Cortico-striatal white-matter connectivity underlies the ability to exert goal-directed control.

The balance between goal-directed and habitual control has been proposed to determine the flexibility of instrumental behaviour, in both humans and animals. This view is supported by neuroscientific studies that have implicated dissociable neural pathways in the ability to flexibly adjust behaviour when outcome values change. A previous Diffusion Tensor Imaging study provided preliminary evidence that flexible instrumental performance depends on the strength of parallel cortico-striatal white-matter pathways previously implicated in goal-directed and habitual control. Specifically, estimated white-matter strength between caudate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex correlated positively with behavioural flexibility, and posterior putamen-premotor cortex connectivity correlated negatively, in line with the notion that these pathways compete for control. However, the sample size of the original study was limited, and so far, there have been no attempts to replicate these findings. In the present study, we aimed to conceptually replicate these findings by testing a large sample of 205 young adults to relate cortico-striatal connectivity to performance on the slips-of-action task. In short, we found only positive neural correlates of goal-directed performance, including striatal connectivity (caudate and anterior putamen) with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. However, we failed to provide converging evidence for the existence of a neural habit system that puts limits on the capacity for flexible, goal-directed action. We discuss the implications of our findings for dual-process theories of instrumental action.

Practice makes perfect: Restrained eaters' heightened control for food images.

OBJECTIVE: Restrained eaters (RE) show behaviourally unregulated food intake, which is often explained by a deficit in inhibitory control. Despite evidence for general inhibitory deficits in RE, it remains unclear how the variety of (food) cues in our environment can influence cognitive control. METHOD: In this re-analysis, we explored the inhibitory capacity of RE and unrestrained eaters (URE) on a stop-signal task with modal (pictures) and amodal (word) food and non-food stimuli. RESULTS: Although we did not find the expected inhibitory deficits in RE compared to URE, we found a significant Group × Modality × Stimulus Type interaction. This indicated that RE have relatively good inhibitory control for food, compared to non-food modal cues, and that this relationship is reversed for amodal cues. CONCLUSIONS: Hence, we showed differential processing of information based on food-specificity and presentation format in RE. The format of food cues is thus an important new avenue to understand how the food environment impedes those struggling with regulating their eating behaviour.

You don't know why you (don't) exercise: The relationship between automatic processes and physical activity (or sedentary behavior): A meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: This meta-analysis aimed to examine the relationship between automatic processes and behavior as well as their moderators. METHODS: There were 126 effect sizes (Fisher's Z) extracted from 55 independent research studies involving 10,432 participants. Meta-analyses were conducted using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Version 3.3. Univariate meta-regression models were used to analyze underlying moderators. RESULTS: Meta-analysis after correction found that automatic processes could significantly and positively predict behavior, but the effect size was small (Fisher's Z = 0.057, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.043, 0.070]). CONCLUSIONS: Different components of automatic processes, task reliability, and study design moderated the relationship between automatic processes and behavior. Future research could explore automatic measures at a neurophysiological level or use population-matched stimuli for specific populations to improve measure validity. In addition, future research should accumulate evidence on how to reduce sedentary behavior.

Do implicit attitudes toward physical activity and sedentary behavior prospectively predict objective physical activity among persons with obesity?

This study conducted among adults with obesity examined the associations between implicit attitudes toward physical activity and sedentary behavior, and physical activity behavior measured 4 months later. At baseline, 76 participants (M AGE = 56; M BMI = 39.1) completed a questionnaire assessing intentions toward physical activity and sedentary behavior and two computerized Single-Category Implicit Association Tests assessing implicit attitudes toward these two behaviors. At follow-up, physical activity was measured with accelerometers. Multiple regression analysis showed that implicit attitudes toward physical activity were positively and significantly associated with physical activity when participants' age, BMI, past physical activity and intentions were controlled for. Implicit attitudes toward sedentary behavior were not associated with physical activity. Adults with obesity who implicitly reported more favorable attitudes toward physical activity at baseline were more likely to present higher physical activity levels at follow-up. Implicit attitudes could be targeted in future research to enhance physical activity.

Implicit attitudes and the improvement of exercise capacity during pulmonary rehabilitation.

The aim of this study was to examine the role of explicit and implicit attitudes in the improvement of exercise capacity during a 5-week pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). A total of 105 patients performed walking tests at baseline and at the end of PR. Change between performances was computed at the end of PR, and Minimal-Clinically-Important-Difference (MCID) were used to categorize patients as responders (i.e. change above MCID, N = 54) or non-responders (i.e. change below MCID, N = 51). At baseline, implicit attitudes were measured through a physical activity versus sedentary behavior Implicit Association Test; explicit attitudes toward physical activity and sedentary behavior were measured by questionnaires. Only implicit attitudes significantly differed between the two groups (p = .015), responders displaying implicit attitudes significantly more in favor of physical activity (M = .91, SD = .54) than non-responders (M = .60, SD = .71) at baseline. Measuring implicit attitudes in PR could help to accurately estimate patients' motivation, and design more individualized rehabilitation programs.

Valence and Origin of Emotional Words Influence on Subsequent Perception of Ambiguous Stimuli in Terms of Competence Versus Warmth.

The aim of this study was to examine whether the valence and origin of emotional words can alter perception of ambiguous objects in terms of warmth versus competence, fundamental dimensions of social cognition. 60 individuals were invited into the study focusing on the limits of intuition. They were asked to try to guess the meaning of Japanese pictorial signs in terms of their warmth versus competence connotations. Before each trial a subsequent memory load task was applied. Participants were supposed to read and remember words creating a factorial manipulation of valence (three levels) and origins (three levels: automatic, neutral and reflective) of affective connotations presenting to them for 500 ms. For positively valenced words, automatic originated ones resulted in perception of ambiguous signs more in terms of warmth, while reflective originated words resulted in perception of signs more in terms of competence. This study shows that social perception of warmth versus competence is susceptible to emotional influence of unrelated stimulation, and thus can be primed by objects in the environment. Warmth may be treated as linked with automatic mind processes, while competence may be treated as associated with the controlled part of the mind. In a broader context, this experiment results support claim that distinct dualities identified in dual-processes theories of mind are related to one another, and in fact they may be emanations of two more general systems of mind.

Old processes, new perspectives: Familiarity is correlated with (not independent of) recollection and is more (not equally) variable for targets than for lures.

According to dual-process models of memory, recognition is subserved by two processes: recollection and familiarity. Many variants of these models assume that recollection and familiarity make stochastically independent contributions to performance in recognition tasks and that the variance of the familiarity signal is equal for targets and for lures. Here, we challenge these 'common-currency' assumptions. Using a model-comparison approach, featuring the Continuous Dual Process (CDP; Wixted & Mickes, 2010) model as the protagonist, we show that when these assumptions are relaxed, the model's fits to individual participants' data improve. Furthermore, our analyses reveal that across items, recollection and familiarity show a positive correlation. Interestingly, this across-items correlation was dissociated from an across-participants correlation between the sensitivities of these processes. We also find that the familiarity signal is significantly more variable for targets than for lures. One striking theoretical implication of these findings is that familiarity-rather than recollection, as most models assume-may be the main contributor responsible for one of the most influential findings of recognition memory, that of subunit zROC slopes. Additionally, we show that erroneously adopting the common-currency assumptions, introduces severe biases to estimates of recollection and familiarity.

Dual-memory processes in crack cocaine dependents: The effects of childhood neglect on recall.

Exposure to adversities during sensitive periods of neurodevelopment is associated with the subsequent development of substance dependence and exerts harmful, long-lasting effects upon memory functioning. In this study, we investigated the relationship between childhood neglect (CN) and memory using a dual-process model that quantifies recollective and non-recollective retrieval processes in crack cocaine dependents. Eighty-four female crack cocaine-dependent inpatients who did (N = 32) or did not (N = 52) report a history of CN received multiple opportunities to study and recall a short list composed of familiar and concrete words and then received a delayed-recall test. Crack cocaine dependents with a history of CN showed worse performance on free-recall tests than did dependents without a history of CN; this finding was associated with declines in recollective retrieval (direct access) rather than non-recollective retrieval. In addition, we found no evidence of group differences in forgetting rates between immediate- and delayed-recall tests. The results support developmental models of traumatology and suggest that neglect of crack cocaine dependents in early life disrupts the adult memory processes that support the retrieval of detailed representations of events from the past.

Assessing "economic value": symbolic-number mappings predict risky and riskless valuations.

Diminishing marginal utility (DMU) is a basic tenet of economic and psychological models of judgment and choice, but its determinants are little understood. In the research reported here, we tested whether insensitivities in valuations of dollar amounts (e.g., $40, $100) may be due to inexact mappings of symbolic numbers (i.e., "40," "100") onto mental magnitudes. In three studies, we demonstrated that inexact mappings appear to guide valuation and mediate numeracy's relations with riskless valuations (Studies 1 and 1a) and risky choices (Study 2). The results highlight the fundamental notion that individuals' valuations of $100 depend critically on how individuals perceive and map the symbolic quantity "100." This notion has implications for conceptualizations of value, risk aversion, intertemporal choice, and dual-process theories of decision making. Normative implications are also briefly discussed.

Reasoning From Quantified Modal Premises.

Quantified modal inferences interest logicians, linguists, and computer scientists, but no previous psychological study of them appears to be in the literature. Here is an example of one: All those artists are businessmen. Paulo is possibly one of the artists. What follows? People tend to conclude: Paulo is possibly a businessman (Experiment 1). It seems plausible, and it follows from an intuitive mental model in which Paulo is one of a set of artists who are businessmen. Further deliberation can yield a model of an alternative possibility in which Paulo is not one of the artists, which confirms that the conclusion is only a possibility. The snag is that standard modal logics, which deal with possibilities, cannot yield a particular conclusion to any premises: Infinitely many follow validly (from any premises) but they do not include the present conclusion. Yet, further experiments corroborated a new mental model theory's predictions for various inferences (Experiment 2), for the occurrence of factual conclusions drawn from premises about possibilities (Experiment 3) and for inferences from premises of modal syllogisms (Experiment 4). The theory is therefore plausible, but we explore the feasibility of a cognitive theory based on modifications to modal logic.

Eye Movements, Pupil Dilation, and Conflict Detection in Reasoning: Exploring the Evidence for Intuitive Logic.

A controversial claim in recent dual process accounts of reasoning is that intuitive processes not only lead to bias but are also sensitive to the logical status of an argument. The intuitive logic hypothesis draws upon evidence that reasoners take longer and are less confident on belief-logic conflict problems, irrespective of whether they give the correct logical response. In this paper, we examine conflict detection under conditions in which participants are asked to either judge the logical validity or believability of a presented conclusion, accompanied by measures of eye movement and pupil dilation. The findings show an effect of conflict, under both types of instruction, on accuracy, latency, gaze shifts, and pupil dilation. Importantly, these effects extend to conflict trials in which participants give a belief-based response (incorrectly under logic instructions or correctly under belief instructions) demonstrating both behavioral and physiological evidence in support of the logical intuition hypothesis.

Reasoning About Want.

No present theory explains the inferences people draw about the real world when reasoning about "bouletic" relations, that is, predicates that express desires, such as want in "Lee wants to be in love". Linguistic accounts of want define it in terms of a relation to a desirer's beliefs, and how its complement is deemed desirable. In contrast, we describe a new model-based theory that posits that by default, desire predicates such as want contrast desires against facts. In particular, A wants P implies by default that P is not the case, because you cannot want what is already true. On further deliberation, reasoners may infer that A believes, but does not know for certain, that P is not the case. The theory makes several empirical predictions about how people interpret, assess the consistency of, and draw conclusions from desire predicates like want. Seven experiments tested and validated the theory's central predictions. We assess the theory in light of recent proposals of desire predicates.

Vaccine Refusal: A Preliminary Interdisciplinary Investigation.

Many people who generally receive standard recommended inoculations refuse to partake of COVID-19 vaccines, preventatives that are effective, safe, and life-saving amidst the current pandemic. Our quest is to understand this puzzling and dangerous phenomenon, as it exists among US and UK citizens, whom in other respects would be regarded as quite regular. We will discuss Vaccine Refusal compared with two better understood phenomena: addiction, and akrasia, along with the related matters of human action, intention, agency, will, and identity. Vaccine Refusal, we will argue, appears to be rewarded by "informational reinforcement" leading to heightened arousal, along with increases in self-esteem resulting from "bucking the trend," asserting one's "superior" understanding, and "tribal identity" in acting against social norms. These factors provide an overall reward amounting to satisfaction that outweighs the well-known consequences of COVID-19 infections. Our investigations will also lead us to a pair of epistemological hypotheses about two subtypes of the Vaccine Refusers under consideration here.

The association between implicit attitudes toward physical activity and physical activity behaviour: a systematic review and correlational meta-analysis.

As a result of recent calls to attend to the implicit processes that regulate health behaviours, the study of implicit attitudes and physical activity behaviour has grown rapidly in the past decade. The aim of this study was to summarise existing evidence on the extent to which implicit attitudes toward physical activity are associated with physical activity behaviour. A systematic literature review was performed to retrieve studies reporting both a measure of implicit attitudes and physical activity. For the meta-analysis, effect size (Pearson's r) were extracted from eligible studies or retrieved from authors. A total of 26 independent studies, and 55 effect sizes, were eligible. There was a small, significant, and positive correlation between implicit attitudes and physical activity, a finding replicated across multiple meta-analytical strategies with sensitivity analyses applied. This association was not significantly moderated by study design or objective, participants' age or other characteristics, or measures of implicit attitudes or physical activity. This meta-analysis provides evidence that implicit attitudes toward physical activity are positively associated with physical activity in adults to a small degree.

A Cue for Rational Reasoning: Introducing a Reference Point in Cognitive Reflection Tasks.

The dual process framework posits that we reason using the quick System 1, and the deliberate System 2, both of which are part of our "adaptive toolbox". The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) estimates which system was used to solve a reasoning problem. Usually, the CRT tasks are solved incorrectly by using System 1, and correctly through System 2. We have applied the reference point hypothesis to the tasks of the CRT and proposed that this change would facilitate the switch between systems, resulting in better performance on the version of the test with a reference point, compared to the CRT without one. The results confirmed our assumptions, as evidenced by a generally higher score on the CRT with a reference point, albeit with different effects between items.

Sacrificial utilitarian judgments do reflect concern for the greater good: Clarification via process dissociation and the judgments of philosophers.

Researchers have used "sacrificial" trolley-type dilemmas (where harmful actions promote the greater good) to model competing influences on moral judgment: affective reactions to causing harm that motivate characteristically deontological judgments ("the ends don't justify the means") and deliberate cost-benefit reasoning that motivates characteristically utilitarian judgments ("better to save more lives"). Recently, Kahane, Everett, Earp, Farias, and Savulescu (2015) argued that sacrificial judgments reflect antisociality rather than "genuine utilitarianism," but this work employs a different definition of "utilitarian judgment." We introduce a five-level taxonomy of "utilitarian judgment" and clarify our longstanding usage, according to which judgments are "utilitarian" simply because they favor the greater good, regardless of judges' motivations or philosophical commitments. Moreover, we present seven studies revisiting Kahane and colleagues' empirical claims. Studies 1a-1b demonstrate that dilemma judgments indeed relate to utilitarian philosophy, as philosophers identifying as utilitarian/consequentialist were especially likely to endorse utilitarian sacrifices. Studies 2-6 replicate, clarify, and extend Kahane and colleagues' findings using process dissociation to independently assess deontological and utilitarian response tendencies in lay people. Using conventional analyses that treat deontological and utilitarian responses as diametric opposites, we replicate many of Kahane and colleagues' key findings. However, process dissociation reveals that antisociality predicts reduced deontological inclinations, not increased utilitarian inclinations. Critically, we provide evidence that lay people's sacrificial utilitarian judgments also reflect moral concerns about minimizing harm. This work clarifies the conceptual and empirical links between moral philosophy and moral psychology and indicates that sacrificial utilitarian judgments reflect genuine moral concern, in both philosophers and ordinary people.

Adolescents at risk for drug abuse: a 3-year dual-process analysis.

AIMS: To test longitudinal additive and synergistic dual-process models in youth at documented risk for drug use. The specific dual-process approach examined suggests that engaging in drug use behaviors results from a dynamic interplay between automatically activated associative memory processes and executive reflective/control processes. DESIGN: This 3-year, three-wave population-based prospective study used mobile computer-based assessments. SETTING: Self-directed computer assessments were completed in school settings in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, California, USA. PARTICIPANTS: Seven hundred and twenty-five at-risk adolescents (44% female) in continuation high schools were recruited during 9th grade (age at recruitment, 14-16). MEASUREMENTS: Key outcome measures included past year alcohol, marijuana and cigarette use at each assessment. Predictors included working memory capacity (WMC), associative memory, the interaction term WMC by associative memory, sex, age, ethnicity and acculturation. FINDINGS: A significant cross-sectional interaction revealed tobacco-relevant associations were weaker predictors of cigarette use among males with higher WMC than among those with lower WMC (P < 0.004). Alternatively, drug-relevant associations were stronger predictors of past year alcohol (P < 0.001) and marijuana use (P = 0.02) among females with higher WMC than among those with lower WMC. Longitudinal analyses revealed no significant interactions after adjusting for predictive effects of previous drug use. With respect to WMC, females with higher WMC were less likely to use marijuana at 2-year follow-up (P = 0.03). First-order effects of drug-related associations predicted greater alcohol and marijuana use prospectively in males at 1- and 2-year follow up (P ≤ 0.03), and greater past year alcohol and marijuana use in females at 1-year follow up (P ≤ 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Drug-relevant memory associations play a key role in drug use behavior in at-risk youth.

Beyond Affective Influences on Deontological Moral Judgment: The Role of Motivations for Prevention in the Moral Condemnation of Harm.

Past research suggests that deontological judgments, which condemn deliberate harm no matter what the beneficial consequences, typically arise from emotional and intuitive reactions to the harm, whereas utilitarian judgments, which acknowledge the potential benefits of deliberate harm, typically arise from rational deliberation about whether these benefits outweigh the costs. The present research explores whether specific motivational orientations might, at times, increase the likelihood of deontological judgments without increasing emotional reactions. A meta-analysis of 10 newly conducted studies indicated that, compared with when focused on advancement ( promotion), when people were focused on security ( prevention) they made stronger deontological judgments in hypothetical moral dilemmas. Moreover, this effect could not be explained by participants' differing emotional reactions to the dilemmas when prevention-focused, but instead mirrored reports of their explicit reasoning. Implications for expanding current models of deontological and utilitarian moral judgment are discussed.

Investigating risky, distracting, and protective peer passenger effects in a dual process framework.

Prior studies indicated higher collision rates among young novice drivers with peer passengers. This driving simulator study provided a test for a dual process theory of risky driving by examining social rewards (peer passengers) and cognitive control (inhibitory control). The analyses included age (17-18 yrs, n=30; 21-24 yrs, n=20). Risky, distracting, and protective effects were classified by underlying driver error mechanisms. In the first drive, participants drove alone. In the second, participants drove with a peer passenger. Red-light running (violation) was more prevalent in the presence of peer passengers, which provided initial support for a dual process theory of risk driving. In a subgroup with low inhibitory control, speeding (violation) was more prevalent in the presence of peer passengers. Reduced lane-keeping variability reflected distracting effects. Nevertheless, possible protective effects for amber-light running and hazard handling (cognition and decision-making) were found in the drive with peer passengers. Avenues for further research and possible implications for targets of future driver training programs are discussed.

Priming Children's Use of Intentions in Moral Judgement with Metacognitive Training.

Typically, adults give a primary role to the agent's intention to harm when performing a moral judgment of accidental harm. By contrast, children often focus on outcomes, underestimating the actor's mental states when judging someone for his action, and rely on what we suppose to be intuitive and emotional processes. The present study explored the processes involved in the development of the capacity to integrate agents' intentions into their moral judgment of accidental harm in 5 to 8-year-old children. This was done by the use of different metacognitive trainings reinforcing different abilities involved in moral judgments (mentalising abilities, executive abilities, or no reinforcement), similar to a paradigm previously used in the field of deductive logic. Children's moral judgments were gathered before and after the training with non-verbal cartoons depicting agents whose actions differed only based on their causal role or their intention to harm. We demonstrated that a metacognitive training could induce an important shift in children's moral abilities, showing that only children who were explicitly instructed to "not focus too much" on the consequences of accidental harm, preferentially weighted the agents' intentions in their moral judgments. Our findings confirm that children between the ages of 5 and 8 are sensitive to the intention of agents, however, at that age, this ability is insufficient in order to give a "mature" moral judgment. Our experiment is the first that suggests the critical role of inhibitory resources in processing accidental harm.