A value accumulation account of unhealthy food choices: testing the influence of outcome salience under varying time constraints.

People often engage in unhealthy eating despite having an explicit goal to follow a healthy diet, especially under certain conditions such as a lack of time. A promising explanation from the value accumulation account is that food choices are based on the sequential consideration of the values of multiple outcomes, such as health and taste outcomes. Unhealthy choices may result if taste is considered before health. We examined whether making a health outcome more salient could alter this order, thereby leading to more healthy choices even under time pressure. Two studies examined the time-dependent effect of outcome values and salience on food choices. Participants first completed priming trials on which they rated food items on healthiness (health condition), tastiness (taste condition), or both healthiness and tastiness (control condition). They then completed blocks of binary choice trials between healthy and tasty items. The available response time was manipulated continuously in Study 1 (N = 161) and categorically in Study 2 (N = 318). As predicted, results showed that the values of health and taste outcomes influenced choices and that priming led to more choices in line with the primed outcomes even when time was scarce. We did not obtain support for the prediction that the priming effect is time-dependent in the sense that primed outcomes are considered before non-primed outcomes. Together, these findings suggest that increasing the value and salience of a health outcome may be effective ways to increase healthy choices, even under poor conditions such as time pressure.

The role of goal-directed and habitual processes in food consumption under stress after outcome devaluation with taste aversion.

People are more likely to engage in various suboptimal behaviors such as overeating, addictive behaviors, and short-sighted financial decision-making when they are under stress. Traditional dual-process models propose that stress can impair the ability to engage in goal-directed behavior so that people have to rely on habitual behavior. Support for this idea comes from a study by Schwabe and Wolf (2010), in which stressed participants continued to perform a learned instrumental behavior leading to a liquid after the liquid was devalued with a satiation procedure. Based on these findings, suboptimal behavior under stress is often seen as habitual. In the present study, we conducted a conceptual replication of the study by Schwabe and Wolf (2010). Instead of using a satiation procedure to achieve the outcome devaluation, we devalued outcomes through taste aversion. We did not replicate the pattern of findings by Schwabe and Wolf (2010). Our results indicate instead that stressed participants were sensitive to outcome values when the outcomes became truly aversive and hence that their behavior was goal-directed. This suggests either that (a) habitual processes are subject to boundary conditions or (b) the processes responsible for the findings of Schwabe and Wolf (2010) were never habitual to begin with. This may have far-reaching implications for explaining suboptimal behavior under stress in general. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Reasons to Remain Critical About the Literature on Habits: A Commentary on Wood et al. (2022).

Wood et al. (2022) reviewed arguments in support of the idea that much of human behavior is habitual. In this commentary, we first point at ambiguities in the way Wood et al. referred to habits. This allows us to clarify the question that lies at the core of the debate on habits: To what extent is habitual behavior mediated by stimulus-response associations or by goal representations? We then argue that Wood et al. dismissed goal-directed explanations of habitual behavior too easily. Finally, we point out that Wood et al.'s reanalysis of our data is misleading in that a more fine-grained analysis supports rather than questions goal-directed accounts.

A goal-directed account of action slips: The reliance on old contingencies.

People often keep engaging in behaviors that used to be successful in the past but which are knowingly no longer effective in the current situation, so-called "action slips." Such action slips are often explained with stimulus-driven processes in which behavior is caused by a stimulus-response association and without information about the outcome of the behavior. This process is contrasted with a goal-directed process in which behavior is selected because it is expected to lead to a desired outcome. Failing to act in line with changes in the outcome is taken as evidence for stimulus-driven processes. Stimulus-driven processes are assumed to get installed after overtraining and to be deployed under poor operating conditions. In line with this, previous research has found that action slips are more likely to occur after extensive training and when under time pressure. We propose an alternative goal-directed explanation according to which action slips are caused by a goal-directed process that relies on old, no longer accurate, outcome information. In the current study, participants learned four stimulus-response-outcome contingencies during a single (i.e., moderate training) or a 4-day training schedule (i.e., extensive training). Afterward, two contingencies were reversed and performance was assessed under time pressure. Results show that after extensive training, participants not only committed more action slips but also reported more old response-outcome contingencies in line with these action slips. This is consistent with the goal-directed explanation that action slips result from a reliance on old, no longer accurate outcome information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The persuasive power of knowledge: Testing the confidence heuristic.

According to the confidence heuristic, people are confident when they know they are right, and their confidence makes them persuasive. Previous experiments have investigated the confidence-persuasiveness aspect of the heuristic but not the integrated knowledge-confidence-persuasiveness hypothesis. We report 3 experiments to test the heuristic using incentivized interactive decisions with financial outcomes in which pairs of participants with common interests attempted to identify target stimuli after conferring, only 1 pair member having strong information about the target. Experiment 1, through the use of a facial identification task, confirmed the confidence heuristic. Experiment 2, through the use of geometric shapes as stimuli, elicited a much larger confidence heuristic effect. Experiment 3 found similar confidence heuristic effects through both face-to-face and computer-mediated communication channels, suggesting that verbal rather than nonverbal communication drives the heuristic. Suggesting an answer first was typical of pair members with strong evidence and might therefore be a dominant cue that persuades. Our results establish the confidence heuristic with dissimilar classes of stimuli and through different communication channels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Study Protocol on Cognitive Performance in Bulgaria, Croatia, and the Netherlands: The Normacog Brief Battery.

The Normacog Brief Battery (NBB) provides a comprehensive overview of an individual's cognitive functioning within a short amount of time. It was originally developed for the Spanish population in Spain. However, there is a considerable need for brief batteries in clinical neuropsychological assessment, especially in eastern European countries. Cultural background and other individual characteristics-such as age, level of education, and sex-are shown to influence both cognition and patients' performance on neuropsychological tests. Therefore, it is important to develop understanding of how and why culture impacts on cognitive testing and determine which sociodemographic variables affect cognitive performance. The current study aims to translate, adapt, and standardize the NBB in Bulgaria, Croatia, and the Netherlands, and to analyze the effect of sex, age, and education level on cognitive performance between these three countries. This brief battery assesses eleven cognitive domains, including those most currently relevant in cognition such as premorbid intelligence, attention, executive function, processing speed, and memory. The translation and adaptation of the battery for different cultures will be done using the back-translation process. After exclusion criteria, the current study will include a total sample of 300 participants (≥18 years old). The samples of 100 participants per country will be balanced through the consideration of their age and level of education. Effects of the sociodemographic variables (age, level of education, and sex) on cognitive performance are expected. Furthermore, this relationship is expected to differ across countries. A multivariate hierarchical linear regression will be used and exploratory analysis will be carried out to investigate further effects. The results will be particularly valuable for future research and assessment in cognitive performance. The growing demand for accurate and fast neuropsychological assessment shows the importance of creating a universal brief assessment tool for wider cross-cultural application.