Affective variability in depression: Revisiting the inertia–instability paradox

How can depression be associated with both instability and inertia of affect? Koval et al. (2013, Emotion, 13, 1132) showed that this paradox can be solved by accounting for the statistical overlap between measures of affect dynamics. Nevertheless, these measures are still often studied in isolation. The present study is a replication of the Koval et al. study. We used experience sampling data (three times a day, 1 month) of 462 participants from the general population and a subsample thereof (N = 100) selected to reflect a uniform range of depressive symptoms. Dynamics measures were calculated for momentary negative affect scores. When adjusting for the overlap among affect dynamics measures, depression was associated with ‘dispersion’ (SD) but not ‘instability’ (RMSSD) or ‘inertia’ (AR) of negative affect. The association between dispersion and depression became non‐significant when mean levels of negative affect were adjusted for. These findings substantiate the evidence that the presumed association between depression and instability is largely accounted for by the SD, while the association between dispersion and depression may largely reflect mean levels of affect. Depression may thus not be related to higher instability per se, which would be in line with theories on the adaptive function of moment‐to‐moment fluctuations in affect.     

Face processing is enhanced in the left and upper visual hemi-fields

We tested whether two known hemi-field asymmetries would affect visual search with face stimuli. Holistic processing of spatial configurations is better in the left hemi-field, reflecting a right hemisphere specialization, and object recognition is better in the upper visual field, reflecting stronger projections into the ventral stream. Faces tap into holistic processing and object recognition at the same time, which predicts better performance in the left and upper hemi-field, respectively. In the first experiment, participants had to detect a face with a gaze direction different from the remaining faces. Participants were faster to respond when targets were presented in the left and upper hemi-field. The same pattern of results was observed when only the eye region was presented. In the second experiment, we turned the faces upside-down, which eliminated the typical spatial configuration of faces. The left hemi-field advantage disappeared, showing that it is related to holistic processing of faces, whereas the upper hemi-field advantage related to object recognition persisted. Finally, we made the search task easier by asking observers to search for a face with open among closed eyes or vice versa. The easy search task eliminated the need for complex object recognition and, accordingly, the advantage of the upper visual field disappeared. Similarly, the left hemi-field advantage was attenuated. In sum, our findings show that both horizontal and vertical asymmetries affect the search for faces and can be selectively suppressed by changing characteristics of the stimuli.     

Predicting Successful Responses to Emergencies: the Emergency Responsiveness Scale

People respond to disasters in a variety of ways. Some individuals respond to disasters or emergencies with panicked activity while others mobilize resources without panicking. In this article, we propose that the individual response to emergencies is determined by Emergency Responsiveness, the manner in which an individual appraises an emergency situation. We believe Emergency Responsiveness consists of four factors: Risk Taking, Experience with Emergencies, Emergency Anxiety, and Emergency Preparation. In Study One, each of the four subscales of Emergency Responsiveness correlated with personality traits in the hypothesized directions, providing evidence of construct validity. In Study Two, we establish criterion-related validity by demonstrating that a sample of first-responders scored significantly higher than a control sample on all four dimensions. Our results support our hypothesis that Emergency Responsiveness is a measurable individual difference. Implications for first responders and emergency services are discussed.     

How does preference reversal appear and disappear? Effects of the evaluation mode

Preference reversal is a systematic change in the preference order between options when different response methods are used (e.g., choice vs. judgment). The present study focuses on procedures used to elicit preferences according to an evaluability hypothesis. Two experiments compared joint vs. separate evaluations and explicit vs. non‐explicit joint evaluations. Subjects had to express preferences between high‐variance gambles (HVGs) and low‐variance gambles (LVGs) either by choosing one gamble to play in a lottery or by assigning gambles minimum selling prices. We show that HVGs are preferred in both choice and pricing conditions when gambles are evaluated separately, and LVGs are preferred in both choice and selling conditions when gambles are evaluated in pairs: i.e., when the evaluation mode is held constant, classic preference reversal disappears. These results support the evaluability hypothesis, and suggest that preferences depend on whether subjects are allowed to compare the options they are asked to choose from or judge, independently of the nature of the scale (i.e., attractiveness vs. minimum selling price) they are required to adopt. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lexique 2: a new French lexical database.

In this article, we present a new lexical database for French: Lexique. In addition to classical word information such as gender, number, and grammatical category, Lexique includes a series of interesting new characteristics. First, word frequencies are based on two cues: a contemporary corpus of texts and the number of Web pages containing the word. Second, the database is split into a graphemic table with all the relevant frequencies, a table structured around lemmas (particularly interesting for the study of the inflectional family), and a table about surface frequency cues. Third, Lexique is distributed under a GNU-like license, allowing people to contribute to it. Finally, a metasearch engine, Open Lexique, has been developed so that new databases can be added very easily to the existing ones. Lexique can either be downloaded or interrogated freely from http://www.lexique.org.     

Attachment relationships and physical activity motivation of college students

This study was designed to assess the link of attachment relationships with physical activity motivation. Potential mediators of this link were examined in a cross-sectional study targeting college student physical activity motivation and behaviour. Participants completed self-reports of attachment relationships (with mother, father and best friend), self-determined motivation for physical activity, physical activity behaviour and the hypothesised mediator variables of perceived competence, autonomy and relatedness. The results provide support for the mediating role of these variables in the association of father attachment with self-determined motivation. Meaningful variance in self-determined motivation for physical activity and physical activity behaviour was explained. Overall, attachment relationships appear to be relevant, albeit modestly, to physical activity motivation of college students. The findings support continued efforts to integrate attachment and motivational perspectives in the study of college student health behaviour.     

Tuberculosis detection by giant african pouched rats

In recent years, operant discrimination training procedures have been used to teach giant African pouched rats to detect tuberculosis (TB) in human sputum samples. This article summarizes how the rats are trained and used operationally, as well as their performance in studies published to date. Available data suggest that pouched rats, which can evaluate many samples quickly, are sufficiently accurate in detecting TB to merit further investigation as a diagnostic tool.