Spontaneous Eye Blink Rates vary according to individual differences in generalized control perception.

This study tested the hypothesis that individual differences in generalized control perception for 43 undergraduate adults may be reflected in Spontaneous Eye Blink Rates during conversation in an interview. Control perception was assessed by means of Rotter's internal-external Locus of Control questionnaires, while Spontaneous Eye Blink Rates were computed from filmed videos of interviews consisting of a series of questions which could presumably have triggered different mental states. Pearson correlations and linear regression analyses indicated that the individual differences in Spontaneous Eye Blink Rates did not differ significantly across different questions, but that Spontaneous Eye Blink Rates measured over the entire interview correlated positively and significantly with an internal Locus of Control (r = .

On feeling in control: a biological theory for individual differences in control perception.

This review aims to create a cross-disciplinary framework for understanding the perception of control. Although, the personality trait locus of control, the most common measure of control perception, has traditionally been regarded as a product of social learning, it may have biological antecedents as well. It is suggested that control perception follows from the brain's capacity for self regulation, leading to flexible and goal directed behaviours.

Why your "head is in the clouds" during thinking: the relationship between cognition and upper space.

Higher-order cognition in humans has not generally been viewed as closely entwined with the brain mechanisms mediating more basic perceptual-motor interactions in 3-D space. However, recent findings suggest that perceptual and oculomotor mechanisms that are biased toward the upper field (which disproportionately represents radially distant space) are activated during complex mental operations, ranging from semantic processing to mental arithmetic and memory search. The particularly close affinity with upward conjugate eye deviations--further confirmed in a study of 24 schoolchildren who responded to various mental questions and demands--suggests that active, abstract thinking in humans may have expropriated the focal-extrapersonal brain systems involved in saccadic exploration of the distant environment in other primates.

Asymmetries in activation and arousal may contribute to lateralised effects of habituation and contingency learning during a repetitive choice reaction time task.

This study presents experimental data that suggest possible hemispheric asymmetries in contingency learning and habituation following irrelevant or warning stimuli during a discrimination reaction time task. A total of 68 college students participated in a letter-categorisation task (presumably engaging the left hemisphere more than the right hemisphere) and a visuospatial task (presumably engaging the right hemisphere more than the left hemisphere), both of which involved making a decision based on two consecutive stimuli. Without prior knowledge, one group received warning signals contingent with the reaction stimuli, while the other group was exposed to erratic and irrelevant signals throughout the tasks.

Tonic and phasic activation and arousal effects as a function of feedback in repetitive-choice reaction time tasks.

This study examines the effects of positive and negative feedback on performance during choice reaction time tasks to assess whether they differentially affect phasic arousal and tonic activation. Participants (N = 96) received either no feedback or signals of reward, punishment, or both during a semantic and a visuospatial repetitive-choice reaction time task. The number of errors made was analyzed both on a trial-by-trial basis and over a continuous series of 80 trials (assessing phasic and tonic feedback effects, respectively).