Simple Cues Research Articles

Multiple roles for majority versus minority source status on persuasion when source status follows the message

This research shows that numerical majority (vs minority) status of the source can affect persuasion by different processes when induced after message processing. Specifically, we argue that source status affects persuasion by serving as a simple peripheral validity cue under low-elaboration conditions, and by validating thoughts—a metacognitive process—under high-elaboration conditions. In the present study the extent of elaboration was manipulated (high vs low), and then participants received a persuasive message composed of either strong or weak arguments that were presented by a source in the numerical majority or minority. This source status information was introduced following the message. We predicted and found that, under high-elaboration conditions the majority source increased the argument quality effect on attitudes in response to the message compared to the minority source. In contrast, under low-elaboration conditions the information regarding source status served as a simple cue, with the majority source leading to more persuasion compared to the minority source regardless of argument quality. Thus the present results provide the first evidence for moderation of different effects for majority/minority influence when the numerical status of the source follows message processing.

Human Perception: Visual Heuristics in the Perception of Glossiness

New insights into the perception of surface glossiness embody a conceptual change in perception research. Instead of estimating the physical properties of objects, the brain exploits 'invariants'--even though these sometimes make us get the answer wrong.

Shared Practices amongst Teachers in Online Training Courses

This paper researches some aspects of shared practices and social interactions amongst language teachers who took part in a modular in-service teacher training programme taught online in 2010. It evaluates whether and how the sharing of teaching practices took place in one of the courses and it investigates the sociocollaborative quality of the learning, looking for indicators of social and teaching presence based on the model of the community of inquiry (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2000). The main course activity used was the forum as a tool for asynchronous communication because discussion fora allow for reflection, feedback and extended comments, thus fostering peer collaboration (Lamy, M.-N. & Hampel, R., 2007: 40). The analysis explores patterns of participation, the tutor-learner interactions, the tutor behaviour and the interactions amongst the participants. Throughout the course, many posts were found which reflect on teaching practice and demonstrate the sharing of teaching expertise. However, it appears that collaborative communication in an online course is difficult to achieve. Most discussions follow a simple cue (task) – response (by participant) – feedback (by tutor) structure and fail to develop further feedback levels.

18-Methoxycoronaridine blocks context-induced reinstatement following cocaine self-administration in rats

Numerous studies utilizing drug self-administration have shown the importance of conditioned cues in maintaining and reinstating addictive behaviors. However, most used simple cues that fail to replicate the complexity of cues present in human craving and addiction. We have recently shown that music can induce behavioral and neurochemical changes in rats following classical conditioning with psychostimulants. However, such effects have yet to be characterized utilizing operant self-administration procedures, particularly with regard to craving and relapse. The goal of the present study was to validate the effectiveness of music as a contextual conditioned stimulus using cocaine in an operant reinstatement model of relapse. Rats were trained to lever press for cocaine with a musical cue, and were subsequently tested during reinstatement sessions to determine how musical conditioning affected drug seeking behavior. Additionally, in vivo microdialysis was used to determine basolateral amygdala involvement during reinstatement. Lastly, tests were conducted to determine whether the putative anti-addictive agent 18-methoxycoronaridine (18-MC) could attenuate cue-induced drug seeking behavior. Our results show that music-conditioned animals exhibited increased drug seeking behaviors when compared to controls during reinstatement test sessions. Furthermore, music-conditioned subjects exhibited increased extracellular dopamine in the basolateral amygdala during reinstatement sessions. Perhaps most importantly, 18-MC blocked musical cue-induced reinstatement. Thus, music can be a powerful contextual conditioned cue in rats, capable of inducing changes in both brain neurochemistry and drug seeking behavior during abstinence. The fact that 18-MC blocked cue-induced reinstatement suggests that α3β4 nicotinic receptors may be involved in the mechanism of craving, and that 18-MC may help prevent relapse to drug addiction in humans.

Modeling cuttlefish behavioural chromatophore response

We build a model of cuttlefish chromatophore excitation patterns due to environmental input. Specific inputs generate scripted chromtophore pattern responses on the surface of the skin. More complicated responses are then assembled from these templates as sequences of inputs arrive. We build a simplistic cuttlefish brain using neural architecture modeling tools written in MatLab which allow us to construct the brain model from individual modules using a vector addressing scheme [1] (Figure ​(Figure11). Figure 1 Cuttlefish chromatophore processing Inputs come into the sensory input module and are processed by the cuttlefish brain architecture into signals sent to the output module. The signals activate the individual chromatophores in the usual way giving an essentially binary on/ off pixel response. Different cues in the environment are mapped to known cuttlefish pigmentation overlays on the surface of the skin. Individual simple cues result in coarse patterns of chromotophore activation and upon receiving a sequence of simple cues, more complicated responses are constructed in a hierarchical fashion [1]. The chromatophore visibility is known to be due to a brain signal which when received energizes a ring of muscle which contracts and pushes a dot of ink up to the surface of the skin. Hence, activation signals lead to visible dots and lack of activation signal can be inferred from the loss of the pigment dot. Our model therefore treats each chromatophore as a binary switch which moves from 1 to 0 or vice versa depending on the signal sent to the output module from our cuttlefish brain processing [3,4].

Representation of 3-D surface orientation by velocity and disparity gradient cues in area MT

Neural coding of the three-dimensional (3-D) orientation of planar surface patches may be an important intermediate step in constructing representations of complex 3-D surface structure. Spatial gradients of binocular disparity, image velocity, and texture provide potent cues to the 3-D orientation (tilt and slant) of planar surfaces. Previous studies have described neurons in both dorsal and ventral stream areas that are selective for surface tilt based on one or more of these gradient cues. However, relatively little is known about whether single neurons provide consistent information about surface orientation from multiple gradient cues. Moreover, it is unclear how neural responses to combinations of surface orientation cues are related to responses to the individual cues. We measured responses of middle temporal (MT) neurons to random dot stimuli that simulated planar surfaces at a variety of tilts and slants. Four cue conditions were tested: disparity, velocity, and texture gradients alone, as well as all three gradient cues combined. Many neurons showed robust tuning for surface tilt based on disparity and velocity gradients, with relatively little selectivity for texture gradients. Some neurons showed consistent tilt preferences for disparity and velocity cues, whereas others showed large discrepancies. Responses to the combined stimulus were generally well described as a weighted linear sum of responses to the individual cues, even when disparity and velocity preferences were discrepant. These findings suggest that area MT contains a rudimentary representation of 3-D surface orientation based on multiple cues, with single neurons implementing a simple cue integration rule.

Mapping emotions through time: How affective trajectories inform the language of emotion.

The words used to describe emotions can provide insight into the basic processes that contribute to emotional experience. We propose that emotions arise partly from interacting evaluations of one's current affective state, previous affective state, predictions for how these may change in the future, and the experienced outcomes following these predictions. These states can be represented and inferred from neural systems that encode shifts in outcomes and make predictions. In two studies, we demonstrate that emotion labels are reliably differentiated from one another using only simple cues about these affective trajectories through time. For example, when a worse-than-expected outcome follows the prediction that something good will happen, that situation is labeled as causing anger, whereas when a worse-than-expected outcome follows the prediction that something bad will happen, that situation is labeled as causing sadness. Emotion categories are more differentiated when participants are required to think categorically than when participants have the option to consider multiple emotions and degrees of emotions. This work indicates that information about affective movement through time and changes in affective trajectory may be a fundamental aspect of emotion categories. Future studies of emotion must account for the dynamic way that we absorb and process information.

Indirect rival assessment in a social primate, Theropithecus gelada

Identifying the cognitive challenges of sociality can be difficult because similar social interactions may be based on very different cognitive mechanisms. To better understand the cognitive mechanisms associated with a particular interaction, we investigated the social information that gelada, Theropithecus gelada, bachelors use to assess rival males. Gelada bachelors may use a variety of assessment strategies, including attending to simple cues of immanent mating opportunities, vocal quality signals, and monitoring relationships between attached males and females. Our observational data indicate that bachelors preferentially eavesdrop on male–male fights (over copulations) and maintain close proximity to units that have experienced a recent take-over. As such units also experience elevated rates of fighting and extrapair copulations, bachelors appear to attend to cues of mating opportunities. Furthermore, bachelors monitor vocal contests between rival males, suggesting they are able to remember the quality displayed by competitors. Finally, we used playback experiments to simulate copulations between breeding males and ‘their’ females (control) or other females (test) and found no difference in bachelor response, suggesting a lack of knowledge about third-party relationships between males and females. In contrast to other social primates, gelada bachelors appear to use simpler information, such as outcomes of male–male competition, when assessing others. Given the size of gelada communities (>1000 individuals), the costs of monitoring third-party relationships may outweigh the benefits of obtaining this information, particularly when simpler rules of thumb are available.

Task confusion after switching revealed by reductions of error‐related ERP components

While response delays after task switching have been widely used as an index to investigate the limits of cognitive flexibility, little is known about their counterpart in error rates. It has been hypothesized that at least some postswitching errors are not caused by simple response errors but by task confusion, which refers to the establishment and execution of an incorrect task set. The aim of the current study is to provide evidence for this hypothesis. Using a multitrial paradigm, we firstly dissociated task confusion from simple cue encoding failure, and then measured the error-related negativity (ERN) and the following error positivity (Pe) as indices of the brain's error processing. We predicted that task confusion, if it exists, would cause ambiguity to the criteria of correct response, and therefore attenuate error processing. Results confirmed our prediction, suggesting that task confusion actually occurs after switching.

Extreme navigation: introduction to the special issue

Sophisticated mobile devices with high-quality location sensing technologies are ubiquitous in society. These devices can determine their location and orientation to an accuracy of a few metres. However, the interfaces to such devices are still firmly rooted in the techniques developed for car-based navigation. The user is presented with a map and a dot, or asked to enter a destination, and the device calculates the most efficient route to that location, perhaps with specific written or spoken directions. Whilst these turn-by-turn navigation systems work well for driving, where the user is likely to have a clear destination in mind, they are less use for the myriad of other navigation and wayfinding scenarios that humans undertake on foot. The papers presented in this special issue seek to move navigation beyond simple turn-by-turn directions by embracing the vagaries, vagueness and playfulness that humans often exhibit when navigating on foot. One common theme through the papers presented is the role of undirected or unguided navigation. Magnusson et al. consider how low-fidelity tactile feedback can be employed to indicate the direction of features and facilities in the environment as the user moves his or her device around. Here, the user may have a destination but does not care about the length or time taken to reach it. Specifically, they investigate how different target sizes and signal quality affect the performance of users trying to locate those targets. Their goal is to develop guidelines to allow ‘plug and play’ inclusion of low-fidelity feedback for navigation. Robinson et al. extend upon this work by developing ways to allow these simple directional cues to be adapted to help route users around obstacles when they come into contact with them. By increasing the angular width of feedback, Robinson et al. are able to support users in navigating to a location but allow the user to take a number of different routes, depending on their choices and preferences at the time, to reach that goal. In addition, Robinson et al. found that considering the density and volume of geo-located social media allowed users to be presented with more diverse options for navigation. Whilst both Magnusson et al. and Robinson et al. consider more practical navigation towards an end point, irrespective of the actual route taken to get there, VazquezAlvarez et al. consider more artistic aspects of navigation, augmenting the physical world with geo-located sound. Their auditory sound garden seeks to embrace the wandering behaviour of pedestrians by attracting and pulling them towards interesting sights and features in a public park. They found that the application of spatialised audio provided for greater immersion in the environment and understanding about park features that would otherwise be ignored by pedestrians. In contrast to these unstructured navigation scenarios, Sarjakoski et al. have developed techniques to allow for successful navigation in unstructured outdoor environments. They note that whilst landmark-based navigation (such as discussed by the three previous papers) is important, what constitutes a landmark is not clear. This is especially the case for outdoor hiking navigation, where landmarks are few and far between. Their work provides an important step on classifying the importance of Supported by EU FP7 Project No. 224675 ‘‘Haptimap’’.

ENGINEERING AND THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS OF MICROTUBULES

Living organisms are fascinating systems. The macromolecules that make up a living cell possess equally astounding structural and functional characteristics. By taking simple cues from how these biopolymers organize and work inside the cell, one can draw inspiration to utilize them outside their natural environment for several purposes. Microtubules are example of biopolymers that demonstrate extraordinary properties of hierarchical self-organization, dynamic remodeling and mechanical rigidity. Mimicking the principles and properties of microtubules and improving them have opened novel engineering avenues. In addition, due to the functions that microtubules perform during cell division, they are excellent therapeutic drug targets for anticancer agents. In this work, we describe the biological properties and functions of microtubules, and discuss their engineering and therapeutic applications.

Improving Outcomes Through Quality Improvement

The nutrition quality improvement (QI) program at the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Center of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA)aimed to increase patient body mass index (BMI) through improved clinician (physician, dietitian, and social worker) adherence to nutrition recommendations set forth by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). The QI program used a combination of strategies intended to increase cognitive cues for desired behaviors and to promote environmental change intended to prompt clinicians to adopt nutrition treatment recommendations. Program analysis involved collection of data on clinician behavior, nutrition treatment plans, and patient BMI. Evaluation involved a pretest—posttest design with multiple observations to determine behavior maintenance throughout the 18-month study period. Results indicate that the program produced changes in clinician behavior as evidenced by increased rates of adherence to nutrition recommendations, including the use of BMI/age as the primary nutrition marker and recommending aggressive nutrition treatment, though with noted attrition by the final data collection period. A clear trend toward improvement in BMI/age was evident with statistical significance at the P < .05 level. The QI program demonstrated that simple behavior cues in combination with training can produce changes in clinician behavior, which in turn affects patient outcomes.

Errors in comb building behaviour in Apis cerana cerana that result in entrapped workers

Self-organization of comb building behaviour is an instinct of honeybees. Here we report a case in which honeybee workers show a disorder in comb building behaviour, which results in some workers becoming embedded in newly constructed combs during comb construction. This observation is a prime example how simple signals and cues can trigger a behaviour, even when it is obviously a mistake to start comb building while the wax is still at another worker’s body.

Why do people get phished? Testing individual differences in phishing vulnerability within an integrated, information processing model

This research presents an integrated information processing model of phishing susceptibility grounded in the prior research in information process and interpersonal deception. We refine and validate the model using a sample of intended victims of an actual phishing attack. The data provides strong support for the model's theoretical structure and causative sequence. Overall, the model explains close to 50% of the variance in individual phishing susceptibility. The results indicate that most phishing emails are peripherally processed and individuals make decisions based on simple cues embedded in the email. Interestingly, urgency cues in the email stimulated increased information processing thereby short circuiting the resources available for attending to other cues that could potentially help detect the deception. Additionally, the findings suggest that habitual patterns of media use combined with high levels of email load have a strong and significant influence on individuals' likelihood to be phished. Consistent with social cognitive theory, computer self-efficacy was found to significantly influence elaboration, but its influence was diminished by domain specific-knowledge.

Dual-route communication of destination websites

To understand the communication route of destination websites, this study employed the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) which is a dual-route, multi-process model of persuasive message processing. That is, this study proposed a theoretical model for the dual-route persuasive process based on ELM, investigated its antecedents and consequences, and identified the moderating effect of involvement. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to test the validity of the conceptual model. The results indicate that highly involved people are inclined to elaborate on information (central route), while people with low involvement are likely to make judgments based on simple cues (peripheral route). Website design characteristics are an important antecedent of both central and peripheral-route persuasions. Attitudes resulting from careful consideration via the central route are more predictive of conation and behavior (further information searching and travel intentions) than those formed via the peripheral route. The study provides a foundation for further tourism research investigating the Internet as a persuasive tool, and suggests strategies for website designers.

The Effects of Passive Verb-Constructed Arguments on Persuasion

Different types of verb voice in a sentence were examined as a possible simple cue within the unimodel of persuasion (Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999). An experiment was constructed by inducing two levels of argument strength (strong vs. weak) fully crossed with three verb voice types in an independent groups design with 242 participants. Evidence was found consistent with the prediction that verb voice acts as a simple persuasion cue; the audience's enjoyment of reading the arguments was found to be a mediator of the relationship between verb type and message acceptance.

Knowledge, Ambivalence, and Congressional Approval

This paper explores which individuals are most susceptible to congressional approval. To this end, the paper is based on the information-processing logic of two moderators (knowledge and ambivalence) in the attitude change stages. Reception of validity-seeking messages is more likely to occur among individuals that possess a large store of political knowledge. However, in the acceptance stage, ambivalence mediates attitude change toward persuasive messages. These two moderators playa central role in a trade-off between two axioms (accuracy and efficiency) of decision-making in information processing. With the concept of the role of the two moderators in mind, I use the 2004 American National Election Studies data to examine four different groups' responses by combining two moderators (HKHA, HKLA, LKHA, and LKLA). The findings show that interpersonal heterogeneity is evident for four different groups. In particular, because they seek the contextual information and willingness to engage in cognitive differentiation as well as embrace central arguments in both parties' debate. publics with high knowledge and high ambivalence are less likely to rely on simple heuristic cues but more likely to depend on institution-specific criteria in evaluating congressional performance.

Long‐term recognition memory of individual conspecifics is associated with telencephalic expression of Egr‐1 in the electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus

Primates and songbirds can learn to recognize individual conspecifics based on complex sensory cues; this requires a large, highly differentiated dorsal telencephalon. Here we show that the electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus can learn to recognize individual conspecifics based on a simple cue, the beat frequency of their summed sinusoidal electric organ discharges (EOD). Male fish produce transient communication signals (chirps) in response to mimic EODs. The chirp response habituates over repeated stimulus presentations within one experimental session, continues to habituate over successive daily sessions and is nearly extinguished after 5-7 days. Habituation of the chirp response was specific to the presented beat frequency. The conversion of short- to long-term habituation could be disrupted by cooling the head 30 minutes after the daily habituation trials. Consolidation of long-term memory in mammals is thought to involve induced expression of an immediate early gene, Egr-1. We cloned the Apteronotid homolog of the Egr-1 gene and found that chirp-evoking stimuli induced strong expression of its mRNA within the dorsal (Dd), central (DC), and lateral (DL) subdivisions of the dorsal telencephalon. Interestingly, the dorsolateral region is hypothesized to be homologous to the amniote hippocampal formation. We conclude that A. leptorhynchus can learn to identify individual conspecifics based on their EOD frequency and can remember these frequencies for several days. We hypothesize that this form of learning, as in primates and songbirds, requires a subset of dorsal telencephalic areas and involves a consolidation-like process that includes the expression of the transcription factor AptEgr-1.

On the Interaction Between Stimulus Features and Context in the Perception of Causality

Much research has supported the hypothesis that the perceptual system generates impressions of causality based on simple cues available in the environment. We review evidence that this extraction of causal relations from perceptual cues is likely an automatic property of the visual system akin to other basic perceptual processes, such as perceptual grouping and illusory contour completion. We posit that it is this automatic characteristic of perceptual causality that underlies the proliferation of context effects associated with perceived causal events. Here, the presence of a perceived causal relationship may impact the perception of other features of the causal stimulus and other stimuli surrounding the causal event. We discuss current research, and present future research directions that promise to uncover some of the mechanisms underlying how causality is attributed from, and changes how we perceive and respond to, simple low-level stimuli in the environment. Such research will enrich our understanding of how the perception of causally-relevant stimulus features interacts with their context to enable us to effectively perceive, understand, and act upon our environment.

Feedback Specificity Requirements for Learning in Younger and Older Adults: The Role of Cognitive Resources and Task Demand

The amount of feedback needed to learn a new task has long been debated ( cf. Schmidt & Bjork, 1992; Van Merrienboer & Sweller, 2005). One potential answer to the amount of feedback required is that feedback should be contingent upon the learner's cognitive resources and demands imposed by the task (McLaughlin, Rogers, & Fisk, 2006). To test this model, a study is proposed that accounts for the learner's cognitive resources by comparing samples of populations with known differences, older and younger adults (Horn & Cattell, 1967; Salthouse & Babcock, 1991). To account for task demands, a simple rule-based cue learning task has been created. Participants will be provided with varying levels of feedback specificty while learning the task. We predict younger adults will benefit from less feedback support while older adults benefit from more feedback support. Theoretical and applied contributions are also discussed.