DEPRESIVNOSTI VIZUELNO PAMĆENJE SPECIFIČNIH STIMULUSA (EMOTIKONA)

Depression is a state of reduced psychophysical activity that is accompanied by various changes in cognitive, emotional and social functioning. Previous studies have found that depression leads to changes in the recognition of the emotions of others, makes it difficult to direct attention and significantly impairs visual memory. The main goal of this research is to examine the relations between depressive symptoms and visual memory of specific stimuli that show emotions. We also want to examine whether the intensity of depressive symptoms is related to longer reaction time in the experimental task, as well as whether the accuracy of the emoticon’s visual memory depends on the set size. The research was conducted on a sample of 84 participants, students of Faculty of Philosophy in Banja Luka (90% female). The PHQ-9 questionnaire was used to assess depressive symptoms. Visual memory task was created in SuperLab 4.1. for Windows.The results show that there is a partial contribution of moderate depression to the accuracy of emoticon memory with sadness expression. No partial contribution of any category of depression to the memory accuracy of emoticons with the expression of happiness has been determined. A statistically significant negative correlation for the category of “sad” stimuli was obtained between the expression of depressive symptoms and the response time in the experimental task, while no statistically significant correlation was obtained for the second category of stimuli. It was also found that the number of errors increases with the set size. These results can be explained by negative bias and cognitive load in information processing. Key words: visual memory, depression, emoticons, expression of happiness, expression of sadness

The effect of choice on intentional and incidental memory

Recent studies have revealed that memory performance is better when participants have the opportunity to make a choice regarding the experimental task (choice condition) than when they do not have such a choice (fixed condition). These studies, however, used intentional memory tasks, leaving open the question whether the choice effect also applies to incidental memory. In the current study, we first repeated the choice effect on the 24-h delayed intentional memory performance (experiment 1). Next, using an incidental paradigm in which participants were asked to judge the category of the items instead of intentionally memorizing them, we observed the choice effect on judgment during encoding and memory performance in a 24-h delayed surprise test (experiment 2). Participants judged more accurately and quickly and had better recognition memory for items in the choice condition than for items in the fixed condition. These results are discussed in terms of the role of choice in both intentional and incidental memory.

Do Monkeys and Young Children Understand Exclusive “Or” Relations? A Commentary on Ferrigno et al. (2021)

Ferrigno et al. (2021) claim to provide evidence that monkeys can reason through the disjunctive syllogism (given A or B, not A, therefore B) and conclude that monkeys therefore understand logical “or” relations. Yet their data fail to provide evidence that the baboons they tested understood the exclusive “or” relations in the experimental task. For two mutually exclusive possibilities—A or B—the monkeys appeared to infer that B was true when A was shown to be false, but they failed to infer that B was false when A was shown to be true. In our own research, we recently found an identical response pattern in 2.5- to 4-year-old children, whereas 5-year-olds demonstrated that they could make both inferences. The monkeys’ and younger children’s responses are instead consistent with an incorrect understanding of A and B as having an inclusive “or” relation. Only the older children provided compelling evidence of representing the exclusive “or” relation between A and B.

Signalling Three-Way Intersections: Is Redundancy Better Than Only Mandatory or Prohibitory Signs?

At intersections, drivers need to infer which ways are allowed by interpreting mandatory and/or prohibitory traffic signs. Time and accuracy in this decision-making process are crucial factors to avoid accidents. Previous studies show that integrating information from prohibitory signs is generally more difficult than from mandatory signs. In Study 1, we compare combined redundant signalling conditions to simple sign conditions at three-way intersections. In Study 2, we carried out a survey among professionals responsible for signposting to test whether common practices are consistent with experimental research. In Study 1, an experimental task was applied (n=24), and in Study 2, the survey response rate was 17%. These included the main cities in Spain such as Madrid and Barcelona. Study 1 showed that inferences with mandatory signs are faster than those with prohibitory signs, and redundant information is an improvement only on prohibitory signs. In Study 2, prohibitory signs were those most frequently chosen by professionals responsible for signposting. In conclusion, the most used signs, according to the laboratory study, were not the best ones for signposting because the faster responses were obtained for mandatory signs, and in second place for redundant signs.

Does Whistleblowing on Tax Evaders Reduce Ingroup Cooperation?

Whistleblowing is a powerful and rather inexpensive instrument to deter tax evasion. Despite the deterrent effects on tax evasion, whistleblowing can reduce trust and undermine agents’ attitude to cooperate with group members. Yet, no study has investigated the potential spillover effects of whistleblowing on ingroup cooperation. This paper reports results of a laboratory experiment in which subjects participate in two consecutive phases in unchanging groups: a tax evasion game, followed by a generalized gift exchange game. Two dimensions are manipulated in our experiment: the inclusion of a whistleblowing stage in which, after observing others’ declared incomes, subjects can signal other group members to the tax authority, and the provision of information about the content of the second phase before the tax evasion game is played. Our results show that whistleblowing is effective in both curbing tax evasion and improving the precision of tax auditing. Moreover, we detect no statistically significant spillover effects of whistleblowing on ingroup cooperation in the subsequent generalized gift exchange game, with this result being unaffected by the provision of information about the experimental task in the second phase. Finally, the provision of information does not significantly alter subjects’ (tax and whistleblowing) choices in the tax evasion game: thus, knowledge about perspective ingroup cooperation did not alter attitude toward whistleblowing.

A Game-based Assessment of the Effects of Rejection on Young Adults

Rejection consists of a range of behaviors from ignoring another to explicitly excluding someone from an encounter. Currently available experimental tasks have shown that rejection has strong emotional, behavioral, and physical effects, but the tasks have some limitations. We argue that video games can address these limitations and have developed a new experimental task (ScrollQuest) to show the potential of video games as rejection research tools. The primary goal of the present study was to explore the effects of ScrollQuest. We analyzed data from 116 young adults who played both ScrollQuest and the rejection experimental task Cyberball. Playing ScrollQuest had more negative effects on mood, more negative interpretation effects were observed after playing ScrollQuest, and ScrollQuest was perceived as more enjoyable, compared to Cyberball. Our findings suggest that ScrollQuest might be an effective new experimental task to study rejection in a digital environment, but more work is needed to improve ScrollQuest.

The Effect of Navigation Demand on Decision Making in a Dynamic, Sport-Inspired Virtual Environment

Athletes commonly make decisions about the passability of closing gaps when navigating sport environments. This study examined whether increased temporal pressure to arrive at a desired location modifies these decisions. Thirty participants navigated toward a waypoint in a virtual, sport-inspired environment. To do so, they had to decide whether they could pass through closing gaps of virtual humans (and take the shortest route) or steer around them (and take a longer route). The decision boundary of participants who were time pressured to arrive at a waypoint was biased toward end gaps of smaller sizes and was less reliably defined, resulting in a higher number of collisions. Effects of temporal pressure were minimized with experience in the experimental task. Results indicate that temporal pressure affects perceptual–motor processes supporting information pickup and shapes the information–action coupling that drives compliance with navigation demands. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Leader–Follower Role Allocation for Physical Collaboration in Human Dyads

People often find themselves in situations where collaboration with others is necessary to accomplish a particular task. In such cases, a leader–follower relationship is established to coordinate a plan to achieve a common goal. This is usually accomplished through verbal communication. However, what happens when verbal communication is not possible? In this study, we observe the dynamics of a leader–follower relationship in human dyads during collaborative tasks where there is no verbal communication between partners. Using two robotic arms, we designed a collaborative experimental task in which subjects perform the task individually or coupled together through a virtual model. The results show that human partners fall into the leader–follower dynamics even when they cannot communicate verbally. We demonstrate this in two steps. First, we study how each subject in a collaboration influences task performance, and second, we evaluate whether both partners influence it equally or not using our proposed sorting method to objectively identify a leader. We also study the leader–follower dynamics by analysing the task performance of partners during their individual sessions to predict the role distribution in a dyad. Based on the results of our prediction method, we conclude that the higher-performing individual performance will assume the role of a leader in collaboration.

Psychological functioning in survivors of COVID-19: Evidence from recognition of fearful facial expressions

Evidence about the psychological functioning in individuals who survived the COVID-19 infectious is still rare in the literature. In this paper, we investigated fearful facial expressions recognition, as a behavioural means to assess psychological functioning. From May 15th, 2020 to January 30th, 2021, we enrolled sixty Italian individuals admitted in multiple Italian COVID-19 post-intensive care units. The detection and recognition of fearful facial expressions were assessed through an experimental task grounded on an attentional mechanism (i.e., the redundant target effect). According to the results, our participants showed an altered behaviour in detecting and recognizing fearful expressions. Specifically, their performance was in disagreement with the expected behavioural effect. Our study suggested altered processing of fearful expressions in individuals who survived the COVID-19 infectious. Such a difficulty might represent a crucial sign of psychological distress and it should be addressed in tailored psychological interventions in rehabilitative settings and after discharge.

Behavioural and physiological response to frustration in autistic youth: associations with irritability

Background Irritability is a common and impairing occurrence in autistic youth, yet the underlying mechanisms are not well-known. In typically developing populations, differences in frustration response have been suggested as important driver of the behavioural symptoms of irritability. Research exploring the role of frustration response as a risk factor for irritability in autistic populations is limited and often uses parent report or observer ratings; objective measures of frustration response appropriate for use in autistic populations are required to advance the field. Methods In the current study, fifty-two autistic adolescents aged 13–17 years from a population-based longitudinal study completed an experimental task designed to induce frustration through exposure to periods of unexpected delay. Behavioural (number of button presses) and physiological (heart rate; HR) metrics were collected during delay periods. Irritability was measured using the parent-rated Affective Reactivity Index (ARI). Analyses used mixed-level models to test whether irritability was associated with different slopes of behavioural and physiological response to experimentally induced frustration during the task. Age and baseline HR (for the physiological data only) were included as covariates. Results Analyses showed a marginal association between irritability and the slope of behavioural response (incident rate ratio (IRR) =.98, p=.06), and a significant association with the slope of physiological response (b=−.10, p=.04); higher levels of irritability were associated with a dampened behavioural and physiological response, as indicated by flatter slopes of change over the course of the task. The pattern of results largely remained in sensitivity analyses, although the association with physiological response became non-significant when adjusting for IQ, autism symptom severity, and medication use (b=−.10, p=.10). Conclusions Results suggest that the current experimental task may be a useful objective measure of frustration response for use with autistic populations, and that a non-adaptive response to frustration may be one biological mechanism underpinning irritability in autistic youth. This may represent an important target for future intervention studies.