Individual differences on a variety of framing and conjunction problems were examined in light of Slovic and Tversky's (1974) understanding/acceptance principle-that more reflective and skilled reasoners are more likely to affirm the axioms that define normative reasoning and to endorse the task construals of informed experts. The predictions derived from the principle were confirmed for the much discussed framing effect in the Disease Problem and for the conjunction fallacy on the Linda Problem. Subjects of higher cognitive ability were (...) disproportionately likely to avoid each fallacy. Other framing problems produced much more modest levels of empirical support. It is conjectured that the varying patterns of individual differences are best explained by two-process theories of reasoning (e.g. Evans, 1984, 1996; Sloman, 1996) conjoined with the assumption that the two processes differentially reflect interactional and analytic intelligence. (shrink)

Individual differences in decisiveness: pre-decisional information search and decision strategy use We investigated whether individual differences in decisiveness are associated with a tendency to use different decision strategies during pre-decisional information search. To explore these potential links we administered the Need for Cognitive Closure questionnaire to 62 participants, followed by a probabilistic inference, multi-attribute choice task. Participants high in decisiveness dimension, compared to ‘low decisives’, spent less time and acquired less information prior to making decisions, especially (...) in the first trials of the choice task. ‘High decisives’ also had a greater tendency to use a simple Lexicographic heuristic than ‘low decisives’. The results support the view that high decisiveness is associated with greater tendency to simplify the decision process. (shrink)

Individual differences in mental accounting have rarely been studied, and empirical evidence regarding the relation between mental accounting and personality characteristics is scarce. The present paper reports three studies applying a Likert-type scale to assess the extent individuals engage in mental accounting practices. In each study, the five items of the measure loaded on a single dimension and had acceptable reliability, with a Cronbach’s α between.72 and.77. Study 1 (N = 165) regards the mental processing of prior losses (...) in the theater-ticket problem (Tversky and Kahneman 1981). Study 2 (N = 114) is based on prior work on income source effects (Fogel 1997) and analyzes mental accounting of prior gains. In both studies, individual differences in mental accounting moderated the effects of the experimental treatments. In an explorative survey conducted for Study 3 (N = 373), the extent of engaging in mental accounting was found to be positively correlated with being female, with conscientiousness, and financial literacy, and negatively related with education and non-planning impulsivity. Identification of individual differences and their correlates adds to existing evidence for some of the core assumptions of mental accounting theory. A practical implication of the findings is that providers of financial services must take individual differences into account when designing trainings and supportive tools for money management. (shrink)

Individual differences are indeed an important aid to our understanding of human cognition, but the importance of the rationality debate is open to question. An understanding of the process involved, and how and why differences occur, is fundamental to our understanding of human reasoning and decision making.

When the side effect of an action involves moral considerations (e.g. when a chairman’s pursuit of profits harms the environment) it tends to influence theory-of-mind judgments. On average, bad side effects are judged intentional whereas good side effects are judged unintentional. In a series of two experiments, we examined the largely uninvestigated roles of individual differences in this judgment asymmetry. Experiment 1 indicated that extraversion accounted for variations in intentionality judgments, controlling for a range of other general (...) class='Hi'>individual differences (e.g. working memory, self-control). Experiment 2 indicated that extraversion’s influence was partially mediated by more specific variations in intentional action concepts. A priming manipulation also provided causal evidence of judgment instability and bias. Results suggest that the intentional action judgment asymmetry is multiply determined, reflecting the interplay of individual differences and judgment biases. Implications and the roles of individual differences in judgment and decision-making research are discussed. (shrink)

Individual differences in police dog handlers The Polish adaptation of the NEO-FFI inventory was used in the present study to assess the personality of dog handlers. For diagnosis of the emotional intelligence, the Polish scale Popular Questionnaire of Emotional Intelligence was used. There were 601 participants out of the total estimated number of 1408 police dog handlers in Poland. The results were compared with normalization tests for the measures used. The personality profile and emotional intelligence of dog handlers (...) differ significantly from general population. Described in the NEO-FFI terms, police dog handlers are characterized by very low neuroticism, slightly above average extraversion, slightly below average openness to experience, a little above average agreeableness, and very high conscientiousness. In terms of emotional intelligence, they demonstrate higher control and understanding of emotions. It seems that the results obtained in the study may become relevant for the recruitment and training of police officers. (shrink)

We applaud the goals and execution of the target article, but note that individual differences do not receive much attention. This is a shortcoming because individual differences can play a vital role in theory testing. In our commentary, we describe programs of research of this type and also apply similar thinking to the mechanisms proposed in the target article.

Event-related potentials to hierarchical stimuli have been compared for global/local target trials, but the pattern of results across studies is mixed with respect to understanding how ERPs differ with local and global bias. There are reliable interindividual differences in attentional breadth biases. This study addresses two questions. Can these interindividual differences in attentional breadth be predicted by interindividual ERP differences to hierarchical stimuli? Can attentional breadth changes over time within participants be predicted by ERPs changes over time (...) when viewing hierarchical stimuli? Here, we estimated attentional breadth and isolated ERPs in response to Navon letter stimuli presented at two time points. We found that interindividual differences in ERPs at Time 1 did not predict attentional breadth differences across individuals at Time 1. However, individual differences in changes to P1, N1, and P3 ERPs to hierarchical stimuli from Time 1 to Time 2 were associated with individual differences in changes in attentional breadth from Time 1 to Time 2. These results suggest that attentional breadth changes within individuals over time are reflected in changes in ERP responses to hierarchical stimuli such that smaller N1s and larger P3s accompany a shift to processing the newly prioritized level, suggesting that the preferred level required less perceptual processing and elicited more attention. (shrink)

Mindfulness training is often promoted as a method to train cognitive functions and has shown such effects in previous studies. However, many conventional mindfulness exercises for beginners require cognitive effort, which may be prohibitive for some, particularly for people who have more pronounced cognitive problems to begin with. An alternative mindfulness-based approach, called restoration skills training, draws on a restorative natural practice setting to help regulate attention effortlessly and promote meditative states during exercises. Previous research has shown that a 5-week (...) ReST course requires less effort and is attended by higher compliance with practice recommendations than a conventional mindfulness course, without compromising long-term outcomes. Here, we compare ReST and a formally matched conventional mindfulness course regarding the role that initial individual differences in cognitive functioning play in determining practice compliance and long-term improvements in dispositional mindfulness and cognitive functioning. In line with expectations, ReST participants who had more pronounced cognitive problems to begin with practiced more during the course, which in turn explained much of their improvement in dispositional mindfulness and cognitive functioning. In contrast, initial cognitive functioning did not explain practice and improvement in the conventional mindfulness course. The results provide further support for the potential utility of ReST as a low-effort method for enhancing cognitive functioning among people who would struggle with the demands of conventional mindfulness training. With careful integration of mindfulness practices with a restorative natural setting, these people can develop mindfulness and self-regulation capabilities without relying on effortful training. (shrink)

Whitehouse's model explains when people engage in self-sacrifice, but not who is most likely to do so. We propose incorporating individual differences, such as cognitive style (one's inclination toward intuition versus deliberation), and argue that individuals who rely on intuition may be more likely to (1) develop group identity fusion after an emotional experience and (2) engage in pro-social self-sacrifice.

Much research in the last two decades has demonstrated that human responses deviate from the performance deemed normative according to various models of decision making and rational judgment (e.g., the basic axioms of utility theory). This gap between the normative and the descriptive can be interpreted as indicating systematic irrationalities in human cognition. However, four alternative interpretations preserve the assumption that human behavior and cognition is largely rational. These posit that the gap is due to (1) performance errors, (2) computational (...) limitations, (3) the wrong norm being applied by the experimenter, and (4) a different construal of the task by the subject. In the debates about the viability of these alternative explanations, attention has been focused too narrowly on the modal response. In a series of experiments involving most of the classic tasks in the heuristics and biases literature, we have examined the implications of individual differences in performance for each of the four explanations of the normative/descriptive gap. Performance errors are a minor factor in the gap; computational limitations underlie non-normative responding on several tasks, particularly those that involve some type of cognitive decontextualization. Unexpected patterns of covariance can suggest when the wrong norm is being applied to a task or when an alternative construal of the task should be considered appropriate. Key Words: biases; descriptive models; heuristics; individual differences; normative models; rationality; reasoning. (shrink)

Numerous studies argue that perceived group deprivation is a risk factor for radicalization and violent extremism. Yet, the vast majority of individuals, who experience such circumstances do not become radicalized. By utilizing models with several interacting risk and protective factors, the present analysis specifies this relationship more concretely. In a large United Kingdom nationally representative survey (n= 1,500), we examine the effects of group-based relative deprivation on violent extremist attitudes and violent extremist intentions, and we test whether this relationship is (...) contingent upon several individual differences in personality. The results show that stronger group-based injustices lead to increased support for and intentions to engage in violent extremism. However, some of the effects are much stronger for individuals who exhibit a stronger need for uniqueness and for status and who demonstrate higher levels of trait entitlement. Conversely, several effects are lessened for those individuals high in trait forgiveness, demonstrating a strong capacity for self-control and for those who are exerting critical as well as open-minded thinking styles, thus constituting buffering protective factors, which dampen the adverse effects of perceived group injustice on violent extremism. The results highlight the importance of considering (a) the interaction between individual dispositions and perceptions of contextual factors (b) the conditional and cumulative effects of various risk and protective factors and (c) the functional role of protective factors when risk factors are present. Collectively, these findings bring us one step closer to understanding who might be more vulnerable to violent extremism as well as how. Overall, the study suggests that preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) programs must take account of the constellation of multiple factors that interact with (and sometimes enable or disable) one another and which can be targeted in preventions strategies. (shrink)

On a wide range of measures and across cultures and societies, women tend to be more religious than men. Religious beliefs are associated with evolved social-cognitive mechanisms such as agency detection and theory-of-mind. Women perform better on most of these components of social cognition, suggesting an underlying psychological explanation for these sex differences. The Existential Orientation Scale was developed to extend the measurement of religion to include non-religious beliefs. Factor analysis extracted two dimensions: religious orientation and science acceptance. This (...) new scale was used to investigate the hypothesis that the dimensions of empathizing, a measure of social cognition, and systemizing can explain the sex differences in religious orientation. The sex differences in both religious orientation and science acceptance disappeared when empathizing and systemizing were entered. This indicates that underlying dimensions of individual differences can explain existential orientation better than being male or female. (shrink)

The target article overestimates the power of money as a motive/incentive in order to justify trying to provide a biological theory. A great deal of the article is spent trying to force-fit other explanations into this course categorization. Lea & Webley's (L&W's) account seems to ignore systematic, individual differences, as well as the literature on many negative affective associations of money and behavioural economics, which is a cognitive account of money motivation. (Published Online April 5 2006).

Campbell's target article significantly advances the field but fails to give adequate weight to individual differences. Moreover, there is no convincing rationale why males gain by making females less aggressive than they would otherwise be. It is also as likely that patriarchal ideology serves women's interests by canalizing genetic influences on individual differences within a more adaptively circumscribed range as it is to counter their interests by preventing them from challenging male hegemony.

Individual Differences in Subjective Experience First-Person Constraints on Theories of Consciousness, Subconsciousness, and Self-Consciousness Robert G. ...

Contemporary emotion theories have come to conceptualise emotions as multicomponential and dynamic processes that do not necessarily cohere in fixed packages and continuously change over time. In this introduction to the Special Issue, we give a brief overview of what led to this conceptualisation of emotions, and propose how it can provide the key to our understanding of individual differences in emotional responding.

This study was aimed at predicting individual differences in text reading fluency. The basic proposal included two factors, i.e., the ability to decode letter strings (measured by discrete pseudo-word reading) and integration of the various sub-components involved in reading (measured by Rapid Automatized Naming, RAN). Subsequently, a third factor was added to the model, i.e., naming of discrete digits. In order to use homogeneous measures, all contributing variables considered the entire processing of the item, including pronunciation time. The (...) model, which was based on commonality analysis, was applied to data from a group of 43 typically developing readers (11- to 13-year-olds) and a group of 25 chronologically matched dyslexic children. In typically developing readers, both orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components contributed significantly to the overall prediction of text reading fluency. The model prediction was higher (from ca. 37% to 52% of the explained variance) when we included the naming of discrete digits variable, which had a suppressive effect on pseudo-word reading. In the dyslexic readers, the variance explained by the two-factor model was high (69%) and did not change when the third factor was added. The lack of a suppression effect was likely due to the prominent individual differences in poor orthographic decoding of the dyslexic children. Analyses on data from both groups of children were replicated by using patches of colours as stimuli (both in the RAN task and in the discrete naming task) obtaining similar results. We conclude that it is possible to predict much of the variance in text-reading fluency using basic processes, such as orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components, even without taking into consideration higher-order linguistic factors such as lexical, semantic and contextual abilities. The approach validity of using proximal vs distal causes to predict reading fluency is discussed. (shrink)

In functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, object selectivity is defined as a higher neural response to an object category than other object categories. Importantly, object selectivity is widely considered as a neural signature of a functionally-specialized area in processing its preferred object category in the human brain. However, the behavioral significance of the object selectivity remains unclear. In the present study, we used the individual differences approach to correlate participants’ face selectivity in the face-selective regions with their behavioral (...) performance in face recognition measured outside the scanner in a large sample of healthy adults. Face selectivity was defined as the z score of activation with the contrast of faces versus non-face objects, and the face recognition ability was indexed as the normalized residual of the accuracy in recognizing previously-learned faces after regressing out that for non-face objects in an old/new memory task. We found that the participants with higher face selectivity in the fusiform face area (FFA) and the occipital face area (OFA), but not in the posterior part of the superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), possessed higher face recognition ability. Importantly, the association of face selectivity in the FFA and face recognition ability cannot be accounted for by FFA response to objects or behavioral performance in object recognition, suggesting that the association is domain-specific. Finally, the association is reliable, confirmed by the replication from another independent participant group. In sum, our finding provides empirical evidence on the validity of using object selectivity as a neural signature in defining object-selective regions in the human brain. (shrink)

In vision research metacontrast masking is a widely used technique to reduce the visibility of a stimulus. Typically, studies attempt to reveal general principles that apply to a large majority of participants and tend to omit possible individual differences. The neural plasticity of the visual system, however, entails the potential capability for individual differences in the way observers perform perceptual tasks. We report a case of perceptual learning in a metacontrast masking task that leads to the (...) enhancement of two types of adult human observers despite identical learning conditions. In a priming task both types of observers exhibited the same priming effects, which were insensitive to learning. Findings suggest that visual processing of target stimuli in the metacontrast masking task is based on neural levels with sufficient plasticity to enable the development of two types of observers, which do not contribute to processing of target stimuli in the priming task. (shrink)

Intertemporal choice involves deciding between smaller, sooner and larger, later rewards. People tend to prefer smaller rewards that are available earlier to larger rewards available later, a phenomenon referred to as temporal or delay discounting. Despite its ubiquity in human and non-human animals, temporal discounting is subject to considerable individual differences. Here, we provide a critical narrative review of this literature and make suggestions for future work. We conclude that temporal discounting is associated with key socio-economic and health-related (...) variables. Regarding personality, large-scale studies have found steeper temporal discounting to be associated with higher levels of self-reported impulsivity and extraversion; however, effect sizes are small. Temporal discounting correlates negatively with future-oriented cognitive styles and inhibitory control, again with small effect sizes. There are consistent associations between steeper temporal discounting and lower intelligence, with effect sizes exceeding those of personality or cognitive variables, although socio-demographic moderator variables may play a role. Neuroimaging evidence of brain structural and functional correlates is not yet consistent, neither with regard to areas nor directions of effects. Finally, following early candidate gene studies, recent Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) approaches have revealed the molecular genetic architecture of temporal discounting to be more complex than initially thought. Overall, the study of individual differences in temporal discounting is a maturing field that has produced some replicable findings. Effect sizes are small-to-medium, necessitating future hypothesis-driven work that prioritizes large samples with adequate power calculations. More research is also needed regarding the neural origins of individual differences in temporal discounting as well as the mediating neural mechanisms of associations of temporal discounting with personality and cognitive variables. (shrink)

We explore and provide an account for a recently identified judgment anomaly, i.e., an order effect that changes the strength of intentionality ascriptions for some side effects (e.g., when a chairman's pursuit of profits has the foreseen but unintended consequence of harming the environment). Experiment 1 replicated the previously unanticipated order effect anomaly controlling for general individual differences. Experiment 2 revealed that the order effect was multiply determined and influenced by factors such as beliefs (i.e., that the same (...) actor was involved in bringing about both good and bad side effects) and philosophical training (i.e., more training was associated with smaller differences in judgment when harm followed help). Results provide more evidence that the folk's philosophically relevant intuitions are predictably fragmented and depend on the dynamic interplay between persons, process, and environments. Methodological and theoretical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Although it has been proposed that inhibition is related to individual differences in mathematical achievement, it is not clear how it is related to specific aspects of mathematical skills, such as arithmetic fact retrieval. The present study therefore investigated the association between inhibition and arithmetic fact retrieval and further examined the unique role of inhibition in individual differences in arithmetic fact retrieval, in addition to numerical magnitude processing. We administered measures of cognitive inhibition (i.e., numerical and (...) non-numerical stroop tasks) and a complementary, more ecologically valid measure of children’s inhibition in the classroom (i.e., teacher questionnaire), as well as numerical magnitude processing (i.e., symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparison) and arithmetic fact retrieval (i.e., two verification tasks) in 86 typically developing third graders. We used a correlation, a regression and a Bayesian analysis. This study failed to observe a significant association between inhibition and arithmetic fact retrieval. Consequently, our results did not reveal a unique contribution of inhibition to arithmetic fact retrieval in addition to numerical magnitude processing. On the other hand, symbolic numerical magnitude processing turned out to be a very powerful predictor of arithmetic fact retrieval, as indicated by both frequentist and Bayesian approaches. (shrink)

Tulving posited that the capacity to remember is one facet of a more general capacity—autonoetic consciousness. Autonoetic consciousness was proposed to underlie the ability for “mental time travel” both into the past and into the future to envision potential future episodes . The current study examines whether individual differences can predict autonoetic experience. Specifically, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory was administered to 133 undergraduate students, who also rated phenomenological experiences accompanying autobiographical remembering and episodic future thinking. Scores on (...) two of the five subscales of the ZTPI predicted the degree to which people reported feelings of mentally traveling backward in time and the degree to which they reported re- or pre-experiencing the event, but not ten other rated properties less related to autonoetic consciousness. (shrink)

This volume represents the first collection of work to address, empirically and conceptually, the topic of individual differences in theory of mind.

Individual differences and polysemy have rich literatures in cognitive linguistics, but little is said about the prospect of individual differences in polysemy. This article reports an investigation that sought to establish whether people vary in the senses of a polysemous word that they find meaningful, and to develop a novel methodology to study polysemy. The methodology combined established tools: sentence-sorting tasks, a rarely used statistical model of inter-participant agreement, and network visualisation. Two hundred and five English-speaking (...) participants completed one of twelve sentence-sorting tasks on two occasions, separated by a delay of two months. Participants varied in how similarly they sorted the sentences as compared to other participants, and mean agreement across all 24 tasks did not meet an established threshold of acceptable agreement. Between the two test phases, inter-participant agreement varied to a significant but trivial degree. Networks generated for each dataset varied in the degree to which they captured all participants’ responses. This variation correlated with inter-participant agreement. The data collectively suggest that word senses may be subject to individual differences, as is the case in other linguistic phenomena. The methodology proved replicable and has a promise as a useful tool for studying polysemy. (shrink)

Jagiello and colleagues offer a bifocal stance theory of cultural evolution for understanding how individuals flexibly choose between instrumental and ritual stances in social learning. We argue that the role of culture, developmental age-related differences, and the intersectionality of these and other individual's identities need to be more fully considered in this theoretical framework.

Current theories of reasoning such as mental models or mental logic assume a universal cognitive mechanism that underlies human reasoning performance. However, there is evidence that this is not the case, for example, the work of Ford (1995), who found that some people adopted predominantly spatial and some verbal strategies in a syllogistic reasoning task. Using written and think-aloud protocols, the present study confirmed the existence of these individual differences. However, in sharp contrast to Ford, the present study (...) found few differences in reasoning performance between the two groups, in terms of accuracy or type of conclusion generated. Hence, reasoners present an outward appearance of ubiquity, despite underlying differences in reasoning processes. These findings have implications for theoretical accounts of reasoning, and for attempts to model reasoning data. Any comprehensive account needs to account for strategic differences and how these may develop in logically untrained individuals. (shrink)

This study sought to understand the effects of tone language repertoire and musical experience on nonnative lexical tone perception and production. Thirty-one participants completed a tone discrimination task, an imitation task, and a musical abilities task. Results showed that a larger tone language repertoire and musical experience both enhanced tone discrimination performance. However, the effects were not additive, as musical experience was associated with tone discrimination performance for single-tone language speakers, but such association was not seen for dual-tone language speakers. (...) Furthermore, among single-tone language speakers, but not among dual-tone language speakers, musical experience and musical aptitude positively correlated with tone discrimination accuracy. It is thus concluded that individuals with varying extents of tone language experience may adopt different strategies when performing tone discrimination tasks; single-tone language speakers may draw on their musical expertise while dual-tone language speakers may rely on their extensive tone language experience instead. (shrink)

This paper develops twenty hypotheses concerning the relationships among selected individual differences variables (locus of control, delay of gratification, gender, and race) and five different ethical beliefs. The results of a study of collegians provide support for seventeen out of twenty research hypotheses. As predicted, locus of control, delay of gratification, and race are related to ethical beliefs. Also as predicted, gender is not related to ethical beliefs.

In this paper I develop a concept of behavioural ecological individuality. Using findings from a case study which employed qualitative methods, I argue that individuality in behavioural ecology should be defined as phenotypic and ecological uniqueness, a concept that is operationalised in terms of individual differences such as animal personality and individual specialisation. This account make sense of how the term “individuality” is used in relation to intrapopulation variation in behavioural ecology. The concept of behavioural ecological individuality (...) can sometimes be used to identify individuals. It also shapes research agendas and methodological choices in behavioural ecology, leading researchers to account for individuals as sources of variation. Overall, this paper draws attention to a field that has been largely overlooked in philosophical discussions of biological individuality and highlights the importance of individual differences and uniqueness for individuality in behavioural ecology. (shrink)

An implicit association test (IAT) measures differential association of 2 target concepts with an attribute. The 2 concepts appear in a 2-choice task (e.g., flower vs. insect names), and the attribute in a 2nd task (e.g., pleasant vs. unpleasant words for an evaluation attribute). When instructions oblige highly associated categories (e.g., flower + pleasant) to share a response key, performance is faster than when less associated categories (e.g., insect + pleasant) share a key. This performance difference implicitly measures differential association (...) of the 2 concepts with the attribute. In 3 experiments, the IAT was sensitive to (a) near-universal evaluative differences (e.g., flower vs. insect), (b) expected individual differences in evaluative associations (Japanese + pleasant vs. Korean + pleasant for Japanese vs. Korean subjects), and (c) consciously disavowed evaluative differences (Black + pleasant vs. White + pleasant for self-described unprejudiced White subjects). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This study investigated individual differences in the belief bias effect, which is the tendency to accept conclusions because they are believable rather than because they are logically valid. It was observed that the extent of an individual's belief bias effect was unrelated to a number of measures of reasoning competence. Instead, as predicted by mental models theory, it was related to a person's ability to generate alternative representations of premises: the more alternatives a person generated, the less (...) likely they were to show a belief bias effect. In contrast to belief effects, which were predicted by the number of alternatives generated, scores on logical reasoning tasks were predicted by an individual's understanding of the concept of logical necessity. These two mediating variables, ability to generate alternatives and understanding of logical necessity, were themselves predicted by similar variables, such as cognitive motivation and abstract reasoning ability. Our findings strongly support the mental models interpretation of the belief bias effect, and suggest that individual differences in this effect are associated with a specific ability to generate alternatives, rather than with a general logical competence. (shrink)

Most psychological research aims to uncover generalizations about the mind that hold across subjects. Philosophical discussions of scientific explanation have focused on such generalizations, but in doing so, have often overlooked an important phenomenon: variation. Variation is ubiquitous in psychology and many other domains, and an important target of explanation in its own right. Here I characterize explananda that concern individual differences and formulate an account of what it takes to explain them. I argue that the notion of (...) actual difference making, the only causal concept in the literature that explicitly addresses variation, cannot be used to ground such an account. Instead, I propose a view on which explaining individual differences involves identifying causes that could be intervened on to reduce the variability in the population. This account provides criteria of success for explaining variation and deepens our understanding of causal explanation. (shrink)

In metacontrast masking target visibility is modulated by the time until a masking stimulus appears. The effect of this temporal delay differs across participants in such a way that individual human observers’ performance shows distinguishable types of masking functions which remain largely unchanged for months. Here we examined whether individual differences in masking functions depend on different response criteria in addition to differences in discrimination sensitivity. To this end we reanalyzed previously published data and conducted a (...) new experiment for further data analyses. Our analyses demonstrate that a distinction of masking functions based on the type of masking stimulus is superior to a distinction based on the target–mask congruency. Individually different masking functions are based on individual differences in discrimination sensitivities and in response criteria. Results suggest that individual differences in metacontrast masking result from individually different criterion contents. (shrink)

While the majority of perceptual phenomena based research on consciousness is implicitly nomothetic, some idiographic perspective can be sometimes highly valuable for it. It may turn out that after having had a closer look at individual differences in the expression of psychometric functions a need to revise some nomothetic laws considered as the general ones arises as well. A study of individual differences in metacontrast masking published in this issue superbly illustrates this. A myriad of urgent (...) research objectives emerges out of this study, most of them important both for clearing up the still messy theoretical picture on visual masking and for the beginning of asking whether perceptual awareness mechanisms are so universal at all. In this commentary the problems pertinent to this issue are discussed. (shrink)

This study investigated the concept of individual differences (IDs) in the use of metacognitive strategies (planning, problem-solving, monitoring, and evaluating) and its relationship with task demand and learner performance within Kormos’ Bilingual Speech Production Model from the lens of Chinese English-as-foreign-language (EFL) learners in the context of integrated L2 speaking assessment. To measure metacognitive strategies, we administered an inventory on 134 Chinese EFL learners after they completed four integrated L2 speaking assessment tasks. Descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression (...) were adopted for data analysis, and results show that: (a) IDs displayed variance in Chinese EFL learners’ metacognitive strategy use; (b) among the four metacognitive strategies under investigation, problem-solving was reported to be used the most frequently in sharp contrast to monitoring, which had the lowest frequency; (c) metacognitive strategies worked interactively, responding to task demands involved in the four integrated L2 speaking assessment tasks; and (d) Chinese EFL learners’ use of metacognitive strategies, in individual and interactive working modes, had no relationship with their speaking performance. These results are expected to present some insights into the role of IDs in metacognitive strategy use during L2 speech production under assessment conditions, which will add robust evidence to the existing literature on L2 speaking, in particular on metacognitive strategy use in L2 speaking assessment. In the meantime, the findings will provide some empirical validation support for Kormos’ model, which will further provide some implications for L2 speaking instruction and L2 assessment. (shrink)

Working memory resources are needed for processing and maintenance of information during cognitive tasks. Many models have been developed to capture the effects of limited working memory resources on performance. However, most of these models do not account for the finding that different individuals show different sensitivities to working memory demands, and none of the models predicts individual subjects' patterns of performance. We propose a computational model that accounts for differences in working memory capacity in terms of a (...) quantity called source activation, which is used to maintain goal‐relevant information in an available state. We apply this model to capture the working memory effects of individual subjects at a fine level of detail across two experiments. This, we argue, strengthens the interpretation of source activation as working memory capacity. (shrink)