The current study investigated the relationships between attention, word processing, and visual feld asymmetries. There is a discussion on whether each brain hemisphere possesses its own attentional resources and on how attention allocation depends on hemispheric lateralization of functions. We used stimuli with lateralized processing in an attentional task presented across the two visual hemifields. Three experiments investigated the visual search for a prespecified letter in displays containing words or nonwords, placed left and right to fixation, with a variable target letter position within the strings. In Experiment 1, two letter strings of the same type (words or nonwords) were presented to both visual hemifields. In Experiment 2, there was only one letter string presented right or left to fxation. In Experiment 3, two letter strings of different type were presented to both hemifields. Response times and accuracy data were collected. The results of Experiment 1 provide evidence for letter-by-letter search within a word in the left visual feld (LVF), within a nonword in the right visual field (RVF), and for position-independent access to letters within a nonword in LVF and within a word in RVF. Experiment 3 produced similar results except for letter-by-letter search within words in RVF. In Experiment 2, for all types of letter strings in both hemifields, we observed the same letter-by-letter search. These results demonstrate that presence of stimuli in both one or two hemifields and the readiness to process a certain string type might contribute to the search for a letter within a letter string.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether mindfulness and cognitive intrusions predict recollection. Using electroencephalogram methodology, we investigated 31 participants who performed a recognition task and reported situational mindfulness as well as task-irrelevant (TII) and task-relevant intrusions (TRI). We used behavioral measures (response accuracy) to analyze performance effectiveness and event-related potentials (ERP) to measure processing efciency (compensatory processes) associated with performance of the task. Results suggest that being mindful during a task slightly improves recognition of old and new but not similar probes. Although worrying about the outcomes (i.e., TRI) facilitates improvement in true recognition of old probes, it also impairs correct rejection of new probes. Moreover, TRI predicted the strength of ERP effects associated with compensatory processes involved in recollection. We conclude that mindfulness slightly improves recognition without involvement of the compensatory effort and worrying partly increases responding accuracy at the cost of diminished processing efficiency.

Interleaving with other categories of stimuli has been shown to enhance category learning. However, learners, tend to believe that blocking enhances learning, even after their own performance had showed the opposite. The present study explored the contributions of processing fluency (Experiment 1) and beliefs (Experiment 2) to the illusion that blocking enhances category learning. We found that: (a) learners’ performance benefted from interleaving, but their metacognitive judgments were not in conformity with it, (b) the perceived tendency of metacognitive illusion was reduced by inserting an unrelated cartoon image in the blocked presentation condition to decrease fluency, and (c) learners came to the experimental task with a pre-existing belief that the instruction of blocking by topic was superior to intermixing topics. This belief disappeared when learners were offered the theoretical explanation of why interleaving exemplars is more effective. In conclusion, this study revealed that processing fluency and held beliefs were two factors that cause this metacognitive illusion.

Responding in the presence of stimuli leads to an integration of stimulus features and response features into event fles, which can later be retrieved to assist action control. This integration mechanism is not limited to target stimuli, but can also include distractors (distractor-response binding). A recurring research question is which factors determine whether or not distractors are integrated. One suggested candidate factor is target-distractor congruency: Distractor-response binding effects were reported to be stronger for congruent than for incongruent target-distractor pairs. Here, we discuss a general problem with including the factor of congruency in typical analyses used to study distractor-based binding effects. Integrating this factor leads to a confound that may explain any differences between distractor-response binding effects of congruent and incongruent distractors with a simple congruency effect. Simulation data confrmed this argument. We propose to interpret previous data cautiously and discuss potential avenues to circumvent this problem in the future.

This study concerned the relationships among personal values (conformity, tradition, benevolence, universality, self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, safety), time perspectives by Zimbardo (past negative, past positive, present hedonistic, present fatalistic, future) and life satisfaction. The main hypothesis stated that value priorities would predict life satisfaction both directly and indirectly through time perspectives. 237 Polish students (120 females) took part in the study. Path analysis demonstrated that life satisfaction was directly and positively predicted by the value of benevolence, and indirectly and negatively by conformity and tradition via the past negative time perspective. Life satisfaction was also indirectly predicted by the values of hedonism and security via the future time perspective - Hedonism was a negative, and security a positive predictor of future time perspective, and the future time perspective was a positive predictor of life satisfaction. The signifcance of these results for mechanisms and predictors of life satisfaction is discussed.

Extant research suggests that the desirability of an outcome influences the way an individual makes a prediction. The current research investigated how an outcome’s desirability influences the extent to which an individual evaluates its probability when making a prediction. Two studies were conducted using a single binary prediction based on the urn model. Individuals predicted which color—red or blue—a ball drawn from a bag would be, while being aware of the proportion of each color in the bag. The results of the first study indicated that individuals predicted the more probable outcome regardless of the probabilities of two outcomes. However, when the less probable outcome was more desirable, the proportion of predictions became signifcantly correlated and better calibrated to the actual probability. This result was interpreted as showing that, when motivated to predict the more desirable but less probable outcome, individuals evaluate its probability more effortfully. This interpretation was tested in the second study. When the probability- matching motivation was implemented, the proportion of individuals who predicted the less probable outcome increased signifcantly. However, when the less probable outcome was more desirable, the same motivation did not signifcantly increase the proportion of such individuals. Taken together, these results imply that individuals likely process the same probability information differently based on whether this information is useful for predicting a desirable outcome.

In this review, we investigated the influence of happy/pleasurable and sad/unpleasant emotional stimuli on working memory (WM) performance. Twenty-eight out of 356 articles were reviewed. We observed that emotional stimuli were used as mood inductors or as targets comprising the WM task. Results showed that WM modalities were influenced differently when updating, interference resolution, span, and complex tasks were applied. Specifcally, we found distinct effects of emotional stimuli for updating tasks, in which (a) verbal modality seems to be impaired regardless of the emotional valence used compared to neutral stimuli, (b) visual updating processes appear to be improved by emotional stimuli as the targets of the task, and (c) emotional words improved interference resolution performance. As for storage, span, and complex WM tasks, sad/unpleasant emotional stimuli seem to decrease both verbal and visuospatial modalities when used as emotional inductors.