Cyclic variations in sustained human performance

Biological rhythms play a prominent role in the modulation of human physiology and behavior. [Smith, K., Valentino, D., & Arruda, J. (2003). Rhythmic oscillations in the performance of a sustained attention task. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25, 561-570] suggested that sustained human performance may systematically fluctuate in a cyclic manner with periods of 1.5 min and 5.2 min. The current series of investigations sought to manipulate those periodicities by altering task difficulty, administering caffeine, and testing on a more ecologically valid task. Strong evidence of a 1.5 min periodicity was found across studies. Most participants did not demonstrate the 5.2 min periodicity. Moreover, the 1.5 min periodicity was resistant to task manipulations and appeared in similar levels across conditions in all three experiments. These rhythms may be indicative of an endogenous system that modulates sustained attention in humans. Evidence supporting this idea and implications of the research are discussed.     

Age effects on the employability-career success relationship

This study investigated the similarity of the factor structure for self-reported versus supervisor-rated employability for two age groups of workers, and then validated a career success enhancing model of employability across the two age groups. The results confirmed a two-factor model including self-reported and supervisor-rated employability as underlying factors. Moreover, Multi-Group Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) indicated that for the youngsters both self- and supervisor ratings of employability related significantly to objective career success outcomes. However, for the over-forties self-rated employability related positively to promotions throughout the career, while the supervisor ratings related negatively to overall promotions. The findings have important implications for performance appraisal practices aimed at increasing life-long employability and career success.     

Interpersonal evaluation bias in borderline personality disorder

Background

The cognitive theory of personality disorders hypothesizes that the emotional dysregulation and interpersonal problems in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are, at least partially, caused by dysfunctional cognitive schemas. These schemas lead to biased evaluation of environmental and interpersonal stimuli.

Method

This study examined the interpersonal evaluations of individuals with BPD, depressive and healthy control participants with the thin-slice judgments paradigm. Participants were asked to evaluate six persons in six film clips, which showed these persons for 10 s, during which these persons entered a room and took a seat. Interpersonal style of the BPD group was investigated with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-C) questionnaire.

Results

Individuals with BPD judged the persons as being more negative and aggressive and less positive than the healthy participants, and more aggressive than the depressive individuals. In addition, individuals with BPD reported more extreme interpersonal behavior relative to the controls.

Conclusions

The findings indicate an aggressivistic evaluation bias and elevated levels of interpersonal problems in individuals with BPD as suggested in the cognitive theory.     

Does adaptive training work?

People intuitively alter the allocation of study time between items of varying difficulty, and such adaptive learning methods are widely used in education and in commercially available memory training programs. We investigated the effectiveness of a computer‐based adaptive learning system that utilises spacing and repetition effects by presenting difficult items with short gaps to establish fast learning, and easy items with long intervals to optimise long‐term retention. The immediate and delayed effects of adaptive training on cued recall were investigated relative to a control condition of non‐adaptive, random spacing. Adaptive training produced significantly higher immediate and delayed recall rates than random spacing. These results encourage the use of adaptive training in education and rehabilitation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect: Evidence for an Artifactual Interpretation

ABSTRACT— Proponents of unconscious-thought theory assert that letting the unconscious "mull it over" can enhance decisions. In a series of recent studies, researchers demonstrated that participants whose attention was focused on solving a complex problem (i.e., those using conscious thought) made poorer choices, decisions, and judgments than participants whose attention was distracted from the problem (i.e., those purportedly using unconscious thought). We argue that this finding, rather than establishing the existence of a deliberation-without-attention effect, is explained more compellingly in terms of the well-established distinction between on-line and memory-based judgments. In Experiment 1 , we reversed the recent finding by simply changing participants' on-line processing goal from impression formation to memorization. Experiment 2 provided a replication and further established that some cognitive effort appears necessary to produce both the original pattern of results and its reversal, suggesting that such judgments are ultimately a product of conscious, rather than unconscious, thinking.     

Right hemisphere involvement in non-fluent primary progressive aphasia

We described a 56-years-old man with a diagnosis of "non-fluent primary progressive aphasia" (NfPPA). An accurate neuropsychological, neurological and neuroimaging evaluation was performed in order to assess clinical and behavioural features of the patient. From a neuropsychological point of view, the patient showed a typical cognitive profile of subjects affected by NfPPA: a prominent language deficit, associated with impairments in several cognitive domains after three years from the onset of the symptomatology. The most intriguing feature is that SPECT revealed hypoperfusion in the right frontal cortex, albeit the patient is right-handed. This unexpected finding shows that NfPPA may arise not only from cortical abnormalities in the language-dominant left hemisphere, but also from right hemisphere involvement in a right hander (crossed aphasia).     

Comparison of dynamic (effortful) touch by hand and foot

Spatial perception by dynamic touch is a well-documented capability of the hand and arm. Morphological and physiological characteristics of the foot and leg suggest that such a capability may not generalize to that putatively less dexterous limb. The authors examined length perception by dynamic touch in a task in which weighted aluminum rods were grasped by the hand and wielded about the wrist or secured to the foot and wielded about the ankle. Participants' (N = 10) upper and lower extremities were comparable in terms of (a) the accuracy and consistency of length perception and (b) their sensitivity to manipulations of the moments of the mass distribution of the rods. The authors discuss those results in terms of the field-like structure of the haptic perceptual system, an organization that may underlie what appears to be functional, rather than anatomical, specificity.     

Children's metamemorial judgments in an event recall task

Two studies were conducted in which two different indicators of metacognitive monitoring were investigated in a complex everyday memory task. In the first phase of each experiment, 8- and 10-year-olds as well as adults were shown a short event (video) and gave judgments of learning, that is, rated their certainty that they would later be able to recall specific details correctly. In the second phase of the experiments, participants underwent a memory interview about the event and in Study 2 also gave confidence judgments, that is, rated their certainty that the provided answers to the memory questions were correct. Results revealed significant influences of memory characteristics on monitoring in that delaying judgments and monitoring judgments concerning irretrievable information affected judgments of learning. From 8 years of age onward, there were relatively appropriate metamemorial monitoring abilities in both indicators. Moderate intraindividual consistency was found across the two measures of metacognitive monitoring, with a tendency toward higher consistency in older age groups. The results are discussed in terms of the adequacy of the underlying theoretical construct.     

The Possibility of Justice: The Work of Paulo Freire and Difference

The work of Paulo Freire, while remaining important to many educators, has been challenged by some postmodernist arguments. In particular, the pursuit of justice becomes difficult, or at least more complicated, when the concept of difference is taken seriously. This paper reconsiders the Freirean commitment to justice in the light of ideas from Young (1990, Justice and the politics of difference, New Jersey: Princeton University Press) and Pavlich and Ratner (1996 Justice and the Postmodern, In M. Peters, W. Hope, J. Marshall, &; S. Webster (Eds.), Critical theory, poststructuralism and the social context, Palmerston North: Dunmore Press). How might the work of Paulo Freire accommodate these ideas and what demands do they place on his philosophy? In addressing this question, I focus on three key themes in contemporary debates over pedagogy and justice: (i) the notion that the individual is produced; (ii) the significance of difference; and (iii) the idea that justice is context dependent and multiple. I argue that given Freire’s emphasis in later publications on the produced and unfinished self and his recognition of the multilayered nature of oppression, Freirean theory continues to have much to offer to these debates.     

Antecedent Priming at Trace Positions in Children’s Sentence Processing

The present study examines whether children reactivate a moved constituent at its gap position and how children’s more limited working memory span affects the way they process filler-gap dependencies. 46 5–7 year-old children and 54 adult controls participated in a cross-modal picture priming experiment and underwent a standardized working memory test. The results revealed a statistically significant interaction between the participants’ working memory span and antecedent reactivation: High-span children (n = 19) and high-span adults (n = 22) showed evidence of antecedent priming at the gap site, while for low-span children and adults, there was no such effect. The antecedent priming effect in the high-span participants indicates that in both children and adults, dislocated arguments access their antecedents at gap positions. The absence of an antecedent reactivation effect in the low-span participants could mean that these participants required more time to integrate the dislocated constituent and reactivated the filler later during the sentence.