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- Volume 68, 2017
Annual Review of Psychology - Volume 68, 2017
Volume 68, 2017
- Preface
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Eavesdropping on Memory
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 1–18More LessFor more than four decades, I have been studying human memory. My research concerns the malleable nature of memory. Information suggested to an individual about an event can be integrated with the memory of the event itself, so that what actually occurred, and what was discussed later about what may have occurred, become inextricably interwoven, allowing distortion, elaboration, and even total fabrication. In my writings, classes, and public speeches, I've tried to convey one important take-home message: Just because someone tells you something in great detail, with much confidence, and with emotion, it doesn't mean that it is true. Here I describe my professional life as an experimental psychologist, in which I've eavesdropped on this process, as well as many personal experiences that may have influenced my thinking and choices.
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Memory: Organization and Control
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 19–45More LessA major goal of memory research is to understand how cognitive processes in memory are supported at the level of brain systems and network representations. Especially promising in this direction are new findings in humans and animals that converge in indicating a key role for the hippocampus in the systematic organization of memories. New findings also indicate that the prefrontal cortex may play an equally important role in the active control of memory organization during both encoding and retrieval. Observations about the dialog between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex provide new insights into the operation of the larger brain system that serves memory.
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Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention
Tirin Moore, and Marc ZirnsakVol. 68 (2017), pp. 47–72More LessSelective visual attention describes the tendency of visual processing to be confined largely to stimuli that are relevant to behavior. It is among the most fundamental of cognitive functions, particularly in humans and other primates for whom vision is the dominant sense. We review recent progress in identifying the neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. We discuss evidence from studies of different varieties of selective attention and examine how these varieties alter the processing of stimuli by neurons within the visual system, current knowledge of their causal basis, and methods for assessing attentional dysfunctions. In addition, we identify some key questions that remain in identifying the neural mechanisms that give rise to the selective processing of visual information.
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Learning, Reward, and Decision Making
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 73–100More LessIn this review, we summarize findings supporting the existence of multiple behavioral strategies for controlling reward-related behavior, including a dichotomy between the goal-directed or model-based system and the habitual or model-free system in the domain of instrumental conditioning and a similar dichotomy in the realm of Pavlovian conditioning. We evaluate evidence from neuroscience supporting the existence of at least partly distinct neuronal substrates contributing to the key computations necessary for the function of these different control systems. We consider the nature of the interactions between these systems and show how these interactions can lead to either adaptive or maladaptive behavioral outcomes. We then review evidence that an additional system guides inference concerning the hidden states of other agents, such as their beliefs, preferences, and intentions, in a social context. We also describe emerging evidence for an arbitration mechanism between model-based and model-free reinforcement learning, placing such a mechanism within the broader context of the hierarchical control of behavior.
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Reinforcement Learning and Episodic Memory in Humans and Animals: An Integrative Framework
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 101–128More LessWe review the psychology and neuroscience of reinforcement learning (RL), which has experienced significant progress in the past two decades, enabled by the comprehensive experimental study of simple learning and decision-making tasks. However, one challenge in the study of RL is computational: The simplicity of these tasks ignores important aspects of reinforcement learning in the real world: (a) State spaces are high-dimensional, continuous, and partially observable; this implies that (b) data are relatively sparse and, indeed, precisely the same situation may never be encountered twice; furthermore, (c) rewards depend on the long-term consequences of actions in ways that violate the classical assumptions that make RL tractable. A seemingly distinct challenge is that, cognitively, theories of RL have largely involved procedural and semantic memory, the way in which knowledge about action values or world models extracted gradually from many experiences can drive choice. This focus on semantic memory leaves out many aspects of memory, such as episodic memory, related to the traces of individual events. We suggest that these two challenges are related. The computational challenge can be dealt with, in part, by endowing RL systems with episodic memory, allowing them to (a) efficiently approximate value functions over complex state spaces, (b) learn with very little data, and (c) bridge long-term dependencies between actions and rewards. We review the computational theory underlying this proposal and the empirical evidence to support it. Our proposal suggests that the ubiquitous and diverse roles of memory in RL may function as part of an integrated learning system.
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Social Learning and Culture in Child and Chimpanzee
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 129–154More LessA few decades ago, we knew next to nothing about the behavior of our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee, but long-term field studies have since revealed an undreamed-of richness in the diversity of their cultural traditions across Africa. These discoveries have been complemented by a substantial suite of experimental studies, now bridging to the wild through field experiments. These field and experimental studies, particularly those in which direct chimpanzee–child comparisons have been made, delineate a growing set of commonalities between the phenomena of social learning and culture in the lives of chimpanzees and humans. These commonalities in social learning inform our understanding of the evolutionary roots of the cultural propensities the species share. At the same time, such comparisons throw into clearer relief the unique features of the distinctive human capacity for cumulative cultural evolution, and new research has begun to probe the key psychological attributes that may explain it.
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Survival of the Friendliest: Homo sapiens Evolved via Selection for Prosociality
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 155–186More LessThe challenge of studying human cognitive evolution is identifying unique features of our intelligence while explaining the processes by which they arose. Comparisons with nonhuman apes point to our early-emerging cooperative-communicative abilities as crucial to the evolution of all forms of human cultural cognition, including language. The human self-domestication hypothesis proposes that these early-emerging social skills evolved when natural selection favored increased in-group prosociality over aggression in late human evolution. As a by-product of this selection, humans are predicted to show traits of the domestication syndrome observed in other domestic animals. In reviewing comparative, developmental, neurobiological, and paleoanthropological research, compelling evidence emerges for the predicted relationship between unique human mentalizing abilities, tolerance, and the domestication syndrome in humans. This synthesis includes a review of the first a priori test of the self-domestication hypothesis as well as predictions for future tests.
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Numerical Development
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 187–213More LessIn this review, we attempt to integrate two crucial aspects of numerical development: learning the magnitudes of individual numbers and learning arithmetic. Numerical magnitude development involves gaining increasingly precise knowledge of increasing ranges and types of numbers: from nonsymbolic to small symbolic numbers, from smaller to larger whole numbers, and from whole to rational numbers. One reason why this development is important is that precision of numerical magnitude knowledge is correlated with, predictive of, and causally related to both whole and rational number arithmetic. Rational number arithmetic, however, also poses challenges beyond understanding the magnitudes of the individual numbers. Some of these challenges are inherent; they are present for all learners. Other challenges are culturally contingent; they vary from country to country and classroom to classroom. Generating theories and data that help children surmount the challenges of rational number arithmetic is a promising and important goal for future numerical development research.
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Gene × Environment Interactions: From Molecular Mechanisms to Behavior
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 215–241More LessGene-by-environment interactions (G×Es) can provide important biological insights into psychiatric disorders and may consequently have direct clinical implications. In this review, we begin with an overview of the major challenges G×E studies have faced (e.g., difficulties replicating findings and high false discovery rates). In light of these challenges, this review focuses on describing examples in which we might begin to understand G×Es on the molecular, cellular, circuit, and behavioral level and link this interaction to altered risk for the development of psychiatric disorders. We also describe recent studies that utilize a polygenic approach to examine G×Es. Finally, we discuss how gaining a deeper understanding of G×Es may translate into a therapeutic practice with more targeted treatments.
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The Structure of Social Cognition: In(ter)dependence of Sociocognitive Processes
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 243–267More LessSocial cognition is a topic of enormous interest and much research, but we are far from having an agreed taxonomy or factor structure of relevant processes. The aim of this review is to outline briefly what is known about the structure of social cognition and to suggest how further progress can be made to delineate the in(ter)dependence of core sociocognitive processes. We focus in particular on several processes that have been discussed and tested together in typical and atypical (notably autism spectrum disorder) groups: imitation, biological motion, empathy, and theory of mind. We consider the domain specificity/generality of core processes in social learning, reward, and attention, and we highlight the potential relevance of dual-process theories that distinguish systems for fast/automatic and slow/effortful processing. We conclude with methodological and conceptual suggestions for future progress in uncovering the structure of social cognition.
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Toward a Social Psychophysics of Face Communication
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 269–297More LessAs a highly social species, humans are equipped with a powerful tool for social communication—the face. Although seemingly simple, the human face can elicit multiple social perceptions due to the rich variations of its movements, morphology, and complexion. Consequently, identifying precisely what face information elicits different social perceptions is a complex empirical challenge that has largely remained beyond the reach of traditional methods. In the past decade, the emerging field of social psychophysics has developed new methods to address this challenge, with the potential to transfer psychophysical laws of social perception to the digital economy via avatars and social robots. At this exciting juncture, it is timely to review these new methodological developments. In this article, we introduce and review the foundational methodological developments of social psychophysics, present work done in the past decade that has advanced understanding of the face as a tool for social communication, and discuss the major challenges that lie ahead.
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Social Motivation: Costs and Benefits of Selfishness and Otherishness
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 299–325More LessWe examine recent evidence on the consequences of selfishness and otherishness for psychological well-being, physical health, and relationships. In the first sections, we consider recent evidence regarding the costs and benefits of giving time, money, and support to others and the costs and benefits of taking or receiving those things from others. Then, because the behaviors of giving and taking can be motivated either by selfish or otherish concerns, we next consider the costs and benefits of the motivation underlying giving and taking. We also examine why and for whom selfishness and otherishness have consequences for psychological well-being, physical health, and relationships. We focus on mechanisms identified in research, including intrapsychic mechanisms such as positive and negative affect, self-esteem and self-efficacy, a sense of meaning and purpose in life, and a sense of connectedness to or isolation from others, as well as interpersonal processes such as reciprocation of support and responsiveness.
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Attitude Strength
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 327–351More LessAttitude strength has been the focus of a huge volume of research in psychology and related sciences for decades. The insights offered by this literature have tremendous value for understanding attitude functioning and structure and for the effective application of the attitude concept in applied settings. This is the first Annual Review of Psychology article on the topic, and it offers a review of theory and evidence regarding one of the most researched strength-related attitude features: attitude importance. Personal importance is attached to an attitude when the attitude is perceived to be relevant to self-interest, social identification with reference groups or reference individuals, and values. Attaching personal importance to an attitude causes crystallizing of attitudes (via enhanced resistance to change), effortful gathering and processing of relevant information, accumulation of a large store of well-organized relevant information in long-term memory, enhanced attitude extremity and accessibility, enhanced attitude impact on the regulation of interpersonal attraction, energizing of emotional reactions, and enhanced impact of attitudes on behavioral intentions and action. Thus, important attitudes are real and consequential psychological forces, and their study offers opportunities for addressing behavioral change.
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How Power Affects People: Activating, Wanting, and Goal Seeking
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 353–381More LessSociocognitive research has demonstrated that power affects how people feel, think, and act. In this article, I review literature from social psychology, neuroscience, management, and animal research and propose an integrated framework of power as an intensifier of goal-related approach motivation. A growing literature shows that power energizes thought, speech, and action and orients individuals toward salient goals linked to power roles, predispositions, tasks, and opportunities. Power magnifies self-expression linked to active parts of the self (the active self), enhancing confidence, self-regulation, and prioritization of efforts toward advancing focal goals. The effects of power on cognitive processes, goal preferences, performance, and corruption are discussed, and its potentially detrimental effects on social attention, perspective taking, and objectification of subordinates are examined. Several inconsistencies in the literature are explained by viewing power holders as more flexible and dynamic than is usually assumed.
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The Psychology of Close Relationships: Fourteen Core Principles
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 383–411More LessRelationship science is a theory-rich discipline, but there have been no attempts to articulate the broader themes or principles that cut across the theories themselves. We have sought to fill that void by reviewing the psychological literature on close relationships, particularly romantic relationships, to extract its core principles. This review reveals 14 principles, which collectively address four central questions: (a) What is a relationship? (b) How do relationships operate? (c) What tendencies do people bring to their relationships? (d) How does the context affect relationships? The 14 principles paint a cohesive and unified picture of romantic relationships that reflects a strong and maturing discipline. However, the principles afford few of the sorts of conflicting predictions that can be especially helpful in fostering novel theory development. We conclude that relationship science is likely to benefit from simultaneous pushes toward both greater integration across theories (to reduce redundancy) and greater emphasis on the circumstances under which existing (or not-yet-developed) principles conflict with one another.
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Moving Beyond Correlations in Assessing the Consequences of Poverty
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 413–434More LessIn the United States, does growing up in a poor household cause negative developmental outcomes for children? Hundreds of studies have documented statistical associations between family income in childhood and a host of outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Many of these studies have used correlational evidence to draw policy conclusions regarding the benefits of added family income for children, in particular children in families with incomes below the poverty line. Are these conclusions warranted? After a review of possible mechanisms linking poverty to negative childhood outcomes, we summarize the evidence for income's effects on children, paying particular attention to the strength of the evidence and the timing of economic deprivation. We demonstrate that, in contrast to the nearly universal associations between poverty and children's outcomes in the correlational literature, impacts estimated from social experiments and quasi-experiments are more selective. In particular, these stronger studies have linked increases in family income to increased school achievement in middle childhood and to greater educational attainment in adolescence and early adulthood. There is no experimental or quasi-experimental evidence in the United States that links child outcomes to economic deprivation in the first several years of life. Understanding the nature of socioeconomic influences, as well as their potential use in evidence-based policy recommendations, requires greater attention to identifying causal effects.
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Culture Three Ways: Culture and Subcultures Within Countries
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 435–463More LessCulture can be thought of as a set of everyday practices and a core theme—individualism, collectivism, or honor—as well as the capacity to understand each of these themes. In one's own culture, it is easy to fail to see that a cultural lens exists and instead to think that there is no lens at all, only reality. Hence, studying culture requires stepping out of it. There are two main methods to do so: The first involves using between-group comparisons to highlight differences and the second involves using experimental methods to test the consequences of disruption to implicit cultural frames. These methods highlight three ways that culture organizes experience: (a) It shields reflexive processing by making everyday life feel predictable, (b) it scaffolds which cognitive procedure (connect, separate, or order) will be the default in ambiguous situations, and (c) it facilitates situation-specific accessibility of alternate cognitive procedures. Modern societal social-demographic trends reduce predictability and increase collectivism and honor-based go-to cognitive procedures.
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Learning from Errors
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 465–489More LessAlthough error avoidance during learning appears to be the rule in American classrooms, laboratory studies suggest that it may be a counterproductive strategy, at least for neurologically typical students. Experimental investigations indicate that errorful learning followed by corrective feedback is beneficial to learning. Interestingly, the beneficial effects are particularly salient when individuals strongly believe that their error is correct: Errors committed with high confidence are corrected more readily than low-confidence errors. Corrective feedback, including analysis of the reasoning leading up to the mistake, is crucial. Aside from the direct benefit to learners, teachers gain valuable information from errors, and error tolerance encourages students’ active, exploratory, generative engagement. If the goal is optimal performance in high-stakes situations, it may be worthwhile to allow and even encourage students to commit and correct errors while they are in low-stakes learning situations rather than to assiduously avoid errors at all costs.
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Mindfulness Interventions
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 491–516More LessMindfulness interventions aim to foster greater attention to and awareness of present moment experience. There has been a dramatic increase in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mindfulness interventions over the past two decades. This article evaluates the growing evidence of mindfulness intervention RCTs by reviewing and discussing (a) the effects of mindfulness interventions on health, cognitive, affective, and interpersonal outcomes; (b) evidence-based applications of mindfulness interventions to new settings and populations (e.g., the workplace, military, schools); (c) psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness interventions; (d) mindfulness intervention dosing considerations; and (e) potential risks of mindfulness interventions. Methodologically rigorous RCTs have demonstrated that mindfulness interventions improve outcomes in multiple domains (e.g., chronic pain, depression relapse, addiction). Discussion focuses on opportunities and challenges for mindfulness intervention research and on community applications.
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Hidden Wounds? Inflammatory Links Between Childhood Trauma and Psychopathology
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 517–544More LessChildhood trauma is a key risk factor for psychopathology. However, little is known about how exposure to childhood trauma is translated into biological risk for psychopathology. Observational human studies and experimental animal models suggest that childhood exposure to stress can trigger an enduring systemic inflammatory response not unlike the bodily response to physical injury. In turn, these “hidden wounds” of childhood trauma can affect brain development, key behavioral domains (e.g., cognition, positive valence systems, negative valence systems), reactivity to subsequent stressors, and, ultimately, risk for psychopathology. Further research is needed to better characterize the inflammatory links between childhood trauma and psychopathology. Detecting and healing these hidden wounds may help prevent and treat psychopathology emerging after childhood trauma.
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Adjusting to Chronic Health Conditions
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 545–571More LessResearch on adjustment to chronic disease is critical in today's world, in which people are living longer lives, but lives are increasingly likely to be characterized by one or more chronic illnesses. Chronic illnesses may deteriorate, enter remission, or fluctuate, but their defining characteristic is that they persist. In this review, we first examine the effects of chronic disease on one's sense of self. Then we review categories of factors that influence how one adjusts to chronic illness, with particular emphasis on the impact of these factors on functional status and psychosocial adjustment. We begin with contextual factors, including demographic variables such as sex and race, as well as illness dimensions such as stigma and illness identity. We then examine a set of dispositional factors that influence chronic illness adjustment, organizing these into resilience and vulnerability factors. Resilience factors include cognitive adaptation indicators, personality variables, and benefit-finding. Vulnerability factors include a pessimistic attributional style, negative gender-related traits, and rumination. We then turn to social environmental variables, including both supportive and unsupportive interactions. Finally, we review chronic illness adjustment within the context of dyadic coping. We conclude by examining potential interactions among these classes of variables and outlining a set of directions for future research.
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Health Behavior Change: Moving from Observation to Intervention
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 573–600More LessHow can progress in research on health behavior change be accelerated? Experimental medicine (EM) offers an approach that can help investigators specify the research questions that need to be addressed and the evidence needed to test those questions. Whereas current research draws predominantly on multiple overlapping theories resting largely on correlational evidence, the EM approach emphasizes experimental tests of targets or mechanisms of change and programmatic research on which targets change health behaviors and which techniques change those targets. There is evidence that engaging particular targets promotes behavior change; however, systematic studies are needed to identify and validate targets and to discover when and how targets are best engaged. The EM approach promises progress in answering the key question that will enable the science of health behavior change to improve public health: What strategies are effective in promoting behavior change, for whom, and under what circumstances?
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Experiments with More Than One Random Factor: Designs, Analytic Models, and Statistical Power
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 601–625More LessTraditional methods of analyzing data from psychological experiments are based on the assumption that there is a single random factor (normally participants) to which generalization is sought. However, many studies involve at least two random factors (e.g., participants and the targets to which they respond, such as words, pictures, or individuals). The application of traditional analytic methods to the data from such studies can result in serious bias in testing experimental effects. In this review, we develop a comprehensive typology of designs involving two random factors, which may be either crossed or nested, and one fixed factor, condition. We present appropriate linear mixed models for all designs and develop effect size measures. We provide the tools for power estimation for all designs. We then discuss issues of design choice, highlighting power and feasibility considerations. Our goal is to encourage appropriate analytic methods that produce replicable results for studies involving new samples of both participants and targets.
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Interactions With Robots: The Truths We Reveal About Ourselves
Vol. 68 (2017), pp. 627–652More LessIn movies, robots are often extremely humanlike. Although these robots are not yet reality, robots are currently being used in healthcare, education, and business. Robots provide benefits such as relieving loneliness and enabling communication. Engineers are trying to build robots that look and behave like humans and thus need comprehensive knowledge not only of technology but also of human cognition, emotion, and behavior. This need is driving engineers to study human behavior toward other humans and toward robots, leading to greater understanding of how humans think, feel, and behave in these contexts, including our tendencies for mindless social behaviors, anthropomorphism, uncanny feelings toward robots, and the formation of emotional attachments. However, in considering the increased use of robots, many people have concerns about deception, privacy, job loss, safety, and the loss of human relationships. Human–robot interaction is a fascinating field and one in which psychologists have much to contribute, both to the development of robots and to the study of human behavior.
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Previous Volumes
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Volume 75 (2024)
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Volume 74 (2023)
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Volume 73 (2022)
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Volume 72 (2021)
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Volume 71 (2020)
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Volume 70 (2019)
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Volume 69 (2018)
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Volume 68 (2017)
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Volume 67 (2016)
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Volume 66 (2015)
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Volume 65 (2014)
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Volume 64 (2013)
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Volume 63 (2012)
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Volume 62 (2011)
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Volume 61 (2010)
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Volume 60 (2009)
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Volume 59 (2008)
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Volume 58 (2007)
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Volume 57 (2006)
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Volume 56 (2005)
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Volume 55 (2004)
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Volume 54 (2003)
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Volume 53 (2002)
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Volume 52 (2001)
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Volume 51 (2000)
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Volume 50 (1999)
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Volume 49 (1998)
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Volume 48 (1997)
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Volume 47 (1996)
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Volume 46 (1995)
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Volume 45 (1994)
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Volume 44 (1993)
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Volume 43 (1992)
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Volume 42 (1991)
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Volume 41 (1990)
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Volume 40 (1989)
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Volume 39 (1988)
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Volume 38 (1987)
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Volume 37 (1986)
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Volume 36 (1985)
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Volume 35 (1984)
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Volume 34 (1983)
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Volume 33 (1982)
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Volume 32 (1981)
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Volume 31 (1980)
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Volume 30 (1979)
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Volume 29 (1978)
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Volume 28 (1977)
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Volume 27 (1976)
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Volume 26 (1975)
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Volume 25 (1974)
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Volume 24 (1973)
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Volume 23 (1972)
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Volume 22 (1971)
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Volume 21 (1970)
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Volume 20 (1969)
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Volume 19 (1968)
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Volume 18 (1967)
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Volume 17 (1966)
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Volume 16 (1965)
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Volume 15 (1964)
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Volume 14 (1963)
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Volume 13 (1962)
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Volume 12 (1961)
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Volume 11 (1960)
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Volume 10 (1959)
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Volume 9 (1958)
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Volume 8 (1957)
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Volume 7 (1956)
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Volume 6 (1955)
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Volume 5 (1954)
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Volume 4 (1953)
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Volume 3 (1952)
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Volume 2 (1951)
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Volume 1 (1950)
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Volume 0 (1932)