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The addition of environmentally friendly items to conventional items sometimes leads people to believe that the carbon footprint of the entire set decreases rather than increases. This negative footprint illusion is supposedly underpinned by an averaging bias: people base environmental impact estimates not on the total impact of items but on their average. Here, we found that the illusion’s magnitude increased with the addition of a greater number of “green” items when the number of conventional items remained constant (Studies 1 and 2), supporting the averaging-bias account. We challenged this account by testing what happens when the number of items in the conventional and “green” categories vary while holding the ratio between the two categories constant (Study 3). At odds with the averaging-bias account, the magnitude of the illusion increased as the category size increased, revealing a category-size bias, and raising questions about the interplay between these biases in the illusion.

We tested predictions deriving from Graf and Landwehr’s (2015) “Pleasure-Interest Model of Aesthetic Liking” (PIA Model), whereby aesthetic preferences arise from two fluency-based processes: an initial, automatic, percept-driven default process, and a subsequent, perceiver driven reflective process. One key trigger for reflective processing is stimulus complexity. Moreover, 8 if meaning can be derived from such complexity, then this can engender increased interest and elevated liking. Experiment 1 involved graffiti street-art images, pre-normed to elicit low, moderate and high levels of interest. Subjective reports indicated a predicted enhancement in liking across increasing interest levels. Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings during image viewing revealed different patterns of alpha power in temporal brain regions across interest levels. Experiment 2 enforced a brief, initial image-viewing stage and a subsequent, reflective image-viewing stage. Differences in alpha power arose in most EEG channels between the initial and deliberative viewing stages. A linear increase in aesthetic liking was again seen across interest levels, with different patterns of alpha activity in temporal and occipital regions across these levels. Overall, the phenomenological data support the PIA Model, while the physiological data suggest that enhanced aesthetic liking might be associated with “flow-feelings” indexed by alpha activity in brain regions linked to visual attention and reducing distraction.

The current study aimed: (i) to identify personal characteristics associated with endorsing conspiracy theories; and (ii) to investigate methods for dispelling conspiracy beliefs. Participants were shown a single conspiracy theory and they also completed questionnaires about their reasoning skills, types of information processing (System 1 vs. System 2), endorsement of paranormal beliefs, locus of control and pattern perception. To challenge the endorsement of the conspiracy, participants read either: (i) neutral information; (ii) a critical analysis of the vignette; (iii) a critical analysis of the vignette with discussion of realistic consequences; or (iv) a critical analysis of the vignette with “feeling of control” priming. Only addressing the consequences of the conspiracy theory decreased its endorsement. Furthermore, only type of information processing and belief in paranormal phenomena, were associated with endorsement of the conspiracy. These findings are discussed in relation to previous studies and theories of conspiratorial ideation., Validerad;2023;Nivå 2;2023-05-08 (hanlid)

People consistently act in ways that harm the environment, even when believing their actions are environmentally friendly. A case in point is a biased judgment termed the negative footprint illusion, which arises when people believe that the addition of “eco-friendly” items (e.g., environmentally certified houses) to conventional items (e.g., standard houses), reduces the total carbon footprint of the whole item-set, whereas the carbon footprint is, in fact, increased because eco-friendly items still contribute to the overall carbon footprint. Previous research suggests this illusion is the manifestation of an “averaging-bias.” We present two studies that explore whether people’s susceptibility to the negative footprint illusion is associated with individual differences in: (i) environment-specific reasoning dispositions measured in terms of compensatory green beliefs and environmental concerns; or (ii) general analytic reasoning dispositions measured in terms of actively open-minded thinking, avoidance of impulsivity and reflective reasoning (indexed using the Cognitive Reflection Test; CRT). A negative footprint illusion was demonstrated when participants rated the carbon footprint of conventional buildings combined with eco-friendly buildings (Study 1 and 2) and conventional cars combined with eco-friendly cars (Study 2). However, the illusion was not identified in participants’ ratings of the carbon footprint of apples (Study 1 and 2). In Studies 1 and 2, environment-specific dispositions were found to be unrelated to the negative footprint illusion. Regarding reflective thinking dispositions, reduced susceptibility to the negative footprint illusion was only associated with actively open-minded thinking measured on a 7-item scale (Study 1) and 17-item scale (Study 2). Our findings provide partial support for the existence of a negative footprint illusion and reveal a role of individual variation in reflective reasoning dispositions in accounting for a limited e

Controversy exists regarding the processes involved in creative thinking with the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and the Compound Remote Associates Test (CRAT). We report three experiments that aimed to shed light on the component processes underpinning CRAT performance by using the mere presence of task-irrelevant sound as a key theoretical tool. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that CRAT performance was impaired relative to a quiet condition by the presence of sequences of changing letters and tones, respectively. In both experiments a non-changing sound (a repeated letter or a repeated tone) produced no disruption relative to quiet. Experiment 3 established that additional disruption was engendered by having to ignore meaningful speech as compared to meaningless speech. These experiments demonstrate that both semantic activation and subvocalisation are important determinants of successful creative thinking with CRAT problems. We suggest that semantic activation underpins solution-generation processes whereas subvocalisation underpins solution-evaluation processes.

Controversy exists regarding the processes involved in creative thinking with the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and its more recent variant, the Compound Remote Associates Test (CRAT). We report three experiments that aimed to shed light on the component processes underpinning CRAT performance by using the mere presence of task-irrelevant sound as a key theoretical tool. Experiment 1 revealed that CRAT performance was impaired relative to a quiet condition by the presence of sequences of changing sounds (spoken letters). Experiment 2 generalised this disruption effect to alternating tones of different pitch relative to quiet. In both experiments a nonchanging sound (a repeated letter in Experiment 1; a repeated tone in Experiment 2) produced no disruption relative to quiet. Experiment 3 established that additional disruption was engendered by having to ignore meaningful speech as compared to meaningless speech. These experiments demonstrate that both semantic activation and subvocalisation are important determinants of successful creative thinking with CRAT problems. We suggest that semantic activation underpins solution-generation processes whereas subvocalisation underpins solution-evaluation processes

Background music has been claimed to enhance people's creativity. In three experiments, we investigated the impact of background music on performance of Compound Remote Associate Tasks (CRATs), which are widely thought to tap creativity. Background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics (Experiment 1), instrumental music without lyrics (Experiment 2), and music with familiar lyrics (Experiment 3) all significantly impaired CRAT performance in comparison with quiet background conditions. Furthermore, Experiment 3 demonstrated that background music impaired CRAT performance regardless of whether the music induced a positive mood or whether participants typically studied in the presence of music. The findings challenge the view that background music enhances creativity and are discussed in terms of an auditory distraction account (interference‐by‐process) and the processing disfluency account.

Recent investigations have established the value of using rebus puzzles in studying the insight and analytic processes that underpin problem solving. The current study sought to validate a pool of 84 rebus puzzles in terms of their solution rates, solution times, error rates, solution confidence, self-reported solution strategies, and solution phrase familiarity. All of the puzzles relate to commonplace English sayings and phrases in the United Kingdom. Eighty-four rebus puzzles were selected from a larger stimulus set of 168 such puzzles and were categorized into six types in relation to the similarity of their structures. The 84 selected problems were thence divided into two sets of 42 items (Set A and Set B), with rebus structure evenly balanced between each set. Participants (N = 170; 85 for Set A and 85 for Set B) were given 30 s to solve each item, subsequently indicating their confidence in their solution and self-reporting the process used to solve the problem (analysis or insight), followed by the provision of ratings of the familiarity of the solution phrases. The resulting normative data yield solution rates, error rates, solution times, confidence ratings, self-reported strategies and familiarity ratings for 84 rebus puzzles, providing valuable information for the selection and matching of problems in future research.

We report an experiment investigating how stimulus complexity and conceptual fluency (i.e., the ease of deriving meaning) influence aesthetic liking judgments for abstract artworks. We presented participants with paintings at two levels of complexity (high vs. low) and five levels of conceptual fluency (determined from a prior norming study) and requested separate ratings of beauty and creativity. Our predictions were derived from the PIA Model (Pleasure-Interest Model of Aesthetic Liking by Graf & Landwehr, 2015), which views aesthetic preferences as being formed by two, distinct fluency-based processes: an initial, automatic, stimulus-driven, default process and a subsequent, perceiver-driven deliberative process. A key trigger for deliberative processing is assumed to be disfluency at the default stage, as caused by factors such as visual complexity. We predicted that complexity and conceptual fluency would interact in determining aesthetic liking, with people preferring complex stimuli, but only when these are relatively easy to process conceptually. Our results supported this prediction for beauty judgments, although creativity judgments showed a curiously uniform profile. Nevertheless, the predictive capacity of the PIA Model in relation to beauty judgments attests to the explanatory strength of this default–interventionist theory of aesthetic liking. We conclude by noting important parallels between the PIA Model and the Revised Optimal Innovation Hypothesis (Giora et al., 2017), which likewise has broad reach in explaining how defaultness and non-defaultness affect pleasure across a range of linguistic and pictorial stimuli.

We investigated the capacity for two different forms of metacognitive cue to shield against auditory distraction in problem solving with Compound Remote Associates Tasks (CRATs). Experiment 1 demonstrated that an intrinsic metacognitive cue in the form of processing disfluency (manipulated using an easy-to-read vs. difficult-to-read font) could increase focal task engagement so as to mitigate the detrimental impact of distraction on solution rates for CRATs. Experiment 2 showed that an extrinsic metacognitive cue that took the form of an incentive for good task performance (i.e., 80% or better CRAT solutions) could likewise eliminate the negative impact of distraction on CRAT solution rates. Overall, these findings support the view that both intrinsic and extrinsic metacognitive cues have remarkably similar effects. This suggests that metacognitive cues operate via a common underlying mechanism whereby a participant applies increased focal attention to the primary task so as to ensure more steadfast task engagement that is not so easily diverted by task-irrelevant stimuli.

We report an experiment investigating how stimulus complexity and conceptual fluency (i.e., the ease of deriving meaning) influence aesthetic liking judgments for abstract artworks. We presented participants with paintings at two levels of complexity (high vs. low) and five levels of conceptual fluency (determined from a prior norming study) and requested separate ratings of beauty and creativity. Our predictions were derived from the PIA Model (Pleasure-Interest Model of Aesthetic Liking), which views aesthetic preferences as being formed by two, distinct fluency-based processes: an initial, automatic, stimulus-driven, default process and a subsequent, perceiver-driven deliberative process. A key trigger for deliberative processing is assumed to be disfluency at the default stage, as caused by factors such as visual complexity. We predicted that complexity and conceptual fluency would interact in determining aesthetic liking, with people preferring complex stimuli, but only when these are relatively easy to process conceptually. Our results supported this prediction for beauty judgments, although creativity judgments showed a curiously uniform profile. Nevertheless, the predictive capacity of the PIA Model in relation to beauty judgments attests to the explanatory strength of this default?interventionist theory of aesthetic liking. We conclude by noting important parallels between the PIA Model and the Revised Optimal Innovation Hypothesis, which likewise has broad reach in explaining how defaultness and non-defaultness affect pleasure across a range of linguistic and pictorial stimuli.

[This corrects the article on p. 548 in vol. 6, PMID: 26052289.].

Cell-phone conversation is ubiquitous within public spaces. The current study investigates whether ignored cell-phone conversation impairs eyewitness memory for a perpetrator. Participants viewed a video of a staged-crime in the presence of one side of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful halfalogue), two sides of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful dialogue), one side of an incomprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningless halfalogue) or quiet. Between 24 and 28 hours later participants freely described the perpetrator’s face, constructed a single composite image of the perpetrator from memory, and attempted to identify the perpetrator from a sequential lineup. Further participants rated the likeness of the composites to the perpetrator. Face recall and lineup identification were impaired when participants witnessed the staged-crime in the presence of a meaningful halfalogue compared to a meaningless halfalogue, meaningful dialogue or quiet. Moreover, likeness ratings showed that the composites constructed after ignoring the meaningful halfalogue resembled the perpetrator less than those constructed after experiencing quiet, or ignoring a meaningfulness halfalogue or a meaningful dialogue. The unpredictability of the meaningful content of the halfalogue, rather than its acoustic unexpectedness, produces distraction. The results are novel in that they suggest that an everyday distraction, even when presented in a different modality to target information, can impair the long-term memory of an eyewitness.

A dynamic interplay is known to exist between auditory processing and human cognition. For example, prior investigations of speech-in-noise have revealed there is more to learning than just listening: Even if all words within a spoken list are correctly heard in noise, later memory for those words is typically impoverished. These investigations supported a view that there is a “gap” between the intelligibility of speech and memory for that speech. Here, the notion was that this gap between speech intelligibility and memorability is a function of the extent to which the spoken message seizes limited immediate memory resources (e.g., Kjellberg et al., 2008). Accordingly, the more difficult the processing of the spoken message, the less resources are available for elaboration, storage, and recall of that spoken material. However, it was not previously known how increasing that difficulty affected the memory processing of semantically rich spoken material. This investigation showed that noise impairs higher levels of cognitive analysis. A variant of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott procedure that encourages semantic elaborative processes was deployed. On each trial, participants listened to a 36-item list comprising 12 words blocked by each of 3 different themes. Each of those 12 words (e.g., bed, tired, snore…) was associated with a “critical” lure theme word that was not presented (e.g., sleep). Word lists were either presented without noise or at a signal-to-noise ratio of 5 decibels upon an A-weighting. Noise reduced false recall of the critical words, and decreased the semantic clustering of recall. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed., Corrigendum: Failing to get the gist of what's being said: Background noise impairs higher-order cognitive processing" [Front. Psychol., 6 (2015) (548)]. DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00548 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00390ScopusId: 2-s2.0-85016333369 ISI: 000397571400001

We investigated priming of analogical problem solutions with true and false memories. Children and adults were asked to solve nine verbal proportional analogies, three of which had been primed by Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists where the critical lure (and problem solution) was presented as the initial word in the list (true memory priming), three of which were primed by DRM lists whose critical lures were the solution to the verbal proportional analogies (false memory priming), and three of which were unprimed. We controlled for age differences in solution rates (knowledge base) in order to examine developmental differences in speed of processing. As anticipated, the results showed that adults completed the problems significantly faster than children. Furthermore, both children and adults solved problems primed with false memories significantly faster than either those primed with true memories or unprimed problems. For both age groups, there was no significant difference between solution times for unprimed and true primed problems. These findings demonstrate that (a) priming of problem solutions extends to verbal proportional analogies, (b) false memories are more effective at priming problem solutions than true memories, and (c) there are clear positive consequences to the production of false memories.

We investigated priming of analogical problem solutions with true and false memories. Children and adults were asked to solve nine verbal proportional analogies, three of which had been primed by Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists where the critical lure (and problem solution) was presented as the initial word in the list (true memory priming), three of which were primed by DRM lists whose critical lures were the solution to the verbal proportional analogies (false memory priming), and three that were unprimed. We controlled for age differences in solution rates (knowledge base) in order to examine developmental differences in speed-ofprocessing. As anticipated, the results showed that adults completed the problems significantly faster than children. Furthermore, both children and adults solved problems primed with false memories significantly faster than either those primed with true memories or unprimed problems. For both age groups there was no significant difference between solution times for unprimed and true primed problems. These findings demonstrate that (a) priming of problem solutions extends to verbal proportional analogies, (b) false memories are more effective at priming problem solutions than true memories, and (c) there are clear positive consequences to the production of false memories.