Brain processing of task-relevant and task-irrelevant emotional words: An ERP study

Although there is evidence for preferential perceptual processing of written emotional information, the effects of attentional manipulations and the time course of affective processing require further clarification. In this study, we attempted to investigate how the emotional content of words modulates cerebral functioning (event-related potentials, ERPs) and behavior (reaction times, RTs) when the content is task-irrelevant (emotional Stroop Task, EST) or task-relevant (emotional categorization task, ECT), in a sample of healthy middle-aged women. In the EST, the RTs were longer for emotional words than for neutral words, and in the ECT, they were longer for neutral and negative words than for positive words. A principal components analysis of the ERPs identified various temporospatial factors that were differentially modified by emotional content. P2 was the first emotion-sensitive component, with enhanced factor scores for negative nouns across tasks. The N2 and late positive complex had enhanced factor scores for emotional relative to neutral information only in the ECT. The results reinforce the idea that written emotional information has a preferential processing route, both when it is task-irrelevant (producing behavioral interference) and when it is task-relevant (facilitating the categorization). After early automatic processing of the emotional content, late ERPs become more emotionally modulated as the level of attention to the valence increases.     

Bibliographical note

Notices and Announcements

Bibliographical note     

Afro-centric religious consultations as treatment for psychotic disorders among day hospital patients in Santiago de Cuba

We investigated the utilisation of Afro-centric religious treatments for psychotic disorders among a sample of Cuban day hospital patients. Most (55%) had used such treatments and this practice was more common among older persons, although unassociated with any particular religious background or racial heritage. Persons who preferred Afro-centric religious practices to medical ones were more likely to be of African descent or to have received an Afro-centric religious ritual bath as treatment. A case is made for destigmatising Afro-centric religious treatments and for exploring treatment approaches that combine both medical and religious practices in order to achieve more holistic care.     

Indicadores aislados versus patrón general expresivo en la detección de la mentira

Resumen

Frente a planteamientos teóricos clásicos, en relación con el fenómeno de la detección de la mentira, que postulan que la existencia de indicadores no verbales aislados facilitan el reconocimiento de mensajes falsos, este trabajo plantea la existencia de un patrón general de configuración que varía cualitativamente para mensajes verdaderos y falsos. Las condiciones experimentales ideadas para este trabajo (presentación de mensajes falsos, precedidos o no de mensajes verdaderos) permitieron a los sujetos experimentales contrastar las diferencias entre estos patrones, facilitando el reconocimiento de mensajes fraudulentos, siendo las mujeres las que mejor aprovecharon las condiciones facilitadoras.     

Antecedentes y aparición de la Psicología del Procesamiento de Información: un estudio histórico

Resumen

El presente artículo recopila los grandes hitos asociados al surgimiento de la Psicología del Procesamiento de Información (principales autores, obras, instituciones, eventos científicos, etc.) en Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos, países en donde este enfoque tiene su origen. Esto se hace a través de una perspectiva de análisis histórico que, remontándonos a los años veinte—y tras pasar revista a los acontecimientos más relevantes para la Historia de la Psicología acaecidos durante los años treinta, cuarenta y cincuenta—, nos conduce a 1958, fecha clave para el nacimiento y difusión de lo que hoy conocemos como Psicología del Procesamiento de Información.     

Entrevista con Michael Cole

RESUMEN

Michael Cole es profesor en los departamentos de psicología y comunicaciones de la Universidad de California, San Diego (UCSD). Puede considerarse que el profesor Cole es hoy una de las figuras más interesantes en el panorama de la psicología norteamericana y, uno de los responsables más destacados de la difusión y ampliación de la escuela vygotskiana en Estados Unidos. En esta entrevista el profesor Cole reflexiona sobre las premisas de su visión de la psicología de la cultura y la comunicación, las relaciones entre la ciencia y la sociedad y otros problemas fundamentales de la psicología contemporánea, además de hacer un breve recorrido por su historia de formación como psicólogo tanto en Estados Unidos como en su etapa en la Unión Soviética.     

Authentic leadership and its relationships with work engagement and organizational citizenship behaviors in military units: The role of identification as a mediating variable

The objective of the study is to explore the relationship of authentic leadership with work engagement and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) in military units, measuring the mediating effect of personal identification with the leader and social identification with the military unit. We used the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique to analyze data from a sample of 225 Spanish military troops. The results showed that social identification with the military unit influenced the relationship of authentic leadership with the outcome variables.     

Examining the relation between ratings of executive functioning and academic achievement: Findings from a cross-cultural study

The present study investigated the relation between academic performance and ratings of executive functioning in children aged 6–11 from four countries: Sweden, Spain, Iran, and China. Ratings of executive functioning were made by both parents and teachers using the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory (CHEXI). The results showed that the Chinese sample was generally rated as having more executive deficits compared to the other samples. The finding that executive functioning deficits are exacerbated in China is most likely the result of cultural biases. Boys were generally rated as having poorer executive functioning compared to girls, except in Iran where parents, but not teachers, rated girls as having poorer executive functioning compared to boys. However, this opposite pattern of results found for Iran is not likely to reflect true gender differences in executive functioning. Despite some differences in the levels of executive functioning across countries, both the inhibition and working memory subscales of the CHEXI were related to academic achievement in all four countries, except for CHEXI parent ratings in China. Altogether, the results indicate that the CHEXI may be used as a screening measure for early academic difficulties, although cultural biases clearly have to be taken into consideration.     

Kant on Truth-Aptness

Many scholars claimed that, according to Immanuel Kant, some judgements lack a truth-value: analytic judgements, judgements about items of which humans cannot have experience, judgements of perception, and non-assertoric judgements. However, no one has undertaken an extensive examination of the textual evidence for those claims.

Based on an analysis of Kant's texts, I argue that: ? according to Kant, only judgements of perception are not truth-apt. All other judgements are truth-apt, including analytic judgements and judgements about items of which humans cannot have experience.

? Kant sometimes states that truth-apt judgements are actual bearers of truth or falsity only when they are taken to state what is actually the case. Kant calls these judgements assertoric. Other texts ascribe truth and falsity to judgements, regardless of whether they are assertoric.

Kant's views on truth-aptness raise challenges for correspondentist and coherentist interpretations of Kant's theory of truth; they rule out the identification of Kant's crucial notion of objective validity with truth-aptness; and they imply that Kant was not a verificationist about truth or meaning.     

The simplest chronoscope II: reaction time measured by meterstick versus machine

Visual simple reaction time (SRT) scores measured in 31 college students of both sexes by use of the simplest chronoscope methodology (meterstick SRT) were compared to scores obtained by use of an electromechanical multi-choice reaction timer (machine SRT). Four hypotheses were tested. Results indicated that the previous mean value of meterstick SRT was replicated; meterstick SRT was significantly faster than long-standing population estimates of mean SRT; and machine SRT was significantly slower than the same long-standing mean SRT estimates for the population. Also, the mean meterstick SRT of 181 msec. was significantly faster than the mean machine SRT of 294 msec. It was theorized that differential visual information processing occurred such that the dorsal visual stream subserved meterstick SRT; whereas the ventral visual stream subserved machine SRT.