The empathic brain: how, when and why?

Recent imaging results suggest that individuals automatically share the emotions of others when exposed to their emotions. We question the assumption of the automaticity and propose a contextual approach, suggesting several modulatory factors that might influence empathic brain responses. Contextual appraisal could occur early in emotional cue evaluation, which then might or might not lead to an empathic brain response, or not until after an empathic brain response is automatically elicited. We propose two major roles for empathy; its epistemological role is to provide information about the future actions of other people, and important environmental properties. Its social role is to serve as the origin of the motivation for cooperative and prosocial behavior, as well as help for effective social communication.     

Stressful work, psychological job strain, and turnover: a 2-year prospective cohort study of truck drivers

Based on a model that combines existing organizational stress theory and job transition theory, this 2-year longitudinal study examined antecedents and consequences of turnover among Dutch truck drivers. For this purpose, self-reported data on stressful work (job demands and control), psychological strain (need for recovery after work and fatigue), and turnover were obtained from 820 drivers in 1998 and 2000. In agreement with the model, the results showed that strain mediates the influence of stressful work on voluntary turnover. Also in conformity with the model, job movement to any job outside the trucking industry (i.e., interoccupational turnover) resulted in a larger strain reduction as compared to job movement within the trucking industry (intraoccupational turnover). Finally, strain was found to stimulate interoccupational turnover more strongly than it stimulated intraoccupational turnover. These findings provide a thorough validation of existing turnover theory and give new insights into the turnover (decision) process.     

Inhibition and shifting in children with learning deficits in arithmetic and reading

The executive functions of inhibition and shifting were studied in arithmetic-disabled children, reading-disabled children, reading plus arithmetic-disabled children, and controls (N = 74). Measures involved the rapid naming of objects, digits, letters, or quantities with or without additional task requirements that reflected inhibition or shifting. Also, the Making Trails task, reflecting shifting, was administered. For tasks without executive demands, arithmetic-disabled children were slower in the naming of digits and quantities, whereas reading-disabled children were slower in the naming of digits and letters. For the executive tasks, arithmetic-disabled children as well as reading plus arithmetic-disabled children were impaired on the Making Trails task and on an object naming task that required both inhibition and shifting. Reading-disabled children exhibited no problems in executive functioning. Furthermore, it was shown that reading plus arithmetic-disabled children experienced the combination of problems that characterize children with a single learning deficit.     

Part-list cuing as instructed retrieval inhibition

The reexposure of a subset of learned material as a retrieval cue can impair recall of the remaining material. Like part-list relearning--the reexposure of learned material for additional learning--this part-list cuing is often assumed to be the result of output order biases at test, caused by the increased strength of the reexposed material. We directly compared the effects of cuing and relearning when controlling for output order biases. In addition, we compared the two forms of reexposure with the effect of part-list retrieval. Both part-list cuing and part-list retrieval reduced recall performance for the remaining material. By contrast, part-list relearning had no such detrimental effect. These results indicate that the effect of reexposure depends on whether material is reexposed as a cue or for relearning, suggesting that part-list cuing reflects an instructional effect. Evidence is provided that part-list cuing leads to instructed covert retrieval of cue items and causes retrieval inhibition of noncue items, similar to how overt retrieval inhibits nonretrieved items.     

The Role of Religion and Spirituality in Medical Patients in Germany

Using the new developed SpREUK questionnaire (version 1.0b), we examined how German patients (n = 129) with cancer, multiple sclerosis and other diseases view the impact of spirituality and religiosity (SpR) on their health and how they cope with illness. Patients with both a religious and spiritual attitude (32%) had significantly higher values in the sub-scales dealing with the search for meaningful support, and the stabilizing effects of SpR than patients without such attitudes (20%), while patients with a non-spiritual religious attitude (35%) had lower perception of the beneficial effects of their SpR and had significantly lower scores in the search for meaningful support sub-scale. Just half of the non-spiritual religious group and 42% of religious patients are convinced that finding an access to a spiritual source has a positive influence on their illness.     

Effect of scene complexity on colour constancy with real three-dimensional scenes and objects

The effect of scene complexity on colour constancy was tested with a novel technique in which a virtual image of a real 3-D test object was projected into a real 3-D scene. Observers made discriminations between illuminant and material changes in simple and complex scenes. The extent of colour constancy achieved varied little with either scene structure or test-object colour, suggesting a dominant role of local cues in determining surface-colour judgments.     

Hypochondriasis Among Patients with Multiple Somatoform Symptoms—Psychopathology and Outcome of a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

As hypochondriasis often occurs with somatization, patients with somatization disorder plus hypochondriasis were compared to patients with somatization syndrome alone regarding psychopathology, patterns of physical symptoms and outcome of a cognitive-behavioral inpatient treatment. A sample of patients with DSM-IV hypochondriasis and multiple somatoform symptoms(N = 27) and a matched sample of patients with multiple somatoform symptoms but without hypochondriasis (N = 27) were assessed. All subjects obtained a cognitive-behavioral treatment for somatization and hypochondriasis. Assessment took place at admission and at one-year follow-up. Only a few differences between the groups were found: Hypochondriacs suffered more often from abdominal pain, and they reported a higher intolerance of bodily complaints. At follow-up, all outcome variables improved significantly. High effect sizes were found for the reduction of symptoms and the mean number of visits to the doctor. The specific effect on health care use highlights the socioeconomic relevance of these results.