The effects of young children's affiliations with prosocial peers on subsequent emotionality in peer interactions

Preschoolers’ (60 boys and 64 girls, M age = 50.73 months) affiliations with prosocial peers were observed in naturally occurring interactions and then examined in relation to positive and negative emotionality within their peer interactions one semester later. Greater affiliation with prosocial peers in the fall was related to enhanced positive emotionality (especially for girls) and decreased negative emotionality (especially for boys) in later peer interactions. These findings held when initial levels of the emotion were controlled and were found above and beyond variations in classroom levels of prosociality. The findings suggest that peers exert influence in early childhood and that these effects can positively affect the quality of young children's later peer interactions.     

Emotions,Public Opinion,and U.S. Presidential Approval Rates: A 5‐Year Analysis of Online Political Discussions

This article examines how emotional reactions to political events shape public opinion. We analyze political discussions in which people voluntarily engage online to approximate the public agenda: Online discussions offer a natural approach to the salience of political issues and the means to analyze emotional reactions as political events take place in real time. We measure shifts in emotions of the public over a period that includes 2 U.S. presidential elections, the 9/11 attacks, and the start of military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our findings show that emotional reactions to political events help explain approval rates for the same period, which casts novel light on the mechanisms that mediate the association between agenda setting and political evaluations.     

Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for Research Performing Organisations: The Bonn PRINTEGER Statement

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on the following key issues:

1. § 1.
   Providing information about research integrity
    
2. § 2.
   Providing education, training and mentoring
    
3. § 3.
   Strengthening a research integrity culture
    
4. § 4.
   Facilitating open dialogue
    
5. § 5.
   Wise incentive management
    
6. § 6.
   Implementing quality assurance procedures
    
7. § 7.
   Improving the work environment and work satisfaction
    
8. § 8.
   Increasing transparency of misconduct cases
    
9. § 9.
   Opening up research
    
10. § 10.
    Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels
     
11. § 11.
    Protecting the alleged perpetrators
     
12. § 12.
    Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson
     
13. § 13.
    Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity
     

     

Poststimulation time interval-dependent effects of motor cortex anodal tDCS on reaction-time task performance

Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) induces long-term potentiation-like plasticity, which is associated with long-lasting effects on different cognitive, emotional, and motor performances. Specifically, tDCS applied over the motor cortex is considered to improve reaction time in simple and complex tasks. The timing of tDCS relative to task performance could determine the efficacy of tDCS to modulate performance. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a single session of anodal tDCS (1.5 mA, for 15 min) applied over the left primary motor cortex (M1) versus sham stimulation on performance of a go/no-go simple reaction-time task carried out at three different time points after tDCS—namely, 0, 30, or 60 min after stimulation. Performance zero min after anodal tDCS was improved during the whole course of the task. Performance 30 min after anodal tDCS was improved only in the last block of the reaction-time task. Performance 60 min after anodal tDCS was not significantly different throughout the entire task. These findings suggest that the motor cortex excitability changes induced by tDCS can improve motor responses, and these effects critically depend on the time interval between stimulation and task performance.     

Intracellular calcium chelation and pharmacological SERCA inhibition of Ca2+ pump in the insular cortex differentially affect taste aversive memory formation and retrieval

Variation in intracellular calcium concentration regulates the induction of long-term synaptic plasticity and is associated with a variety of memory/retrieval and learning paradigms. Accordingly, impaired calcium mobilization from internal deposits affects synaptic plasticity and cognition in the aged brain. During taste memory formation several proteins are modulated directly or indirectly by calcium, and recent evidence suggests the importance of calcium buffering and the role of intracellular calcium deposits during cognitive processes. Thus, the main goal of this research was to study the consequence of hampering changes in cytoplasmic calcium and inhibiting SERCA activity by BAPTA-AM and thapsigargin treatments, respectively, in the insular cortex during different stages of taste memory formation. Using conditioned taste aversion (CTA), we found differential effects of BAPTA-AM and thapsigargin infusions before and after gustatory stimulation, as well as during taste aversive memory consolidation; BAPTA-AM, but not thapsigargin, attenuates acquisition and/or consolidation of CTA, but neither compound affects taste aversive memory retrieval. These results point to the importance of intracellular calcium dynamics in the insular cortex during different stages of taste aversive memory formation.     

Repetition increases false recollection in older people

Aging is accompanied by an increase in false alarms on recognition tasks, and these false alarms increase with repetition in older people (but not in young people). Traditionally, this increase was thought to be due to a greater use of familiarity in older people, but it was recently pointed out that false alarms also have a clear recollection component in these people. The main objective of our study is to analyze whether the expected increase in the rate of false alarms in older people due to stimulus repetition is produced by an inadequate use of familiarity, recollection, or both processes. To do so, we carried out an associative recognition experiment using pairs of words and pairs of images (faces associated with everyday contexts), in which we analyzed whether the repetition of some of the pairs increases the rate of false alarms in older people (compared to what was found in a sample of young people), and whether this increase is due to familiarity or recollection (using a remember‐know paradigm). Our results show that the increase in false alarms in older people due to repetition is produced by false recollection, calling into question both dual and single‐process models of recognition. Also, older people falsely recollect details of never studied stimuli, a clear case of perceptual illusions. These results are better explained in terms of source‐monitoring errors, mediated by people's retrieval expectations.     

Dispossessing Defeat

Higher-order evidence can make an agent doubt the reliability of her reasoning. When this happens, it seems rational for the agent to adopt a cautious attitude towards her original conclusion, even in cases where the higher-order evidence is misleading and the agent's original reasons were actually perfectly good. One may think that recoiling to a cautious attitude in the face of misleading self-doubt involves a failure to properly respond to one's reasons. My aim is to show that this is not so. My proposal is that (misleading) higher-order evidence can undermine the agent's possession of her first-order reasons, constituting what I call a dispossessing defeater. After acquiring the higher-order evidence, the agent is no longer in a position to rely competently on the relevant first-order considerations as reasons for her original conclusion, so that such reasons stop being available to her (even if they remain as strong as in the absence of the higher-order evidence). In this way, an agent with misleading higher-order evidence can adopt a cautious stance towards her original conclusion, while properly responding to the set of reasons that she possesses–a set that is reduced due to the acquisition of higher-order dispossessing defeaters.     

Acquired surface alexia in Spanish: a case report

This paper reports a case study of acquired surface alexia in Spanish and discusses the most suitable tests to detect this syndrome in a writing system that is very regular for reading at the segmental and supra-segmental levels. Patient MM has surface alexia characterized by quantitatively good performance in reading words and pseudowords; accurate but slow and syllabic reading of words, nonwords and sentences; good performance in lexical decision tasks including words and nonwords; errors in lexical decision with pseudohomophones; and homophone confusions. This pattern of reading can be interpreted as a disorder in the lexical reading route and overdependence on the non-lexical route. We discuss nonlexical impairments and the interpretation of alexia and suggest tasks to identify surface alexia in a shallow orthography.     

Recuperación dependiente de estados afectivos en una tarea de reconocimiento

Resumen

Estudiamos los efectos de los estados afectivos de adquisición y recuperación en una tarea de reconocimiento. Los estados afectivos se indujeron por sugestiones posthipnóticas y los estímulos fueron fotografías de caras en blanco y negro. Empleamos un diseño factorial 2 (estado de adquisición) x 2 (estado de recuperación) con medidas repetidas. El intervalo entre las fases de adquisición y recuperación fue de 24 horas. El análisis de datos, basado en el modelo no-paramétrico de la teoría de detección de señales, confirma el efecto de dependencia de estados afectivos en una prueba de reconocimiento. Los resultados se discuten en relación a trabajos anteriores que no habían encontrado este efecto en pruebas similares.