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The human face is arguably the most important of all social stimuli because it provides so much valuable information about others. Therefore, one critical factor for successful social communication is the ability to process faces. In general, a wide body of social cognitive research has demonstrated that perceivers are better at extracting information from their own‐race compared to other‐race faces and that these differences can be a barrier to positive cross‐race relationships. The primary objective of the present paper was to provide an overview of how people process faces in diverse contexts, focusing on racial ingroup and outgroup members within one nation and across nations. To achieve this goal, we first broadly describe social cognitive research on categorization processes related to ingroups vs. outgroups. Next, we briefly examine two prominent mechanisms (experience and motivation) that have been used to explain differences in recognizing facial identities and identifying emotions when processing ingroup and outgroup racial faces within nations. Then, we explore research in this domain across nations and cultural explanations, such as norms and practices, that supplement the two proposed mechanisms. Finally, we propose future cross‐cultural research that has the potential to help us better understand the role of these key mechanisms in processing ingroup and outgroup faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So‐called insight problems are widely studied because they tap into the creative thinking that is crucial for solving real problems. However, insight problems are typically presented in static formats (on paper, computer) that allow no physical interaction with the problem elements, whereas such an interaction might in fact reduce the load on limited cognitive resources, such as working memory (WM) capacity, thereby facilitating solutions. To test this proposition, 124 young adults were allowed to interact physically with nine established insight problems, while another 124 people attempted to solve these problems using paper and pencil. Additionally, hints were provided for three problems that typically no‐one solves. No general facilitating effect of physical interaction was found, with only one problem clearly benefitting from it. Furthermore, making use of hints was actually hindered by physical interaction. No difference in perceived task load and correlation with WM capacity was observed between the formats, and subjective ratings of insight were virtually unaffected by presentation format. Overall, physical interaction minimally affected insight problem‐solving, which appears to rely strongly on internalized cognitive processing involving WM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors' response concerning the criticism on their article "Cognitive Ethology: A new approach for studying human cognition." They explain that the write the paper to help stimulate a dialogue among researchers regarding what they see as a fundamental and pressing issue in the field. The authors claim that they suggested the evidence which indicates the connection that researchers claim to exist between laboratory and life. They state that the responses on their paper are representative and instructive because they can be perceived as reflecting the three forms of responses they originally identified.

In a thought-provoking paper, highlights and criticizes a number of assumptions concerning synaesthesia. She specifically takes issue with the following assumptions: (1) synaesthesia is strictly a sensory-perceptual phenomenon; (2) consistency of inducer-concurrent pairs is the gold standard for establishing the authenticity of an individual's synaesthesia; and (3) synaesthesia is not heterogeneous. In the wake of this critique, Simner advances a working definition of synaesthesia as a neurological hyper-association that aims to be more inclusive of its variants. We are very sympathetic to Simner's approach and believe that it raises important points that will advance our understanding of synaesthesia. Here we supplement, and sometimes challenge, some of these ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an author response to two commentaries on 'Defining Synaesthesia' (Simner, 2012) by David M. Eagleman ('Synesthesia in its protean guises', 2012), and Roi Cohen Kadosh and Devin B. Terhune ('Redefining synaesthesia?', 2012). Together with these authors, I seek to more closely examine existing criteria on which definitions of synaesthesia have been based. In particular, I focus on the fact (a) that existing definitions paint synaesthesia as an overly homogenous condition, (b) synaesthesia may have multiple neurological causes, and (c) synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes may lie on a continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

4 As part of the more general issue of whether culture can affect perception, the present paper addresses the Whorfian question of whether the language available to describe perceptual experience can influence the experience itself. It investigated the effect of vocabulary on perceptual classification by the study of a remote culture (Himba) which possesses a poor colour vocabulary but a rich vocabulary of animal pattern terms. Thus, the present study examined Categorical Perception (CP) with a type of visual stimulus not previously used to assess the effect of labels on perceptual judgments. For the animal patterns, the Whorfian view predicted that it would only be the Himba who showed superiority for cross-category decisions as only they have the appropriate labels. The Whorfian view was upheld and confirmed previous findings that linked perceptual differences to labelling differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. While the cognitive theory of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is one of the most widely accepted accounts of the maintenance of the disorder in adults, no study to date has systematically evaluated the theory across children, adolescence and adults with OCD. Method. This paper investigated developmental differences in the cognitive processing of threat in a sample of children, adolescents and adults with OCD. Using an idiographic assessment approach, as well as self-report questionnaires, this study evaluated cognitive appraisals of responsibility, probability, severity, thought-action fusion (TAF), thought-suppression, self-doubt and cognitive control. It was hypothesised that there would be age related differences in reported responsibility for harm, probability of harm, severity of harm, thought suppression, TAF, self-doubt and cognitive control. Results. Results of this study demonstrated that children with OCD reported experiencing fewer intrusive thoughts, which were less distressing and less uncontrollable than those experienced by adolescents and adults with OCD. Furthermore, responsibility attitudes, probability biases and thought suppression strategies were higher in adolescents and adults with OCD. Cognitive processes of TAF, perceived severity of harm, self-doubt and cognitive control were found to be comparable across age groups. Conclusions. These results suggest that the current cognitive theory of OCD needs to address developmental differences in the cognitive processing of threat. Furthermore, for a developmentally sensitive theory of OCD, further investigation is warranted into other possible age related maintenance factors. Implications of this investigation and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that the beneficial effects of peer collaboration are not always apparent until some time has elapsed. Such delayed effects are not readily incorporated in current models of collaborative learning, but because they constitute incubation effects in the psychological sense of the term, they should in principle be consistent with cognitive accounts of how incubation occurs. Accordingly, the paper reports three studies which test whether, in accordance with cognitive models of incubation, the delayed effects of peer collaboration could result from: (a) the breaking over time of unhelpful mental sets, (b) the engagement in post-collaborative reflective appraisal, and (c) the experience of subsequent events that, thanks to collaboration, can be used productively. The studies involved 9- to 12-year-old children working on the factors relevant to floating and sinking. The results provide no evidence for the relevance of set breaking or reflective appraisal, but suggest strongly that peer collaboration can 'prime' children to make good use of subsequent input. It is argued that in addition to clarifying how the delayed effects occur and applying incubation models in a novel context, the results flag up issues that are common to collaborative and cognitive theory, and that neither address adequately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared mental models theory normally takes the individual as its unit of analysis. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for studying shared mental models in which the model is considered to be distributed amongst the team. From this framework a cognitive process is predicted which describes how shared mental models are run. A team reasoning task requiring planning was used to illustrate this framework and test predictions derived from it. Two aspects of sharing mental models were studied; the degree of overlap between team members' mental models and the organization of the division of the model between team members. Experimental results showed that the cognitive processes used were distributed amongst the team and support was found for most, but not all, aspects of the proposed process of running a shared mental model. The organization of sharing was found to influence this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]