Savoring Interventions Increase Positive Emotions After a Social-Evaluative Hassle.

Achieving a high quality of life is dependent upon how individuals face adversity. Positive psychological interventions are well-suited to support coping efforts; however, experimental research is limited. The purpose of the current research was to examine whether different savoring interventions could increase important coping resources (i.

Testing principal- versus medial-axis accounts of global spatial reorientation.

Determination of a direction of travel is a necessary component of successful navigation, and various species appear to use the geometric shape (global geometric cues) of an environment to determine direction. Yet, debate remains concerning which objective shape parameter is responsible for spatial reorientation via global geometric cues. For example, the principal axis of space, which runs through the centroid and approximate length of the space, and the medial axis of space, a trunk and branch system that fills the shape, have each been suggested as a basis to explain global spatial reorientation.

Environmental scaling influences the use of local but not global geometric cues during spatial reorientation.

During spatial reorientation, the use of local geometric cues (e.g., corner angles) and global geometric cues (e.

Isolated processing of geometric shapes and their corresponding shape words: Evidence from a delayed match-to-sample task.

Some theorists propose a domain-specific cognitive system dedicated to processing geometric information, but existence of this system remains debatable because of challenges in isolating geometric from linguistic and semantic processing. Recently, Sturz, Edwards, and Boyer (2014) developed a delayed match-to-sample task that presented a sample of a shape, shape word, or bidimensional stimulus composed of a shape and shape word. After a delay, participants identified the sample shape or the sample word by selecting between 2 shapes or 2 shape words.

Detecting the perception of illusory spatial boundaries: Evidence from distance judgments.

Spatial boundaries demarcate everything from the lanes in our roadways to the borders between our countries. They are fundamental to object perception, spatial navigation, spatial memory, spatial judgments, and the coordination of our actions. Although explicit spatial boundaries formed by physical structures comprise many of the actual boundaries we encounter, implicit and permeable spatial boundaries are pervasive.

Evidence consistent with the multiple-bearings hypothesis from human virtual landmark-based navigation.

One approach to explaining the conditions under which additional landmarks will be learned or ignored relates to the nature of the information provided by the landmarks (i.e., distance versus bearings).

Incidental encoding of enclosure geometry does not require visual input: evidence from blindfolded adults.

Although spatial orientation with respect to the geometric properties of an environment appears to be an ability shared across various species, debate remains concerning potential similarities and differences with respect to the underlying mechanism(s). One prominent theoretical account of orientation with respect to the environment suggests that participants match visual memories to their current visual perception and navigate to reduce the discrepancy between the two. We tested whether visual input was necessary to incidentally encode the geometric properties of an environment, by training disoriented and blindfolded adult participants to search by touch for a target object hidden in one of four locations, marked by distinctive textural cues, located in the corners of a rectangular enclosure.

Asymmetrical interference effects between two-dimensional geometric shapes and their corresponding shape words.

Nativists have postulated fundamental geometric knowledge that predates linguistic and symbolic thought. Central to these claims is the proposal for an isolated cognitive system dedicated to processing geometric information. Testing such hypotheses presents challenges due to difficulties in eliminating the combination of geometric and non-geometric information through language.

Stroop interference in a delayed match-to-sample task: evidence for semantic competition.

Discussions of the source of the Stroop interference effect continue to pervade the literature. Semantic competition posits that interference results from competing semantic activation of word and color dimensions of the stimulus prior to response selection. Response competition posits that interference results from competing responses for articulating the word dimension vs.

A consistent but non-coincident visual pattern facilitates the learning of spatial relations among locations.

Human participants searched in a dynamic three-dimensional computer-generated virtual-environment open-field search task for four hidden goal locations arranged in a diamond configuration located in a 5 × 5 matrix of raised bins. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: visual pattern or visual random. All participants experienced 30 trials in which four goal locations maintained the same spatial relations to each other (i.

Does constraining field of view prevent extraction of geometric cues for humans during virtual-environment reorientation?

Environment size has been shown to influence the reliance on local and global geometric cues during reorientation. Unless changes in environment size are produced by manipulating length and width proportionally, changes in environment size are confounded by the amount of the environment that is visible from a single vantage point. Yet, the influence of the amount of the environment that is visible from any single vantage point on the use of local and global geometric cues remains unknown.

Environment size and the use of feature and geometric cues for reorientation.

We tested associative-based accounts of orientation by investigating the influence of environment size on the use of feature and geometric cues for reorientation. Two groups of participants were trained in dynamic three-dimensional virtual rectangular environments that differed in size to find a distinctly colored bin located at one of the four corners. Subsequently, we probed the reliance on feature and geometric cues for reorientation during test trials by presenting six trial types: Small Geometry Only, Large Geometry Only, Small Cue Conflict, Large Cue Conflict, Small Distal, and Large Distal.

Geometric cues, reference frames, and the equivalence of experienced-aligned and novel-aligned views in human spatial memory.

Spatial memories are often organized around reference frames, and environmental shape provides a salient cue to reference frame selection. To date, however, the environmental cues responsible for influencing reference frame selection remain relatively unknown. To connect research on reference frame selection with that on orientation via environmental shape, we explored the extent to which geometric cues were incidentally encoded and represented in memory by evaluating their influence on reference frame selection.

More than a feeling: incidental learning of array geometry by blindfolded adult humans revealed through touch.

View-based matching theories of orientation suggest that mobile organisms encode a visual memory consisting of a visual panorama from a target location and maneuver to reduce discrepancy between current visual perception and this stored visual memory to return to a location. Recent success of such theories to explain the orientation behavior of insects and birds raises questions regarding the extent to which such an explanation generalizes to other species. In the present study, we attempted to determine the extent to which such view-based matching theories may explain the orientation behavior of a mammalian species (in this case adult humans).

Beacons and surface features differentially influence human reliance on global and local geometric cues when reorienting in a virtual environment.

In the reorientation literature, non-geometric cues include discrete objects (e.g., beacons) and surface-based features (e.

On Discriminating between Geometric Strategies of Surface-Based Orientation.

Recently, a debate has manifested in the spatial learning literature regarding the shape parameters by which mobile organisms orient with respect to the environment. On one hand are principal-axis-based strategies which suggest that organisms extract the major and minor principal axes of space which pass through the centroid and approximate length and width of the entire space, respectively. On the other hand are medial-axis-based strategies which suggest that organisms extract a trunk-and-branch system similar to the skeleton of a shape.

No evidence that consistent auditory cues facilitate learning of spatial relations among locations.

Human participants searched in a dynamic three-dimensional computer-generated virtual-environment open-field search task for four hidden goal locations arranged in a diamond configuration located in a 5×5 matrix of raised bins. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: Consistent or Inconsistent. All participants experienced 30 trials in which four goal locations maintained the same spatial relations to each other (i.

Enclosure size and the use of local and global geometric cues for reorientation.

Multiple spatial cues are utilized to orient with respect to the environment, but it remains unclear why feature (i.e., objects in the environment) and geometric (i.

Overtraining and the use of feature and geometric cues for reorientation.

Using a dynamic three-dimensional virtual environment task, we investigated the influence of overtraining of feature and geometric cues on preferential spatial cue use. We trained two groups of human participants to respond to feature and geometric cues in separate enclosures before placing these cues in conflict on a critical test trial. All participants learned to respond to rewarded features located along the principal axis of a rectangular search space and to rewarded geometric cues of a rectangular search space in separate training phases followed by a single test trial.

Solving for two unknowns: an extension of vector-based models of landmark-based navigation.

Vectors are mathematical representations of distance and direction information that take the form of line segments where length represents distance and orientation in space represents direction. Vector-based models have proven beneficial in understanding the spatial behavior of a variety of species in tasks that require landmark-based navigation via vector addition and vector averaging to determine a location. Extant research regarding vector-based representational and computational accounts of landmark-based navigation has involved tasks that required solving for one unknown (i.

Is surface-based orientation influenced by a proportional relationship of shape parameters?

We investigated the extent to which parameters of environmental shape - namely the major and minor principal axes of space which pass through the centroid and approximate length and width of the entire space, respectively, were subject to similar psychophysical principles as those involved in distance discriminations. We developed an orientation task that allowed us to manipulate the ratio of the major to the minor principal axes of an enclosure during training and control for orientation by alternative cues other than principal axes such as wall lengths or corner angles during testing. Participants trained in an environment with a larger hypothetical discriminability ratio allocated more responses to locations specified by the principal axes of space across novel enclosure types compared to a group trained with a smaller hypothetical discriminability ratio.

Neither by global nor local cues alone: evidence for a unified orientation process.

A substantial amount of empirical and theoretical debate remains concerning the extent to which an ability to orient with respect to the environment is determined by global (i.e., principal axis of space), local (i.

Orientation in trapezoid-shaped enclosures: implications for theoretical accounts of geometry learning.

Human participants learned to select 1 of 4 distinctively marked corners in a rectangular virtual enclosure. After training, control and test trials were interspersed with training trials. On control and test trials, all markers were equivalent in color, but only during test trials was the shape of the enclosure manipulated.