Relationship between biological markers and psychological states in elite basketball players across a competitive season

ObjectiveThe main objective of the study was to examine the relation of different biological markers to a variety of pleasant and unpleasant psychobiosocial (PBS) states in response to precompetitive stress in sport.DesignA longitudinal design was adopted to assess biological markers and PBS states before several games.MethodA whole team of high-level professional basketball players (9 men, aged from 23 to 37 years) took part in the study. The biological measures included the salivary concentration of testosterone, cortisol, aamylase, and chromogranin A. The psychological measures involved emotional, cognitive, motivational, bodily, kinesthetic, performance, and communicative components of PBS states assessed according to the dimensions of their intensity, frequency, and direction (i.e., perceived effect on performance). Assessment was conducted within 1 h prior to competition on an approximately weekly basis across the whole championship for a total of 12 games played at the team's home.ResultsA series of canonical correlation analyses showed that an increase in the salivary concentration of biological variables was associated with enhanced intensity and frequency scores of pleasant PBS states, as well as enhanced directional values (i.e., perception of facilitative effects) of a range of both pleasant and unpleasant PBS states.ConclusionFindings suggest that elevation of testosterone, cortisol, α-amylase, and chromogranin A in basketball players prior to competition can have a perceived functional effect with respect to the upcoming performance.     

Striving for excellence: A multi-action plan intervention model for Shooters

ObjectivesA multi-action plan (MAP) intervention model has been applied to the Italian shooting team in preparation for the London 2012 Olympics to help athletes improve, stabilise, and optimise their performances during practice and competition.DesignA longitudinal design was adopted to assess the intervention effects over two years.MethodsFifteen participants, two female and three male carbine shooters, and five female and five male pistol shooters, took part in the study. First, shooters were requested to accurately and extensively describe their usually optimal sequence of actions for the execution of a single shot from start to follow-through. Second, shooters were asked to identify a small number of the most important core components (three or four) deemed fundamental to optimal performance. Third, performers were engaged in several shooting sessions and asked to assess themselves by rating the quality of each core component. Finally, the most influential core components were further assessed under conditions of increased distress and simulated competition.ResultsCore component ratings were linked to shooting scores classified as optimal or suboptimal. The probability levels of optimal/suboptimal performance associated with the core component ratings were derived using logistical ordinal regression analysis. The full links among core component scores and the full range of shooting scores were also examined through path analysis.ConclusionsFindings highlighted the benefits of using the MAP intervention model in the preparation of elite level shooters.     

On the relationship between implicit and explicit self-esteem: The moderating role of dismissing attachment

Recently, dual models of social cognition have distinguished the implicit (affective) and the explicit (propositional) levels of self-esteem. Many studies have found that implicit and explicit self-esteem are weakly or even not correlated. Concerning the moderating factors of such a relationship, other studies stressed the importance of emotional awareness in the translation of implicit self-evaluations into a propositional format. If so, the defensive strategy which characterizes dismissing attachment should determine a fictitious explicit self-image, by impairing the awareness of self-related emotional experiences. At the implicit level, instead, such defensive processes should not operate. We therefore hypothesized that dismissing attachment would increase the implicit-explicit self-esteem discordance. Participants were 145 university students with a mean age of 20.4 (SD = 2.75). Moderated multiple regression analyses were conducted to test for the interactive effects of the Self-Esteem Implicit Association Test and the Attachment Style Questionnaire scales on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Findings revealed an interaction effect only for the relationships as secondary scale, confirming that dismissing style, but not other attachment dimensions, increases implicit-explicit self-esteem discordance.     

Quantum mechanics and Priority Monism

The paper address the question of whether quantum mechanics (QM) favors Priority Monism, the view according to which the Universe is the only fundamental object. It develops formal frameworks to frame rigorously the question of fundamental mereology and its answers, namely (Priority) Pluralism and Monism. It then reconstructs the quantum mechanical argument in favor of the latter and provides a detailed and thorough criticism of it that sheds furthermore new light on the relation between parthood, composition and fundamentality in QM.     

Two Kinds of Consequential Implication

The first section of the paper establishes the minimal properties of so-called consequential implication and shows that they are satisfied by at least two different operators of decreasing strength (symbolized by \(\rightarrow \) and \(\Rightarrow \)). Only the former has been analyzed in recent literature, so the paper focuses essentially on the latter. Both operators may be axiomatized in systems which are shown to be translatable into standard systems of normal modal logic. The central result of the paper is that the minimal consequential system for \(\Rightarrow \), CI\(\Rightarrow \), is definitionally equivalent to the deontic system KD and is intertranslatable with the minimal consequential system for \(\rightarrow \), CI. The main drawback ot the weaker operator \(\Rightarrow \) is that it lacks unrestricted contraposition, but the final section of the paper argues that \(\Rightarrow \) has some properties which make it a valuable alternative to \(\rightarrow \), turning out especially plausible as a basis for the definition of operators representing synthetic (i.e. context-dependent) conditionals.     

Which variability?

Drai and Grodzinsky provide a valuable analysis that offers a way of disentangling the effects of Movement and Mood in agrammatic comprehension. However, their mathematical implementation (Beta model) hides theoretically relevant information, i.e., qualitative heterogeneities of performance within the patient sample. This heterogeneity is crucial in the variability debate.