1,721,006 research outputs found
Lost in the sauce: the effects of alcohol on mind wandering
No full textAlcohol consumption alters consciousness in ways that make drinking both alluring and hazardous. Recent advances in the study of consciousness using a mind-wandering paradigm permit a rigorous examination of the effects of alcohol on experiential consciousness and metaconsciousness. Fifty-four male social drinkers consumed alcohol (0.82 g/kg) or a placebo beverage and then performed a mind-wandering reading task. This task indexed both self-caught and probe-caught zone-outs to distinguish between mind wandering inside and outside of awareness. Compared with participants who drank the placebo, those who drank alcohol were significantly more likely to report that they were zoning out when probed. After this increase in mind wandering was accounted for, alcohol also lowered the probability of catching oneself zoning out. The results suggest that alcohol increases mind wandering while simultaneously reducing the likelihood of noticing one's mind wandering. Findings are discussed with regard to theories of alcohol and theories of consciousness
Out for a smoke: the impact of cigarette craving on zoning out during reading
No full textCigarette craving has powerful effects on cognitive functioning, which may promote smoking behavior and relapse. One area of cognition that has had little impact on craving research is human consciousness. Developments in consciousness research using a mindless-reading paradigm permit examination of the effects of craving on both the occurrence and the awareness of mental lapses. Forty-four smokers, who were either nicotine deprived (crave condition) or nondeprived (low-crave condition), performed a mindless-reading task. This task assesses both self-caught and probe-caught mind-wandering episodes to distinguish between lapses that are within and outside of awareness. Compared with the low cravers, those in the cigarette-crave condition were significantly more likely to acknowledge that their mind was wandering when they were probed. When we adjusted for this more-than-threefold increase in zoning out, craving also lowered the probability of catching oneself. Results suggest that craving simultaneously increases mental lapses while reducing the metacognitive capacity to notice them
Eye movements during mindless reading
Get PDFMindless reading occurs when the eyes continue moving across the page even though the mind is thinking about something unrelated to the text. Despite how commonly it occurs, very little is known about mindless reading. The present experiment examined eye movements during mindless reading. Comparisons of fixation-duration measures collected during intervals of normal reading and intervals of mindless reading indicate that fixations during the latter were longer and less affected by lexical and linguistic variables than fixations during the former. Also, eye movements immediately preceding self-caught mind wandering were especially erratic. These results suggest that the cognitive processes that guide eye movements during normal reading are not engaged during mindless reading. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of eye movement control in reading, for the distinction between experiential awareness and meta-awareness, and for reading comprehension
Perceptual, phenomenological, and behavioral processes underpinning state and dispositional curiosity.
Get PDFCuriosity has occupied a pivotal position in the study of motivation, emotion, and cognition where it has been associated with an impressive host of positive outcomes; however experimental research is surprisingly limited. Existing methods rely on the induction of deprivation-based curiosity, a subfacet of epistemic curiosity driven by uncertainty and induced via presentation of information gaps. This facet has been linked to negative affect and, more recently, a host of intellectual shortcomings. Interest curiosity is a subfacet of epistemic curiosity associated with a positive and appetitive interest in learning and exploration and has been associated with increased general knowledge, creativity, humility, and well-being. Experimental research on this subfacet is almost completely missing, largely due to the difficulty in promoting this state under laboratory conditions. Furthermore, research on epistemic curiosity is limited in that there are no well-validated measures of state curiosity, and few objective indicators of trait curiosity beyond self-report. This dissertation research strove to fill these voids by taking a broad behavioral, perceptual, and phenomenological approach to consider what drives individual differences in epistemic curiosity. Study 1 reports on a novel measure for capturing states of interest curiosity, as well as a novel, easily implementable, and effective induction method for promoting it. Study 2, 3, and 4 explore theoretically grounded indicators of state and trait epistemic curiosity including gaze patterns (study 2) and phenomenological indices (study 3 and 4). In study 2, distinct patterns of salience attribution are found for individuals as a function of trait epistemic curiosity, particularly more consistent prioritization of visual features that may provide maximal information gain. Using both an ecologically rich experience sampling study and a casually informative experimental study, studies 3 and 4 report robust and striking patterns of associations between everyday features of thought and both trait (study 3 and 4) and state (study 4) epistemic curiosity; here, differences between deprivation and interest curiosity are further revealed. The final study (study 5) brings together many of these elements to examine the role affective, attentional, and phenomenological aspects of interest curiosity may play in driving the positive outcomes associated with it, including learning and information seeking behavior. Here it was found that interest curiosity mediates the effects of the novel curiosity induction on information seeking behavior and positive affect. Interest curiosity is also found to improve attentional engagement during reading, with potential implications for learning. This research made several important empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions by developing new ways to assess trait and state epistemic curiosity, grounded in neurobiological and psychological theory, and using these assessments to run the first ever experimental studies on appetitive states of interest curiosity
Recommended from our members
Awe and Accommodation: Do Feelings of Awe Support a Shift from Schema-Driven to Stimulus-Driven Processing?
Get PDFFeelings of awe are associated with experiences that are meaningful and sometimes life-changing. Awe is elicited by complex, information-rich stimuli that may challenge one's understanding of the world, leading to a process of accommodation in which cognitive schemas are updated. However, it is unclear whether awe plays a causal role in accommodation, and by what mechanisms this may occur. These studies investigate whether awe leads to reduced reliance on existing cognitive structures (schemas) and increased exploration, in the context of attention, memory, and problem-solving tasks. It was hypothesized that awe will be associated with reduced schema-driven and increased stimulus-driven visual attention (Studies 1 and 2); reduced false memory for schema-consistent information and enhanced recognition of schema-inconsistent information in visual scenes (Study 2); and abandonment of a learned but inefficient problem-solving strategy (Study 3). Awe was shown to increase bottom-up (stimulus-driven) visual attention, although no reduction in schema-driven attention was found. Awe also led to reduced false recognition on a visual memory task, although this was not specific to schema-consistent items as predicted. Finally, feelings of awe predicted reduced persistence with an inefficient strategy on a problem-solving task. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that awe increases stimulus-driven attention. Although further research is needed to clarify the roles of schema-driven and stimulus-driven attentional processes in accommodation, these studies are consistent with a role for awe in accommodative processes of attention, memory, and problem-solving
Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling and the wandering mind
No full textMind wandering (i.e. engaging in cognitions unrelated to the current demands of the external environment) reflects the cyclic activity of two core processes: the capacity to disengage attention from perception (known as perceptual decoupling) and the ability to take explicit note of the current contents of consciousness (known as meta-awareness). Research on perceptual decoupling demonstrates that mental events that arise without any external precedent (known as stimulus independent thoughts) often interfere with the online processing of sensory information. Findings regarding meta-awareness reveal that the mind is only intermittently aware of engaging in mind wandering. These basic aspects of mind wandering are considered with respect to the activity of the default network, the role of executive processes, the contributions of meta-awareness and the functionality of mind wandering
Causes and consequences of the belief in free will
No full textWhile the question of whether free will exists or not has been debated for centuries, recently researchers have started to investigate the reasons for and consequences of a belief in free will. The current chapter tries to give an overview of this research. We first outline recent empirical research showing that the belief in free will has both cognitive and social determinants. Then, we describe recent research focusing on the behavioral, cognitive, and neural implications of believing or disbelieving in free will. Finally, a speculative theoretical framework concerning how high-level beliefs about free will can influence cognition and behavior is presented
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
- …
