Embodied cognition and skilled health behaviour

The present research examines health persuasion from an embodied cognition perspective by proposing that engaging the motor system during presentation of a health message will lead individuals to become more skilled at performing the prescribed behaviour. Participants watched a video on the importance of flossing while either imaging themselves flossing or imaging themselves flossing while minimally engaging the motor system (i.e. touching a piece of floss). Females (but not males) who touched an individual floss while watching the video demonstrated better flossing skills 1 week later. Over time, participants (both males and females) who engaged the motor system also developed more accessible attitudes and had a stronger relationship between their perceived flossing efficacy and actual flossing skill. Implications for the theories of embodied cognition and health interventions are discussed.     

Children's attitudes toward sex-role division in adult occupational roles

Kindergarten, fifth-grade, and eleventh-grade participants from a working-class community were presented with a questionnaire of 44 adult occupations and activities. They indicated for each occupation who they thought should do the job: male, female, or either one. They also stated their own future occupational goals. Liberality, defined as the number of either responses, increased with age. There was a significant sex difference in the kindergarten, with the females more liberal than the males, but not in the other grade levels. Females named as many different potential adult occupations for themselves as did males. Males and females tended to name occupations traditionally considered appropriate for their own sex, with some tendency for females to also name traditional male occupations.     

The resolution and recovery of filler-gap dependencies in aphasia: evidence from on-line anomaly detection

This study examines the on-line processing of sentences with movement using an auditory anomaly detection task (after Borland, Tanenhaus, Garnsey, & Carlson, 1995). Eight agrammatic aphasic participants (four of whom had undergone treatment focused on comprehension and production of filler-gap sentences) and 24 young normal participants listened to sentences and pressed a button when the sentences "stopped making sense." Critical sentences contained an anomaly in object relative clauses or conjoined clauses. Results showed that both young normals and aphasic participants were able to reject anomalous sentences of both types. In addition, both groups showed evidence of filler-gap resolution on-line. Importantly, however, there was evidence of a treatment effect for the aphasic patients: those who received treatment showed better performance than those who had not. Treated patients were more successful than the untreated patients in detecting the anomaly in filler-gap conditions, rejecting the anomalous filler-gap sentences reliably more often than the non-anomalous ones, like the young normals. This effect was not noted for untreated participants, i.e., there was no statistical difference between their rejection of anomalous and non-anomalous filler gap sentences. Further, the reaction time data showed that the treated aphasic patients' rejections came before sentence's end (within 2000 ms), while the majority of responses made by untreated patients did not. These results indicate that individuals with agrammatic aphasia appear to retain some gap-filling capacity and that treatment can improve their ability to make use of this capacity.     

Perceiving virtual geographical slant: action influences perception

In 4 experiments, the authors varied the extent and nature of participant movement in a virtual environment to examine the influence of action on estimates of geographical slant. Previous studies showed that people consciously overestimate hill slant but can still accurately guide an action toward the hill (D. R. Proffitt, M. Bhalla, R. Gossweiler, & J. Midgett, 1995). Related studies suggest that one's potential to act may influence perception of slant and that distinct representations may independently inform perceptual and motoric responses. The authors found that in all conditions, perceptual judgments were overestimated and motoric adjustments were more accurate. The virtual environment allowed manipulation of the effort required to walk up simulated hills. Walking with the effort appropriate to the visual slant led to increased perceptual overestimation of slant compared with active walking with the effort appropriate to level ground, while visually guided actions remained accurate.     

Getting a cue: the need to belong and enhanced sensitivity to social cues

To successfully establish and maintain social relationships, individuals need to be sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. In the current studies, the authors predicted that individuals who are especially concerned with social connectedness--individuals high in the need to belong--would be particularly attentive to and accurate in decoding social cues. In Study 1, individual differences in the need to belong were found to be positively related to accuracy in identifying vocal tone and facial emotion. Study 2 examined attention to vocal tone and accuracy in a more complex social sensitivity task (an empathic accuracy task). Replicating the results of Study 1, need to belong scores predicted both attention to vocal tone and empathic accuracy. Study 3 provided evidence that the enhanced performance shown by those high in the need to belong is specific to social perception skills rather than to cognitive problem solving more generally.     

A threat in the computer: the race implicit association test as a stereotype threat experience

Three experiments test whether the threat of appearing racist leads White participants to perform worse on the race Implicit Association Test (IAT) and whether self-affirmation can protect from this threat. Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that White participants show a stereotype threat effect when completing the race IAT, leading to stronger pro-White scores when the test is believed to be diagnostic of racism. This effect increases for domain-identified (highly motivated to control prejudice) participants (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, self-affirmation inoculates participants against stereotype threat while taking the race IAT. These findings have methodological implications for use of the race IAT and theoretical implications concerning the malleability of automatic prejudice and the potential interpersonal effects of the fear of appearing racist.     

Genetics in eating disorders: state of the science

Eating disorders have been viewed as psychiatric illnesses that are strongly influenced by societal pressures towards thinness and attractiveness. Although the environmental context of these disorders must not be neglected, recent research in the area of genetic epidemiology suggests a substantial influence of genetic factors on liability to eating disorders. This review presents a synthesis of current knowledge about genetic factors implicated in the etiology of eating disorders.