Standard and Short RoM Isokinetic Testing: Comparative Analysis in Identifying Submaximal Shoulder External Rotator Effort

An isokinetic-related parameter termed the difference between eccentric-concentric strength ratios at two distinct test velocities (DEC) based on 60° (standard) range of motion (RoM) has been proven to be highly efficient detecting feigned muscular efforts. This study aimed to verify whether a DEC derived from a much shorter test RoM (20°) was equally useful than a long RoM–derived one. Eighteen healthy men (32.4 ± 6.4 years old) took part in a study focusing on shoulder external rotation isokinetic strength. Participants performed a genuine shoulder external rotator maximal effort (eight pairs of concentric and eccentric contractions at high and low velocities at short and long RoM) and then instructed to feign maximal effort. Contraction velocities were adjusted accordingly by applying a 1:4 gradient and peak moments registered. Both condition DEC was then calculated by subtracting the eccentric and concentric strength ratios at low velocities from those at high velocities. DEC scores in the feigned effort were significantly higher than maximal effort ones in both conditions in men. It enabled the setting of specific cutoff levels for separating the efforts. Both approaches revealed a coincident sensitivity (78%) whereas short RoM showed an even higher specificity: 88% versus 78%. Thus, the short RoM protocol provides clinically acceptable detection power.     

Validation of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy—Spiritual Well-being (FACIT-Sp12) on French Old People

The study aimed to develop a French version of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy—Spiritual Well-being short version (FACIT-Sp12), in order to provide a self-reported measure for French people in the field of gerontology. The study involving 63 nursing home residents was conducted to evaluate the construct validity, reliability, and convergence validity of the FACIT-Sp12. A confirmatory factor analysis corroborated a three-factor model (Meaning, Peace and Faith) with modifications for two items, also valid among people with cognitive impairment. Subscales showed good internal consistency and are correlated with quality of life and depression. In conclusion, the validated French version is an suitable instrument to study the maintenance and promotion of quality of life in the elderly.     

Impact of gendered ingroup/outgroup ostracism on women’s academic performances

This study investigated the impact of ostracism (vs. inclusion) for women in a same-sex vs. opposite-sex group on their cognitive performances. Female participants played Cyberball with other women or men and were either included or excluded. Participants then had to engage in the performance tasks. Results showed that women’s performance was decreased by ostracism in a math task (but not a verbal task) yet only in the same-sex condition. Furthermore, this result was obtained only among participants who did the numeric task first. No effect was observed in the verbal task. Two replications of the initial study were conducted using the math task. The result of the first study has been replicated one time. A meta-analysis revealed a small effect of ostracism on performance in the ingroup condition, whereas the effect seems to be non-existent in the outgroup condition. Results are discussed and future perspectives are proposed.     

Boys,girls, and the school cultural environment: Teachers’ judgment and students’ values

Due to gender socialization, girls are more likely to endorse self-transcendence values (e.g., helping people) compared to boys, whereas boys are more likely to endorse self-enhancement values (e.g., wanting to be in charge) compared to girls. In two studies, we investigated teachers’ judgment regarding the display of these values in school and students’ endorsement of the self-transcendence and self-enhancement values in two contexts: home and school. In Study 1 (N = 240), teachers evaluated a student perceived as strongly endorsing the self-transcendence values more positively compared to a student perceived as strongly endorsing the self-enhancement values, regardless of the student’s gender. In Study 2 (N = 151), boys endorsed the self-enhancement values more than the self-transcendence values at home, whereas the opposite occurred in the school context. Girls did not vary across contexts, endorsing the self-transcendence values more than the self-enhancement values in both contexts. Possible consequences on boys’ school-related outcomes are discussed.     

Shoemaker's Analysis of Realization: A Review

Sydney Shoemaker has been arguing for more than a decade for an account of the mind–body problem in which the notion of realization takes centre stage. His aim is to provide a notion of realization that is consistent with the multiple realizability of mental properties or events, and which explains: (i) how the physical grounds the mental; and (ii) why the causal work of mental events is not screened off by that of physical events. Shoemaker's proposal consists of individuating properties in terms of causal powers, and defining realization as a relation of inclusion between sets of causal powers. Thus, as the causal powers that define a mental property are a subset of the causal powers that characterize a physical property, it can be said that physical properties realize mental properties. In this paper we examine the physicalist credentials of Shoemaker's mind–body theory in relation to three important issues: the direction of the relation of dependence that the theory is committed to; the possibility of mental properties existing without being anchored by physical properties; and the compatibility of the theory with the causal closure of the physical world. We argue that Shoemaker's theory is problematic in all three respects. After that we consider whether the theory should count as a mind–body theory at all, given that it seems to be committed to a distorted view of mental properties.     

The Interplay of Implicit Causality,Structural Heuristics,and Anaphor Type in Ambiguous Pronoun Resolution

Two visual-world eye-tracking experiments investigating pronoun resolution in Finnish examined the time course of implicit causality information relative to both grammatical role and order-of-mention information. Experiment 1 showed an effect of implicit causality that appeared at the same time as the first-mention preference. Furthermore, when we counterbalanced the semantic roles of the verbs, we found no effect of grammatical role, suggesting the standard observed subject preference has a large semantic component. Experiment 2 showed that both the personal pronoun hän and the demonstrative tämä preferred the antecedent consistent with the implicit causality bias; tämä was not interpreted as referring to the semantically non-prominent entity. In contrast, structural prominence affected hän and tämä differently: we found a first-mention preference for hän, but a second-mention preference for tämä. The results suggest that semantic implicit causality information has an immediate effect on pronoun resolution and its use is not delayed relative to order-of-mention information. Furthermore, they show that order-of-mention differentially affects different types of anaphoric expressions, but semantic information has the same effect.     

Promoting interdomain analogical transfer: When creating a problem helps to solve a problem

Research on analogical thinking has devised several ways of promoting an abstract encoding of base analogs, thus rendering them more retrievable during later encounters with similar situations lacking surface similarities. Recent studies have begun to explore ways of facilitating transfer at retrieval time, which could facilitate the retrieval of distant analogs learned within contexts that were not specially directed to emphasize their abstract structure. Such studies demonstrate that comparing a target problem to an analogous problem helps students retrieve base analogs that lack surface similarities. To devise more portable ways of enhancing analogical transfer, Experiment 1 replicated Kurtz and Loewenstein’s (Memory & Cognition, 35, 334–341, 2007) target-comparison procedure with an additional condition in which participants compared the target to a nonanalogous problem before attempting to reach its solution. Although comparing two analogous targets outperformed the standard transfer condition in promoting analogical transfer, comparing nonanalogous problems did not yield a transfer advantage. Based on prior studies that showed that the activity of creating analogous problems during their initial encoding elicits a more abstract representation of base analogs, in Experiment 2 we assessed whether constructing a second analogous target problem at retrieval time helps participants retrieve superficially dissimilar base analogs. As predicted, target invention increased the retrieval of distant sources. In both experiments we found an association between the quality of the generated schemas and the probability of retrieving a distant base analog from memory.     

The role of overt language production in the Hebb repetition effect

The Hebb repetition effect (Hebb, 1961) occurs when recall performance improves for a list that is repeated during a serial-recall task. This effect is considered a good experimental analogue to language learning. Our objective was to evaluate the role of overt language production in language learning by manipulating recall direction during a Hebb repetition paradigm. In each trial, seven nonsense syllables were presented auditorily. Participants had to orally recall the items either in the presentation order or in reverse order. One sequence was repeated every third trial. In Experiment 1, we compared learning from a group that had recalled the items in their presentation order to learning from a group that had recalled the items in the reverse order. The two groups yielded similar learning rates. In Experiment 2, recall direction was varied between trials. The learning rate was not affected when recall direction varied between trials, suggesting a limited role of overt language production in language learning.