Memory awareness following episodic inhibition

Three experiments used directed forgetting (DF) and retrieval practice (RP) to investigate the relation of inhibited items to states of memory awareness occurring at test. In Experiment 1 using list DF robust inhibitory effects were present in cued recall, but in a recognition test these effects were only present in responses accompanied by recollective experience. In Experiments 2 and 3 using RP reliable effects of inhibition were found but these did not relate systematically to states of memory awareness. It is suggested that in DF the to-be-forgotten items are tagged at study as not to be recollectively experienced and so have a specific, inhibitory, relation to states of recollective experience occurring during test. In RP no tagging takes place, and inhibition is automatic or nonintentional and consequently does not have a specific relation to states of memory awareness at test.     

Confidence in work‐related goals and feelings of exhaustion during a therapeutic intervention for burnout: A time‐series approach

This study investigated recursive relations between confidence in achieving work‐related goals and work exhaustion among employees who participated in an intervention to reduce their burnout. Thirty‐six employees of age 33–59 years suffering from severe burnout (28 females and 8 males) filled in burnout and well‐being measures before and after a 10‐month therapeutic intervention. They also filled in weekly measures of confidence in work‐related goals (progress and capability) and work exhaustion throughout the intervention, as well as 4 weeks before and 4 weeks afterwards. Intra‐individual variation was modelled using dynamic factor analyses. The results showed that, for most participants, confidence in work‐related goals and work exhaustion during a given week could be predicted from those of the preceding week. Moreover, high self‐esteem predicted low weekly stability in goal confidence, whereas high burnout contributed to high weekly stability in work exhaustion. The intra‐individual stabilities in goal confidence and exhaustion also predicted which of the participants benefited from the intervention in terms of increasing well‐being and decreasing work‐related stress.     

Nonmaternal care in infancy and emotional/behavioral difficulties at 4 years old: moderation by family risk characteristics

The authors examined the role of familial risk and child characteristics in the association between the type of child care in infancy (maternal care [MC]) versus nonmaternal care [NMC]) and emotional/behavioral difficulties at 4 years old. Canadian families (N=1,358) with children between 1 and 12 months old were followed over 4 years. Family risks were found to moderate the association between type of child care and physical aggression. MC in infancy was associated with lower levels of physical aggression among children from a low-risk family background but not among those from a high-risk family background. The effect size was small (d=-0.16; confidence interval [CI]=-0.3, -0.01). Family risk and the sex of the child moderated the association between child care and emotional problems. MC in infancy was associated with a lower level of emotional difficulties among girls from low-risk families but not among boys or among children from high-risk families. The effect size was moderate (d=-0.44; CI=-0.65, -0.23). The study indicates that the effect of child care type in infancy varies by family and child characteristics.     

Saliency on a natural scene background: Effects of color and luminance contrast add linearly

In natural vision, shifts in spatial attention are associated with shifts of gaze. Computational models of such overt attention typically use the concept of a saliency map: Normalized maps of center-surround differences are computed for individual stimulus features and added linearly to obtain the saliency map. Although the predictions of such models correlate with fixated locations better than chance, their mechanistic assumptions are less well investigated. Here, we tested one key assumption: Do the effects of different features add linearly or according to a max-type of interaction? We measured the eye position of observers viewing natural stimuli whose luminance contrast and/or color contrast (saturation) increased gradually toward one side. We found that these feature gradients biased fixations toward regions of high contrasts. When two contrast gradients (color and luminance) were superimposed, linear summation of their individual effects predicted their combined effect. This demonstrated that the interaction of color and luminance contrast with respect to human overt attention is—irrespective of the precise model—consistent with the assumption of linearity, but not with a max-type interaction of these features.     

Parental Attachment and Body Satisfaction in Adolescents

Insecure attachment can contribute to various psychological problems including body dissatisfaction. It is not clarified which attachment quality, anxiety or avoidance predict lower body satisfaction, and the relationship of maternal and paternal patterns has not been distinguished yet. Our aim was to test these aspects in adolescents. Participants of the large cross-sectional survey were Hungarian children and adolescents (N?=?5214, 51.6?% boys, mean age 14.8 years, SD?=?2.6 years). Measures included self-reported body weight and height data, body satisfaction scale, the Experience in Close Relationships Scale—Relationship Structures, and the Child Depression Inventory. Boys had significantly higher body satisfaction, and worse maternal attachment than girls, who showed worse paternal attachment and higher depression. Higher paternal anxiety and avoidance, and maternal avoidance predicted lower body satisfaction in both genders adjusted for age and BMI (R ²?=?6.1–12.5?%). Depression fully mediated the relationship between dysfunctional maternal attachment and lower body satisfaction in both genders, between dysfunctional paternal attachment and lower body satisfaction in girls, while only partially mediated between dysfunctional paternal attachment and lower body satisfaction in boys. Dysfunctional parental attachment was associated with adolescents’ lower body dissatisfaction, mediated by the level of depression. The importance of paternal attachment was highlighted in boys’ body concerns. Results suggest that handling negative moods, parental anxiety and avoidance may be useful in the case conceptualizations and treatments related to adolescents’ body dissatisfaction that requires further assessment.     

Masculinity-femininity and perceptual style on the Circles Test

In relation to the open perceptual style characteristics a classification of responses to the Torrance's Circles Test provided a measure of psychosexual identification. To the initial stimulus inner-spaced and outer-spaced responses can be interpreted as feminine and masculine styles of information processing. The observations were validated by the Mf scale of the MMPI. Masculine women gave fewer inner-space responses than masculine men, and feminine men gave more inner-space responses than feminine women.     

Seeing is believing: Trustworthiness as a dynamic belief

Recent efforts to understand the mechanisms underlying human cooperation have focused on the notion of trust, with research illustrating that both initial impressions and previous interactions impact the amount of trust people place in a partner. Less is known, however, about how these two types of information interact in iterated exchanges. The present study examined how implicit initial trustworthiness information interacts with experienced trustworthiness in a repeated Trust Game. Consistent with our hypotheses, these two factors reliably influence behavior both independently and synergistically, in terms of how much money players were willing to entrust to their partner and also in their post-game subjective ratings of trustworthiness. To further understand this interaction, we used Reinforcement Learning models to test several distinct processing hypotheses. These results suggest that trustworthiness is a belief about probability of reciprocation based initially on implicit judgments, and then dynamically updated based on experiences. This study provides a novel quantitative framework to conceptualize the notion of trustworthiness.     

ScanMatch: A novel method for comparing fixation sequences

We present a novel approach to comparing saccadic eye movement sequences based on the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm used in bioinformatics to compare DNA sequences. In the proposed method, the saccade sequence is spatially and temporally binned and then recoded to create a sequence of letters that retains fixation location, time, and order information. The comparison of two letter sequences is made by maximizing the similarity score computed from a substitution matrix that provides the score for all letter pair substitutions and a penalty gap. The substitution matrix provides a meaningful link between each location coded by the individual letters. This link could be distance but could also encode any useful dimension, including perceptual or semantic space. We show, by using synthetic and behavioral data, the benefits of this method over existing methods. The ScanMatch toolbox for MATLAB is freely available online (www.scanmatch.co.uk).     

Individually-tailored, Internet-based treatment for anxiety disorders: A randomized controlled trial

Previous studies on Internet-based treatment with minimal to moderate therapist guidance have shown promising results for a number of specific diagnoses. The aim of this study was to test a new approach to Internet treatment that involves tailoring the treatment according to the patient’s unique characteristics and comorbidities.A total of 54 participants, regardless of specific anxiety diagnosis, were included after an in-person, semi-structured diagnostic interview and randomized to a 10 week treatment program or to a control group. Treatment consisted of a number of individually-prescribed modules in conjunction with online therapist guidance. Significant results were found for all dependent measures both immediately following treatment and at 1 and 2 year intervals. Mean between-group effect size including measures of anxiety, depression and quality of life was Cohen’s d = 0.69 at post-treatment, while the mean within-group effect size was d = 1.15 at post-treatment and d = 1.13 and d = 1.04 at 1 and 2 year follow-up respectively.The tentative conclusion drawn from these results is that tailoring the Internet-based therapy can be a feasible approach in the treatment of anxiety in a homogeneous population.     

Social relationships and intraindividual variability in interpersonal behavior: correlates of interpersonal spin

Personality constructs are typically conceptualized as central tendencies of the individual. We explore whether dynamic personality constructs that quantify the within-individual variability of behavior across situations and over time predict the closeness of social relationships. We focused on interpersonal spin, defined as the degree of dispersion in a person's interpersonal behaviors around the interpersonal circumplex across situations and over time. We predicted that individuals with high spin would have social relationships that are less close than individuals with low spin. In 3 studies with different measures of relationship closeness, we found that (a) higher spinners reported that a larger proportion of their contacts in their workplace social networks were distant (Study 1); (b) co-workers were less satisfied and less often engaged in pleasant activities with higher spinners (Study 2); and (c) co-workers avoided higher spinners with whom they were well acquainted (Study 3). Moderated mediation analyses in Study 3 revealed that co-workers avoided well-acquainted higher spinners because they felt more negative affect when interacting with these individuals. The findings suggest the potential of dynamic personality constructs for improving our understanding of the characteristics of individuals' social relationships.