Active music classes in infancy enhance musical, communicative and social development

Previous studies suggest that musical training in children can positively affect various aspects of development. However, it remains unknown as to how early in development musical experience can have an effect, the nature of any such effects, and whether different types of music experience affect development differently. We found that random assignment to 6 months of active participatory musical experience beginning at 6 months of age accelerates acquisition of culture-specific knowledge of Western tonality in comparison to a similar amount of passive exposure to music. Furthermore, infants assigned to the active musical experience showed superior development of prelinguistic communicative gestures and social behaviour compared to infants assigned to the passive musical experience. These results indicate that (1) infants can engage in meaningful musical training when appropriate pedagogical approaches are used, (2) active musical participation in infancy enhances culture-specific musical acquisition, and (3) active musical participation in infancy impacts social and communication development.     

Psychometric properties and concurrent validity of two exercise addiction measures: A population wide study

ObjectivesThe existence of exercise addiction has been examined in numerous studies. However, none of the measures developed for exercise addiction assessment have been validated on representative samples. Furthermore, estimates of exercise addiction prevalence in the general population are not available. The objective of the present study was to validate the Exercise Addiction Inventory (EAI; Terry, Szabo, & Griffiths, 2004), and the Exercise Dependence Scale (EDS; Hausenblas & Downs, 2002b), and to estimate the prevalence of exercise addiction in general population.DesignExercise addiction was assessed within the framework of the National Survey on Addiction Problems in Hungary (NSAPH), a national representative study for the population aged 18–64 years (N = 2710).Method474 people in the sample (57% males; mean age 33.2 years) who reported to exercise at least once a week were asked to complete the two questionnaires (EAI, EDS).ResultsConfirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) indicated good fit both in the case of EAI (CFI = 0.971; TLI = 0.952; RMSEA = 0.052) and EDS (CFI = 0.938; TLI = 0.922; RMSEA = 0.049); and confirmed the factor structure of the two scales. The correlation between the two measures was high (r = 0.79). Results showed that 6.2% (EDS) and 10.1% (EAI) of the population were characterized as nondependent-symptomatic exercisers, while the proportion of the at-risk exercisers were 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively.ConclusionsBoth EAI and EDS proved to be a reliable assessment tool for exercise addiction, a phenomenon that is present in the 0.3–0.5% of the adult general population.     

Relationship between biological markers and psychological states in elite basketball players across a competitive season

ObjectiveThe main objective of the study was to examine the relation of different biological markers to a variety of pleasant and unpleasant psychobiosocial (PBS) states in response to precompetitive stress in sport.DesignA longitudinal design was adopted to assess biological markers and PBS states before several games.MethodA whole team of high-level professional basketball players (9 men, aged from 23 to 37 years) took part in the study. The biological measures included the salivary concentration of testosterone, cortisol, aamylase, and chromogranin A. The psychological measures involved emotional, cognitive, motivational, bodily, kinesthetic, performance, and communicative components of PBS states assessed according to the dimensions of their intensity, frequency, and direction (i.e., perceived effect on performance). Assessment was conducted within 1 h prior to competition on an approximately weekly basis across the whole championship for a total of 12 games played at the team's home.ResultsA series of canonical correlation analyses showed that an increase in the salivary concentration of biological variables was associated with enhanced intensity and frequency scores of pleasant PBS states, as well as enhanced directional values (i.e., perception of facilitative effects) of a range of both pleasant and unpleasant PBS states.ConclusionFindings suggest that elevation of testosterone, cortisol, α-amylase, and chromogranin A in basketball players prior to competition can have a perceived functional effect with respect to the upcoming performance.     

Videoconferencing psychotherapy: a systematic review

Individuals with mental health problems may face barriers to accessing effective psychotherapies. Videoconferencing technology, which allows audio and video information to be shared concurrently across geographical distances, offers an alternative that may improve access. We conducted a systematic literature review of the use of videoconferencing psychotherapy (VCP), designed to address 10 specific questions, including therapeutic types/formats that have been implemented, the populations with which VCP is being used, the number and types of publications related to VCP, and available satisfaction, feasibility, and outcome data related to VCP. After electronic searches and reviews of reference lists, 821 potential articles were identified, and 65 were selected for inclusion. The results indicate that VCP is feasible, has been used in a variety of therapeutic formats and with diverse populations, is generally associated with good user satisfaction, and is found to have similar clinical outcomes to traditional face-to-face psychotherapy. Although the number of articles being published on VCP has increased in recent years, there remains a need for additional large-scale clinical trials to further assess the efficacy and effectiveness of VCP.     

An evaluation of the consequences of using short measures of the Big Five personality traits

Researchers often use very abbreviated (e.g., 1-item, 2-item) measures of personality traits due to their convenience and ease of use as well as the belief that such measures can adequately capture an individual's personality. Using data from 2 samples (N = 437 employees, N = 355 college students), we show that this practice, particularly the use of single-item measures, can lead researchers to substantially underestimate the role that personality traits play in influencing important behaviors and thereby overestimate the role played by new constructs. That is, the use of very short measures of personality may substantially increase both the Type 1 and Type 2 error rates. We argue that even slightly longer measures can substantially increase the validity of research findings without significant inconvenience to the researcher or research participants.     

Eye gaze versus arrows as spatial cues: two qualitatively different modes of attentional selection

This study aimed to evaluate the type of attentional selection (location- and/or object-based) triggered by two different types of central noninformative cues: eye gaze and arrows. Two rectangular objects were presented in the visual field, and subjects' attention was directed to the end of a rectangle via the observation of noninformative directional arrows or eye gaze. Similar experiments with peripheral cues have shown an object-based effect: faster target identification when the target is presented on the cued object as compared to the uncued object, even when the distance between target and cue was the same. The three reported experiments aimed to compare the location- and object-based attentional orienting observed with arrows and eye gaze, in order to dissociate the orienting mechanisms underlying the two types of orienting cues. Results showed similar cueing effects on the cued versus oppositely cued locations for the two cue types, replicating several studies with nonpredictive gaze and arrow cues. However, a pure object-based effect occurred only when an arrow cue was presented, whereas a pure location-based effect was only found for eye-gaze cues. It is suggested that attention is nonspecifically directed to nearby objects when a noninformative arrow is used as cue, whereas it is selectively directed to a specific cued location when noninformative eye gaze is used. This may be mediated by theory of mind mechanisms.     

Does Complex or Simple Rhetoric Win Elections? An Integrative Complexity Analysis of U.S. Presidential Campaigns

Research suggests that the integrative complexity of political rhetoric tends to drop during election season, but little research to date directly addresses if this drop in complexity serves to increase or decrease electoral success. The two present studies help fill this gap. Study 1 demonstrates that, during the Democratic Party primary debates in 2003–2004, the eventual winners of the party nomination showed a steeper drop in integrative complexity as the election season progressed than nonwinning candidates. Study 2 presents laboratory evidence from the most recent presidential campaign demonstrating that, while the complexity of Obama's rhetoric had little impact on college students' subsequent intentions to vote for him, the complexity of McCain's rhetoric was significantly positively correlated with their likelihood of voting for him. Taken together, this research is inconsistent with an unqualified simple is effective view of the complexity‐success relationship. Rather, it is more consistent with a compensatory view: Effective use of complexity (or simplicity) may compensate for perceived weaknesses. Thus, appropriately timed shifts in complexity levels, and/or violations of negative expectations relevant to complexity, may be an effective means of winning elections. Surprisingly, mere simplicity as such seems largely ineffective.     

One hand, two objects: emergence of affordance in contexts

Studies on affordances typically focus on single objects. We investigated whether affordances are modulated by the context, defined by the relation between two objects and a hand. Participants were presented with pictures displaying two manipulable objects linked by a functional (knife-butter), a spatial (knife-coffee mug), or by no relation. They responded by pressing a key whether the objects were related or not. To determine if observing other's actions and understanding their goals would facilitate judgments, a hand was: (a) displayed near the objects; (b) grasping an object to use it; (c) grasping an object to manipulate/move it; (d) no hand was displayed. RTs were faster when objects were functionally rather than spatially related. Manipulation postures were the slowest in the functional context and functional postures were inhibited in the spatial context, probably due to mismatch between the inferred goal and the context. The absence of this interaction with foot responses instead of hands in Experiment 2 suggests that effects are due to motor simulation rather than to associations between context and hand-postures.     

The effects of task and resource interdependence on achievement and social support: an exploratory study of Italian children

The relative efficacy of positive task interdependence, positive resource interdependence, and individualistic learning were compared with achievement and academic and personal social support. The authors randomly assigned to conditions 66 7th-grade Italian students with no previous experience in cooperative learning. They participated in 6 90-min instructional sessions dealing with the dangers of smoking, alcohol, and drugs. The results indicated that students assigned to the task-interdependence and resource-interdependence conditions achieved higher and perceived greater peer academic support than did students working individually. Students in the resource-interdependence condition showed a higher perception of peer personal support than students assigned to the other conditions.