Picture Sorting Task Research Articles

The role of creative cognitive reappraisals in positively transforming negative emotions.

Recent studies have found the connections between cognitive reappraisals' creativity and their regulatory efficacy. The present study proposed and tested a novel hypothesis on the function of cognitive reappraisals, especially creative ones. That is, whether they could positively alter negative emotional arousal toward unpleasant stimuli. To this end, two questions were investigated: (a) whether the creative reappraisals were more capable than ordinary ones of transforming the negative stimuli (pictures) to be perceived as positive, and (b) whether these two kinds of reappraisals made the "negative-to-positive transformation" through different mechanisms. To answer the first question, we examined the power of the creative and ordinary reappraisals in making the "negative-to-positive transformation" using an indirect and delayed "positive-or-negative" picture-sorting task (Exp. 1, n=41 with a statistical power of 0.877), or using a direct and immediate subjective rating (Exp. 2, n=31 with a statistical power of 0.768). To answer the second question, we checked how the factor of creativeness (creative vs. ordinary reappraisal) interacted with the factor of "timing" (simultaneous vs. delayed reappraisal delivery, Exp. 1), or with that of "dose" (one vs. three reappraisal applications; Exp. 2), in making the "negative-to-positive transformation," respectively, and examined if the variation of "timing" or "dose" factors would exert different effects on the creative and ordinary reappraisals' regulatory function. Our results generally proved that creative reappraisal was more capable of making the "negative-to-positive transformation" than the ordinary reappraisal, regardless of the direct and indirect emotion evaluation ratings as well as the variations in the timing and dose of reappraisal delivery. Moreover, we found that these two kinds of reappraisals could show dissociable dose-dependent effects (but not timing-dependent ones), thus partially implying that creative and ordinary reappraisal might make the "negative-to-positive transformation" through fundamentally different processes or mechanisms.

Using Gesture, Gaze, and Combination Input Schemes as Alternatives to the Computer Mouse

Novel input devices can increase the bandwidth between users and their devices. Traditional desktop computing uses windows, icons, menus, and pointers – an interface built for the computer mouse and very effective for pointing-and-clicking. Alternative devices provide a variety of interactions including touch-free, gesture-based input and gaze-tracking to determine the user’s on-screen gaze location, but these input channels are not well-suited to a point-and-click interface. This study evaluates five new schemes, some multi-modal. These experimental schemes perform worse than mouse-based input for a picture sorting task, and motion-based gesture control creates more errors. Some gaze-based input has similar performance to the mouse while not creating additional workload.

Drivers' mental representations of familiar rural roads

The focus of the research was to investigate drivers' expectations and mental representations of familiar rural roads. Participants first completed a picture sort task for 34 rural road scenes from the local area and then rated the roads individually in terms of their comfort, driving difficulty, monotony, the speed they would choose, and how safe they would feel while driving. The similarity judgements from the picture sorting task were analysed with multi-dimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analyses to reveal six non-overlapping road categories with very good agreement across participants. These categories correctly predicted significant differences in the participants' explicit judgements about speed, difficulty, physical comfort, and safety of the individual roads. We believe that these findings can be taken as supporting evidence that these drivers' had formed underlying mental representations or schemata for these familiar roads based on the type of driving required for each.

Distinction of Road Categories by Road Users

In order to create self-explaining roads, a remarkable difference should exist between road categories, whereas within a given road category the layout should be homogenous. The paper analyses, how many and which road categories are identified and distinguished by road users. A picture sorting task was completed to find out how road users group 45 different road scenes, and how these groups correspond to road categories according current standards.

Distinction of road categories by road users compared to road classification in design guidelines

On self-explaining roads drivers automatically drive according to the expected behavior and speed. In order to create this type of roads, within a given road category the layout should be homogenous, whereas a remarkable difference should exist between road categories. Using a sample of 500 persons, the paper analyses, which road categories are identified and distinguished by road users.A picture sorting task was completed to find out how road users group 45 different road scenes, and how these groups correspond to the road categories according to current standards.In addition, an analysis of a questionnaire survey was used to determine how individual road scene images are grouped on the basis of chosen speeds, and how this grouping corresponds to road categories. For processing of speed data, cluster analysis was used.The result of both surveys show that road users can clearly distinguish only 4–5 road categories. The paper compares these results with the design guidelines of some countries.

Executive Control of Emotional Processing: A Set-Shifting Task

Emotional activation can interfere with cognitive control processes in healthy individuals, and depression is associated with impaired disengagement from negative information. However, traditional measures of executive functions are free from emotionally relevant stimuli. In the current study we designed a new task based on the structure of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), using emotional faces as stimuli. Here 110 adult participants performed either the Emotional Picture Sorting Task (EPST) or the WCST. Generally, participants performed the EPST similarly to the WCST, but significantly more trials were needed to complete the EPST. Results across six outcome variables indicate that the EPST was somewhat more difficult than the WCST. Larger standard deviations were observed in the EPST group, suggesting that the emotional stimuli might have had an interfering effect in some, but not in all, individuals. This task may become useful as a psychometric test of executive control over emotional stimuli.

Facilitating Other-Awareness in Low-Functioning Children with Autism and Typically-Developing Preschoolers Using Dual-Control Technology

Children with autism are said to lack other-awareness, which restricts their opportunities for peer collaboration. We assessed other-awareness in non-verbal children with autism and typically-developing preschoolers collaborating on a shared computerised picture-sorting task. The studies compared a novel interface, designed to support other-awareness, with a standard interface, with adult and peer partners. The autism group showed no active other-awareness using the standard interface, but revealed clear active other-awareness using the supportive interface. Both groups displayed more other-awareness with the technology than without and also when collaborating with a peer than with an adult partner. We argue that children with autism possess latent abilities to coordinate social interaction that only become evident with appropriate support.

An Italian battery for the assessment of semantic memory disorders

We report the construction and standardization of a new comprehensive battery of tests for the assessment of semantic memory disorders. The battery is constructed on a common set of 48 stimuli, belonging to both living and non-living categories, rigidly controlled for several confounding variables, and is based on an empirically derived corpus of semantic features. It includes six tasks, in order to assess semantic memory through different modalities of input and output: two naming tasks, one with colored pictures and the other in response to an oral description, a word-picture matching task, a picture sorting task, a free generation of features task and a sentence verification task. Normative data on 106 Italian subjects pooled across homogenous subgroups for age, sex and education are reported. The new battery allows an in-depth investigation of category-specific disorders and of progressive semantic memory deficits at features level, overcoming some of the limitations of existing tests.

Supporting remote collaborative problem-solving

We propose a framework of individual problem-solving and communicative demands (IproCo) that bridges the gap between models from cognitive psychology and communication pragmatics. Furthermore, we present two experiments conducted to identify factors influencing the demands and to test possibilities for support. The experiments employed a remote collaborative picture-sorting task with concrete and abstract pictures and applied non-interactive conditions compared to interactive conditions. In a first experiment, the influence of the postulated demands on collaboration process and outcome was analysed, and the impact of shared applications was tested. In a second experiment, we evaluated instructional support measures consisting of model collaboration and a collaboration script. The collaboration process showed benefits of the support but the outcome did not. However, the support measures fostered the collaboration process even in the particularly difficult conditions with non-interactive communication. We discuss the impact of the IproCo framework and apply it to other tasks. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Supporting and Hindering Knowledge Communication in a Collaborative Picture-Sorting Task

Effective knowledge communication presupposes common ground ( Clark & Brennan, 1991 ) that needs to be established and maintained. This is particularly difficult in remote communication as well as in noninteractive settings, because the speaker cannot use gestures or mimic and has to tailor his utterances to the addressee without receiving feedback. In these situations, the speaker may achieve mutual understanding, for example, by adopting the addressee’s perspective. We present a study conducted to test the impact of instructions that support and hinder individual problem-solving and knowledge communication. We used a picture-sorting task requiring individual cognitive processes of feature search ( Treisman & Gelade, 1980 ) in addition to referential communication. As our study focused on the design of utterances, all participants assumed the role of speaker. Participants were told that their descriptions would be recorded and then listened to later by a participant in the role of addressee. Eight sets of pictures were used, which varied on two dimensions: the individual cognitive demands of detecting the relevant features (varied as between-subject factor) and the communicative demands (varied as within-subject factor). A further between-subject factor was the type of instructions: The participants received either a collaboration script as supporting instructions, or time pressure was applied to induce stress, or else they were given no additional instructions (control group). We used the speakers’ verbal utterances to examine the quality of the speakers’ descriptions. For both dimensions of difficulty, we found the expected effects. In the conditions with a collaboration script, there were fewer irrelevant features mentioned and fewer features were described with delay. In the conditions with time pressure, there were fewer irrelevant features described, but the number of correctly described pictures was impaired through the fact that relevant features were also neglected. Under time pressure, speakers tended to provide ambiguous descriptions regarding the frame of reference.

Dual-task performance using degraded speech in a sentence-verification task

The results of a preliminary study on the effects of reduced speech intelligibility on dual-task performance are reported. The speech task was a sentence-verification task, and speech degradation was accomplished using a narrowband digital voice-transmission system operating with and without random bit errors. The second task was a visual picture-sorting task. There was a dualtask decrement on the sorting task and, in addition, there was a further decrease in sorts per minute as the speech was increasingly degraded. Reaction time for the speech task increased with the concurrent sorting task, but the dual-task condition did not affect speech-task error rates.

Assessing young children's social concept development

A number of questions regarding the nature of social concept development in young children were investigated in this study. In an earlier study, a social concept picture-sorting task was developed to obtain normative data on young children's social concept development. For this replication study, a larger more heterogeneous sample was used consisting of 64 kindergarten and 65 first grade public school students from lower to upper middle-class socioeconomic levels. Profile analysis was used to compare grades, sex, and racial groups. All three variables had a significant impact on performance. Significant differences in difficulty were found among the nine concepts measured. Three of the most difficult concepts (family-not family, those who protect us, and past-present) are commonly included in early childhood curriculum. These results suggest that the level of concept development needs to be considered in planning social studies curriculum and instruction for young children.

Normative data on the Missouri Children's Picture Series and the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist with Southern black children.

Normative data are presented for Southern black children on two objective personality inventories for children: the Missouri Children's Picture Series (MCPS), a child picture-sorting task, and the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MBCL), a parent rating scale. The MCPS was administered to 615 black children attending public schools in a low socioeconomic area of the southeast United States. Parents returned the MBCL on 437 of the children. Means and standard deviations on eight MCPS personality scales and six MCBL behavior rating scales are presented for black males and females at ages 5 through 16, and effects of age, sex, and various scale intercorrelations are discussed. Results suggest systematic age and sex differences on the various scales for black children that are quite atypical when compared with the MCPS in other samples. Various empirical questions regarding the validity of these instruments when used with Southern black children are raised.