Altruistic Discourse in the Informed Consent Process for Childhood Cancer Clinical Trials

Scholars have debated the role that altruistic considerations play—and should play—in recruitment and decision-making processes for clinical trials. Little empirical data are available to support their various perspectives. We analyzed 140 audiotaped pediatric informed consent sessions, of which 95 (68%) included at least one discussion of how participation in a cancer clinical trial might benefit: 1) the pursuit of scientific knowledge generally; 2) other children with cancer specifically; and 3) “the future” and other vaguely defined recipients. Clinicians initiated most (80%) of these discussions of altruism. The enrollment rate of children in the clinical trial was high (83%) overall, but not higher among children whose parents were involved in an altruism-oriented discussion. These findings suggest that: (1) clinicians invoke a spectrum of altruistic considerations rather than a single monothematic notion of altruism, and (2) the effect of altruistic considerations on subsequent enrollment decisions is marginal. While further research on this topic is warranted, bioethical debate should strive to reflect the diversity of altruistic discourse in clinical research encounters and to place this discourse in the context of other, including nonaltruistic, considerations.     

The shape of things to come: Exploring goal-directed prospection

Through the ability to preview the future (i.e., prospection), people can anticipate how best to think, feel and act in just about any setting. But exactly what factors determine the contents of prospection? Extending research on action identification and temporal construal, here we explored how action goals and temporal distance modulate the characteristics of future previews. Participants were required to imagine travelling to Egypt (in the near or distant future) to climb or photograph a pyramid. Afterwards, to probe the contents of prospection, participants provided a sketch of their imaginary experience. Results elucidated the impact of goal type and temporal distance on mental imagery. While a climbing goal prompted participants to draw a larger pyramid in the near than distant future, a photographic goal influenced only the compositional complexity of the sketches. These findings reveal how action goals and temporal distance shape the contents of future simulations.     

Pro‐Diversity Beliefs and Everyday Ethnic Discrimination on Grounds of Foreign Names

The paper examined the effect of positive beliefs about the value of ethnic diversity (i.e. diversity beliefs) on discrimination due to foreign sounding names. It was hypothesized that pro‐diversity beliefs reduce discrimination. Results from two studies (N = 29 and N = 104) confirmed this hypothesis. Practical implications of our results are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integrating spatial context learning over contradictory signals: Recency effects in contextual cueing

Contextual cueing is a visual search phenomenon in which memory of global visual context guides spatial attention towards task-relevant portions of the search display. Recent work has shown that the learning processes underlying contextual cueing exhibit primacy effects; they are more sensitive to early experience than to later experience. These results appear to pose difficulties for associative accounts which typically predict recency effects; behaviour being most strongly influenced by recent experience. The current study utilizes trial sequences that consist of two contradictory sets of regularities. In contrast to previous results, robust recency effects were observed. In a second study it is demonstrated that this recency effect can be minimized, but not reversed by systematically manipulating task-irrelevant features of the search display. These results provide additional support for an associative account of contextual cueing and suggest that contextual cueing may, under some circumstances, be more sensitive to recent experience.     

Peut-on légiférer à propos de l’assistance sexuelle en France ?

The question about sexual assistance law in favor of disabled people in France reveals from double analysis. On one hand, this law is necessary: it would regulate a practice carried out clandestinely. In the other hand, this law is now in conformity with the principle of non-negotiability of human body.     

Distractor-response bindings in dual task scenarios

If a response is executed in reaction to a target stimulus, accompanying distractor stimuli can be integrated with and later on retrieve this response, an effect called distractor-response binding. There has been some debate as to whether S-R binding is generally influenced by attentional processes and in particular the role of attentional processes for the binding of irrelevant stimuli and responses is unclear. We therefore analyze the impact of spatial input attention while engaging central attention in an additional task. In particular, participants worked in dual task situations that induced load on central attention while the distribution of spatial attention was manipulated by varying the location of the different tasks. Distractor-response binding occurred only if both tasks were presented in the same spatial location. In contrast, binding effects within one task were prevented if spatial attention was withdrawn from the task by presenting a second task in a separate area. It is concluded that input but no central attention is required for the integration of distractor stimuli and responses. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Can I see your passport please? Perceptual discrimination of own- and other-race faces

Psychological research has consistently demonstrated that individuals are better at discriminating faces of their own race when compared with faces of another, less familiar race. Given the racial/ethnic diversity of individuals screened by security personnel at transportation and border checkpoints, it is important to understand whether the cross-race effect may play a role in simultaneous perceptual discrimination tasks that mimic such screening operations. Three experiments assessed the deleterious effects of cross-racial identification in this context. Results demonstrated greater discrimination accuracy for own- versus other-race faces, and a propensity for screeners to be overconfident in their decisions, particularly for other-race persons. Further, perceived age differences between the target and his identification photo and the use of a disguise were found to moderate cross-race effects during this task.     

The time course of working memory effects on visual attention

Previous work has generated inconsistent results with regard to what extent working memory (WM) content guides visual attention. Some studies found effects of easy to verbalize stimuli, whereas others only found an influence of visual memory content. To resolve this, we compared the time courses of memory-based attentional guidance for different memory types. Participants first memorized a colour, which was either easy or difficult to verbalize. They then looked for an unrelated target in a visual search display and finally completed a memory test. One of the distractors in the search display could have the memorized colour. We varied the time between the to-be-remembered colour and the search display, as well as the ease with which the colours could be verbalized. We found that the influence of easy to verbalize WM content on visual search decreased with increasing time, whereas the influence of visual WM content was sustained. However, visual working memory effects on attention also decreased when the duration of visual encoding was limited by an additional task or when the memory item was presented only briefly. We propose that for working memory effects on visual attention to be sustained, a sufficiently strong visual representation is necessary.     

Organization-, supervisor-, and workgroup-directed commitments and citizenship behaviours: A comparison of models

The purpose of this study was to test two competing theoretical models explaining the relationships between affective commitment to the organization, the supervisor, and the workgroup, and organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) specifically directed toward these foci. Drawing on cohesion theory, the first model stated that commitment to the organization is a key mediating variable intervening between “local” commitments and OCB (Hunt & Morgan, 1994). Building on Lewin's (1943) field theory and the notion of psychological proximity, the second model proposed that commitment to the most proximal focus should mediate the effect of commitment to more distal entities on OCB. Data drawn from a sample of blue-collar workers and their supervisors in an iron and steel company indicated that the model of a proximal mediation best represented the relationships between commitments and OCB.