Antagonistic modulatory influences of negative affect on cognitive control: Reduced and enhanced interference resolution capability after the induction of fear and sadness

The present behavioral study investigated the influence of negative affect on the neural mechanisms of cognitive control. We expected to find evidence for an antagonistic modulation of cognition by threat-relevant and threat-irrelevant negative affect (i.e. fear and sadness) that should promote bottom-up monitoring and top-down selection, respectively. Subjects performed one of three conflict tasks (Stroop, Flanker, or Simon) that tap distinct control mechanisms of conflict resolution, comprising specific attentional and motor control processes. On each task trial, target stimuli were preceded by a face stimulus exhibiting a fearful, sad, or neutral expression, providing three affect conditions. Our data provides strong evidence for substantially increased selection (attentional and motor selection) after priming of threat-irrelevant negative affect (sadness). Deviating from the results of previous studies, our analysis did not consistently yield increased monitoring after fear priming. We discuss these findings with respect to the effectiveness of different experimental affect priming procedures (i.e. stimuli) and the role of the task context, among others.     

End state copying by humans (Homo sapiens): implications for a comparative perspective on cumulative culture

It has been proposed that the uniqueness of human cumulative culture may be attributable to humans' greater orientation toward copying the process of behavior (imitation), as compared with the products (emulation), resulting in particularly high fidelity transmission. Following from previous work indicating that adult human participants can exhibit cumulative learning on the basis of product copying alone, we now investigate whether such learning involves high fidelity transmission. Eighty adult human (Homo sapiens) participants were presented with a task previously shown to elicit cumulative learning under experimental conditions, which involved building a tower from spaghetti and modeling clay. Each participant was shown two completed towers, ostensibly built by previous participants, but actually built to prespecified designs by the experimenter. This end state information was provided either in the form of photographs, or the presence of actual towers. High fidelity matching to these end states was apparent in both demonstration conditions, even for a design that was demonstrably suboptimal with regard to the goal of the task (maximizing tower height). We conclude that, although high fidelity transmission is likely to be implicated in cumulative culture, action copying is not always necessary for this to occur. Furthermore, since chimpanzees apparently copy behavioral processes and well as products, and also transmit behavior with high fidelity, the stark absence of unequivocal examples of cumulative culture in nonhumans may be attributable to factors other than imitative ability.     

Culture and the body: East-West differences in visceral perception

This research investigated cross-cultural differences in the accuracy of individuals' perceptions of internal visceral states. We conducted 4 studies to test the hypothesis that Asians are less sensitive to internal physiological cues relative to European Americans. Studies 1 and 2 assessed cultural differences in visceral perception via tests of misattributions of arousal: Study 1 involved false heart rate feedback during an emotionally evocative slideshow and examined subsequent self-reported affective changes; Study 2 manipulated apparent physiological arousal and measured its effects on attraction via an immersive virtual environment. Study 3 directly assessed visceral perception using a heartbeat detection task. All 3 studies found Asians to be less viscerally perceptive than European Americans. Study 4 examined one possible cultural mechanism for the observed difference and found evidence for contextual dependency as a mediator of the culture-visceral perception link.     

Sub‐Dimensions of the Four Factor Model of Cultural Intelligence: Expanding the Conceptualization and Measurement of Cultural Intelligence

Cultural intelligence (CQ) – the capability to function effectively in intercultural settings – has gained increasing attention from researchers and practitioners due to its contemporary relevance to globalization, international management, and workforce diversification. Research‐to‐date demonstrates that CQ predicts a variety of important outcomes in intercultural contexts, such as cultural adaptation, expatriate performance, global leadership, intercultural negotiation, and multicultural team processes. Moving beyond past research that tends to focus on the four primary factors of CQ – metacognitive CQ, cognitive CQ, motivational CQ, and behavioral CQ, we introduce an expanded conceptualization of CQ that delineates sub‐dimensions for each of the four factors. We briefly review psychometric evidence supporting the proposed second order 11‐factor structure and convergent/discriminant validity of the sub‐dimensions. We propose that the next wave of CQ research should be guided by a deeper understanding of each of four factors of CQ.     

Healthcare Serial Killers as Confidence Men

Although there is adequate coverage of serial murder in the extant homicide literature, there is a lack of systematic examination of healthcare professionals who serially murder their patients. Using a sample of 58 healthcare serial killers located within North America, South America, and Europe between the years of 1970 and 2010, this study examines notable pre‐offense and post‐offense behaviours of healthcare serial killers. Patterns related to offender aetiology, victim cultivation, crime scene behaviour, and techniques of evasion were explored. The findings from this study suggest that the pre‐offense and post‐offense behaviours of healthcare serial killers can be conceptualised from the theoretical framework of confidence men or ‘con men’. The findings from this study also suggest that healthcare serial killings and offenders who perpetrate them continue to be elusive and warrant additional scholarly attention to reduce their likelihood of engaging in homicide undetected for extended time. Policy implications are also discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deciding with the eye: How the visually manipulated accessibility of information in memory influences decision behavior

Decision situations are typically characterized by uncertainty: Individuals do not know the values of different options on a criterion dimension. For example, consumers do not know which is the healthiest of several products. To make a decision, individuals can use information about cues that are probabilistically related to the criterion dimension, such as sugar content or the concentration of natural vitamins. In two experiments, we investigated how the accessibility of cue information in memory affects which decision strategy individuals rely on. The accessibility of cue information was manipulated by means of a newly developed paradigm, the spatial-memory-cueing paradigm, which is based on a combination of the looking-at-nothing phenomenon and the spatial-cueing paradigm. The results indicated that people use different decision strategies, depending on the validity of easily accessible information. If the easily accessible information is valid, people stop information search and decide according to a simple take-the-best heuristic. If, however, information that comes to mind easily has a low predictive validity, people are more likely to integrate all available cue information in a compensatory manner.     

How Group Analysis Cures: An Exploration of Narcissistic Rage in Group Treatment

This paper addresses the use of group analysis in treating individuals for whom chronic narcissistic rage is a prominent feature of their character. Such individuals are often especially suspicious of participating in group experiences, as their sensitivity to slight and circumscribed empathy for others often leaves them vulnerable to being attacked and ostracized in groups. Their history often reveals experiences in which they were either the scapegoat of the family or of the playground, often both. Such individuals, however, may also long for inclusion and acceptance, and thus participation in a therapeutic group may be a particularly important part of their continued development. An extended clinical vignette illustrates how such work occurs within a therapeutic group using a self-psychological model. Narcissistic rage as manifested within the group-as-a-whole or groupself is also examined.     

Limitations of distal effect anticipation when using tools

Modern technologies progressively create workplaces in which the execution of movements and the observation of their consequences are spatially separated. Challenging workplaces in which users act via technical equipment in a distant space include aviation, applied medical engineering and virtual reality. When using a tool, proprioceptive/tactile feedback from the moving hand (proximal action effect) and visual feedback from the moving effect point of the tool, such as the moving cursor on a display (the distal action effect) often do not correspond or are even in conflict. If proximal and distal feedback were equally important for controlling actions with tools, this discrepancy would be a constant source of interference. The human information processing system solves this problem by favoring the intended distal action effects while attenuating or ignoring proximal action effects. The study presents an overview of experiments aiming at the underlying motor and cognitive processes and the limitations of visual predominance in tool actions. The main findings are, that when transformations are in effect the awareness of one's own actions is quite low. This seems to be advantageous when using tools, as it allows for wide range of flexible sensorimotor adaptations and – may be more important – it evokes the feeling of being in control. Thus, the attenuation of perceiving one's own proximal action effects is an important precondition for using tools successfully. However, the ability to integrate discordant perception-action feedback has limits, especially, but not only, with complex transformations. When feature overlap between vision and proprioception is low, and when the existence of a transformation is obvious proximal action effects come to the fore and dominate action control in tool actions. In conclusion action–effect control plays an important role in understanding the constraints of the acquisition and application of tool transformations.     

The contribution of familiarity to within- and between-domain associative recognition memory: Use of a modified remember/know procedure

The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which familiarity can support associative recognition memory as a function of whether the associations are within- or between-domain. Standard recognition and familiarity only performance were compared in different participants, using a new adaptation of the remember/know procedure. The results indicated that within-domain (face–face) associative recognition was mainly supported by familiarity. In contrast, familiarity provided relatively poor support to between-domain (face–name) associative recognition for which optimal performance required a major recollection contribution. These findings suggest that familiarity can support associative recognition memory, particularly for within-domain associations, and contrast with the widely held view that associative recognition depends largely on recollection.