Search

This paper examines how humans judge the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to evaluate human attributes, specifically focusing on two key dimensions of human social evaluation: morality and competence. Furthermore, it investigates the impact of exposure to advanced Large Language Models on these perceptions. In three studies (combined N = 200), we tested the hypothesis that people will find it less plausible that AI is capable of judging the morality conveyed by a behavior compared to judging its competence. Participants estimated the plausibility of AI origin for a set of written impressions of positive and negative behaviors related to morality and competence. Studies 1 and 3 supported our hypothesis that people would be more inclined to attribute AI origin to competence-related impressions compared to morality-related ones. In Study 2, we found this effect only for impressions of positive behaviors. Additional exploratory analyses clarified that the differentiation between the AI origin of competence and morality judgments persisted throughout the first half year after the public launch of popular AI chatbot (i.e., ChatGPT) and could not be explained by participants' general attitudes toward AI, or the actual source of the impressions (i.e., AI or human). These findings suggest an enduring belief that AI is less adept at assessing the morality compared to the competence of human behavior, even as AI capabilities continued to advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive task control can be examined in task-switching studies. Performance costs in task switches are usually smaller with compatible stimulus-response modality mappings (visual-manual and auditory-vocal) than with incompatible mappings (visual-vocal and auditory-manual). Modality compatibility describes the modality match of sensory input and of the anticipated response effect (e.g., vocal responses produce auditory effects, so that auditory stimuli are modality-compatible with vocal responses). Fintor et al. (Psychological Research, 84(2), 380–388, 2020) found that modality compatibility also biased task choice rates in voluntary task switching (VTS). In that study, in each trial participants were presented with a visual or auditory spatial stimulus and were free to choose the response modality (manual vs. vocal). In this free-choice task, participants showed a bias to create more modality-compatible than -incompatible mappings. In the present study, we assessed the generality of Fintor et al.'s (2020) findings, using verbal rather than spatial stimuli, and more complex tasks, featuring an increased number of stimulus-response alternatives. Experiment 1 replicated the task-choice bias to preferentially create modality-compatible mappings. We also found a bias to repeat the response modality just performed, and a bias to repeat entire stimulus-response modality mappings. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the response-stimulus interval (RSI) to examine whether more time for proactive cognitive control would help resolve modality-specific crosstalk in this free-choice paradigm. Long RSIs led to a decreased response-modality repetition bias and mapping repetition bias, but the modality-compatibility bias was unaffected. Together, the findings suggest that modality-specific priming of response modality influences task choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithms support many processes in modern society. Research using trust games frequently reports that people are less inclined to cooperate when believed to play against an algorithm. Trust is, however, malleable by contextual factors and social presence can increase the willingness to collaborate. We investigated whether situating cooperation with an algorithm in the presence of another person increases cooperative trust. Three groups of participants played a trust game against a pre-programmed algorithm in an online webhosted experiment. The first group was told they played against another person who was present online. The second group was told they played against an algorithm. The third group was told they played against an algorithm while another person was present online. More cooperative responses were observed in the first group compared to the second group. A difference in cooperation that replicates previous findings. In addition, cooperative trust dropped more over the course of the trust game when participants interacted with an algorithm in the absence another person compared to the other two groups. This latter finding suggests that social presence can mitigate distrust in interacting with an algorithm. We discuss the cognitive mechanisms that can mediate this effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anytime algorithms allow a practitioner to trade-off runtime for solution quality. This is of particular interest in multi-objective combinatorial optimization since it can be infeasible to identify all efficient solutions in a reasonable amount of time. We present a theoretical model that, under some mild assumptions, characterizes the "optimal" trade-off between runtime and solution quality, measured in terms of relative hypervolume, of anytime algorithms for bi-objective optimization. In particular, we assume that efficient solutions are collected sequentially such that the collected solution at each iteration maximizes the hypervolume indicator, and that the non-dominated set can be well approximated by a quadrant of a superellipse. We validate our model against an "optimal" model that has complete knowledge of the non-dominated set. The empirical results suggest that our theoretical model approximates the behavior of this optimal model quite well. We also analyze the anytime behavior of an ε -constraint algorithm, and show that our model can be used to guide the algorithm and improve its anytime behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motor imagery requires the covert execution of a movement without any overt motor output. Previous studies indicated that motor imagery results in the prolonged inhibition of motor commands. In the present study, we investigated whether motor imagery also leads to the inhibition of more abstract task representations. To do so, we investigated the effect of motor imagery on n − 2 repetition costs, which offer an index of the extent to which task representations are inhibited. Participants switched among three tasks and among two response modes: overt and covert responding (i.e., motor imagery). N – 2 repetition costs were present when the current trial required an overt response but absent when the current trial required a covert response. Furthermore, n − 2 repetition costs were more pronounced when trial n − 1 required a covert response rather than an overt response. This pattern of results suggests that motor imagery also leads to the inhibition of abstract task representations. We discuss our findings in view of current conceptualizations of motor imagery and argue that the inhibitory mechanism entailed by motor imagery targets more than motor commands alone. Finally, we also relate our findings to the mechanisms underlying the inhibition of task representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When stimuli are consistently paired with reward, attention toward these stimuli becomes biased (e.g., Abrahamse, Braem, Notebaert & Verguts, et al., Psychological Bulletin 142:693–728, 2016, 10.1037/bul0000047). An important premise is that participants need to repeatedly experience stimulus–reward pairings to obtain these effects (e.g., Awh, Belopolsky & Theeuwes, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16:437–443, 2012, 10.1016/j.tics.2012.06.010). This idea is based on associative learning theories (e.g., Pearce & Bouton, Annual Review of Psychology 52:111–139, 2001) that suggest that exposure to stimulus–reward pairings leads to the formation of stimulus–reward associations, and a transfer of salience of the reward to the neutral stimulus. However, novel learning theories (e.g., De Houwer, Learning and Motivation 53:7–23, 2009, 10.1016/j.lmot.2015.11.001) suggest such effects are not necessarily the result of associative learning, but can be caused by complex knowledge and expectancies as well. In the current experiment, we first instructed participants that a correct response to one centrally presented stimulus would be followed by a high reward, whereas a correct response to another centrally presented stimulus would be paired with a low reward. Before participants executed this task, they performed a visual probe task in which these stimuli were presented as distractors. We found that attention was drawn automatically toward high-reward stimuli relative to low-reward stimuli. This implies that complex inferences and expectancies can cause automatic attentional bias, challenging associative learning models of attentional control (Abrahamse et al., 2016; Awh et al., 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to flexibly process affective information underlies resilient adaptation to changing situations. However, the impact of social contextual changes on affective flexibility has not been examined yet, although this may be crucial to understand how attention operates when changing situations require allocation of different emotional goals. In a novel eye-tracking task, participants had to deploy the goals to attend to positive or negative facial expressions based on contextual cues. We found that dysphorics, compared to non-dysphorics, were faster in switching to negative goals, but slower in switching to positive goals, when the context remained constant. However, when the context changed, dysphorics showed an even faster switch to negative goals, while non-dysphorics became more adept at switching towards positive goals. These results suggest that contextual changes exacerbate the negativity and positivity biases exhibited by dysphoric and non-dysphoric individuals, respectively. The study provides evidence for the key role played by contextual changes in guiding attention allocation and thereby emotion regulation processes. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the role of contextual inflexibility in dysphoria. Results need to be replicated in a clinical sample to further clarify the role of inflexibility over the course of depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to traditional conflict paradigms, which measure interference from (over)trained associations, recent paradigms have been introduced that investigate automatic interference from newly instructed, but never executed, associations. In these prospective-instruction paradigms, participants receive new task instructions (e.g., if cat press left, if dog press right), but before they have to apply the instructions, they are first presented with another task that measures the automatic interference from the instructed task information. The resulting instruction-based congruency (IBC) effect is assumed to reflect the strength with which instructions are encoded and maintained in view of their future application. If this assumption holds true, the IBC effect should be inversely related to the speed with which the task instructions are eventually executed. To test this hypothesis, we administered a prospective-instruction paradigm to a large sample of 184 participants and observed a negative correlation between the IBC effect and mean reaction time on the instructed task. Similarly, an analysis looking at within-subject variations in the IBC effect and instructed task reaction times showed the same negative relation. Finally, we also present additional analyses suggesting this effect is independent from standard (experience-based) interference effects, and report explorative analyses that tested possible correlations with personality trait questionaires. Together, these findings confirm a key assumption of the IBC effect in prospective-instruction paradigms, and further support the use of this paradigm in instruction research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though there is ample evidence that planning future actions plays a role in attentional processing (e.g., Downing Visual Cognition 11:689-703, 2000; Soto et al., Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12:248-342, 2008), it is not clear to what extent planning in itself (rather than the prior experience of the planned actions) controls attention. We suggest that attention can be biased towards stimuli that are associated with instructions for tasks that will be performed in the future even if those tasks have not yet been experienced. We performed two experiments in which participants receive instructions in which some objects were associated with a response (i.e., instructed S-R objects; 'Experiment 1') or a stimulus property (i.e., instructed S-S objects; 'Experiment 2'), whereas control objects were not. However, before participants were required to perform the S-R task ('Experiment 1') or perform an S-S memory task ('Experiment 2'), they performed a visual probe task in which target objects and control objects served as irrelevant cues. Our results show that attention was biased towards the S-R objects (compared to control stimuli) but not to S-S objects. These findings suggest that future plans can bias attention toward specific stimuli, but only when these stimuli are associated with a specific action. We discuss these findings in light of research concerning automatic effects of instructions and theories that view attention as a selection-for-action mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compared flanker congruency effects (FCE) for flanker stimuli that were part of merely instructed S-R mappings or S-R mappings that had already been practiced. Four new S-R mappings were instructed before each block of trials. In applied flanker blocks, each instructed stimulus could appear as target and as flanker. In merely instructed flanker blocks, two stimuli only served as targets, whereas the other two exclusively appeared as flankers. Significant FCEs were observed for both flanker conditions even though the instruction-based FCE was (a) smaller than the FCE from applied mappings and (b) decreased with task practice. These results suggest that instructions alone can induce S-R associations that lead to automatic response activation when instructed stimuli appear as flankers. Execution of instructed rules seems to strengthen the instructed associations, leading to increased response conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cornerstone of the task switching literature is the finding that task performance is typically slower and more error-prone when the task switches than when it repeats. So far, deception research has largely ignored that such cognitive switch costs should also emerge when switching between truth telling and lying, and may affect the cognitive cost of lying as reflected in higher prefrontal brain activity and slower and less accurate responding compared to truth telling. To get a grasp on the relative size of the switch costs associated with lying and truth telling, the current study had participants perform a reaction time-based deception task, in which they alternated between lying and telling the truth to yes/no questions that were related to activities performed in the lab (Experiment 1) or neutral autobiographical facts (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the error and reaction time switch costs were found to be equally large for switching from truth telling to lying and from lying to truth telling. This symmetry in switch costs can be explained from the hypothesis that lying requires a first step of truth telling, and demonstrates that task switching does not contribute to the cognitive cost of lying when the repetition/switch ratio is balanced. Theoretical and methodological implications are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous behavioral studies have shown that instructions about stimulus-response (S-R) mappings can influence task performance even when these instructions are irrelevant for the current task. In the present study, we tested whether automatic effects of S-R instructions occur because the instructed stimuli automatically activate their corresponding responses. We registered the lateralized readiness potentials (LRPs) that were evoked by the instructed stimuli while participants were performing a task for which those mappings were irrelevant. Instructed S-R mappings clearly affected task performance in electrophysiological and behavioral measures. The LRP was found to deflect in the direction of the response tendency that corresponded with the instructed S-R mapping. Early activation of the instructed response was observed but occurred predominantly on slow trials. In contrast, response conflict evoked by instructed S-R mappings did not modulate the N2 amplitude. The results strongly suggest that, like experienced S-R mappings, instructed S-R mappings can lead to automatic response activation, but possibly via a different route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a general-purpose software framework dedicated to the design, the analysis and the implementation of local search metaheuristics: ParadisEO-MO. A substantial number of single solution-based local search metaheuristics has been proposed so far, and an attempt of unifying existing approaches is here presented. Based on a fine-grained decomposition, a conceptual model is proposed and is validated by regarding a number of state-of-the-art methodologies as simple variants of the same structure. This model is then incorporated into the ParadisEO-MO software framework. This framework has proven its efficiency and high flexibility by enabling the resolution of many academic and real-world optimization problems from science and industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of studies have demonstrated that a response in one task can be activated automatically on the basis merely of instructed stimulus-response (S-R) mappings belonging to another task. Such instruction-based response activations are considered to be evidence for the formation of S-R associations on the basis of the S-R mappings for an upcoming, but not yet executed, task. A crucial but somewhat neglected assumption is that instructed S-R associations are formed only under conditions that impose a sufficient degree of task preparation. Accordingly, in the present study we investigated the relation between task preparation and the instruction-based task-rule congruency effect, which is an index of response activation on the basis of instructions. The results from two experiments demonstrated that merely instructed S-R mappings of a particular task only elicit instruction-based response activations when that task is prepared for to a sufficient degree. Implications are discussed for the representation of instructed S-R mappings in working memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, a significant number of multi-objective metaheuristics have been proposed in the literature in order to address real-world problems. Local search methods play a major role in many of these metaheuristic procedures. In this paper, we adapt a recent and popular indicator-based selection method proposed by Zitzler and Künzli in 2004, in order to define a population-based multi-objective local search. The proposed algorithm is designed in order to be easily adaptable, parameter independent and to have a high convergence rate. In order to evaluate the capacity of our algorithm to reach these goals, a large part of the paper is dedicated to experiments. Three combinatorial optimisation problems are tested: a flow shop problem, a ring star problem and a nurse scheduling problem. The experiments show that our algorithm can be applied with success to different types of multi-objective optimisation problems and that it outperforms some classical metaheuristics. Furthermore, the parameter sensitivity analysis enables us to provide some useful guidelines about how to set the parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses simple local search approaches for approximating the efficient set of multiobjective combinatorial optimization problems. We focus on algorithms defined by a neighborhood structure and a dominance relation that iteratively improve an archive of nondominated solutions. Such methods are referred to as dominance-based multiobjective local search. We first provide a concise overview of existing algorithms, and we propose a model trying to unify them through a fine-grained decomposition. The main problem-independent search components of dominance relation, solution selection, neighborhood exploration and archiving are largely discussed. Then, a number of state-of-the-art and original strategies are experimented on solving a permutation flowshop scheduling problem and a traveling salesman problem, both on a two- and a three-objective formulation. Experimental results and a statistical comparison are reported in the paper, and some directions for future research are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a summary of the author's PhD thesis supervised by Laetitia Jourdan and El-Ghazali Talbi and defended on 8 December 2009 at the Université Lille 1. The thesis is written in French and is available from . This work deals with the design, implementation and experimental analysis of metaheuristics for solving multiobjective optimisation problems, with a particular interest on hard and large combinatorial problems from the field of logistics. After focusing on a unified view of multiobjective metaheuristics, we propose new cooperative, adaptive and parallel approaches. The performance of these methods are experimented on a scheduling and a routing problem involving two or three objective functions. We finally discuss how to adapt such metaheuristics during the search process in order to handle uncertainty that may occur from many different sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

common hypothesis is that the switch cost measured when switching between prosaccades and antisaccades mainly reflects the inhibition of the saccadic system after the execution of an antisaccade, which requires the inhibition of a gaze response. The present study further tested this hypothesis by comparing switch performance between peripherally triggered saccades and centrally triggered saccades with the latter type of saccades not requiring inhibition of a gaze response. For peripherally triggered saccades, a switch cost was present for prosaccades but not for antisaccades. For centrally triggered saccades, a switch cost was present both for prosaccades and for antisaccades. The difference between both saccade tasks further supports the hypothesis that the switch performance observed for peripherally triggered saccades is related to the inhibition of a gaze response that is required when executing a peripherally triggered antisaccade and the persisting inhibition in the saccadic system this entails. Furthermore, the switch costs observed for centrally triggered saccades indicate that more general processes besides the persisting inhibition in the saccadic system, such as reconfiguration and interference control, also contribute to the switch performance in saccades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We tested the hypothesis that persisting activation from a previous task execution does not contribute to the switch cost in voluntary task switching. We reasoned that voluntary task switching requires the selection of random task sequences, which necessitates the active inhibition of previously executed tasks. The asymmetric switch cost was used as a marker for persisting activation. Participants switched voluntarily between color naming and word naming. One group was instructed to select unpredictable task sequences. The other group was not instructed to do so. When participants were instructed to be unpredictable, no asymmetric switch cost was observed. When participants were not instructed to be unpredictable, an asymmetric switch cost was observed. We conclude that the amount of persisting activation in voluntary task switching is limited and that the switch cost in voluntary task switching reflects the time needed for reconfiguring the cognitive system from one task to another rather than the time needed to compensate for persisting activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Task switching research has revealed that task changes lead to a performance switch cost. The present study focuses on the organization of task components in the task set. Three different views of task set organization have been distinguished and evidence in favor of each of these has been reported in the literature. In four experiments, we orthogonally varied the categorization task (magnitude and parity) and the stimulus dimension on which the categorization was to be made. Experiments 1, 2, and 4 used Stroop-like number stimuli, whereas Experiment 3 used global-local stimuli to define the stimulus dimension. In Experiments 2-4, the cue-stimulus interval was also varied. The findings showed that a change of any component resulted in a cost, without any reliable difference in the size of these costs. These results are consistent with the flat view on task-set organization, which assumes that the task set binds all elements in an unstructured representation, which is completely reconfigured each time a change to the task set is required. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to other findings and the different views on task-set organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, several studies have been conducted to investigate the top-down adjustments made after incongruent trials during conflict tasks. In the present study, we investigated conflict monitoring with different types of conflict. In a modified version of the flanker task, a distinction was made between stimulus–stimulus conflict and stimulus–response conflict. Six colors were mapped to three responses in order to exclude all sequences in which a relevant or an irrelevant stimulus- or response-related feature was repeated from trial n−1 to trial n. An analysis of the effect of the congruency of the previous trial demonstrated that conflict adaptation was present. The stimulus congruency effect was reduced after both a stimulus-incongruent trial and a response-incongruent trial. The response congruency effect did not vary as a function of previous congruency. These findings are discussed in relation to the distinction between conflict detection and conflict regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have demonstrated reduced congruency effects after incongruent trials. The conflict monitoring hypothesis (Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001) assumes that this sequential modulation is based on top-down cognitive control and suggests that more control is engaged after the detection of conflict. An alternative account is based on repetition effects of stimulus and response features and can be considered bottom up. This study investigates both modulatory sources. In a Stroop task with two response–stimulus intervals (RSIs), we demonstrate that top-down modulation does not occur with a very short RSI, suggesting that it takes some time before the system can be reconfigured. Bottom-up modulation is observed for both RSIs. This finding demonstrates that two different sources simultaneously reduce congruency effects after incongruent trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative priming is a commonly observed after-effect in studies concerning inhibition. Effects of the preceding trial are also found in other paradigms, like the stop signal paradigm. In the present study, stop signals were introduced in a negative priming paradigm and the relation between stop signal inhibition and negative priming was investigated. In Experiment 1, we used a simple stop signal task. Stopping data clearly suggest that stopping performance was not influenced by negative priming. Interestingly, on no-signal probes the negative priming effect disappeared after successful inhibition of the response on the prime trial. On the contrary, when inhibition failed, the negative priming effect remained. In Experiment 2, we used the selective stop signal task. As in Experiment 1, inhibition of motor responses was not influenced by negative priming. The hypothesis that negative priming disappeared due to a general nonspecific stop was confirmed in this experiment, as a negative priming effect was found after both successful and unsuccessful behavioral inhibition. The results of both experiments show that response inhibition is not influenced by negative priming, and that negative priming is only affected after a successful general stop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A general procedure to perform the sensitivity analysis for the shape optimal design of elastic structures is proposed. The method is based on the implicit differentiation of the discretized equilibrium equations used in the finite element method (FEM). The so-called semianalytical approach is followed, that is, finite differences are used to differentiate the finite element matrices. The technique takes advantage of the geometric modeling concepts typical of the computer-aided design (CAD) technology used in the creation of a compact design model. This procedure is largely independent of the types of finite elements used in the analysis and has been implemented in a h-version and p-version finite element program. Very accurate and stable shape sensitivity derivatives were obtained from both programs over a wide range of finite difference step sizes. It is shown that the method is computationally efficient, general, and relatively easy to implement. Some classical shape optimal design problems have been solved using the CONLIN optimizer supplied with these gradients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]