Affective responses to coherence in high and low risk scenarios.

Presenting information in a coherent fashion has been shown to increase processing fluency, which in turn influences affective responses. The pattern of responses have been explained by two apparently competing accounts: hedonic marking (response to fluency is positive) and fluency amplification (response to fluency can be positive or negative, depending on stimuli valence). This paper proposes that these accounts are not competing explanations, but separate mechanisms, serving different purposes. Therefore, their individual contributions to overall affective responses should be observable. In three experiments, participants were presented with businesses scenarios, with riskiness (valence) and coherence (fluency) manipulated, and affective responses recorded. Results suggested that increasing the fluency of stimuli increases positive affect. If the stimulus is negative, then increasing fluency simultaneously increases negative affect. These affective responses appeared to cancel each other out (Experiment 1) when measured using self-report bipolar scales. However, separate measurement of positive and negative affect, either using unipolar scales (Experiment 2) or using facial electromyography (Experiment 3), provided evidence for co-occurring positive and negative affective responses, and therefore the co-existence of hedonic marking and fluency amplification mechanisms.

Examining conscientiousness as a key resource in resisting email interruptions: Implications for volatile resources and goal achievement.

Within the context of the conservation of resources model, when a resource is deployed, it is depleted - albeit temporarily. However, when a 'key', stable resource, such as Conscientiousness, is activated (e.g., using a self-control strategy, such as resisting an email interruption), we predicted that (1) another, more volatile resource (affective well-being) would be impacted and that (2) this strategy would be deployed as a trade-off, allowing one to satisfy task goals, at the expense of well-being goals. We conducted an experience-sampling field study with 52 email-users dealing with their normal email as it interrupted them over the course of a half-day period. This amounted to a total of 376 email reported across the sample. Results were analysed using random coefficient hierarchical linear modelling and included cross-level interactions for Conscientiousness with strategy and well-being. Our first prediction was supported - deploying the stable, key resource of Conscientiousness depletes the volatile, fluctuating resource of affective well-being. However, our second prediction was not fully realized. Although resisting or avoiding an email interruption was perceived to hinder well-being goal achievement by Conscientious people, it had neither a positive nor negative impact on task goal achievement. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Practitioner points: It may be necessary for highly Conscientious people to turn off their email interruption alerts at work, in order to avoid the strain that results from an activation-resistance mechanism afforded by the arrival of a new email.Deploying key resources means that volatile resources may be differentially spent, depending on one's natural tendencies and how these interact with the work task and context. This suggests that the relationship between demands and resources is not always direct and predictable.Practitioners may wish to appraise the strategies they use to deal with demands such as email at work, to identify if these strategies are assisting with task or well-being goal achievement, or whether they have become defunct through automation.

Eating behaviour associated with differences in conflict adaptation for food pictures.

OBJECTIVE: The goal conflict model of eating (Stroebe, Mensink, Aarts, Schut, & Kruglanski, 2008) proposes differences in eating behaviour result from peoples' experience of holding conflicting goals of eating enjoyment and weight maintenance. However, little is understood about the relationship between eating behaviour and the cognitive processes involved in conflict. This study aims to investigate associations between eating behaviour traits and cognitive conflict processes, specifically the application of cognitive control when processing distracting food pictures. METHOD: A flanker task using food and non-food pictures was used to examine individual differences in conflict adaptation. Participants responded to target pictures whilst ignoring distracting flanking pictures. Individual differences in eating behaviour traits, attention towards target pictures, and ability to apply cognitive control through adaptation to conflicting picture trials were analysed. RESULTS: Increased levels of external and emotional eating were related to slower responses to food pictures indicating food target avoidance. All participants showed greater distraction by food compared to non-food pictures. Of particular significance, increased levels of emotional eating were associated with greater conflict adaptation for conflicting food pictures only. CONCLUSION: Emotional eaters demonstrate greater application of cognitive control for conflicting food pictures as part of a food avoidance strategy. This could represent an attempt to inhibit their eating enjoyment goal in order for their weight maintenance goal to dominate.

The Effects of Rhodiola rosea L. Extract on Anxiety, Stress, Cognition and Other Mood Symptoms.

This trial evaluated the impact of a Rhodiola rosea L. extract on self-reported anxiety, stress, cognition, and other mood symptoms. Eighty mildly anxious participants were randomized into two different groups of either Rhodiola rosea L (2 × 200 mg dose Vitano®, 1 tablet taken before breakfast and 1tablet before lunch) or a control condition (no treatment). Self-report measures and cognitive tests were completed at four testing sessions over a period of 14 days. Relative to the controls, the experimental group demonstrated a significant reduction in self-reported, anxiety, stress, anger, confusion and depression at 14 days and a significant improvements in total mood. No relevant differences in cognitive performance between the groups were observed. Rhodiola rosea L (Vitano®) presented a favourable safety tolerability profile. Although this was a non-placebo controlled trial, it is unlikely that the findings were the result of placebo effects as changes appeared gradual and were specific to certain psychological measures. However, we cannot determine a causal relationship; further investigations are recommended to support the effects of Rhodiola rosea L. extract on stress related symptoms.

The relationship between dietary restraint and deficits in reasoning about causes of obesity.

Objective: Increased levels of dietary restraint are associated with deficits on many cognitive tasks. Less is known about how individual differences in restraint influences complex cognition such as reasoning which is the focus of this research.Design: Two experimental studies are reported. In study 1, participants (n = 158) completed a causal conditional reasoning task with statements about weight-related and general causal relationships. Study 2 replicated and extended study 1. Participants (n = 108) completed a causal conditional reasoning task focusing on behavioural causes of weight change or general statements.Main outcome measure: Causal conditional reasoning task performance.Results: In study 1, levels of dietary restraint were negatively associated with reasoning abilities for weight-related statements only. Study 2 replicated the negative association between dietary restraint and reasoning finding the effect in both weight-related, and general, causal judgements.Conclusion: The novel findings show that individual differences in dietary restraint have a wider relationship with cognition than previously demonstrated. Results tentatively support theoretical explanations of a reduction in cognitive capacity, rather than differences in belief, explaining reasoning deficits. These findings open an interesting avenue for research and might have implications for effective decision making about personal health behaviours, such as food choice.

The role of causal models and beliefs in interpreting health claims.

OBJECTIVE: Health claims on food packaging are regulated to inform and protect consumers; however, many consumers do not accurately interpret the meaning of the claims. Whilst research has shown different types of misinterpretation, it is not clear how those interpretations are formed. The aim of this study was to elicit the causal beliefs and causal models about food and health held by consumers, that is their understanding of the causal relationships between nutrients, health outcomes, and the causal pathways connecting them, and investigate how well this knowledge explains the variation in inferences they draw about health benefits from health claims. METHOD: A total of 400 participants from Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom were presented with seven authorized health claims and drew inferences about the health benefits of consuming nutrients specified in the claim. Then, their personal causal models of health were elicited along with their belief in the truth and familiarity with the claims. RESULTS: The strength of inferences about health benefits that participants drew from the claims was predicted independently by the strength of the relevant causal pathways within the causal model, and belief in the truth of the claim, but not familiarity with the claim. Participants drew inferences about overall health benefits of the nutrients by extrapolating from their causal models of health. CONCLUSION: Consumers' interpretation of claims is associated with their belief in the claim and their causal models of health. This prior knowledge is used to interpret the claim and draw inferences about overall health benefits that go beyond the information in the claim. Therefore, efforts to improve consumers' understanding and interpretation of health claims must address both their wider causal models of health and their knowledge of specific claims. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Health claims influence the likelihood of buying a product. But consumers do not accurately understand or interpret health claims. What does this study add? Consumers' interpretation of health claims is mediated by their personal causal model of health. Consumers draw inferences that go beyond what is claimed by extrapolating from their personal causal model of health. Consumers are also influenced directly by their belief in the claim, but not frequency of exposure to it.

Editors' Introduction: Cognitive Modeling at ICCM: Advancing the State of the Art.

Cognitive modeling is the effort to understand the mind by implementing theories of the mind in computer code, producing measures comparable to human behavior and mental activity. The community of cognitive modelers has traditionally met twice every 3 years at the International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (ICCM). In this special issue of topiCS, we present the best papers from the ICCM meeting. (The full proceedings are available on the ICCM website.) These best papers represent advances in the state of the art in cognitive modeling. Since ICCM was for the first time also held jointly with the Society for Mathematical Psychology, we use this preface to also reflect on the similarities and differences between mathematical psychology and cognitive modeling.

Heuristic and analytic processes in reasoning: an event-related potential study of belief bias.

Human reasoning involves both heuristic and analytic processes. This study of belief bias in relational reasoning investigated whether the two processes occur serially or in parallel. Participants evaluated the validity of problems in which the conclusions were either logically valid or invalid and either believable or unbelievable. Problems in which the conclusions presented a conflict between the logically valid response and the believable response elicited a more positive P3 than problems in which there was no conflict. This shows that P3 is influenced by the interaction of belief and logic rather than either of these factors on its own. These findings indicate that belief and logic influence reasoning at the same time, supporting models in which belief-based and logical evaluations occur in parallel but not theories in which belief-based heuristic evaluations precede logical analysis.

The influence of activation level on belief bias in relational reasoning.

A novel explanation of belief bias in relational reasoning is presented based on the role of working memory and retrieval in deductive reasoning, and the influence of prior knowledge on this process. It is proposed that belief bias is caused by the believability of a conclusion in working memory which influences its activation level, determining its likelihood of retrieval and therefore its effect on the reasoning process. This theory explores two main influences of belief on the activation levels of these conclusions. First, believable conclusions have higher activation levels and so are more likely to be recalled during the evaluation of reasoning problems than unbelievable conclusions, and therefore, they have a greater influence on the reasoning process. Secondly, prior beliefs about the conclusion have a base level of activation and may be retrieved when logically irrelevant, influencing the evaluation of the problem. The theory of activation and memory is derived from the Atomic Components of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) cognitive architecture and so this account is formalized in an ACT-R cognitive model. Two experiments were conducted to test predictions of this model. Experiment 1 tested strength of belief and Experiment 2 tested the impact of a concurrent working memory load. Both of these manipulations increased the main effect of belief overall and in particular raised belief-based responding in indeterminately invalid problems. These effects support the idea that the activation level of conclusions formed during reasoning influences belief bias. This theory adds to current explanations of belief bias by providing a detailed specification of the role of working memory and how it is influenced by prior knowledge.