Change blindness is a phenomenon in which even obvious details in a visual scene change without being noticed. Although change blindness has been studied extensively in humans, we do not yet know if it is a phenomenon that also occurs in other animals. Thus, investigation of change blindness in a nonhuman species may prove to be valuable by beginning to provide some insight into its ultimate causes. Pigeons learned a change detection task in which pecks to the location of a change in a sequence of stimulus displays were reinforced. They were worse at detecting changes if the stimulus displays were separated by a brief interstimulus interval, during which the display was blank, and this primary result matches the general pattern seen in previous studies of change blindness in humans. A second experiment attempted to identify specific stimulus characteristics that most reliably produced a failure to detect changes. Change detection was more difficult when interstimulus intervals were longer and when the change was iterated fewer times.

For individuals who have not been diagnosed with cognitive impairment, neither the MMSE nor the MoCA can be reliably used as an indicator of driving risk, but for individuals with a preestablished diagnosis of cognitive impairment, the MoCA is a useful tool in this regard. A score on the MoCA of 18 or less should raise concerns about driving safety.

Mass marketing scams extract an enormous toll, yet the literature on scams is just emerging. In Experiment 1, 211 adults reviewed a solicitation and rated their intention of contacting an "activation number" for a prize. Scarcity and authority were manipulated. Many (48.82%) indicated some willingness to contact to "activate" the winnings. Intention of responding was inversely related to the perception of risk (b ϭ Ϫ.441, p Ͻ .001) and positively associated with perception of benefits (b ϭ .554, p Ͻ .001), but not with the experimental condition. In Experiment 2, 291 adults were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions (low, medium, or high activation fee), and were asked to report willingness to contact. Activation fees decreased intent to contact, but percentages remained high (25.70%), with higher perception of risk reducing contact rates (b ϭ Ϫ.581, p Ͻ .001), and benefit perception increasing intent to contact (b ϭ .381, p Ͻ .001). Our studies indicate that consumers are responding to perceived risks and benefits in their decision-making, regardless of persuasion elements used by scammers. In summary, our studies find that consumers with lower levels of education and high perception of benefits are at increased risk for mass marketing scams.

Background and ObjectiveSocial support is known to be an important protective factor against elder financial exploitation (FE), yet few empirical studies have examined the relationship between FE and distinct components of social support. Perceived social support, social network size, and interactions with close network members (positive and negative) were measured separately and tested as potential predictors of FE.Research Design and MethodsThree hundred and ninety-five community-dwelling adults aged 60 and older were recruited to complete a 90-minute survey and interview. We used OLS regression to examine the role of social support in FE. Other risk factors associated with FE including dependency, poor physical health, depression, cognition, and demographic characteristics were included as potential predictors.ResultsNegative interactions with close network members predicted FE, and remained predictive when all other variables and social support factors were included in the model. Other social support factors were not unique predictors of FE.Discussion and ImplicationsNegative social interactions with close network members are important to assess and consider in FE prevention and intervention programs; relationships between social interactions and other risk factors warrant further attention.

Pigeons can learn structured sequences of cued responses and perform them quickly, even when random variability is later introduced into the originally learned sequence, making some cue locations unpredictable. In order to determine if initial learning shows the same tolerance of spatial variability as steady-state performance, naïve pigeons were trained on random distortions around a structured sequence without having seen the original sequence itself. Learning was possible, but accommodated less variability than did performance of the same sequence previously learned in an undistorted context. Analysis of results indicated that performance of a randomly distorted sequence is best when birds are initially trained with little or no variability, and randomness is later introduced in a gradual fashion.