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

Consumers believe that “eco-labeled” products taste better, which, at least in part, may be an effect of the label. The purpose of the current series of experiments was to examine some mechanisms and limits of this eco-label effect. In Experiment 1, an eco-label effect of similar magnitude was found for taste ratings of both conventional and organic bananas. Experiment 2 showed eco-label effects for a wider range of judgmental dimensions (i.e., health, calories, vitamins/minerals, mental performance, and willingness to pay) and the effect was about the same in magnitude for judgments of grapes and raisins. Experiment 3, with water as the tasted product, found no eco-label effect on judgments of taste, calories and vitamins/minerals, but an effect on willingness to pay, judgments of health benefits and judgments of mental performance benefits. Experiments 2 and 3 also included questionnaires on social desirability traits, schizotypal traits and pro-environmental consumer traits. The last was the strongest predictor of the eco-label effect amongst the three. In all, the eco-label effect is a robust phenomenon, but depends on interactions between product type and judgmental dimension. Implications for several accounts of the effect are discussed.

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

Free recall of spoken words in Swedish (native tongue) and English were assessed in two signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions (+3 and +12 dB), with and without half of the heard words being repeated back orally directly after presentation [shadowing, speech intelligibility (SI)]. A total of 24 word lists with 12 words each were presented in English and in Swedish to Swedish speaking college students. Pre-experimental measures of working memory capacity (operation span, OSPAN) were taken. A basic hypothesis was that the recall of the words would be impaired when the encoding of the words required more processing resources, thereby depleting working memory resources. This would be the case when the SNR was low or when the language was English. A low SNR was also expected to impair SI, but we wanted to compare the sizes of the SNR-effects on SI and recall. A low score on working memory capacity was expected to further add to the negative effects of SNR and language on both SI and recall. The results indicated that SNR had strong effects on both SI and recall, but also that the effect size was larger for recall than for SI. Language had a main effect on recall, but not on SI. The shadowing procedure had different effects on recall of the early and late parts of the word lists. Working memory capacity was unimportant for the effect on SI and recall. Thus, recall appear to be a more sensitive indicator than SI for the acoustics of learning, which has implications for building codes and recommendations concerning classrooms and other workplaces, where both hearing and learning is important.

Participants were requested to respond to a sequence of visual targets while listening to a well-known lullaby. One of the notes in the lullaby was occasionally exchanged with a pattern deviant. Experiment 1 found that deviants capture attention as a function of the pitch difference between the deviant and the replaced/expected tone. However, when the pitch difference between the expected tone and the deviant tone is held constant, a violation to the direction-of-pitch change across tones can also capture attention (Experiment 2). Moreover, in more complex auditory environments, wherein it is difficult to build a coherent neural model of the sound environment from which expectations are formed, deviations can capture attention but it appears to matter less whether this is a violation from a specific stimulus or a violation of the current direction-of-change (Experiment 3). The results support the expectation violation account of auditory distraction and suggest that there are at least two different expectations that can be violated: One appears to be bound to a specific stimulus and the other would seem to be bound to a more global cross-stimulus rule such as the direction-of-change based on a sequence of preceding sound events. Factors like base-rate probability of tones within the sound environment might become the driving mechanism of attentional capture - rather than violated expectations - in complex sound environments.

Two experiments will be presented which assessed free recall of spoken words in Swedish (native tongue) and in English heard under different signal-to-noise (SN) ratios (+3 and +12 dB), and different reverberation time (RT, .3 and 1.2 sec). All participants encountered all eight experimental conditions (Language*SN*RT). The first experiment was run with college student (N=48) and they were run individually. In the second experiment children in grade 4 (10-11 years, N=72) took part and they were run in the regular classrooms. Twelve wordlists in Swedish and twelve wordlists in English generated. The words were chosen according to their ranks in category norms for the two languages, and no category was the same for the two languages. The number of words in each list was 12 for the college group and 8 for grade four. The 2 x 12 wordlists were presented in counter balanced presentation orders in three blocks. Within each block order of S/N and RT was also counterbalanced. After each wordlist the participants wrote down the words they could recall. Pre-experimental measures of working memory capacity were also taken. The basic hypotheses for the recall of the words were that working memory would be overloaded when the SN-ratio was low and the RT was long, and that SN and RT would interact with each other, with Language and with Age-group. To compare primacy and recency effects the word lists were divided into three parts (p3rd). After each wordlist the participants typed in or wrote down the words they could recall. The basic hypotheses for the recall of the words were that working memory would be overloaded when the SNR was low and the RT was long, and that SNR and RT would interact with each other, with Language and with Study (Grade4/College). The analyses suggest that for both groups there were expected effects of language and of SNR, but the effect of RT was smaller and only showed up in interactions.

Two experiments will be presented which assessed free recall of spoken words in Swedish (native tongue) and in English heard under different signal-to-noise ratios (SNR: +3 and +12 dB), and different reverberation times (RT: 0.3 and 1.2 s). All participants encountered these eight experimental conditions (Language*SNR*RT). The first experiment was run with college student (N=48), who were run individually. In the second experiment children in grade 4 (10-11 years, N=72) took part and they were run as a group in their regular classrooms. Twelve wordlists in English and twelve wordlists in Swedish were generated. The words were chosen according to their ranks in category norms for the two languages. The number of words in each list was 12 for the college group and 8 for children in Grade 4. The 2 x 12 wordlists were presented in counter balanced presentation orders in three blocks (Blocks). To compare primacy and recency effects the word lists were divided into three parts (p3rd). After each wordlist the participants typed in or wrote down the words they could recall. The basic hypotheses for the recall of the words were that working memory would be overloaded when the SNR was low and the RT was long, and that SNR and RT would interact with each other, with Language and with Study (Grade4/College). The analyses suggest that for both groups there were expected effects of language and of SNR, but the effect of RT was smaller and only showed up in interactions.

Growth hormone (GH) has previously been shown to promote cognitive functions in GH deficient rodents. In this study we report effects of GH on learning and memory in intact rats pretreated with the anabolic androgenic steroid nandrolone. Male Wistar rats received nandrolone decanoate (15 mg/kg) or peanut oil every third day for three weeks and were subsequently treated with recombinant human GH (1.0 IU/kg) or saline for ten consecutive days. During the GH/saline treatment spatial learning and memory were tested in the Morris water maze (MWM). Also, plasma levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) were assessed and the gene expression of the GH receptor, Igf1, and Igf2 in hippocampus and frontal cortex was analyzed. The results demonstrated a significant positive effect of GH on memory functions and increased gene expression of Igf1 in the hippocampus was found in the animals treated with GH. In addition, GH was demonstrated to increase the body weight gain and was able to attenuate the reduced body weight seen in nandrolone treated animals. In general, the rats treated with nandrolone alone did not exhibit any pronounced alteration in memory compared to controls in the MWM, and in many cases GH did not induce any alteration. Regarding target zone crossings, considered to be associated to spatial memory, the difference between GH and steroid treated animals was significant and administration of GH improved this parameter in the latter group. In conclusion, GH improves spatial memory in intact rats and can reverse certain effects induced by AAS (anabolic androgenic steroid).

An experiment will be reported which assessed speech intelligibility and free recall of spoken words in Swedish (native tongue) and in English heard under different signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios (+3 and +12 dB), and with/without the spoken words being repeated back orally directly after presentation (shadowing). All participants encountered all experimental conditions. Twelve wordlists with 12 words each were generated in English as well as in Swedish. The words were chosen according to their ranks in category norms for the two languages, and no category was the same for the two languages. Blocks of counter balanced presentation orders, S/N-ratios and shadowing/no shadowing were generated. After each wordlist the participants wrote down the words they could recall. Pre-experimental measures of working memory capacity were taken. The basic hypotheses for the recall of the words were that working memory would be overloaded when the S/N-ratio was low, there was no shadowing and when the language was English. A low score on working memory capacity was expected to further enhance these effects. While writing this abstract data collection is still in progress but results will be presented at the conference.

By combining a modified version of the cross-modal oddball paradigm (Nöstl, Marsh, & Sörqvist, 2012) with sequence learning the current study examines how expectation processes contribute to distraction by auditory events. The visual targets in the oddball task were preceded by tones that formed a repetitive cross-trial standard sequence. In Experiment 1, the standard sequence …-660-440-660-880-… Hz was used. Occasionally, either the 440 Hz or the 880 Hz standard was replaced by one of two novel tones (220 Hz and 1100 Hz), that either differed slightly (220 Hz) or markedly (660 Hz) from the replaced standard. In Experiment 2, with a more complex standard tone sequence …-220-660-440-660-880-660-1100-… Hz, the 440 Hz and the 880 Hz standard was occasionally replaced by either the 220 Hz or the 1100 Hz standard. Both experiments demonstrate that a large difference (i.e. 660 Hz) between the expected and replacing tone is more captivating than a small difference (i.e. 220 Hz). Collectively the results imply that the magnitude of attentional capture elicited by novel sound events depends on the discrepancy between the novel event and the expected event rather than on the amount of local perceptual change.

Habituation of the orienting response elicited by novel events is a crucial mechanism underpinning selective attention. The purpose of the current study was to investigate if the habituation rate is increased given that the deviating events occur in a predictable pattern. A cross-modal oddball task in which the participants categorized visual targets across 6 blocks of trials was used. Each visual target was preceded by a sound. In most trials, the sound was a standard sound, on rare trials, however, the visual target was preceded by a deviant sound. In on condition, the deviants were presented every 10th trial, and in another condition, the deviants occurred in a pseudo randomized order. Habituation was observed in both conditions, but there was no difference regarding habituation rate. The results indicate that habituation rate does not depend on the temporal regularity of the surprising events, which could be used to facilitate their prediction.

What determines the magnitude of attentional capture by deviant sound events? We combined the cross-modal oddball distraction paradigm with sequence learning to address this question. Participants responded to visual targets, each preceded by tones that formed a repetitive cross-trial standard sequence. In Experiment 1, with the standard tone sequence …-660-440-660-880-… Hz, either the 440 Hz or the 880 Hz standard was occasionally replaced by one of two deviant tones (220 Hz and 1100 Hz), that either differed slightly (by 220 Hz) or markedly (by 660 Hz) from the replaced standard. In Experiment 2, with the standard tone sequence …-220-660-440-660-880-660-1100-… Hz, the 440 Hz and the 880 Hz standard was occasionally replaced by either a 220 Hz or a 1100 Hz pattern deviant. In both experiments, a high-pitch deviant was more captivating when it replaced a low-pitch standard, and a low-pitch deviant was more captivating when it replaced a high-pitch standard. These results indicate that the magnitude of attentional capture by deviant sound events depends on the discrepancy between the deviant event and the expected event, not on perceived local change.

Previous studies have noted that writing processes are impaired by task-irrelevant background sound. However, what makes sound distracting to writing processes has remained unaddressed. The experiment reported here investigated whether the semanticity of irrelevant speech contributes to disruption of writing processes beyond the acoustic properties of the sound. The participants wrote stories against a background of normal speech, spectrally-rotated speech (i.e., a meaningless sound with marked acoustic resemblance to speech) or silence. Normal speech impaired quantitative (e.g., number of characters produced) and qualitative/semantic (e.g., uncorrected typing errors, proposition generation) aspects of the written material, in comparison with the other two sound conditions, and it increased the duration of pauses between words. No difference was found between the silent and the rotated-speech condition. These results suggest that writing is susceptible to disruption from the semanticity of speech but not especially susceptible to disruption from the acoustic properties of speech.

The cross-modal oddball paradigm is typically used to study why infrequently presented sound prolongs reaction time to visual targets (the novelty effect). In the experiment reported here, we used this paradigm with a twist whereby each target was preceded by one of three standard sounds (A, B or C) which formed a repetitive sequential sequence across trials (i.e., A-B-C-B-AB-C-B- etc.). The standard sound sequence was occasionally interrupted during the experimental session (e.g., A-B-CA-B-C-B- etc.) to test whether this interruption produced a novelty effect. Interruptions did capture attention and more so when the replaced sound differed substantially—in Hertz—from the replacing sound. Standard sound can cause a novelty effect, not only infrequently presented sound, as long as they violate what we have learned about (and therefore expect of) the sound environment.

The current paper examines to what extent different factors influence our ability to remember. Data used in the analysis origins from a psychological memory experiment conducted at the University of Lund. During the study phase of the experiment, participants viewed different objects which could either appear as a word or a picture. The object type was randomly chosen which resulted in varying sequences of each object type. In the later test phase participants were asked about the objects and their properties. One of the factors analyzed is what impact the switching of object type has on the memory performance. In order to examine this, data was split up into categories depending on if a switch was present or not. Each participant’s mean was calculated for each category. Any potential differences between the categories were then compared by using bootstrap. The second factor examined concerns if the position (beginning, middle or end) of the object during the study phase influences the performance. The procedure used had much resemblance with the above mentioned calculations. Results from these two analyses suggest that the switching of object type has quite an impact on memory performance while the position during the study phase hardly affects the performance at all. MatLab, MS Excel and SPSS were utilized for the analyses.

Remembering and forgetting are closely related and paradoxically it seems as if the very act of remembering in some cases can lead to forgetting. The aim of present study is to examine if there is a difference in retrieval-induced-forgetting effect concerning different types of binding in long-term-memory. To investigate any potential differences two different associations were chosen; face-face and face-place. To investigate a potential impact of an emotionally loaded stimulus, both item types could appear as either neutral or negative. We found that the between-domain binding (place) generated more interference than the withindomain binding (face) and this in turn resulted in a greater RIF effect for item type place in trial type consisting of a neutral face and a neutral place compared to item type face in trial type consisting of a negative face and a neutral place. Furthermore, results indicate that a negative item type greatly reduces memory performance for both the neutral and the negative items.