Search

Whether the post-categorical, semantic properties of task-irrelevant speech are processed has been a source of debate between two central accounts. The first, a structural account, proposes that the semantic content of irrelevant speech is filtered out early on, and thus remains unprocessed. The second account proposes that the semantic content of speech is, in fact, processed and can influence later behavior. The present research offers a resolution between these two prominent accounts by examining whether semantic processing of task-irrelevant speech occurs despite explicit instructions to ignore it. During a visual-verbal serial recall paradigm, participants were auditorily presented with non-dominant homophones plus their close associates, or close associates without the homophone itself and asked to ignore this irrelevant speech containing these semantic primes. In a subsequent “unrelated” phase, we assessed whether the spelling of homophones was influenced by the irrelevant speech that had occurred earlier in the serial recall phase. We found evidence of semantic priming in conditions wherein the homophone was present, as well as conditions wherein only associates of the homophone were present. Regardless of whether they were presented, homophones were more likely to be spelt in accordance with their non-dominant meaning, and most participants did not report awareness of this fact. We suggest that semantic processing of irrelevant speech occurs even when there is an explicit direction to ignore it and does not result in any material disruptive effect on serial recall performance. Godkänd;2023;Nivå 0;2023-07-14 (sofila);Funder: School of Psychology and Computer Science, University of Central Lancashire

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)

To maximize marketing effectiveness, many conscious and unconscious elements are simultaneously employed within campaign advertising. However, little is known about the individual contributions that conscious and unconscious processes make to the cognitive effectiveness of creative advertisements, some of which may also induce insight experiences. To quantify the roles of conscious and unconscious processes in memory effectiveness within commercial advertising, a dual-process, signal-detection technique was adopted to separate the contributions of conscious recollection and unconscious discrimination induced by 80 printed advertisements, among which half were considered standard and the other half creative. A total of 51 participants completed immediate (5 min later) and delayed (3 days later) memory recognition tests. In contrast to standard advertising, creative advertising was found to enhance recognition and to demonstrate advantages in both conscious and unconscious memory, which decreased across the test-time intervals. Further analyses showed that a moment of insight induced by an advertisement, regardless of whether it is standard or creative, can consolidate unconscious memory, whereas advertisements that do not induce insight improve conscious memory. The implications of these findings are discussed. [Abstract copyright: © 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.]

Why are design students more likely than other students to become entrepreneurs? The cognitive mechanisms underpinning design- and entrepreneurial thinking have been argued to be similar, suggesting relevance to business venturing. On the other hand, differential formal training in design vs business education suggests distinct types of “entrepreneurial self-efficacy”. We report a survey (N = 296) of design versus business students that assessed how adaptive cognition and formal training drive distinct types of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. The study finds that design versus business students possess different types of entrepreneurial self-efficacy that are positively predicted by adaptive cognition, but differentially affected by type of education. Both types of entrepreneurial self-efficacy positively predict entrepreneurial intention to start up a business.

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 thenegative 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),reducesthe 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-specificreasoning dispositions measured in terms of compensatory green beliefs and environmental concerns; or (ii)generalanalytic 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 element of differential susceptibility to this illusion.

Perceptual fluency typically has a positive influence on aesthetic evaluations of beauty, but few studies have examined its influence on creativity evaluations. Creativity has two facets, originality and quality. If creativity judgments involve estimating product originality, such judgments may be associated with perceptual disfluency, while product quality may be associated with perceptual fluency. We examined the relationship between perceptual fluency and judgments of creativity and beauty across seven experiments. Creativity judgments were affected by most perceptual fluencysources. We observed a highly-fluent-is-beautiful-and-creative relation when testing repeated exposure and figure-ground contrast. Prototypicality displayed a high-fluency–is-beautiful relation, with creativity judgments unaffected. Visual complexity displayed a consistent disfluent-is-creative effect, with mixed results for beauty. For creativity (but not beauty) evaluations, increased saliency of visual complexity led to discounting fluent-is-creative effects, supporting the hypothesis that there are at least two fluency pathways to creativity judgments that take both originality and quality into account.

In this article we review progress that has been made in advancing a theoretical understanding of design cognition and design metacognition. We identify a high level of consistency in empirical findings, including good evidence for core design strategies such as conjecture-based problem formulation, problem–solution co-evolution, analogical reasoning, mental simulation and fixated solution generation. A further consistent theme to emerge in our review concerns the central role played by metacognitive monitoring and control processes in ensuring the effective deployment of design strategies in response to designers' fluctuating feelings of uncertainty. We argue that a metacognitive perspective on design cognition is critical for developing a comprehensive understanding of strategic processing in design, additionally engendering many new avenues for important future research.

Sparked by concerns with increased domain fragmentation in design research, we explored indicators of expansion, integration and consolidation in this area of enquiry through the lens of publications in Design Studies across the 40-years since the journal's inception. We examined several key indicators, including authors' disciplinary affiliations, levels of cross-disciplinary co-authorships, the increasing centrality of the term ‘design’ in stated university affiliations, the nature of citation patterns, the consolidation of core domain concepts over time and the role of esteemed authors as central ‘curators’ of design knowledge. We conclude that the Design Studies community has historically proven to be eminently capable of expanding its reach to new sub-disciplines through conceptual integration, whilst simultaneously consolidating the core foundation of design research.

Sticky notes abound as a material in design practice, yet their use is under-explored empirically and theoretically. We address the research question: how do sticky notes support design cognition and collaboration when compared to other kinds of design materials? We compare four types of design materials (sketches, prototypes, cards, sticky notes) and the activities afforded by the properties of these materials. We find that the affordances of sticky notes make them well-suited to supporting cognitive processes associated with visualizing and understanding “part/whole” relationships in concept development. Furthermore, sticky notes facilitate design collaboration by enabling shared attention through material anchors and the modulation of turn-taking. We conclude by suggesting new directions for theorizing about sticky-note usage in design.

Background music has been claimed to enhance people’s creativity (Ritter & Ferguson, 2017). 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 to 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; Jones & Tremblay, 2000) and the processing disfluency account (Mehta et al., 2012).

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.

People’s belief that one or more environmentally friendly items that are added to a set of conventional items can reduce the total environmental impact of these items (the negative footprint illusion) could lead to unwanted environmental consequences. An averaging bias seems to underpin this illusion: people make their estimates based on the average of the environmental impact produced by the items rather than the accumulated sum. We report four studies that used various priming manipulations to explore whether people’s preoccupation to think in terms of an average can be eliminated by fostering a summative mindset. The results demonstrate that participants avoid succumbing to the negative footprint illusion when the critical judgment task is preceded by tasks that engender a summation judgment. Our evidence indicates that the negative footprint illusion can be tempered when a primed concept (summation) is used adaptively on subsequent judgments, thereby correcting for bias in environmental judgments.

Objective Develop and investigate the potential of a remote, computer-mediated and synchronous text-based triage, which we refer to as InSort, for quickly highlighting persons of interest after an insider attack. Background Insiders maliciously exploit legitimate access to impair the confidentiality and integrity of organizations. The globalisation of organisations and advancement of information technology means employees are often dispersed across national and international sites, working around the clock, often remotely. Hence, investigating insider attacks is challenging. However, the cognitive demands associated with masking insider activity offer opportunities. Drawing on cognitive approaches to deception and understanding of deception-conveying features in textual responses, we developed InSort, a remote computer-mediated triage. Method During a 6-hour immersive simulation, participants worked in teams, examining password protected, security sensitive databases and exchanging information during an organized crime investigation. Twenty-five percent were covertly incentivized to act as an ‘insider’ by providing information to a provocateur. Results Responses to InSort questioning revealed insiders took longer to answer investigation relevant questions, provided impoverished responses, and their answers were less consistent with known evidence about their behaviours than co-workers. Conclusion Findings demonstrate InSort has potential to expedite information gathering and investigative processes following an insider attack. Application InSort is appropriate for application by non-specialist investigators and can be quickly altered as a function of both environment and event. InSort offers a clearly defined, well specified, approach for use across insider incidents, and highlights the potential of technology for supporting complex time critical investigations.

Accompanying the growing call for ecological sustainability, environmental advertising is playing an increasingly important role in green marketing to foster environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior. The present study examined the impact of two factors on people’s selective attention to green advertisements: advertising creativity (by comparing creative vs. standard advertisements) and appeal type (by comparing warning-based vs. vision-based appeals). The study also investigated the association between advertising effectiveness and individual differences in levels of green dispositions, including environmental concern and value orientation. To explore these issues the study employed a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation paradigm to measure the magnitude of the “attentional blink” arising from people attending to environmental advertisements of varying creativity and appeal type. Findings revealed a significant attentional blink effect for environmental advertising (indicative of heightened selective attention) that was greater for creative advertisements than standard advertisements. A significant association was also found between the magnitude of the attentional blink and dispositional differences in environment-related altruistic value. Results extend previous findings relating to the attentional blink as an index of advertising effectiveness, and shed light on the importance for green marketing of advertising creativity, advertising appeal and environmental value.