On the Inner Life of Physicians: Analysis of Family Medicine Residents’ Written Reflections

This qualitative study introduces the broad and inclusive concept of the “inner life of physicians” and analyzes the written reflections (N = 756) of family medicine residents (N = 33) during their residency as indicative of the physicians’ inner lives. Residents completed reflective entries without specific prompts. Researchers describe unsolicited emergent categorical themes indicative of a robust inner life of the physician. Nurturing physicians’ inner life through reflection allows physicians to recognize, identify, and respond to daily emotional events. Reflections about the state of physicians’ inner lives can formulate and express fundamental human questions that concern: (a) troubling human experiences (e.g., suffering, death, luck, destiny, and death); (b) questions that surface in practicing their profession; (c) spiritually explicit questions on their beliefs and practices. Physicians’ inner lives can become a “place” where physicians look for answers and explore options for dealing with their human and professional challenges, thus enhancing the humanistic aspects of medical practice.     

Motivated message processing: How motivational activation influences resource allocation, encoding, and storage of TV messages

This paper investigates differences in overtime processing of television messages with three types of emotional trajectories—those which begin neutral and become negative, begin neutral and become positive and begin neutral and become equally positive and negative. The limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing is used to predict how the type of emotional content influences real-time activation of the appetitive and aversive motivational systems which then alter concurrent and subsequent message processing. Results show that during the first time period, when motivational activation is low, more resources are allocated to coactive and positive compared to negative messages supporting the positivity offset hypothesis. In the middle time period, when activation is moderate, more resources are allocated to negative than to positive messages, supporting the negativity bias hypothesis. Further, the different patterns of motivational activation do result in different patterns of messages processing. During positive messages, encoding increases and storage decreases over time. During negative messages, encoding decreases and storage increases overtime. During coactive messages initial encoding and storage are high though both decrease slightly over time.     

Individual differences in fixation duration distributions in reading

The present study investigated the relationship between the location and skew of an individual reader’s fixation duration distribution. The ex-Gaussian distribution was fit to eye fixation data from 153 subjects in five experiments, four previously presented and one new. The τ parameter was entirely uncorrelated with the μ and σ parameters; by contrast, there was a modest positive correlation between these parameters for lexical decision and speeded pronunciation response times. The conclusion that, for fixation durations, the degree of skew is uncorrelated with the location of the distribution’s central tendency was also confirmed nonparametrically, by examining vincentile plots for subgroups of subjects. Finally, the stability of distributional parameters for a given subject was demonstrated to be relatively high. Taken together with previous findings of selective influence on the μ parameter of the fixation duration distribution, the present results suggest that in reading, the location and the skew of the fixation duration distribution may reflect functionally distinct processes. The authors speculate that the skew parameter may specifically reflect the frequency of processing disruption.     

Profiles of externalizing behavior problems for boys and girls across preschool: the roles of emotion regulation and inattention

Although externalizing behavior typically peaks in toddlerhood and decreases by school entry, some children do not show this normative decline. A sample of 383 boys and girls was assessed at ages 2, 4, and 5 for externalizing behavior and at age 2 on measures of emotion regulation and inattention. A longitudinal latent profile analysis was performed and resulted in 4 longitudinal profiles of externalizing behavior for each gender. Poor emotion regulation and inattention were important predictors of membership in the chronic-clinical profile for girls, whereas socioeconomic status and inattention were important predictors of membership in the chronic-clinical profile for boys. Results are discussed with respect to the development of adaptive skills that lead to normative declines in externalizing behavior across childhood.     

On the reality of the conjunction fallacy

Attributing higher "probability" to a sentence of form p-and-q, relative to p, is a reasoning fallacy only if (1) the word probability carries its modern, technical meaning and (2) the sentence p is interpreted as a conjunct of the conjunction p-and-q. Legitimate doubts arise about both conditions in classic demonstrations of the conjunction fallacy. We used betting paradigms and unambiguously conjunctive statements to reduce these sources of ambiguity about conjunctive reasoning. Despite the precautions, conjunction fallacies were as frequent under betting instructions as under standard probability instructions.     

Mental fatigue influence on effort-related cardiovascular response: difficulty effects and extension across cognitive performance domains

Two experiments investigated cardiovascular effects of mental fatigue as a function of (1) the difficulty of the cognitive challenge with which participants were confronted, and (2) the relevance of that challenge to the activity that instigated the fatigue. In the first, participants performed an easy (fatigue low) or difficult (fatigue high) counting task and then were presented an arithmetic challenge (task B relevance high) or a scanning challenge (task B relevance low) with instructions that they would avoid a noise if they attained a modest performance standard. Analysis of blood pressure responses assessed during the work periods revealed fatigue main effects, reflecting stronger responses for High Fatigue participants, regardless of the character of the second task. In the second, the procedure was the same except that it included a high performance standard and provided the chance to win a prize. Analysis of the pressure data revealed fatigue x work period interactions, reflecting relatively stronger responses among High Fatigue participants in work period 1, but relatively weaker responses among these participants in work period 2. Results confirm previous findings and support an analysis of fatigue influence on effort and associated cardiovascular responses. They also argue against the idea that mental fatigue influence may be confined to relevant cognitive performance realms.