Serge Caparo
Biographic Data
| ID | 167925 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Serge Caparo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Serge |
| FAMILY NAME | Caparo |
| SIGNATURE | CAPARO S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Université Paris 8 |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6922-4449 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
There Is More Than Meets the Eye
Color's ultimate physical reality is continuous, and yet human beings “cut” this continuum into a rather small number of categories reflected in their languages’ color lexicon. There are striking cross‐linguistic differences in the color lexicon, which are primarily attributed to differences in communicative needs, but also striking commonalities, attributed to a common human perceptual system. Here, we challenge this notion of a uniform perceptu…
Reasoning does hurt
Human cognition involves two distinct processes: intuition and deliberation. While deliberation requires significant cognitive effort and is often resource-intensive, intuition occurs effortlessly. A key challenge for reasoning theories is to identify the triggers for deliberation. Some compelling theories suggest that deliberative processes are activated by a metacognitive experience of uncertainty; however, they struggle to incorporate findings…
Complementary, alternative and integrative medicine for autism
The use of complementary, alternative and integrative medicine (CAIM) is highly prevalent among autistic individuals, with up to 90% reporting having used CAIM at least once in their lifetime. However, the evidence base for the effects of CAIM for autism remains uncertain. Here, to fill this gap, we conducted an umbrella review of meta-analyses exploring the effects of CAIM in autism across the lifespan and developed a web platform to disseminate…
Reconceptualizing Metacognitive Experience in Dual‐Process Reasoning
Human thinking has long been posited to involve two different cognitive processes, also known as intuition and deliberation. While deliberation is effortful and cognitively costly, intuition is effortless. A central issue for reasoning theories is to account for the trigger of deliberation. Compelling theories explain the trigger of deliberative processes by the existence of a metacognitive experience. A feeling of rightness, of error, or of unce…
Are health protective behaviors promoted by anticipated regret
Several factors influence the adoption of health-protective behaviors, including anticipatory affective reactions like regret. The ability to anticipate regret matures with age, allowing individuals to make increasingly risk-averse decisions. This study examined the relationship between age and the adoption of health-protective behaviors to limit the spread of a virus from adolescence to adulthood, and the mediating effect of anticipated regret. …
Examining the role of deliberation in de-bias training
Does avoiding biased responding to reasoning problems and grasping the correct solution require engaging in effortful deliberation or can such solution insight be acquired more intuitively? In this study we set out to test the impact of deliberation on the efficiency of a de-bias training in which the problem logic was explained to participants. We focused on the infamous bat-and-ball problem and varied the degree of possible deliberation during…
The relationships between urbanicity, general cognitive ability, and susceptibility to the Ebbinghaus illusion
Debiasing thinking among non-Weird reasoners
Maternal trauma exposure is linked to adult offspring’s cognitive functioning in the context of mass violence
The findings demonstrate that the intergenerational transmission of trauma can impact the cognitive functioning of the next generation. These results also illustrate the profound and long-term human impact of mass violence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
How Threat Shapes Attention and Memory in the Himba, a Remote People of Namibia
Threatening stimuli capture our attention more rapidly than benign stimuli, and threatening experiences lead to longer lasting and more vivid episodic memories. The common interpretation of these findings is that humans share an evolved fear response that enables prioritized processing of threats, providing a survival advantage. This response is assumed to be universal; however, these findings have been documented almost entirely in WEIRD (wester…
Is adolescence believed to be a period of greater risk taking than adulthood
Little is known about adolescents’ own beliefs regarding their level of risk taking or regarding peer influence on the latter. This is an important matter given that beliefs influence judgements and decisions. With the present study, we aimed to study adolescents’ and adults’ beliefs about adolescents’ risk taking compared to adults’ risk taking, and beliefs about peer influence on risk taking. To this end, an experimental design was used. A cros…
Augmenting a colour lexicon
Languages differ markedly in the number of colour terms in their lexicons. The Himba, for example, a remote culture in Namibia, were reported in 2005 to have only a 5-colour term language. We re-examined their colour naming using a novel computer-based method drawing colours from across the gamut rather than only from the saturated shell of colour space that is the norm in cross-cultural colour research. Measuring confidence in communication, the…
Effects of a Cognitive Schema Account on the Stigma of Schizophrenia
Among people with psychiatric disorders, those with schizophrenia are subject to high levels of stigmatization. Research is necessary to identify new strategies that may help reduce the stigma of schizophrenia. Educational strategies using cognitive accounts, particularly early maladaptive schemas (EMSs), have shown promising results in the context of depression, but they have not been evaluated in the context of schizophrenia. The present study …
Intergenerational transmission of trauma and its association with attitudes toward reconciliation
These results suggest that the mental health of survivors of mass violence has repercussions on the intergroup attitudes of the following generation. This study has practical implications for sustainable peacebuilding in postconflict societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia
This research sketches the cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society almost completely devoid of modern artefacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgement, cooperative behaviour, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is assoc…
From bias to sound intuiting
The interplay between the importance of a decision and emotion in decision-making
Decision-making literature has demonstrated that individuals' preferences are strongly affected by the way in which choices are presented. This cognitive bias, termed the framing effect, is influenced by the importance of the possible outcomes that a decision can have. However, the direction of this influence remains poorly understood. The aim of this paper was to examine the role of the importance of a decision in framing susceptibility and to e…
The psychological correlates of transitional justice in Rwanda
contrary to what has been reported in two previous studies, participation in the Gacaca was not, in our data, negatively related to mental health or to social cohesion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Long-term cognitive correlates of exposure to trauma
This study reveals the important link between exposure to highly emotional events and cognitive function and highlights the need to attend not only to the mental health but also to the cognitive health of populations exposed to political violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Twenty years later, the cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation in Rwanda
With this work, we intended to draw a cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation. No study had yet examined the potential contribution of high‐level cognitive functioning, in addition to psychological health, to explaining attitudes towards reconciliation in societies exposed to major trauma such as post‐genocide Rwanda. We measured the contribution of general cognitive capacity, analytical thinking, and subjective judgements. Our results s…
Emotional Stroop interference in trauma-exposed individuals
Trait anxiety focuses spatial attention
Some findings suggest that trait anxiety impairs selective attention (e.g., Fox, 1993) while others suggest the opposite (e.g., Murray & Janelle, 2003). Both views may hold some truth if trait anxiety affects different levels of selective attention in opposite directions: trait anxiety might improve spatial attention, or perceptual selection, but weaken postperceptual selection. We used an adaptation of the flanker task (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973) …
Focused attention is not enough to activate discontinuities in lines, but scrutiny is
A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia
This research sketches the cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society almost completely devoid of modern artefacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgement, cooperative behaviour, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is assoc…
Focused attention is not enough to activate discontinuities in lines, but scrutiny is
Trait anxiety focuses spatial attention
Some findings suggest that trait anxiety impairs selective attention (e.g., Fox, 1993) while others suggest the opposite (e.g., Murray & Janelle, 2003). Both views may hold some truth if trait anxiety affects different levels of selective attention in opposite directions: trait anxiety might improve spatial attention, or perceptual selection, but weaken postperceptual selection. We used an adaptation of the flanker task (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973) …
Emotional Stroop interference in trauma-exposed individuals
Long-term cognitive correlates of exposure to trauma
This study reveals the important link between exposure to highly emotional events and cognitive function and highlights the need to attend not only to the mental health but also to the cognitive health of populations exposed to political violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Twenty years later, the cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation in Rwanda
With this work, we intended to draw a cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation. No study had yet examined the potential contribution of high‐level cognitive functioning, in addition to psychological health, to explaining attitudes towards reconciliation in societies exposed to major trauma such as post‐genocide Rwanda. We measured the contribution of general cognitive capacity, analytical thinking, and subjective judgements. Our results s…
The interplay between the importance of a decision and emotion in decision-making
Decision-making literature has demonstrated that individuals' preferences are strongly affected by the way in which choices are presented. This cognitive bias, termed the framing effect, is influenced by the importance of the possible outcomes that a decision can have. However, the direction of this influence remains poorly understood. The aim of this paper was to examine the role of the importance of a decision in framing susceptibility and to e…
The psychological correlates of transitional justice in Rwanda
contrary to what has been reported in two previous studies, participation in the Gacaca was not, in our data, negatively related to mental health or to social cohesion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
From bias to sound intuiting
Augmenting a colour lexicon
Languages differ markedly in the number of colour terms in their lexicons. The Himba, for example, a remote culture in Namibia, were reported in 2005 to have only a 5-colour term language. We re-examined their colour naming using a novel computer-based method drawing colours from across the gamut rather than only from the saturated shell of colour space that is the norm in cross-cultural colour research. Measuring confidence in communication, the…
Effects of a Cognitive Schema Account on the Stigma of Schizophrenia
Among people with psychiatric disorders, those with schizophrenia are subject to high levels of stigmatization. Research is necessary to identify new strategies that may help reduce the stigma of schizophrenia. Educational strategies using cognitive accounts, particularly early maladaptive schemas (EMSs), have shown promising results in the context of depression, but they have not been evaluated in the context of schizophrenia. The present study …
Intergenerational transmission of trauma and its association with attitudes toward reconciliation
These results suggest that the mental health of survivors of mass violence has repercussions on the intergroup attitudes of the following generation. This study has practical implications for sustainable peacebuilding in postconflict societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia
This research sketches the cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society almost completely devoid of modern artefacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgement, cooperative behaviour, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is assoc…
How Threat Shapes Attention and Memory in the Himba, a Remote People of Namibia
Threatening stimuli capture our attention more rapidly than benign stimuli, and threatening experiences lead to longer lasting and more vivid episodic memories. The common interpretation of these findings is that humans share an evolved fear response that enables prioritized processing of threats, providing a survival advantage. This response is assumed to be universal; however, these findings have been documented almost entirely in WEIRD (wester…
Is adolescence believed to be a period of greater risk taking than adulthood
Little is known about adolescents’ own beliefs regarding their level of risk taking or regarding peer influence on the latter. This is an important matter given that beliefs influence judgements and decisions. With the present study, we aimed to study adolescents’ and adults’ beliefs about adolescents’ risk taking compared to adults’ risk taking, and beliefs about peer influence on risk taking. To this end, an experimental design was used. A cros…
Examining the role of deliberation in de-bias training
Does avoiding biased responding to reasoning problems and grasping the correct solution require engaging in effortful deliberation or can such solution insight be acquired more intuitively? In this study we set out to test the impact of deliberation on the efficiency of a de-bias training in which the problem logic was explained to participants. We focused on the infamous bat-and-ball problem and varied the degree of possible deliberation during…
The relationships between urbanicity, general cognitive ability, and susceptibility to the Ebbinghaus illusion
Debiasing thinking among non-Weird reasoners
Maternal trauma exposure is linked to adult offspring’s cognitive functioning in the context of mass violence
The findings demonstrate that the intergenerational transmission of trauma can impact the cognitive functioning of the next generation. These results also illustrate the profound and long-term human impact of mass violence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Complementary, alternative and integrative medicine for autism
The use of complementary, alternative and integrative medicine (CAIM) is highly prevalent among autistic individuals, with up to 90% reporting having used CAIM at least once in their lifetime. However, the evidence base for the effects of CAIM for autism remains uncertain. Here, to fill this gap, we conducted an umbrella review of meta-analyses exploring the effects of CAIM in autism across the lifespan and developed a web platform to disseminate…
Reconceptualizing Metacognitive Experience in Dual‐Process Reasoning
Human thinking has long been posited to involve two different cognitive processes, also known as intuition and deliberation. While deliberation is effortful and cognitively costly, intuition is effortless. A central issue for reasoning theories is to account for the trigger of deliberation. Compelling theories explain the trigger of deliberative processes by the existence of a metacognitive experience. A feeling of rightness, of error, or of unce…
Are health protective behaviors promoted by anticipated regret
Several factors influence the adoption of health-protective behaviors, including anticipatory affective reactions like regret. The ability to anticipate regret matures with age, allowing individuals to make increasingly risk-averse decisions. This study examined the relationship between age and the adoption of health-protective behaviors to limit the spread of a virus from adolescence to adulthood, and the mediating effect of anticipated regret. …
There Is More Than Meets the Eye
Color's ultimate physical reality is continuous, and yet human beings “cut” this continuum into a rather small number of categories reflected in their languages’ color lexicon. There are striking cross‐linguistic differences in the color lexicon, which are primarily attributed to differences in communicative needs, but also striking commonalities, attributed to a common human perceptual system. Here, we challenge this notion of a uniform perceptu…
Reasoning does hurt
Human cognition involves two distinct processes: intuition and deliberation. While deliberation requires significant cognitive effort and is often resource-intensive, intuition occurs effortlessly. A key challenge for reasoning theories is to identify the triggers for deliberation. Some compelling theories suggest that deliberative processes are activated by a metacognitive experience of uncertainty; however, they struggle to incorporate findings…
Psychology (21 works) · Cognitive psychology (10 works) · Cognition (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Developmental psychology (6 works) · Psychiatry (6 works) · Clinical Psychology (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (5 works) · Medicine (5 works)