Focusing attention on overlapping and non-overlapping figures with subjective contours

In a series of five experiments we investigated whether observers could focus attention on a restricted visual area that was demarcated by Kanizsa-like subjective contours, and whether this effect also occurred in the case of overlapping figures. The task was a simple reaction time to a luminance increment and the basic finding was that reaction time was faster when the imperative stimulus fell inside the focus of attention than when it fell outside. The first two experiments showed that the extent of the attentional focus could be adapted to a region that was demarcated by subjective contours, thus extending the results of previous studies that used regions demarcated by real contours. The last three experiments showed that, regardless of the type of margins, focusing was more efficient for the figure that was perceived as lying in front in a pair of overlapping figures. Received: 21 December 1999  / Accepted: 23 August 2000     

Psychosexual Dysfunction Among Gynecological Cancer Survivors

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the empirical findings related to the assessment and treatment of sexual difficulties commonly experienced by gynecological cancer survivors and to make suggestions for future research and practice in this area. First, we describe the sexual problems that are most frequently reported by gynecological cancer patients and some of their common medical and psychological correlates. These include pain, premature ovarian failure, changes in vaginal anatomy, emotional distress, body image, and sexual self-concept. The complex interaction of physiological and psychological variables plays an important role in the development of sexual dysfunction in this patient population. Furthermore, we review the empirical studies that have examined the effects of sexual rehabilitation therapy on the sexual functioning of gynecological cancer survivors and provide relevant research and clinical recommendations. We also discuss reasons to involve patients' sexual partners in psychosocial oncology research, given the complex interplay between patients' and partners' psychosexual issues.     

“Cuts in Action”: A High‐Density EEG Study Investigating the Neural Correlates of Different Editing Techniques in Film

In spite of their striking differences with real‐life perception, films are perceived and understood without effort. Cognitive film theory attributes this to the system of continuity editing, a system of editing guidelines outlining the effect of different cuts and edits on spectators. A major principle in this framework is the 180° rule, a rule recommendation that, to avoid spectators’ attention to the editing, two edited shots of the same event or action should not be filmed from angles differing in a way that expectations of spatial continuity are strongly violated. In the present study, we used high‐density EEG to explore the neural underpinnings of this rule. In particular, our analysis shows that cuts and edits in general elicit early ERP component indicating the registration of syntactic violations as known from language, music, and action processing. However, continuity edits and cuts‐across the line differ from each other regarding later components likely to be indicating the differences in spatial remapping as well as in the degree of conscious awareness of one's own perception. Interestingly, a time–frequency analysis of the occipital alpha rhythm did not support the hypothesis that such differences in processing routes are mainly linked to visual attention. On the contrary, our study found specific modulations of the central mu rhythm ERD as an indicator of sensorimotor activity, suggesting that sensorimotor networks might play an important role. We think that these findings shed new light on current discussions about the role of attention and embodied perception in film perception and should be considered when explaining spectators’ different experience of different kinds of cuts.     

Female Adolescents with Eating Disorders,Parental Psychopathological Risk and Family Functioning

Epidemiological studies on adolescents with eating disorders demonstrate a high prevalence of disordered eating behaviors, with a higher prevalence of eating disorders among girls. Several studies have recently demonstrated an association between female adolescents’ eating disorders, parental psychopathological risk, and an impaired family functioning with poor quality of the relationships among family members. On the basis of these premises, we conducted a cross-sectional study initially recruiting 243 families of female adolescents affected by anorexia nervosa (Group A), bulimia nervosa (Group B), and binge eating disorder (Group C) (average age 14–17) to assess their psychological profile (SCL90-R), specific representations of their family functioning (FACES-IV), and the possible effect of adolescents’ psychological profiles and parents’ psychopathological risk on family functioning. Our results indicate that adolescents and parents in Groups A, B, and C show an unequivocal psychopathological profile; in particular, adolescents with anorexia present the most severe psychopathological risk. Further, our results show that adolescents and their parents differ in their perception of their family functioning. More specifically, adolescents with anorexia perceive their family as highly disengaged, poorly interwoven, and rigid, in addition cohesion and communication qualities are perceived as low. Interestingly, parental psychopathological risk predicts adolescents’ specific perception of their family functioning. These findings may guide clinical interventions as they suggest that distinct maternal psychopathological symptoms can be associated with a variety of clinical configurations in their offspring, whereas paternal psychopathological risk may be present in adolescents suffering from all forms of eating disorders.     

A new scale for the assessment of the quality of hospitality services

In the last 20 years the services sector has experienced a highly significant growth, being currently one of the most important economic sectors in our country. Inside the touristic sector, a strong competence has being experienced among the lodging and restoration establishments. In a scenario characterized by competitiveness, the bet for quality represents a difficult competitive advantage to surpass (García-Buedes, 2001). The objective of this study is to carry out an approach to the evaluation of the perceived quality of the restaurants. As a result of bibliographic revision, and also a first approach of a qualitative nature, we started from a scale of 31 items that included 5 dimensions: access, personal, service, product and installations. The results obtained applying the questionnaire to more than 2400 clients of 180 establishments of Santiago de Compostela and region, by means of structured interviews, confirmed that not all these dimensions had the same importance as predictors of customer satisfaction. Specifically, the product emerges as the most important dimension. Likewise, the elimination of the dimension service and a more exhaustive selection of the items, based on psychometric criteria, has permitted to define a brief scale, consisting of only 15 items, which makes it very attractive as a management tool. The final scale proposed to evaluate the perceived quality in the restaurant sector includes four fundamental and non-independent dimensions. These are, ordered by importance: product, personal, installations and access.     

Modulation of inhibition of return by type and number of dynamic changes of the cue

Inhibition of return (IOR) is a response delay when the target is preceded by an irrelevant stimulus (cue) at the same location. In a previous study, we investigated the separate and joint effects on IOR of cue onset and offset. IOR was much greater when cue onset was followed by cue offset (on-off cue) than when the cue was a single event (on or off cues). The aim of the present study was to test whether the greater IOR with an on-off cue is due to the presence of two cue events. Three experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1 we replicated, with a different delay between cue onset and offset, the finding that IOR is greater with an on-off cue than with a single cue event. In Experiments 2 and 3, we used cues formed by two events. In Experiment 2, an on-off cue was compared with an off-on cue, whereas in Experiment 3 an on-on cue was compared with an off-off cue. Results showed that the magnitude of IOR did not simply depend on the number of cue events occurring before the target. IOR was greater with two different events than with two identical events and greater when was preceded by an off-event than an on-event. Therefore, IOR was greatest with an on-off cue, which likely also benefited from a gap effect. Possible mechanisms underlying IOR were discussed. Received: 31 March 1999 / Accepted: 23 July 1999     

Examining the influence of group diversity on the functioning of community-based participatory research partnerships: A mixed methods study

Public health has endorsed the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to address health inequities involving diverse and marginalized communities. However, few studies have examined how group diversity among members of CBPR partnerships influenced how well the partnerships achieve their goals of addressing health inequities through equitable collaboration. We conducted secondary, convergent, mixed methods analysis to (1) evaluate the association between group diversity and participatory decision-making within CBPR partnerships, and (2) identify the perceived characteristics, benefits, and challenges of group diversity within CBPR partnerships. Using data from a cross-site study of federally funded CBPR partnerships, we analyzed and integrated data from surveys of 163 partnerships (n = 448 partners) and seven in-depth case study interviews (n = 55 partners). Quantitatively, none of the measured characteristics of group diversity was associated with participatory decision-making within the partnerships. Qualitatively, we found that partnerships mainly benefited from membership differences in functional characteristics (e.g., skillset) but faced challenges from membership differences in sociocultural characteristics (e.g., gender and race). The integrated findings suggest the need to further understand how emergent group characteristics and how practices that engage in group diversity contribute to collective functioning of the partnerships. Attention to this area can help promote health equity achievements of CBPR partnerships.     

Human values,legal regulation,and approval of homosexuality in Europe: A cross‐country comparison

Although research has revealed a trend toward liberalization of attitudes toward homosexuality in Western countries, acceptance of homosexuality differs remarkably among individuals and across countries. We examine the roles of individual value priorities and of national laws regarding homosexuality and the interaction between them in explaining approval of homosexuality. Data are drawn from the European Social Survey and include representative national samples of 27 European countries in 2010. As hypothesized, individuals who prioritized openness to change and universalism values approved of homosexuality more, whereas those who prioritized conservation and power values exhibited more disapproval. Approval was greater in countries whose laws regarding homosexuality were more progressive. In addition, legal regulation of homosexuality moderated the associations of individual value priorities. In countries with more progressive laws, both the positive effect of openness to change values and the negative effect of conservation values on approval of homosexuality were weaker. However, the positive effect of universalism values and the negative effect of power values did not vary as a function of national laws regarding homosexuality. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Error monitoring is related to processing internal affective states

Detecting behavioral errors is critical for optimizing performance. Here, we tested whether error monitoring is enhanced in emotional task contexts, and whether this enhancement depends on processing internal affective states. Event-related potentials were recorded in individuals with low and high levels of alexithymia—that is, individuals with difficulties identifying and describing their feelings. We administered a face word Stroop paradigm (Egner, Etkin, Gale, & Hirsch, 2008) in which the task was to classify emotional faces either with respect to their expression (happy or fearful; emotional task set) or with respect to their gender (female or male; neutral task set). The error-related negativity, a marker of rapid error monitoring, was enhanced in individuals with low alexithymia when they adopted the emotional task set. By contrast, individuals with high alexithymia did not show such an enhancement. Moreover, in the high-alexithymia group, the difference in the error-related negativities between the emotional and neutral task sets correlated negatively with difficulties identifying their own feelings, as measured by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. These results show that error-monitoring activity is stronger in emotional task contexts and that this enhancement depends on processing internal affective states.     

Educational Leadership Reconsidered: Arendt,Agamben, and Bauman

In this paper we claim educational leadership as an autonomous discipline whose goals and strategies should not mirror those typical of business and political leadership. In order to define the aims proper to educational leadership we question three common assumptions of what it is supposed to carry out. First, we turn to Hannah Arendt and her contemporary critics to maintain that education aims at opening up exceptions within the normal course of events rather than simply preserving it. This way, education is not reduced to an instrument at the service of the reinforcement of a given social and economic system. This leads us to ask what should exactly educational leadership oppose by means of these exceptions. According to Tyson E. Lewis’s wise application to education of Giorgio Agamben’s ontology of impotentiality, the apparently reasonable idea that education must help the subject to develop his potentials is precisely an instrumentalization of education which brings about a desubjectification of the learner. Education should actually make the pupil aware of his right not to carry his potentiality to its actualization and dwell instead in a state of impotentiality. Third and last, we complicate this picture by alluding to Zygmunt Bauman’s critique of the rejection of Western individuals to realize certain possibilities, which they deem too costly. By analysing in conjunction Agamben’s encouragement to suspend one’s potential and Bauman’s insistence on the need of not suspending it, we conclude by defining what, in our opinion, defines the raison d’être of educational leadership.