Chan-Reynolds, Michael G

It is widely believed that basic mental processes involved in skilled reading are automatic in the sense that they occur without intention. Evidence that reading occurs without intention comes from the observation that the meaning of a colour word (e.g., "red") affects the time to name the ink-colour of the word in the Stroop task. Evidence also suggests that non-colour words (e.g., house) interfere even though they are irrelevant to the colour naming task. The present study examined which reading processes are triggered without intention in the non-colour word Stroop task. One hundred and twenty skilled English readers completed both a reading aloud task and a colour naming task. In order to identify the reading processes triggered without intention, three psycholinguistic variables were examined, lexicality, word frequency, and neighbourhood density. The findings suggest that processing up to and including the activation of orthographic lexical representations occurs without intention and that intention is required to activate all subsequent reading processes.

Author Keywords: Attention, Reading, Stroop Effect, Visual Word Recognition

Office workers consistently report greater productivity in the workplace when standing compared to sitting (Chambers et al., 2019; MacEwan et al., 2015; Mantzari et al., 2018). In contrast, laboratory studies report inconsistent evidence that posture (sitting vs. standing) affects cognitive performance, usually operationalized as selective attention (Caron et al., 2020; 2022; Rosenbaum et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2019). The present work assessed whether the discrepancy between workplace and laboratory findings is because workplace tasks are more difficult than the tasks used in laboratory research. Three visual search experiments are reported. Search difficulty was increased in Experiments 1 and 2 and posture difficulty was increased in Experiment 3. There was no evidence that posture affected attention in any of the experiments suggesting that the failure to find an effect of posture on attention in previous work was not due to the task difficulty.

Author Keywords: Cognition, Cognitive Resources, Dual Task, Embodied Cognition, Posture, Selective Attention

It is widely believed that basic mental processes involved in skilled reading are automatic in the sense that they occur without intention. Evidence that reading occurs without intention comes from the observation that the meaning of a colour word (e.g., "red") affects the time to name the ink-colour of the word in the Stroop task. Evidence also suggests that non-colour words (e.g., house) interfere even though they are irrelevant to the colour naming task. The present study examined which reading processes are triggered without intention in the non-colour word Stroop task. One hundred and twenty skilled English readers completed both a reading aloud task and a colour naming task. In order to identify the reading processes triggered without intention, three psycholinguistic variables were examined, lexicality, word frequency, and neighbourhood density. The findings suggest that processing up to and including the activation of orthographic lexical representations occurs without intention and that intention is required to activate all subsequent reading processes.

Author Keywords: Attention, Reading, Stroop Effect, Visual Word Recognition

Research shows spending time in nature can result in many positive effects, including improving mood, connection to nature, and environmental concern. Certain activities may increase these positive effects of nature exposure. Citizen science (non-scientists collecting data to contribute to science) and environmental education (receiving information about the environment) are two potential ways to boost the positive effects of nature exposure. But little research has been done comparing citizen science with environmental education. To address this gap in knowledge, undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to spend five minutes outside daily, for two weeks, either simply observing nature, looking for birds, or looking for and recording bird sightings. Over time, all groups experienced improvements in mood, connection to nature, and environmental concern. However, connection to nature increased the most in people who simply observed nature. Unexpectedly, simply spending time in nature was the most effective intervention. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Author Keywords: Citizen Science, Emotional Well-Being, Environmental Concern, Environmental Education, Nature Exposure, Nature Relatedness