Assessing Implicit Associations with Consensual Non-monogamy Among U.S. Early Emerging Adults: An Application of the Single-Target Implicit Association Test.

Research has demonstrated that implicit and explicit attitudes toward consensual nonmonogamy (CNM; sexually and/or emotionally nonexclusive romantic relationships) are less favorable than those toward monogamy. Although this general pattern of results is often reported, it is not clear to what extent this implicit difference reflects negative associations with CNM. To investigate this issue, the current study assessed 355 U.S. early emerging adults' (89 men, 265 women, one gender nonconforming) implicit associations with CNM and monogamy using the Single-Target Implicit Association Test (ST-IAT). In addition, the convergent (using explicit measures), postdictive, and concurrent validity of the CNM ST-IAT was also investigated. The results revealed that although early emerging adults demonstrated a positive implicit association with monogamy (mean D score = 0.38), a neutral implicit association emerged for CNM (mean D score = 0.00). Additionally, young women and those without previous CNM experience demonstrated more negative implicit associations with CNM as compared to men and those with previous CNM experience. Finally, implicit associations with CNM predicted willingness to allow one's partner to participate in CNM, but not one's own interest in CNM. These results support previous research suggesting that a disparity in attitudes toward CNM and monogamy exists and provides further clarification reflecting positive implicit associations with monogamy and neutral associations with CNM. These results also confirm that monogamous relationships continue to be upheld as the ideal relationship structure in the U.S. and that educators/practitioners should work to reduce negative implicit bias toward CNM in an attempt to promote relationship equity.

Active maintenance of musical and linguistic information as a function of musical experience.

Recent research suggests that linguistic and musical information are processed by shared working memory resources in non-musicians. However, it is still unclear how musical information is actively maintained by those with extensive musical experience. Some evidence suggests that those with musical experience may utilize distinct processing systems for the active maintenance of linguistic and musical information. To explore this possibility, a cross-modal interference paradigm was used in which those with and without musical experience were presented with an initial stimulus (word or chord), followed by intervening stimuli (words, chords, or silence), and then a comparison stimulus (word or chord). The participants' task was to indicate whether the comparison stimulus was the same or different from the initial stimulus. Results revealed a pattern of data that would be expected if the active maintenance of linguistic and musical information was accomplished by distinct systems in those with musical experience and a unitary system in non-musicians.

Parsing attentional processes involved in the elicitation of the N2pc component.

The elicitation of the N2pc event-related potential component is commonly thought to be related to attentional processes involved in the selection of lateralized target information. However, it has recently been suggested that this component may reflect the localization of visual information in preparation of selection processes. This hypothesis specifically proposes that processes responsible for localization, rather than the selection of target identity elicit the N2pc component. The present study sought to explore this hypothesis by using a paradigm in which a cue stimulus could initiate the localization process before the onset of a target in a lateralized rapid serial visual presentation stream. Results indicate that processing of a cue, designed to initiate localization in the absence of processing required for target identity selection, is sufficient to elicit the N2pc component. Further, the N2pc elicited by solo targets in this paradigm was not observed when targets were preceded by the spatially informative cue stimuli. These results support the localization hypothesis and may reconcile mixed results from previous research by addressing specific properties of cue stimuli.

An examination of differential repetition priming effects for natural and man-made objects.

It has been theorized that differential cognitive resources may be involved in the processing of information pertaining to natural and man-made categories, commonly referred to as category specificity. The present study used four experiments to assess whether a natural priming advantage exists and, if so, whether color, texture, color diagnosticity, object complexity, and familiarity could account for the categorical difference. To do so, a repetition priming paradigm was used in which masked primes were briefly presented, and targets were categorized as natural or man-made. Across four experiments, a greater degree of priming was observed for natural as opposed to man-made stimuli. Examination of stimulus characteristics that could account for the differences revealed that the natural priming advantage was in part driven by color diagnosticity and familiarity. Results of this study support the notion that different cognitive resources represent and/or are involved in the processing of natural and man-made categories.

Shared Processing of Language and Music.

The present study sought to explore whether musical information is processed by the phonological loop component of the working memory model of immediate memory. Original instantiations of this model primarily focused on the processing of linguistic information. However, the model was less clear about how acoustic information lacking phonological qualities is actively processed. Although previous research has generally supported shared processing of phonological and musical information, these studies were limited as a result of a number of methodological concerns (e.g., the use of simple tones as musical stimuli). In order to further investigate this issue, an auditory interference task was employed. Specifically, participants heard an initial stimulus (musical or linguistic) followed by an intervening stimulus (musical, linguistic, or silence) and were then asked to indicate whether a final test stimulus was the same as or different from the initial stimulus. Results indicated that mismatched interference conditions (i.e., musical - linguistic; linguistic - musical) resulted in greater interference than silence conditions, with matched interference conditions producing the greatest interference. Overall, these results suggest that processing of linguistic and musical information draws on at least some of the same cognitive resources.