Are synesthetes exceptional beyond their synesthetic associations? A systematic comparison of creativity,personality, cognition,and mental imagery in synesthetes and controls

Synesthesia has historically been linked with enhanced creativity, but this had never been demonstrated in a systematically recruited sample. The current study offers a broad examination of creativity, personality, cognition, and mental imagery in a small sample of systematically recruited synesthetes and controls (n = 65). Synesthetes scored higher on some measures of creativity, personality traits of absorption and openness, and cognitive abilities of verbal comprehension and mental imagery. The differences were smaller than those reported in the literature, indicating that previous studies may have overestimated group differences, perhaps due to biased recruitment procedures. Nonetheless, most of our results replicated literature findings, yielding two possibilities: (1) our study was influenced by similar biases, or (2) differences between synesthetes and controls, though modest, are robust across recruitment methods. The covariance among our measures warrants interpretation of these differences as a pattern of associations with synesthesia, leaving open the possibility that this pattern could be explained by differences on a single measured trait, or even a hidden, untested trait. More generally, this study highlights the difficulty of comparing groups of people in psychology, not to mention neuropsychology and neuroimaging studies. The requirements discussed here – systematic recruitment procedures, large battery of tests, and large cohorts – are best fulfilled through collaborative efforts and cumulative science.     

Categories in the pigeon brain: A reverse engineering approach

Pigeons are well known for their visual capabilities as well as their ability to categorize visual stimuli at both the basic and superordinate level. We adopt a reverse engineering approach to study categorization learning: Instead of training pigeons on predefined categories, we simply present stimuli and analyze neural output in search of categorical clustering on a solely neural level. We presented artificial stimuli, pictorial and grating stimuli, to pigeons without the need of any differential behavioral responding while recording from the nidopallium frontolaterale (NFL), a higher visual area in the avian brain. The pictorial stimuli differed in color and shape; the gratings differed in spatial frequency and amplitude. We computed representational dissimilarity matrices to reveal categorical clustering based on both neural data and pecking behavior. Based on neural output of the NFL, pictorial and grating stimuli were differentially represented in the brain. Pecking behavior showed a similar pattern, but to a lesser extent. A further subclustering within pictorial stimuli according to color and shape, and within gratings according to frequency and amplitude, was not present. Our study gives proof‐of‐concept that this reverse engineering approach—namely reading out categorical information from neural data—can be quite helpful in understanding the neural underpinnings of categorization learning.     

Parenting Cognition and Affective Outcomes Following Parent Management Training: A Systematic Review

Parent management training (PMT) is considered the gold standard in the treatment of child behavior problems. The secondary effects of these interventions, particularly on parent well-being, are infrequently studied, despite evidence that parents of children with behavior problems often experience personal difficulties. This narrative review examined the affective and parenting cognition outcomes of PMT for mothers and fathers of children ages 2–13 years, across 48 controlled treatment studies. Substantial support was found for reductions in parenting stress, and increases in perceived parenting competence following PMT. Evidence indicated fewer improvements in domains more distal from parenting, including parent depressive symptoms and marital relationship dysfunction. A number of studies suggested parent gender as a moderator of parent outcomes of PMT; however, the underrepresentation of fathers in existing research limits conclusions in this regard. Avenues for future research are highlighted to address current gaps in the literature, and to further our understanding of the ways in which both children and parents may benefit from PMT.     

Optimizing preoperative expectations in cardiac surgery patients is moderated by level of disability: the successful development of a brief psychological intervention

Patients’ expectations have shown to be a major psychological predictor of health outcome in cardiac surgery patients. However, it is unclear whether patients’ expectations can be optimized prior to surgery. This study evaluates the development of a brief psychological intervention focusing on the optimization of expectations and its effect on change in patients’ expectations prior to cardiac surgery. Ninety patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass graft were randomly assigned to (1) standard medical care, (2) additional expectation manipulation intervention (EMI), and (3) additional attention control group. Therapists’ fidelity to intervention manuals and patients satisfaction with the intervention were assessed for both active intervention conditions. Patients’ expectations about post-surgical disability, treatment control, personal control, and disease duration were assessed before and after the psychological intervention. Demographical, medical, and psychosocial characteristics and disability were assessed at baseline. Treatment fidelity and patient satisfaction was very high in both intervention conditions. Only patients receiving EMI developed higher personal control expectations and longer (more realistic) expectations of disease duration. The effect of intervention group on patients’ disability expectations and patients’ personal control expectations was moderated by patient’s level of disability. EMI patients with low to moderate disability developed positive expectations whereas patients with high disability did not. This study shows the successful development of a short psychological intervention that was able to modify patients’ expectations, especially in those with low to moderate disability. Given the robust association of expectations and surgery outcome, such an intervention might offer the opportunity to enhance patients’ health following cardiac surgery.     

Children’s Binding of What-Where-When-Who in Episodic Memory: Identifying Oneself in the Past

It is usually accepted that the binding of what, where, and when is a central component of young children’s and animals’ nonconceptual episodic abilities. We argue that additionally binding self-in-past (what-where-when-who) adds a crucial conceptual requirement, and we ask when it becomes possible and what its cognitive correlates are. In the central task, children aged 3.5 years to 6.5 years watched a light display on Day 1, with 2 lights coming on simultaneously or in 1 of 2 orders. This light display was filmed from 1 of 3 positions: with the camera behind the child, above the child, or facing the child. On Day 2, children watched 3 videos from the original angle, and each represented 1 of the 3 light configurations, with the child in the video occluded. Participants had to decide which occluded child they were and justify their choice by reference to the lights. Above-chance performance was evident after 4.5 years of age. In addition, all children received the following tasks: spatial perspective taking, seeing leads to knowing, modus tollens reasoning, and second-order theory of mind. With age and verbal ability partialed out, only second-order theory of mind correlated significantly with performance on the central task.     

Resentment of Paternalism as System Change Sentiment: Hostile Sexism Toward Men and Actual Behavior in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Taking inspiration from Glick and colleagues (2004), this study tested the idea that resentment of paternalism (which is part of the hostile sexism toward men construct) might approximate desire for system change by correlating this variable with actual behavior associated with system change in a single culture. Specifically, voting behavior in the 2008 U.S. presidential election was predicted from political party affiliation, measures of hostile and benevolent sexism toward both women and men, and egalitarian racial attitudes using a U.S. college student sample. Results indicated that the only significant predictors of voting behavior were political party affiliation, resentment of paternalism, and egalitarian racial attitudes. Higher levels of resentment of paternalism were in fact associated with voting for the ticket that represented system change—holding the other predictors constant.     

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Structure of Adult ADHD Symptoms

Previous research has examined the factor structure of ADHD symptoms in adults using confirmatory factor analysis and there is mixed support for two-factor, three-factor, or more complex bifactor models. The current study re-examines these factor structures on the basis of not only overall model fit, but also criteria such as chi-square difference tests, invariance, reliability, and validity. Three datasets were pooled to form a total sample of 430 adults (50% female). Participants completed questionnaires assessing their ADHD symptoms, education, psychopathology, and parenting (the latter as validity variables). Although the bifactor models demonstrated the best fit, the reliability and construct replicability of specific factors in these models was poor. The three-factor model had good fit and demonstrated good reliability, validity, construct replicability, and some invariance across gender and dataset. Our results replicate previous studies that find superior fit for bifactor models. However, the superior statistical fit may reflect only the increased complexity of these models. The more parsimonious three-factor model may demonstrate stronger validity and clinical utility.     

Effects of minor phrasing variations in traffic-related questionnaires – Comparison of objective equivalences and respondents’ subjective statements

This paper examines questionnaire-related issues of variations in the wording of questions and the objective accuracy of the response, in terms of three traffic-related phenomena (accident frequency, incident frequency, and speeding). ca. 900 survey respondents, living along four major arterial streets in Malmö, Sweden, estimated the occurrence of the phenomena in question. The dispatch consisted of two parallel questionnaires with minor variations in question wording which showed significant differences in the given estimates of accident and incident frequency depending on the phrasing. The correspondence between the subjective estimates and objectively measured accident and speeding figures is discussed along with the potential impact of wording, the phenomenon’s characteristics and response scales. Increased knowledge of these factors could ease communication with the public in the municipal traffic-planning process.     

Desert and the Control Asymmetry

According to what we could call the “liberal” theory of distributive justice, people do not deserve the money they are able to make in the market for contributing to the economy. Yet the standard arguments for that view, which center on the fact that persons have very limited control over the size of their contributions, would also seem to imply that persons cannot deserve admiration, appreciation, esteem, praise and so on for these and other contributions. The control asymmetry is this: the first conclusion of these arguments is acceptable but the second not. This paper is an effort to defend that claim, but without appeal to the notion of control.