Week 6 Readings: Emotions/Performance & Visual Search

Question 1

What was the aim of Laybourn et al. (2022) study?

Answer 1

1. To establish whether participants experience emotions during a VWM task, which are induced by the task itself
2. if this was the case, to explore how these incidentally induced emotions are related to VWM performance

Question 2

What were the summary finding of the Laybourn et al. (2022) study?

Answer 2

1. There is a positive correlation between experiencing pleasant emotions and increased VWM performance
2. There is a positive correlation between experiencing unpleasant emotions and lowered VWM performance

Question 3

How is this linked with achievement emotions?

Answer 3

Achievement emotions has shown consistently that negative achievement emotions, such as shame and anger, are linked negatively with performance

Positive achievement emotions, such as joy and pride, correlate positively with performance

Question 4

How did performance of the participants in the Laybourn et al. (2022) influence their emotions?

Answer 4

1. When people perceived that they were performing well, they experienced positive emotions
2. When people perceived that they were performing badly, they experienced negative emotions

Question 5

In the Laybourn et al. (2022) study, what was the parameter to manipulate task difficulty?

Answer 5

Set size - with increasing set size increasing difficulty in a visual working memory task

Question 6

What are the strengths of the Laybourn (2023) study?

Answer 6

1. Qualitative measures on participants emotion after each trial, instead of an artificial Likert scale or retrospective questions
2. First study dedicated to getting an array of emotions reported in a performance task

Question 7

What are the implications of the Laybourn et al. (2022) study?

Answer 7

1. Suggested a reciprocal relationship between performance and emotion in correlative study, suggesting a reciprocal causation, meaning that both causal directions exist.
2. In case of perceived task success, in upward emotional spirals, and in the case of perceived task failure, in downward emotional spirals.

Question 8

What was the hypothesis of the O’Donnell & Wyble (2022) study?

Answer 8

That highly representative targets of rare items are less vulnerable to low-prevalence effects even when they are rare in visual searches

Question 9

What are the findings of the O’Donnell & Wyble (2022) study?

Answer 9

Participants did poorly in accuracy and RT trials at spotting the poor-representative (gas-cans, fireworks) items that were not listed in the priming task, compared to highly representative items (gun, water-bottle)

Question 10

What 3 things did O’Donnell & Wyble (2022) predict helped objects be highly representative of a category?

Answer 10

1. Prior conceptual knowledge
2. Repetition priming
3. Object prototype

increases the chance of noticing a rare object

Question 11

What are the limitations of the O’Donnell & Wyble (2022) study?

Answer 11

Ceiling effects created through lack of task difficulty pushes the results close together, indicating interaction effects, but if task was easier it could be a case of more parallel results

because Ie. ceiling and floor effects can artificially compress results!

Question 12

Implications of O’Donnell & Wyble (2022) study?

Answer 12

Low-prevalence objects are easier to miss, but those less representative of their object representativeness may be even less likely to be spotted

Important to consider for airport screenings!