognition. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.

Exploring individual differences in infants' looking preferences for impossible events: The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale

Infants are drawn to events that violate their expectations about the world: they look longer at physically impossible events, such as when a car passes through a wall. Here, we examined whether individual differences in infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events reflect an early form of curiosity, and asked whether caregivers' behaviors, parenting styles, and everyday routines relate to these differences. In Study 1, we presented infants (N = 47, Mage  = 16.83 months, range = 10.29-24.59 months) with events that violated physical principles and closely matched possible events. We measured infants' everyday curiosity and related experiences (i.e., caregiver curiosity-promoting activities) through a newly developed curiosity scale, The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale (EMCS). Infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events were positively associated with their score on the EMCS, but not their temperament, vocabulary, or caregiver trait curiosity. In Study 2A, we set out to better understand the relation between the EMCS and infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events by assessing the underlying structure of the EMCS with a larger sample of children (N = 211, Mage  = 47.63 months, range = 10.29-78.97 months). An exploratory factor analysis revealed that children's curiosity was comprised four factors: Social Curiosity, Broad Exploration, Persistence, and Information-Seeking. Relatedly, caregiver curiosity-promoting activities were composed of five factors: Flexible Problem-Solving, Cognitive Stimulation, Diverse Daily Activities, Child-Directed Play, and Awe-Inducing Activities. In Study 2B (N = 42 infants from Study 1), we examined which aspects of infant curiosity and caregiver behavior predicted infants' looking preferences using the factor structures of the EMCS. Findings revealed that infants' looking preferences were uniquely related to infants' Broad Exploration and caregivers' Awe-Inducing Activities (e.g., nature walks with infants, museum outings). These exploratory findings indicate that infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events may reflect an early form of curiosity, which is related to the curiosity-stimulating environments provided by caregivers. Moreover, this work offers a new comprehensive tool, the Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale, that can be used to measure both curiosity and factors related to its development, starting in infancy and extending into childhood.

The relationship between ensemble representations of facial information

People accurately evaluate various types of facial information (gaze direction, facial expression, facial identity, and gender) of multiple faces. Considering such varieties, summarizing abilities of facial information might vary depending on its type because it is either changeable (e.g., gaze direction and expression) or invariant (e.g., identity and gender). The current study investigated the relationship between the averaging abilities of facial information using an individual difference approach and a dual-task paradigm to understand the effect of facial information type on the ensemble coding of facial information. We conducted two online experiments on the relationship between the averaging abilities of facial expressions and gaze direction (Experiment 1) and those of facial expressions and gender (Experiment 2). Participants were asked to estimate the average of each piece of facial information in the first and second blocks (single task), respectively, and both sequentially in the third and fourth blocks (dual task). We found that most of the error autocorrelations of facial information were high, indicating high measurement reliability. Participants' abilities to average facial expressions were correlated with those to average gaze directions, but not with those to average gender information. That is, the ensemble processing of facial expressions is related to gaze directions, but not genders. These results suggest that ensemble representations of facial information regarding changeable properties differ from those of invariant ones.

Reliability of attention bias and attention bias variability to climate change images in the dot-probe task

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, which is perhaps why information about climate change has been found to capture observers' attention. One of the most common ways of assessing individual differences in attentional processing of climate change information is through the use of reaction time difference scores. However, reaction time-based difference scores have come under scrutiny for their low reliability. Given that a primary goal of the field is to link individual differences in attention processing to participant variables (e.g., environmental attitudes), we assessed the reliability of reaction time-based measures of attention processing of climate change information utilizing an existing dataset with three variations of the dot-probe task. Across all three samples, difference score-based measures of attentional bias were generally uncorrelated across task blocks (r = -0.25 to 0.31). We also assessed the reliability of newer attention bias variability measures that are thought to capture dynamic shifts in attention toward and away from salient information. Although these measures were initially found to be correlated across task blocks (r = 0.17-0.67), they also tended to be highly correlated with general reaction time variability (r = 0.49-0.83). When controlling for general reaction time variability, the correlations across task blocks for attention bias variability were much weaker and generally nonsignificant (r = -0.25 to 0.33). Furthermore, these measures were unrelated to pro-environmental disposition indicating poor predictive validity. In short, reaction time-based measures of attentional processing (including difference score and variability-based approaches) have unacceptably low levels of reliability and are therefore unsuitable for capturing individual differences in attentional bias to climate change information.

Model-based experimental manipulation of probabilistic behavior in interpretable behavioral latent variable models

Introduction

Interpretable latent variable models that probabilistically link behavioral observations to an underlying latent process have increasingly been used to draw inferences on cognition from observed behavior. The latent process usually connects experimental variables to cognitive computation. While such models provide important insights into the latent processes generating behavior, one important aspect has often been overlooked. They may also be used to generate precise and falsifiable behavioral predictions as a function of the modeled experimental variables. In doing so, they pinpoint how experimental conditions must be designed to elicit desired behavior and generate adaptive experiments.

Methods

These ideas are exemplified on the process of delay discounting (DD). After inferring DD models from behavior on a typical DD task, the models are leveraged to generate a second adaptive DD task. Experimental trials in this task are designed to elicit 9 graded behavioral discounting probabilities across participants. Models are then validated and contrasted to competing models in the field by assessing the ouf-of-sample prediction error.

Results

The proposed framework induces discounting probabilities on nine levels. In contrast to several alternative models, the applied model exhibits high validity as indicated by a comparably low prediction error. We also report evidence for inter-individual differences with respect to the most suitable models underlying behavior. Finally, we outline how to adapt the proposed method to the investigation of other cognitive processes including reinforcement learning.

Discussion

Inducing graded behavioral frequencies with the proposed framework may help to highly resolve the underlying cognitive construct and associated neuronal substrates.

Optimistic Children Engage in More Constructive Risk-Taking Behaviors

Optimism is linked to persistence and resilience in adults; however, how optimism might relate to children’s evaluations of potentially challenging situations and risk-taking behaviors is unknown. This study examined the role of optimism in 4- to 8-year-old children’s ( N = 121) perceptions of and willingness to engage in physical activities that ranged from low to high risk. Overall, children perceived activities with more risky elements as more dangerous and were less willing to try them, with this pattern strongest in older children. Moreover, children higher in optimism were (1) more willing to engage in moderate-risk activities relative to children lower in optimism, but (2) less willing to engage in the highest-risk activities—even though they perceived those highest-risk activities as less dangerous than children lower in optimism. These findings support the possibility that optimism motivates children to engage in beneficial moderately challenging activities and protects them from engaging in severe injury-inflicting activities.

Emphasizing speed or accuracy in an eye-tracking version of the Trail-Making-Test: Towards experimental diagnostics for decomposing executive functions

The Trail-Making-Test (TMT) is one of the most widely used neuropsychological tests for assessing executive functions, the brain functions underlying cognitively controlled thought and action. Obtaining a number of test scores at once, the TMT allows to characterize an assortment of executive functions efficiently. Critically, however, as most test scores are derived from test completion times, the scores only provide a summary measure of various cognitive control processes. To address this problem, we extended the TMT in two ways. First, using a computerized eye-tracking version of the TMT, we added specific eye movement measures that deliver a richer set of data with a higher degree of cognitive process specificity. Second, we included an experimental manipulation of a fundamental executive function, namely participants' ability to emphasize speed or accuracy in task performance. Our study of healthy participants showed that eye movement measures differed between TMT conditions that are usually compared to assess the cognitive control process of alternating between task sets for action control. This demonstrates that eye movement measures are indeed sensitive to executive functions implicated in the TMT. Crucially, comparing performance under cognitive control sets of speed vs. accuracy emphasis revealed which test scores primarily varied due to this manipulation (e.g., trial duration, number of fixations), and which were still more sensitive to other differences between individuals (e.g., fixation duration, saccade amplitude). This provided an experimental construct validation of the test scores by distinguishing scores primarily reflecting the executive function of emphasizing speed vs. accuracy and those independent from it. In sum, both the inclusion of eye movement measures and of the experimental manipulation of executive functions in the TMT enabled a more specific interpretation of the TMT in terms of cognitive functions and mechanisms, which offers more precise diagnoses in clinical applications and basic research.

Recent Trends in Non-invasive Neural Recording Based Brain-to-Brain Synchrony Analysis on Multidisciplinary Human Interactions for Understanding Brain Dynamics: A Systematic Review

The study of brain-to-brain synchrony has a burgeoning application in the brain-computer interface (BCI) research, offering valuable insights into the neural underpinnings of interacting human brains using numerous neural recording technologies. The area allows exploring the commonality of brain dynamics by evaluating the neural synchronization among a group of people performing a specified task. The growing number of publications on brain-to-brain synchrony inspired the authors to conduct a systematic review using the PRISMA protocol so that future researchers can get a comprehensive understanding of the paradigms, methodologies, translational algorithms, and challenges in the area of brain-to-brain synchrony research. This review has gone through a systematic search with a specified search string and selected some articles based on pre-specified eligibility criteria. The findings from the review revealed that most of the articles have followed the social psychology paradigm, while 36% of the selected studies have an application in cognitive neuroscience. The most applied approach to determine neural connectivity is a coherence measure utilizing phase-locking value (PLV) in the EEG studies, followed by wavelet transform coherence (WTC) in all of the fNIRS studies. While most of the experiments have control experiments as a part of their setup, a small number implemented algorithmic control, and only one study had interventional or a stimulus-induced control experiment to limit spurious synchronization. Hence, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this systematic review solely contributes to critically evaluating the scopes and technological advances of brain-to-brain synchrony to allow this discipline to produce more effective research outcomes in the remote future.

Don't look now! Emotion-induced blindness: The interplay between emotion and attention

Scientists have long been interested in understanding the influence of emotionally salient stimuli on attention and perception. One experimental paradigm that has shown great promise in demonstrating the effect of such stimuli is emotion-induced blindness. That is, when emotionally salient stimuli are presented in a rapid stream of stimuli, they produce impairments in the perception of task-relevant stimuli, even though they themselves are task irrelevant. This is known as emotion-induced blindness, and it is a profound and robust form of attentional bias. Here, we review the literature on emotion-induced blindness, such as identifying the types of stimuli that elicit it, and its temporal dynamics. We discuss the role of dimensional versus categorical approaches to emotion in relation to emotion-induced blindness. We also synthesize the work examining whether certain individuals, such as those high in anxiety versus psychopathy, succumb to emotion-induced blindness to different extents, and we discuss whether the deficit can be reduced or even abolished. We review the theoretical models that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon. Finally, we identify exciting questions for future research, and elucidate useful frameworks to guide future investigations.

Switch rates vary due to expected payoff but not due to individual risk tendency

When switching between different tasks, the initiation of task switches may depend on task characteristics (difficulty, salient cues, etc.) or reasons within the person performing the task (decisions, behavioral variability, etc.). The reasons for variance in switching strategies, especially in paradigms where participants are free to choose the order of tasks and the amount of switching between tasks, are not well researched. In this study, we follow up the recent discussion that variance in switching strategies might be partly explained by the characteristics of the person fulfilling the task. We examined whether risk tendency and impulsiveness differentiate individuals in their response (i.e., switch rates and time spent on tasks) to different task characteristics on a tracking-while-typing paradigm. In detail, we manipulated two aspects of loss prospect (i.e., "payoff" as the amount of points that could be lost when tracking was unattended for too long, and "cursor speed" determining the likelihood of such a loss occurring). To account for between-subject variance and within-subject variability in the data, we employed linear mixed effect analyses following the model selection procedure (Bates, Kliegl, et al., 2015). Besides, we tested whether risk tendency can be transformed into a decision parameter which could predict switching strategies when being computationally modelled. We transferred decision parameters from the Decision Field Theory to model "switching thresholds" for each individual. Results show that neither risk tendency nor impulsiveness explain between-subject variance in the paradigm, nonetheless linear mixed-effects models confirmed that within-subject variability plays a significant role for interpreting dual-task data. Our computational model yielded a good model fit, suggesting that the use of a decision threshold parameter for switching may serve as an alternative means to classify different strategies in task switching.

A New Perspective on Individual Reliability beyond Group Effect for Event-related Potentials: A Multisensory Investigation and Computational Modeling

The dominant approach in investigating the individual reliability for event-related potentials (ERPs) is to extract peak-related features at electrodes showing the strongest group effects. Such a peak-based approach implicitly assumes ERP components showing a stronger group effect are also more reliable, but this assumption has not been substantially validated and few studies have investigated the reliability of ERPs beyond peaks. In this study, we performed a rigorous evaluation of the test-retest reliability of ERPs collected in a multisensory and cognitive experiment from 82 healthy adolescents, each having two sessions. By comparing group effects and individual reliability, we found that a stronger group-level response in ERPs did not guarantee higher reliability. A perspective of neural oscillation should be adopted for the analysis of reliability. Further, by simulating ERPs with an oscillation-based computational model, we found that the consistency between group-level ERP responses and individual reliability was modulated by inter-subject latency jitter and inter-trial variability. The current findings suggest that the conventional peak-based approach may underestimate the individual reliability in ERPs and a neural oscillation perspective on ERP reliability should be considered. Hence, a comprehensive evaluation of the reliability of ERP measurements should be considered in individual-level neurophysiological trait evaluation and psychiatric disorder diagnosis.

Eating disorder-specific rumination moderates the association between attentional bias to high-calorie foods and eating disorder symptoms: Evidence from a reliable free-viewing eye-tracking task

Cognitive theories of eating disorders implicate Attentional Bias (AB) towards food-related information in the development and maintenance of eating disorders. Empirical evidence for this proposal, however, has been inconsistent, and the measures used to examine AB to food-related stimuli typically showed poor reliability. The aim of the current study was twofold. Firstly, we aimed to examine the psychometric properties of a newly devised eye-tracking task for the assessment of AB in the context of eating disorders. Secondly, we examined the role of Eating Disorder-specific (ED-specific) rumination as a potential moderator of the association between attentional bias to food images and eating disorder symptoms. One hundred and three female students were recruited and completed an eye-tracking task comprising 21 matrices that each contained 8 low-calorie and 8 high-calorie food images. Each matrix was presented for 6 s. First fixation location, first fixation latency, and total dwell time were assessed for low and high-calorie food images and the dwell-time based AB measure showed good reliability based on Cronbach's alpha, McDonald's Omega, and split-half method. In addition, the results revealed that the ED-specific rumination plays the hypothesized moderating role. Specifically, while participants with high levels of ED-specific rumination exhibited a positive association between AB to high-calorie foods and eating disorder symptoms, this association was not present among participants with lower levels of ED-specific rumination. The employed free-viewing task seems a reliable measure of AB to food-related stimuli, and the moderation analysis emphasizes the critical role of ED-specific rumination for eating disorder symptoms. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

The domain-specificity of serial order working memory

Making a turn while driving is simple: turn on the indicator, check for cars, then turn. Two types of information are required to perform this sequence of events: information about the items (e.g., the correct indicator), and the serial order of those items (e.g., checking before turning rather than vice-versa). Previous research has found distinct working memory capacities (WMCs) for item and serial order information in both verbal and nonverbal domains. The current study investigates whether the serial order WMC is shared for sequences from different content domains. One hundred and fifty-three participants performed sequence matching tasks with verbal (letters and words) and nonverbal (locations and arrows) stimuli. The accuracy of detecting mismatched item-identity and serial order information in sequences was used to operationalize item and order WMC. Using structural equation modeling analyses, we directly compared models that included either domain-specific or domain-general serial order WMC latent variables, finding that models with domain-specific serial order WMC latent variables for verbal and nonverbal materials fit the data better than models with domain-general latent variables. The findings support the hypothesis that there are separate capacities for serial order working memory depending on the type of material being ordered.

Both negative and positive task-irrelevant stimuli contract attentional breadth in individuals with high levels of negative affect

Emotionally-salient stimuli can capture attention to their spatial location, even when they are not relevant to a prescribed task. Here we tested whether they can influence the spatial breadth of attention. Experiment 1 tested whether small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli contracted attentional breadth when the task required a broad focus, while Experiment 2 tested whether large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli expanded attentional breadth when the task required a narrow focus. Both experiments compared the effect of negative and positive emotionally-salient images against neutral, and examined the role of participants' self-reported experiences of negative affect. Both experiments revealed slower responses following large emotionally-salient images, an effect unrelated to attentional breadth. Experiment 1 demonstrated an interaction between accuracy and negative affect, such that individuals with high levels of negative affect were less accurate at identifying global targets following both negative and positive small images, but not following neutral small images. This suggests that these small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images contracted attentional breadth. Experiment 2 suggested that large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images did not expand attentional breadth. We discuss how these results cannot be explained by existing models of emotion-based effects on attention and cognition, and the important implications they have for the practicalities of model-testing.

No effect of spatial attention on the processing of a motion ensemble: Evidence from Posner cueing

The formation of ensemble codes is an efficient means through which the visual system represents vast arrays of information. This has led to the claim that ensemble representations are formed with minimal reliance on attentional resources. However, evidence is mixed regarding the effects of attention on ensemble processing, and researchers do not always make it clear how attention is being manipulated by their paradigm of choice. In this study, we examined the effects of Posner cueing - a well-established method of manipulating spatial attention - on the processing of a global motion stimulus, a naturalistic ensemble that requires the pooling of local motion signals. In Experiment 1, using a centrally presented, predictive attentional cue, we found no effect of spatial attention on global motion performance: Accuracy in invalid trials, where attention was misdirected by the cue, did not differ from accuracy in valid trials, where attention was directed to the location of the motion stimulus. In Experiment 2, we maximized the potential for our paradigm to reveal any attentional effects on global motion processing by using a threshold-based measure of performance; however, despite this change, there was again no evidence of an attentional effect on performance. Together, our results show that the processing of a global motion stimulus is unaffected when spatial attention is misdirected, and speak to the efficiency with which such ensemble stimuli are processed.

Lessons unlearned: A conceptual review and meta-analysis of the relationship between the Attention Control Scale and Objective Attention Control

Attention control is central to many models of emotion. Among the most common measures of attention, control is the Attention Control Scale (ACS), which has exerted considerable influence in terms of the volume and breadth of research findings, with its use in cognitive-experimental research continuing to increase in recent years. However, there are growing concerns about whether the ACS genuinely indexes attention control. The present paper considers the context and development of the ACS, reviews and meta-analyses the available evidence regarding its association with objective measures of attention control. Meta-analytic results from nine studies (total n = 1274) indicated that the full-scale ACS was not significantly associated with behavioural measures of attentional control (r = .067, p = .093, N = 1274, 95% CI: -.011, .145). Findings indicated likely missing studies with lower correlations suggesting the true association may be smaller. Limited evidence of shared variance between subjective and objective measures of attention control contrasts with considerable evidence that the scale is closely correlated with dispositional traits (e.g. anxiety, agreeableness) that could plausibly influence responding. Thus, on the balance of current findings, we conclude that there is little compelling evidence that responding on the ACS reflects genuine attention control abilities.

The relationship between the subjective experience of real-world cognitive failures and objective target-detection performance in visual search

Visual search is a common occurrence in everyday life, such as searching for the location of keys, identifying a friend in a crowd, or scanning an upcoming intersection for hazards while driving. Visual search is also used in professional contexts, such as medical diagnostic imaging and airport baggage screening. These contexts are often characterised by low-prevalence or rare targets. Here we tested whether individual differences in the detection of targets in visual search could be predicted from variables derived from the rich informational source of participants' subjective experience of their cognitive and attentional function in everyday life. We tested this in both low-prevalence (Experiment 1) and high-prevalence (Experiment 2) visual search conditions. In both experiments, participants completed a visual search with arrays containing multiple photorealistic objects, and their task was to detect the presence of a gun. Following this, they completed the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and the Attentional Control Scale (ACS). In Experiment 1, the target was present on 2% of trials, while in Experiment 2, it was present on 50%. In both experiments, participants' scores on the False Triggering component of the CFQ were negatively associated with accuracy on target-present trials, while participants' scores on the Forgetfulness component of the CFQ were positively associated with target-present accuracy. These results show that objective performance in visual search can be predicted from subjective experiences of cognitive function. They also highlight that the CFQ is not monolithic. Instead, the CFQ subfactors can have qualitatively different relationships with performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Inter-individual variations in internal noise predict the effects of spatial attention

Individuals differ considerably in the degree to which they benefit from attention allocation. Thus far, such individual differences were attributed to post-perceptual factors such as working-memory capacity. This study examined whether a perceptual factor - the level of internal noise - also contributes to this inter-individual variability in attentional effects. To that end, we estimated individual levels of internal noise from behavioral variability in an orientation discrimination task (with tilted gratings) using the double-pass procedure and the perceptual-template model. We also measured the effects of spatial attention in an acuity task: the participants reported the side of a square on which a small aperture appeared. Central arrows were used to engage sustained attention and peripheral cues to engage transient attention. We found reliable correlations between individual levels of internal noise and the effects of both types of attention, albeit of opposite directions: positive correlation with sustained attention and negative correlation with transient attention. These findings demonstrate that internal noise - a fundamental characteristic of visual perception - can predict individual differences in the effects of spatial attention, highlighting the intricate relations between perception and attention.

Haptic object recognition based on shape relates to visual object recognition ability

Visual object recognition depends in large part on a domain-general ability (Richler et al. Psychol Rev 126(2): 226–251, 2019). Given evidence pointing towards shared mechanisms for object perception across vision and touch, we ask whether individual differences in haptic and visual object recognition are related. We use existing validated visual tests to estimate visual object recognition ability and relate it to performance on two novel tests of haptic object recognition ability (n = 66). One test includes complex objects that participants chose to explore with a hand grasp. The other test uses a simpler stimulus set that participants chose to explore with just their fingertips. Only performance on the haptic test with complex stimuli correlated with visual object recognition ability, suggesting a shared source of variance across task structures, stimuli, and modalities. A follow-up study using a visual version of the haptic test with simple stimuli shows a correlation with the original visual tests, suggesting that the limited complexity of the stimuli did not limit correlation with visual object recognition ability. Instead, we propose that the manner of exploration may be a critical factor in whether a haptic test relates to visual object recognition ability. Our results suggest a perceptual ability that spans at least across vision and touch, however, it may not be recruited during just fingertip exploration.

Using perceptual tasks to selectively measure magnocellular and parvocellular performance: Rationale and a user's guide

The visual system uses parallel pathways to process information. However, an ongoing debate centers on the extent to which the pathways from the retina, via the Lateral Geniculate nucleus to the visual cortex, process distinct aspects of the visual scene and, if they do, can stimuli in the laboratory be used to selectively drive them. These questions are important for a number of reasons, including that some pathologies are thought to be associated with impaired functioning of one of these pathways and certain cognitive functions have been preferentially linked to specific pathways. Here we examine the two main pathways that have been the focus of this debate: the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways. Specifically, we review the results of electrophysiological and lesion studies that have investigated their properties and conclude that while there is substantial overlap in the type of information that they process, it is possible to identify aspects of visual information that are predominantly processed by either the magnocellular or parvocellular pathway. We then discuss the types of visual stimuli that can be used to preferentially drive these pathways.

Contribution of a common ability in average and variability judgments

People can make judgments about statistical properties of visual features within groups of objects, such as the average size, size variability, or numerosity of circles. Emerging from recent work is the view that these kinds of visual estimations, collectively dubbed ensemble perception, rely on independent abilities that are specific to the statistical property being estimated (mean, variance, range, numerosity). Here we revisit evidence for the claim that different statistical judgments (i.e., average and variability) for the same object feature are based on independent abilities. We tested a large sample of people, using a pre-registered open-ended sequential design to avoid ending up with weak evidence. We estimated the shared variance in ability across different ensemble judgments, with common constraints for the different tasks. We found that the abilities to judge the average size and the size variability for an array of circles are positively correlated, even after controlling for the ability to discriminate the size of single circles. Our results refute the idea that judgments of average and variability for the same object feature rely on completely independent abilities.

Slower access to visual awareness but otherwise intact implicit perception of emotional faces in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders

Schizophrenia-spectrum disorders are characterized by deficits in social domains. Extant research has reported an impaired ability to perceive emotional faces in schizophrenia. Yet, it is unclear if these deficits occur already in the access to visual awareness. To investigate this question, 23 people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 22 healthy controls performed a breaking continuous flash suppression task with fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Response times were analysed with generalized linear mixed models. People with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders were slower than controls in detecting faces, but did not show emotion-specific impairments. Moreover, happy faces were detected faster than neutral and fearful faces, across all participants. Although caution is needed when interpreting the main effect of group, our findings may suggest an elevated threshold for visual awareness in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, but an intact implicit emotion perception. Our study provides a new insight into the mechanisms underlying emotion perception in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.

Willing and able? Theory of mind, social motivation, and social competence in middle childhood and early adolescence

This study investigated the links between theory of mind, social motivation, and children's social competence in middle childhood and early adolescence. Two hundred and sixty four children (136 girls, 128 boys) aged between 8 and 13 years (M Age = 10.88 years, SD = 1.45) completed theory-of-mind tests and self-report questionnaires measuring social motivation. Teachers rated children's social competence at school. Teacher-rated social competence was associated with individual differences in both theory of mind and children's motivation to develop and maintain social relationships. Results suggest that while individual differences in social motivation and theory of mind are partially overlapping, both theory of mind ability and social motivation contribute to successful social interaction at school.

Individual differences in cognitive offloading: a comparison of intention offloading, pattern copy, and short-term memory capacity

The cognitive load of many everyday life tasks exceeds known limitations of short-term memory. One strategy to compensate for information overload is cognitive offloading which refers to the externalization of cognitive processes such as reminder setting instead of memorizing. There appears to be remarkable variance in offloading behavior between participants which poses the question whether there is a common factor influencing offloading behavior across different tasks tackling short-term memory processes. To pursue this question, we studied individual differences in offloading behavior between two well-established offloading paradigms: the intention offloading task which tackles memory for intentions and the pattern copy task which tackles continuous short-term memory load. Our study also included an unrelated task measuring short-term memory capacity. Each participant completed all tasks twice on two consecutive days in order to obtain reliability scores. Despite high reliability scores, individual differences in offloading behavior were uncorrelated between the two offloading tasks. In both tasks, however, individual differences in offloading behavior were correlated with the individual differences in an unrelated short-term memory task. Our results therefore show that offloading behavior cannot simply be explained in terms of a single common factor driving offloading behavior across tasks. We discuss the implications of this finding for future research investigating the interrelations of offloading behavior across different tasks.