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Purpose: This investigation evaluated food values, food purchasing, and other food and eating-related outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec, Canada. The role of stress in eating outcomes was also examined. Methods: An online household survey was conducted among Quebec adults aged ≥18 years (n = 658). Changes in outcomes during, as compared to before, the pandemic were evaluated using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of free text responses. Eating outcomes by daily stress level (low, some, high) were assessed using Cochran–Armitage test for trend. Results: Most respondents reported increased importance and purchasing of local food products (77% and 68%, respectively) and 60% reported increased grocery spending (mean ± standard deviation: 28% ± 23%). Respondents with a higher daily stress level had a higher frequency of reporting eating more than usual compared to before the pandemic (low stress 21%, some stress 34%, high stress 39%, p-trend Conclusions: To support healthy eating during and post-pandemic, dietitians should consider patients’ mental/emotional well-being and time spent at home. Moreover, support of local food products may provide opportunities to promote healthy eating, sustainability, and post-pandemic resiliency of food systems.

A rare and unexpected change (or deviation) in the properties of an irrelevant auditory background can disrupt performance of a visual focal task via attentional capture. Although this effect is typically caused by a change in the acoustic properties of the sound, recent evidence has shown that a change in (semantic) category within a sound stream could also disrupt ongoing cognitive activity. The present study aimed to investigate the functional characteristics of this recently discovered categorical deviation effect. In two experiments, an irrelevant sound stream was presented while participants performed visual serial recall. We examined whether working memory capacity (WMC) is associated with susceptibility to distraction by an unexpected change in category within the sound. Acoustically deviating sounds were also presented to compare the categorical and acoustic deviation effects directly. Both experiments revealed that the categorical deviation effect was not correlated with WMC. The expected relationship between WMC and the acoustic deviation effect was observed, but the acoustic and categorical deviation effects were unrelated. Our results constitute new evidence of a distinction between the acoustic and categorical deviation effects despite their apparent similarity. They also suggest that the categorical deviation effect is not underpinned by attentional capture.

The Cognitive Shadow is a prototype decision support tool that can notify users when they deviate from their usual judgment pattern. Expert decision policies are learned automatically online while performing one’s task using a combination of machine learning algorithms. This study investigated whether combining this system with the use of a process tracing technique could improve its ability to model human decision policies. Participants played the role of anti-submarine warfare commanders and rated the likelihood of detecting a submarine in different ocean areas based on their environmental characteristics. In the process tracing condition, participants were asked to reveal only the information deemed necessary, and only that information was sent to the system for model training. In the control condition, all the available information was sent to the system with each decision. Results showed that process tracing data improved the model’s ability to predict human decisions compared to the control condition.

The Cognitive Shadow is a decision-support system that uses policy capturing to model human operators’ judgment policies and provide online predictions of their decisions. The system can provide support in reaction to a decision mismatch (shadowing mode) or proactively (recommendation mode). The goal of this study was to compare these two modes of operation in their ability to effectively model and support decision-making and to examine impacts on information processing, workload, and trust. Participants took part in an aircraft threat evaluation simulation without decision support or with the Cognitive Shadow (either shadowing or recommendation mode). Dwell time was collected over different areas of the user interface. While the recommendation mode had no advantage over the control group, the shadowing mode resulted in greater human and model accuracy. This mode led to longer dwell time over the parameters zone presenting key information for decision-making. These benefits were maintained even after the tool was removed. Workload was unaffected by the mode, and while trust was initially higher in the recommendation mode, it quickly became equivalent between both modes, overall supporting shadowing as the better configuration for cognitive assistance. Results are discussed in terms of decision processes, operators support, and automation bias.

The Cognitive Shadow is a prototype tool intended to support decision making by autonomously modeling human operators’ response pattern and providing online notifications to the operators about the decision they are expected to make in new situations. Since the system can be configured either in a reactive “shadowing” or a proactive “recommendation” mode, this study aimed to determine its most effective mode in terms of human and model accuracy, workload, and trust. Subjects participated in an aircraft threat evaluation simulation without decision support or while using either mode of the Cognitive Shadow. Whereas the recommendation mode had no advantage over the control condition, the shadowing mode led to higher human and model accuracy. These benefits were maintained even when the tool was unexpectedly removed. Neither mode influenced workload, and the initial lower trust rating in the shadowing mode faded quickly, making it the best overall configuration for the cognitive assistant.

In complex dynamic work environments, the consequences of task interruptions on performance can put public safety at risk. If not designed carefully, current tools aiming to facilitate interruption recovery can instead hamper performance because of information overload. Although a simpler solution-the forewarning of an imminent interruption-has proven effective in static contexts, existing theories of task interruption do not clearly predict its impact on the resumption of dynamically evolving tasks. The current study examined the effects of a preinterruption warning in dynamic settings to develop a better understanding of task resumption and supplement current theoretical accounts. In a simulation of above-water warfare, scenarios were either uninterrupted, unexpectedly interrupted, or interrupted following an auditory warning. Behavioral, oculomotor, and pupillometric data regarding decision making, information processing, and cognitive load were computed before, during, and after each interruption (or the corresponding moment). Interruption warnings triggered a cognitively demanding preinterruption preparation that, in turn, speeded up postinterruption information processing and decision making and lowered cognitive load when resuming the interrupted task. These findings help to complement current theories of interruptions while showing that preinterruption warnings represent a promising way to support interruption recovery in complex dynamic situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

While non-player opponents in commercial video games often rely on simple artificial intelligence techniques, machine learning techniques that capture human strategies could make them more engaging. Cognitive Shadow is a prototype tool that combines several artificial intelligence techniques to continuously model human decision-making patterns during tasks that require categorical decision-making. The present study aims to assess the potential of Cognitive Shadow to create learning opponents that will counter the player's decisions in a strategy game, making it more challenging and engaging. The game developed to this end is a more complex version of rock-paper-scissors, set within the context of a wizards’ duel. Each participant (Player 1) took part in three game sessions of 12 battles (each including five rounds), only being told that they would face a non-player opponent. During Session 1, Cognitive Shadow was in learning mode, thus the non-player opponent (Player 2) chose its plays at random. During Session 2, Cognitive Shadow was active and helped counter participants’ decisions without their knowledge. Before Session 3, participants were informed that their opponent was using machine learning to anticipate and counter their strategy. The results showed that Player 2 was more effective with the help of Cognitive Shadow, having won significantly more battles in Sessions 2 and 3 than in Session 1. In addition, the level of engagement reported by human players increased significantly in Session 3. These results indicate that cognitive shadowing can be used in a strategy game to increase engagement when players are aware of the learning behavior.

Automatic information processing has been and still is a debated topic. Traditionally, automatic processes are deemed to take place autonomously and independently of top-down cognitive control. For decades, the literature on reading has brought to the fore empirical phenomena such as Stroop and semantic priming effects that provide support for the assumption that semantic information can be accessed automatically. More recently, there has been growing evidence that semantic processing is in fact susceptible to higher-level cognitive influences, suggesting that this form of processing is instead conditionally automatic. The purpose of the present study was to revisit this debate using a novel approach: The automatic access to the meaning of irrelevant auditory stimuli was tested through the assessment of their distractive power. More specifically, we aimed to examine whether a categorical change in the content of to-be-ignored auditory sequences composed of speech items that are personally nonsignificant to participants (e.g., a digit among letters) can disrupt an unrelated visual focal task. In seven experiments, we assessed this categorical deviation effect and its functional properties. We established that distraction by categorical deviation is noncontingent on the activated task set and appears resistant to top-down control manipulations. By suggesting not only that the semantic content of the irrelevant sound can be extracted preattentively, but also that such semantic activation is ineluctable during auditory distraction, these findings shed new light on the automatic nature of semantic processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Multitasking-the performance of several tasks at the same time-is becoming increasingly prevalent in workplaces. Multitasking is known to disrupt performance, particularly in complex and dynamic si ...

Cell-phone conversation is ubiquitous within public spaces. The current study investigates whether ignored cell-phone conversation impairs eyewitness memory for a perpetrator. Participants viewed a video of a staged crime in the presence of 1 side of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful halfalogue), 2 sides of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful dialogue), 1 side of an incomprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningless halfalogue), or quiet. Between 24 and 28 hr later, participants freely described the perpetrator's face, constructed a single composite image of the perpetrator from memory, and attempted to identify the perpetrator from a sequential lineup. Further, participants rated the likeness of the composites to the perpetrator. Face recall and lineup identification were impaired when participants witnessed the staged crime in the presence of a meaningful halfalogue compared to a meaningless halfalogue, meaningful dialogue, or quiet. Moreover, likeness ratings showed that the composites constructed after ignoring the meaningful halfalogue resembled the perpetrator less than did those constructed after experiencing quiet or ignoring a meaningless halfalogue or a meaningful dialogue. The unpredictability of the meaningful content of the halfalogue, rather than its acoustic unexpectedness, produces distraction. The results are novel in that they suggest that an everyday distraction, even when presented in a different modality to target information, can impair the long-term memory of an eyewitness. (PsycINFO Database Record

Operators working in extreme environments are often confronted with task interruptions. These interruptions tend to impair performance, which can represent a threat to public safety. Most of the tools designed to aid task resumption in such dynamic contexts are post-interruption solutions consisting of providing information about missed events once the interruption is over. The goal of the present study is to test whether a pre-interruption solution consisting of warning operators of an impending interruption can also facilitate interruption recovery. We employed a microworld simulating above-water warfare and compared primary task recovery following an interruption that could either be notified (8 s before it takes place) or not. Results revealed enhanced post-interruption decision accuracy and speed when providing foreknowledge of the imminent interruption. These findings suggest that a pre-interruption warning, which has already proven effective in static contexts, can also support interruption recovery in dynamic settings.

The rare occurrence of a sound deviating from the auditory background tends to trigger attentional orienting. While some sympathetic physiological responses can be used to index this orienting response, findings surrounding the pupillary dilation response (PDR) as a proxy for the orienting response are conflicting. The current study was tailor-designed to examine whether the PDR satisfies specific criteria of an orienting response index, namely the classic habituation pattern and a sensitivity to the size of the deviation. The PDR decrement to a repeated standard sound, recovery to a deviant sound, and dishabituation to the re-presentation of the standard were assessed for small and large deviations embedded in irrelevant auditory sequences. The PDR not only showed habituation and dishabituation, but also recovered in correspondence with the magnitude of the acoustic deviation. This consistency between variations of the PDR and orienting response's properties indicates that the PDR is a valid index of the auditory orienting response.

We investigated the discrimination of two neighboring intra- or inter-modal empty time intervals marked by three successive stimuli. Each of the three markers was a flash (visual-V) or a sound (auditory-A). The first and last markers were of the same modality, while the second one was either A or V, resulting in four conditions: VVV, VAV, AVA and AAA. Participants judged whether the second interval, whose duration was systematically varied, was shorter or longer than the 500-ms first interval. Compared with VVV and AAA, discrimination was impaired with VAV, but not so much with AVA (in Experiment 1). Whereas VAV and AVA consisted of the same set of single intermodal intervals (VA and AV), discrimination was impaired in the VAV compared to the AVA condition. This difference between VAV and AVA could not be attributed to the participants' strategy to perform the discrimination task, e.g., ignoring the standard interval or replacing the visual stimuli with sounds in their mind (in Experiment 2). These results are discussed in terms of sequential grouping according to sensory similarity.

The occurrence of an unexpected, infrequent sound in an otherwise homogeneous auditory background tends to disrupt the ongoing cognitive task. This "deviation effect" is typically explained in terms of attentional capture whereby the deviant sound draws attention away from the focal activity, regardless of the nature of this activity. Yet, there is theoretical and empirical evidence suggesting that the attention-capture mechanism underlying this form of distraction could rather be triggered in a task-contingent fashion. The present study aimed at determining whether the auditory deviation effect reflects the action of either a stimulus-driven or a task-contingent orienting mechanism. To do so, we conducted a systematic investigation whereby the impact of verbal deviants-a letter embedded in the repetition of another letter-and spatial deviants-a sound presented contralaterally to the other sounds-on verbal and spatial short-term memory (STM) was assessed. This study established that both verbal and spatial deviants can hinder both verbal and spatial order-reconstruction (Experiment 1) and missing-item tasks (Experiment 2). Such results demonstrate that the deviation effect reflects a general form of auditory distraction as interference took place both within and across domains and regardless of the processes engaged in the focal task. (PsycINFO Database Record

In 1933, Hoagland proposed that temporal processing was based on an internal clock controlled by a temperature-dependent chemical pacemaker. Several studies have tested this hypothesis, mainly using intervals above 1 s, and the global picture about the impact of temperature remains unclear. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between daily fluctuations of body temperature and the processing of sub-second intervals. In a within-subject design, twelve university students performed a finger tapping task, a time reproduction task, and a time discrimination task at three different time of the day, 9 am, 1 pm and 5 pm, and using four sub-seconds intervals (450, 550, 650 and 750 ms). As expected, we observed different degrees of body temperature across the time of the day, with the lower temperature recorded in the morning and the higher in the late afternoon. Results showed that temporal performances were independent of body temperature, regardless of the temporal task used and of the standard interval tested, indicating that performances within the same temporal task were consistent across different temperature levels. Our study provides evidence that the abilities for processing very brief intervals are reliable across the time of the day and are not modulated by the body temperature.

The aim of the present study was to investigate sex-related variations in the perception of the duration of emotional stimuli (human faces). Twenty male and 20 female participants estimated the duration of angry, ashamed and neutral faces marking 0.4 to 1.6 s intervals. Female faces were used in one session, and male faces in the other. Compared to the angry faces condition, intervals were underestimated when ashamed faces were shown. However, the intervals in neither conditions were significantly overestimated or underestimated compared to the neutral condition. Even more critical is the fact that there was an underestimation by male participants of the duration of male faces compared to female faces; and female participants overestimated the duration in the anger condition, compared with the shame condition, only when male faces were presented. Moreover, the emotional effects on the participants’ performance were correlated to inter-individual differences in empathic abilities. The findings are discussed in terms of sex differences, of social context, and of how attention is solicited and arousal generated by emotions.