Intentional Cues Research Articles

Shielding Intentions from Distraction: Forming an Intention Induces Inhibition of Distracting Stimuli

Previous research has shown that focal goals are shielded through inhibition of alternative goals. The present research aims to extend these findings and show that execution of experimentally induced intentions is also shielded from distraction. In two experiments participants were instructed to form an intention to react to specific stimuli (intention cues). Next, we assessed accessibility of the intention cues, distracting cues and control cues. Results show that distracting cues were inhibited compared with control cues. In addition, we obtained preliminary evidence that this inhibition facilitates execution of previously formed intentions. The present research adds to earlier research on intentions and goal shielding by showing that cognitive self–regulatory processes shield intentions from distraction. Fending off distractions to shield execution and completion of intentions is indispensable for successful goal pursuit. Preparing a lecture, reading an article or writing a paper all depend, at least partly, on the ability to not get distracted too often. Unfortunately, however, there are usually many environmental cues that might interfere with the processing of intention–related behavior and hence hinder the proper implementation of our intentions: Receiving an e–mail at work from a friend may trigger a memory representation of a party that temporarily interferes with prepar

Activation in Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus Parallels Parameter Inducing the Percept of Animacy

An essential, evolutionarily stable feature of brain function is the detection of animate entities, and one of the main cues to identify them is their movement. We developed a model of a simple interaction between two objects, in which an increase of the correlation between their movements varied the amount of interactivity and animacy observers attributed to them. Functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that activation in the posterior superior temporal sulcus and gyrus (pSTS/pSTG) increased in relation to the degree of correlated motion between the two objects. This activation increase was not different when subjects performed an explicit or implicit task while observing these interacting objects. These data suggest that the pSTS and pSTG play a role in the automatic identification of animate entities, by responding directly to an objective movement characteristic inducing the percept of animacy, such as the amount of interactivity between two moving objects.

Intentional pre-cueing does not influence the Simon effect

Choice reactions can be performed more quickly if the response corresponds spatially to the stimulus, even when the stimulus location is irrelevant for the task (Simon effect). It is assumed that the Simon effect is related to interference between spatial stimulus and response codes in a response selection stage. A central finding for such a response selection account is the increase in the effect if the most probable response location is given in advance by an intentional pre-cue. However, Hasbroucq and Possamaï (1994) assumed that the increase in the Simon effect in such a task may be due to an unmeant pre-cueing of the stimulus location, which has been recently supported by an electroencephalography (EEG) study by Wascher and Wolber (2004). In the present study this notion has been tested experimentally. In Experiment 1, a centrally presented symbolic cue served as an intentional cue. As a result, the enhancement of the Simon effect in valid cueing almost disappeared. When tactile cues were used (Experiment 2), the increase in the Simon effect disappeared completely. Thus, the influence of intentional cueing reported in previous studies can be assigned to attentional factors and does not support a response selection account.

Perceptional and executive deficits of chronic schizophrenic patients in attentional and intentional tasks

The present study investigated whether schizophrenic patients could develop appropriate visual orientation and motor set under precuing conditions which contrasted attentional (input selective) and intentional (output selective) information. The aim was to evaluate perceptual performance in processing visuospatial information, and executive performance in response preparation. Stimuli and/or elicited responses were controlled for selective hemispheric engagement. Age, sex and handedness matched groups of 33 chronic schizophrenic patients and 33 normal subjects were tested on choice reaction time (RT) tasks in which warning signals were manipulated regarding either where a target stimulus would occur (selective attention) or which hand to use for responding (response preparation). All subjects benefited from precued information regarding subsequent responses. However, schizophrenic patients were not able to use intentional cues as effectively as control subjects did. Interhemispheric asymmetry of spatial attention was found in patients with schizophrenia, with slowing of responses to uncued targets presented in the right visual field. There was also a decreased advantage of within-hemisphere stimulus-response conditions in the schizophrenic group. Our results support the notion that a dysfunction involving parietal and premotor areas has potential importance in the schizophrenic illness. We replicated findings which indicate that deficits of information processing in schizophrenia may affect left hemispheric mechanisms to a larger extent. The results also point toward a possible abnormal connectivity between frontal and parietal circuits in schizophrenia.

Movement Preparation and Motor Intention

This paper addresses the functional anatomy of movement representation. We have used associative visuomotor tasks with instructed delays to elicit motor preparatory activity. We regard such activity, when independent from transient stimulus-locked responses, as a likely candidate for the neural basis of movement representation (M. Jeannerod, The Cognitive Neuroscience of Action. Blackwell, Oxford, 1997). In a first event-related fMRI experiment, we found that preparing to move according to arbitrary visuomotor associations relies not only on parietofrontal circuitry, but also on portions of the posterior superior temporal sulcus. In a separate behavioral experiment, we discarded the hypothesis that such activities were confounded by working memory processes. In a second imaging experiment, we have further defined the relative contributions of these parietal, premotor, and temporal areas to the preparatory process and their involvement in motor representations. We conclude that posterior parietal cortex is interested in evaluating the potential motor significance of sensory stimuli, irrespectively of the likelihood of providing a response (“motor intention”). Conversely, preparatory activity in frontal premotor regions appears to be a function of the probability of a subsequent movement. Finally, on the basis of the present and published data, we suggest that posterior temporal cortex might be involved in the extraction of contextual and intentional cues during goal-oriented behavior.

Primate frontal cortex: neuronal activity following attentional versus intentional cues.

We examined neuronal activity in three parts of the primate frontal cortex: the dorsal (PMd) and ventral (PMv) premotor cortex and a ventrolateral part of the dorsolateral prefrontal (PF) cortex. Two monkeys fixated a 0.2 degrees white square in the center of a video display while depressing a switch located between two touch pads. On each trial, a spatial-attentional/mnemonic (SAM) cue was presented first. The SAM cue consisted of one 2 degrees x 2 degrees square, usually red or green, and its location indicated where a conditional motor instruction would appear after a delay period. The stimulus event containing the motor instruction, termed the motor instructional/conditional (MIC) cue, could be of two general types. It might consist of a single 2 degrees x 2 degrees square stimulus identical to one of the SAM cues presented at the same location as the SAM cue on that trial. When the MIC cue was a single square, it instructed the monkey to move its forelimb to one of the two touch pads according to the following conditional rule: a green MIC cue meant that contact with the right touch pad would be rewarded on that trial and a red MIC cue instructed a movement to the left touch pad. Alternatively, the MIC cue might consist of two 2 degrees x 2 degrees squares, only one of which was at the SAM-cue location: in those cases, one square was red and the other was green. The colored square at the SAM cue location for that trial was the instructing stimulus, and the other part of the MIC cue was irrelevant. When, after a variable delay period, the MIC cue disappeared, the monkey had to touch the appropriate target within 1 s to receive a reward and could break visual fixation. The experimental design allowed comparison of frontal cortical activity when one stimulus, identical in retinocentric, craniocentric, and allocentric spatial location as well as all other stimulus parameters, had two different meanings for the animal's behavior. When a stimulus was the SAM cue, it led to either a reorientation of spatial attention to its location, or the storage of its location in spatial memory. By contrast, when it was the MIC cue, the same stimulus instructed a motor act to be executed after a delay period. For the majority of PMd neurons (55%), post-MIC cue activity exceeded post-SAM cue activity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

The Assessment of Intention-Cue Detection Skills in Children: Implications for Developmental Psychopathology

A reliable measure of children's skills in discriminating intention cues in others was developed for this investigation in order to test the hypothesis that intention-cue detection skill is related to social competence in children. Videotapes were prepared in which one child provoked another child. The intention of the first child varied across videotapes. The subject's task was to discriminate among types of intentions. Care was taken to ensure that scores on this measure were not confounded by a child's verbal capacity or general discrimination skill. This instrument was administered to 176 children in kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade, who were identified by sociometric measures as having a peer status as popular, average, socially rejected, or socially neglected. Scores on this measure were found to increase as a function of increasing age, and normal children (popular and average) were found to score more highly than deviant children (neglected and rejected). The errors by deviant children tended to consist of erroneous labels of prosocial intentions as hostile. Also, children's statements about their probable behavioral responses to provocations by peers were found to vary as a function of subjects' perceptions of the intention of the peer causing the provocation, not as a function of the actual intention portrayed by the peer. Sociometric status differences in these responses were also found. These findings were consistent with a hypothesis of a developmental lag among socially deviant children in the acquisition of intention-cue detection skills.

Social Cognition and Children's Aggressive Behavior

DODGE, KENNETH A. Social Cognition and Children's Aggressive Behavior. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 162-170. Aggressive and nonaggressive boys from grades 2, 4, and 6 were exposed to a frustrating negative outcome which was instigated by an unknown peer who had acted with either a hostile intent, a benign intent, or an ambiguous intent. Videotaped behavioral responses constituted the dependent measures. Contrary to a hypothesis, aggressive boys did not display any failure to integrate intent cues into their behavioral reactions to the negative consequences, nor were there any significant main or interaction effects for age of subject. All groups responded with more aggression in the hostile condition than in the benign condition. Aggressive and nonaggressive subjects differed only in the ambiguous condition. Here aggressive subjects responded as if the peer had acted with a hostile intent. Nonaggressive subjects responded as if the peer had acted with a benign intent. The hypothesis that aggressive children respond to ambiguous-intention-negative-consequence situations with aggression because they infer a hostile intention was supported by a follow-up study using hypothetical episodes as stimuli. Results of this second study reflect the increased significance of the social reputation of the aggressive child with increasing age. The total pattern of results suggests a picture of the aggressive child being caught up in a spiraling cycle of reputation and behavior.

The Role of Intentions, Damage, and Social Consequences in the Moral Judgments of Children

SULs, JERRY; GUTKIN, DANIEL; and KALLE, ROBERT J. The Role of Intentions, Damage, and Social Consequences in the Moral Judgments of Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1979, 50, 874-877. A study examined how grade school children use intent, material damage, and social reaction or consequence cues in making moral judgments. The results indicated that use of social consequence cues decreased with age, that damage cues remained important in all grades tested, and that intent cues increased in use. There were also indications that parental reaction cues had more impact on youngsters' judgments than did peer reaction cues. Finally, there was further confirmation that kindergartners employ intent cues when social reactions are positive but not when social reactions are negative.

The Sensitivity of Black and White Americans to Nonverbal Cues of Prejudice

Summary This study tested the following hypothesis: Black American Ss will be more skillful than white American Ss at perceiving and correctly identifying intentional and unintentional visual cues related to prejudice transmitted by white Americans. Two interviewees who were high in prejudice and two who were low in prejudice were videotaped interacting with black and white interviewers. Eighty black and white male and female university students were selected to look at the videotapes, shown without sound, and to indicate on a five-point-scale their perceptions of the degree to which each of the four was prejudiced. Black Ss could differentiate the high from the low prejudiced interviewees with greater accuracy than could the white Ss. Ss' responses which indicated which parts of the body had been most influential and Ss' responses concerning clues to prejudice are also discussed.

Children's use of intention cues in evaluating behavior.

Children's use of intention cues in evaluating behavior.

Children's use of intention cues in evaluating behavior.

Children's use of intention cues in evaluating behavior.

Children's Awareness and Usage of Intention Cues

IMAMOLU, E. OLCAY. Children's Awareness and Usage of Intention Cues. CiLD DEVELOPMENT, 1975, 46, 39-45. The effects of 2 levels of causality (intentional-accidental), outcome quality (good-bad), and affected object (human being-physical object) on the evaluations of acts and actors and the related response latencies of 4 age groups of 128 children (5-11 years) were measured using 8 stories and 2 4-point scales of good-bad and like-dislike. All subjects demonstrated an awareness of intentionality by showing a highly significant tendency to evaluate the accidental acts more slowly than the intentional ones. However, the weights given to intentions in their evaluations varied as a function not only of age but also of the type of object affected and to some degree the quality of the outcome. The results were explained by differentiating between children's awareness and usage of intentions and by stressing the role of differential socialization experiences.

Children's Awareness and Usage of Intention Cues

Children's Awareness and Usage of Intention Cues

A Reexamination of the Effects of Intent and Consequence on Children's Moral Judgments

COSTANZO, PHILIP R.; COIE, JOHN D.; GRUMET, JUDY F.; and FARNILL, DOUGLAS. A Reexamination of the Effects of Intent and Consequence on Children's Moral Judgments. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 154-161. Effects of intent and consequences on the moral judgments of 3 age groups of children (5--11 years) were measured using 4 stories combining positive and negative intentions and consequences. Subjects made their own judgments and attributed judgments to a story figure who had no access to intent information. The use of intention increased linearly with age for judgments of actors producing negative consequences, while all age groups tended to use intent cues for the positive-consequence stories. Social perspective taking, measured by own versus other rating differences, increased with age for both positiveand negative-consequence conditions. Results were compared with the existing literature on moral judgment which has utilized only negative-consequence paradigms. A socialization explanation was advanced for the differential findings on positive and negative consequences. The social perspectivism findings were discussed in terms of the relationship between role taking and moral judgment skills.

A Reexamination of the Effects of Intent and Consequence on Children's Moral Judgments

COSTANZO, PHILIP R.; COIE, JOHN D.; GRUMET, JUDY F.; and FARNILL, DOUGLAS. A Reexamination of the Effects of Intent and Consequence on Children's Moral Judgments. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 154-161. Effects of intent and consequences on the moral judgments of 3 age groups of children (5--11 years) were measured using 4 stories combining positive and negative intentions and consequences. Subjects made their own judgments and attributed judgments to a story figure who had no access to intent information. The use of intention increased linearly with age for judgments of actors producing negative consequences, while all age groups tended to use intent cues for the positive-consequence stories. Social perspective taking, measured by own versus other rating differences, increased with age for both positiveand negative-consequence conditions. Results were compared with the existing literature on moral judgment which has utilized only negative-consequence paradigms. A socialization explanation was advanced for the differential findings on positive and negative consequences. The social perspectivism findings were discussed in terms of the relationship between role taking and moral judgment skills.

The relationship between intentional learning, incidental learning, and type of reward in preschool, educable, mental retardates.

Ross, DOROTHEA. The Relationship between Intentional Learning, Incidental Learning, and Type of Reward in Preschool, Educable, Mental Retardates. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1970, 41, 1151-1158. The effect of type of reward (tangible, praise, and neutral comment) for intentional learning on the incidental learning of young, educable, retarded children (N:= 36) in social game situations was studied in a Type II incidental learning paradigm. Modeling procedures were used to teach the intentional cues (rules of the game) and to demonstrate the incidental cues (player mannerisms). The results support an inverse relation between motivational level and incidental learning. The Ss who were rewarded either tangibly or with praise learned more of the intentional and less of the incidental cues than Ss who were exposed to neutral comments.