How Indirect Questioning Techniques May Promote Democracy: A Preelection Polling Experiment

Socially desirable responding may cause differences between preelection polls and election outcomes. Bias-free preelection polls are, however, important because they influence election outcomes. Benefiting from a unique opportunity, we experimentally controlled social desirability using the Crosswise Model in a poll prior to the German federal election in 2013. We found that due to strategic voting, outcome expectations were related to voting intentions; the election outcome was therefore likely distorted by social desirability bias in preelection polls. We recommend using indirect questioning techniques whenever a vote for at least one of the competing parties may be perceived as socially undesirable.     

Unique temporal change is the key to attentional capture

Abstract— Attentional capture refers to the observation that some events break through and attract one's attention even when one is engaged in a task for which these events are irrelevant. Previous research, focusing primarily on spatial factors, has shown that a new object is more salient in this regard than an abrupt change in an object's features. Here we show that feature changes can be as effective as new objects in capturing attention, provided that they occur during a period of temporal calm. Conversely, both feature changes and new objects are far less effective in capturing attention when they occur simultaneously with other display changes, such as coincident with the initial onset of the display or with small visual transients that occur during a display transition. These results highlight the importance of considering both space and time in studies of attentional capture; the most effective stimulus is unique in both dimensions.     

Learned helplessness deficits: Uncontrollable outcomes or perceived failure?

An experiment is described showing that learned helplessness deficits are produced by prior exposure to uncontrollable outcomes rather than perceived failure. Although the controllability manipulation did produce differences in perceived success or failure, similar differences were also induced by means of instructional feedback. These latter differences, within the controllable and uncontrollable groups, were not associated with poorer performance by subjects given failure feedback. Moreover, the instructional feedback did not influence subjects' perceptions of controllability or uncontrollability. The results confirm that helplessness deficits cannot be explained as reactions to task failure.This research was supported by Research Grant A28015473 from the Australian Research Grants Scheme.     

Placebo effects in developmental disabilities: implications for research and practice

Recent clinical trials of secretin in children with autism showed robust placebo effects and no benefit of secretin over placebo. This article explores the reasons for the observed placebo effects, focusing on the heightening of positive expectancy by media attention and by the sensory experiences associated with intravenous injections. Comparisons are drawn with research involving other novel treatments and other clinical populations of children with developmental disabilities and neurobehavioral disorders. Research regarding mechanisms of placebo effects is reviewed, including patient and clinician attributes, expectancy effects, participation effects, changes in caregiver behavior, and conditioning. New evidence regarding the biological basis of placebo effects is briefly presented. Since placebo effects are ubiquitous and may operate by a variety of mechanisms, research design is critical in designing clinical trials and in evaluating other outcomes research. Measurement issues important for research in developmental disabilities are emphasized. Ethical concerns have been raised regarding the use of placebo in clinical research, but current analysis suggests that placebo controls are necessary and defensible on ethical grounds, if certain conditions are met. The study of placebo effects ("placebology") holds great promise as a new area of research in therapeutics. The author's research in the potential augmentation of stimulant effects in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by adding placebo in open label is briefly presented. The placebo has always been integral to the practice of medicine, but advances in scientific medicine and medical ethics have diminished the role and use of placebo in practice. An innovative approach to the ethical use of placebo is proposed.     

Word recognition and syntactic attachment in reading: evidence for a staged architecture

In 3 experiments, the author examined how readers' eye movements are influenced by joint manipulations of a word's frequency and the syntactic fit of the word in its context. In the critical conditions of the first 2 experiments, a high- or low-frequency verb was used to disambiguate a garden-path sentence, while in the last experiment, a high- or low-frequency verb constituted a phrase structure violation. The frequency manipulation always influenced the early eye movement measures of first-fixation duration and gaze duration. The context manipulation had a delayed effect in Experiment 1, influencing only the probability of a regressive eye movement from later in the sentence. However, the context manipulation influenced the same early eye movement measures as the frequency effect in Experiments 2 and 3, though there was no statistical interaction between the effects of these variables. The context manipulation also influenced the probability of a regressive eye movement from the verb, though the frequency manipulation did not. These results are shown to confirm predictions emerging from the serial, staged architecture for lexical and integrative processing of the E-Z Reader 10 model of eye movement control in reading (Reichle, Warren, & McConnell, 2009). It is argued, more generally, that the results provide an important constraint on how the relationship between visual word recognition and syntactic attachment is treated in processing models.     

Factor structure and item analysis of the yale food addiction scale in obese candidates for bariatric surgery

Converging research suggests phenomenological and neurobiological similarities between excessive food consumption and addictive behaviour in substance dependence. Recently, the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) has been proposed for the assessment of addictive eating behaviour. The German version of the YFAS was administered to obese individuals seeking bariatric surgery (N?=?96). Factor structure, internal consistency, and item statistics were analysed. Forty participants (41.70%) received a food addiction diagnosis. The one-factorial structure of the YFAS, which has been found in non-clinical samples, could be confirmed. All but three items had factor loadings >.50. Internal consistency was α?=?.82. Item analysis revealed that items related to unsuccessful attempts to cut down and consumption despite physical and emotional problems were endorsed by the majority of participants. Findings support the use of the YFAS in clinical populations, while applicability of some items differs between clinical and non-clinical samples. Copyright ? 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.     

Recognition of facial expressions of different emotional intensities in patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Behavioural problems are a key feature of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Also, FTLD patients show impairments in emotion processing. Specifically, the perception of negative emotional facial expressions is affected. Generally, however, negative emotional expressions are regarded as more difficult to recognize than positive ones, which thus may have been a confounding factor in previous studies. Also, ceiling effects are often present on emotion recognition tasks using full-blown emotional facial expressions. In the present study with FTLD patients, we examined the perception of sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise and disgust at different emotional intensities on morphed facial expressions to take task difficulty into account. Results showed that our FTLD patients were specifically impaired at the recognition of the emotion anger. Also, the patients performed worse than the controls on recognition of surprise, but performed at control levels on disgust, happiness, sadness and fear. These findings corroborate and extend previous results showing deficits in emotion perception in FTLD.     

Personality,Intelligence and Assessment Centre Expert Ratings

Just under 3000 middle managers were rated on seven dimensions/competencies by consultants after a 1‐day assessment centre and structured interview. They also completed two cognitive ability tests and two well‐established personality tests (NEO PI‐R; MBTI). Correlational analysis showed that the rated dimensions of ‘drive to achieve’, ‘internal locus of control’ and ‘resilience’ all modestly negatively correlated with Neuroticism. All seven ratings were significantly correlated with Extraversion and three each with Openness and Agreeableness. There were few significant correlations with the MBTI but the Thinking–Feeling dimension correlated significantly with combined ratings. Correlations with the intelligence test scores were mostly non‐significant. The seven ratings factored into three identifiable factors: labelled personal assertiveness, toughness and determination and curiosity. Regressions using both a total, overall computed rating of general aptitude, as well as the three scores as criterion variables and ability, personality, participant‐gender and management level as predictor variables demonstrated that they accounted for between a quarter and a third of the variance. Predictors varied considerably as a function of the different criteria measures but ability and gender accounted for little of the variance.