In this first newsletter of 2018, we wanted to inform you about the current status of the journal. As our co-editor in chief (RL) recently moved from the University of Finance and Management (UFM) in Warsaw to the Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznań, the ownership of the journal or the editorial board might possibly change in the near future. Currently, different options are explored, and we will keep you informed on future changes. These changes may also have an impact on article processing fees (see also below).

Numerous studies reported a positive relationship between speed of information processing (SIP) and the g factor of intelligence. Only very few studies, however, examined SIP’s relationship to speed-, capacity-, and memory-related aspects of psychometric intelligence. In order to further elucidate this relationship, a Hick reaction time task and the Berlin Intelligence Structure (BIS) test were administered to 240 participants. From the BIS test, indicators of BIS-Capacity, BIS-Speed, and BIS-Memory were determined. By means of fixed-links modeling, we subdivided variance in reaction time from the Hick task into a component representing individual differences in speed directly related to the systematically increased number of possible responses and another component representing individual differences in speed associated with residual sources unrelated to the experimental variation of response alternatives. While the former speed component was primarily related to BIS-Capacity and, to a lesser extent, to BIS-Speed, the latter one was only weakly related to BIS-Speed but unrelated to BIS-Capacity. None of the two speed components from the Hick task showed an association with BIS-Memory. Our findings indicate that individual differences in SIP caused by experimentally increasing the number of possible responses were more strongly associated with capacity- than with speed-related aspects of psychometric intelligence. In addition, individual differences in SIP not associated with the experimental manipulation of response alternatives showed rather weak relationships to each of the three BIS operations and could be considered equally strong.

Meals, especially when taken in company, may affect the diner’s mood. In line with findings that mood may alter cognitive control, a previous study by the authors found that after solitary meals, the Simon effect was diminished as compared to a premeal condition, whereas a social meal did not reduce the Simon effect. Here, we investigated whether this finding generalizes across different demands in cognitive control and, therefore, applied a flanker task. Obtained questionnaire data indicated differential effects in mood and relaxation of a social as compared to a solitary meal. Replicating our previous findings, the flanker compatibility effect decreased after a solitary meal but increased after a social meal. The present results support our previous findings with new evidence that a meal taken in a social context attenuates subsequent cognitive control processes compared with a solitary meal.

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