Positive feelings facilitate working memory and complex decision making among older adults

The impact of induced mild positive feelings on working memory and complex decision making among older adults (aged 63–85) was examined. Participants completed a computer administered card task in which participants could win money if they chose from “gain” decks and lose money if they chose from “loss” decks. Individuals in the positive-feeling condition chose better than neutral-feeling participants and earned more money overall. Participants in the positive-feeling condition also demonstrated improved working-memory capacity. These effects of positive-feeling induction have implications for affect theory, as well as, potentially, practical implications for people of all ages dealing with complex decisions.     

The Portuguese Version of the Psychological Adjustment to Separation Test-Part A (PAST-A): A Study with Recently and Non-recently Divorced Adults

Past research has demonstrated that divorced adults show more health problems and psychological distress than married adults. Considering the high prevalence rates of divorce among Western countries, new and robust measures should be developed to measure psychological distress after this specific transition in adulthood. The aim of this study was to adapt and validate a Portuguese version of the Psychological Adjustment to Separation Test-Part A (PAST-A; Sweeper and Halford in J Family Psychol 20(4):632–640, 2006). PAST-A is a self-report measure that assesses two key dimensions of separation adjustment problems: lonely-negativity and former partner attachment. Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of PAST-A were assessed in terms of factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and divergent validity, in an online convenience sample with divorced adults (N = 460). The PAST-A two-factor structure was confirmed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, with each factor demonstrating very satisfactory internal consistency and good convergence. In terms of discriminant validity, the Portuguese PAST-A reveals a distinct factor from psychological growth after divorce. The results provided support for the use of the Portuguese PAST-A with divorced adults and also suggested that the explicative factors of the psychological adjustment to divorce may be cross-cultural stable. The non-existence of validated divorce-related well-being measures and its implications for divorce research are also discussed.     

Teaching mands for information using speech generating devices: A replication and extension

Approximately 30% of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) fail to develop vocal communication and, therefore, use some form of augmentative or alternative communication system. The current study replicates and extends previous research on teaching “Who?” and “Which?” mands for information to 3 young children diagnosed with ASD using a speech generating device. Procedures were evaluated using a multiple baseline across participants design. All participants learned to mand for information and, subsequently, used the information to access preferred items.     

Learning and transfer of calorie information

This study compared generating information about food to viewing and verbally producing that information for learning and transfer. Specifically, during training, a list of food items was shown, and some participants generated either real calories (Experiment 1) or fabricated prices (Experiment 2) associated with those foods with feedback provided (seeding), some viewed and read aloud values provided (viewing), and others read aloud the names of the items with no values provided (control). All participants were tested immediately and 1 week later on both old and new foods. In both experiments, the seeding and viewing conditions showed more learning than the control condition, and only the experimental conditions showed transfer of learning from old to new foods, with advantages found for seeding over viewing only in some cases. The results are discussed in terms of the seeding, testing, generation, and production effects, as well as their applications to health and policy.     

Effect of motivation on academic fluency performance in survivors of pediatric medulloblastoma

It has been proposed previously that extrinsic motivation may enable survivors of childhood medulloblastoma to significantly improve aspects of neurocognitive performance. In healthy populations, enhanced motivation has been shown to promote academic fluency, a domain likely more relevant to the educational outcomes of pediatric medulloblastoma survivors than academic skill development. The present study investigates the effect of enhanced extrinsic motivation on fluent (i.e., accurate and efficient) academic performance in pediatric medulloblastoma survivors. Participants were 36 children, ages 7–18, who had completed treatment for medulloblastoma. Participants completed a neuropsychological battery that included administration of equivalent tasks on Forms A and B of the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Half were randomly assigned to an incentive condition prior to the administration of Form B. Provision of a performance-based incentive resulted in statistically significant improvement, but not normalization of function, in performance on measures of academic fluency. No demographic, treatment-related, academic, neuropsychological, or self-perception variables predicted response to incentive. Findings suggest that academic performance of survivors may significantly improve under highly motivating conditions. In addition to implications for educational services, this finding raises the novel possibility that decreased motivation represents an inherent neuropsychological deficit in this population and provides a rationale for further investigation of factors affecting individual differences in motivational processes. Further, by examining effort in a context where effort is not inherently suspect, present findings also significantly contribute to the debate regarding the effects of effort and motivation on neuropsychological performance.     

Implications of Teacher Life–Work Histories for Conceptualisations of ‘Care’: Narratives from Rural Zimbabwe

Schools are increasingly seen as key sites for support to HIV‐affected and other vulnerable children, and teachers are assigned the critical role of identifying and providing psychosocial support. Drawing on the life–work history narratives of 12 teachers in Zimbabwe, this paper explores the psychosocial processes underpinning teachers' conceptualisations of these caring roles. The influence of prolonged adversity, formative relationships, and broader patterns of social and institutional change in teacher identity formation processes speak to the complex and embodied nature of understandings of ‘care’. In such extreme settings teachers prioritise the material and disciplinary aspects of ‘care’ that they see as essential for supporting children to overcome hardship. This focus not only means that emotional support as envisaged in international policy is commonly overlooked, but also exposes a wider ideological clash about childrearing. This tension together with an overall ambivalence surrounding teacher identities puts further strain on teacher–student relationships. We propose the current trainings on providing emotional support are insufficient and that more active focus needs to be directed at support to teachers in relation with their students. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Dissecting the time course of person recognition in natural viewing environments

Person recognition often unfolds over time and distance as a person approaches, with the quality of identity information from faces, bodies, and motion in constant flux. Participants were familiarized with identities using close‐up and distant videos. Recognition was tested with videos of people approaching from a distance. We varied the timing of prompted responses in the test videos, the amount of video seen, and whether the face, body, or whole person was visible. A free response condition was also included to allow participants to respond when they felt ‘confident’. The pattern of accuracy across conditions indicated that recognition judgments were based on the most recently available information, with no contribution from qualitatively diverse and statistically useful person cues available earlier in the video. Body recognition was stable across viewing distance, whereas face recognition improved with proximity. The body made an independent contribution to recognition only at the farthest distance tested. Free response latencies indicated meta‐knowledge of the optimal proximity for recognition from faces versus bodies. Notably, response bias varied strongly as a function of participants’ expectation about whether closer proximity video was forthcoming. These findings lay the groundwork for developing person recognition theories that generalize to natural viewing environments.