The role of dark‐side of motivation and intention to continue in exercise: A self‐determination theory approach

Motivation plays an important role when it comes to regular physical exercise. Hence, low levels of intentions to continue exercising in the future may ultimately lead to higher rates of exercise dropout. The first objective of the present research was to test a theoretical model considering the dark side of motivational determinants on intentions towards exercising in the future. The second objective consisted in comparing groups with different characteristics, as a way to identify individuals with weaker intention, which is believed to be an indicator of a higher dropout risk. In total, 544 (294 female; 250 male) gym exercisers aged between 18 and 58 years (M = 35.00; SD = 11.57) partook in the present research. Participants were engaged in fitness group classes (n = 273) or in cardio/resistance workouts (n = 271), and their exercise experience ranged from 3 to 120 months (M = 47.41; SD = 7.54). Results showed that the measurement and the structural model had an excellent fit. In addition, the structural model was invariant between gender, fitness activities, and exercise experience. Each group displayed different explained variance in intention to continue exercising. Overall, male, young adults and more experienced exercisers had stronger intentions towards exercising. Fitness instructors should be aware of their own thwarting behaviors, especially when interacting with female, young and less experienced exercisers, since they have weaker intentions to exercise in the future, possibly representing an increased risk of withdrawal.     

Oral administration of guanosine impairs inhibitory avoidance performance in rats and mice

Extracellular guanine-based purines, mainly the nucleoside guanosine, have recently been shown to exert neuroprotective effects, which seem to be related to antagonism of the glutamatergic system. In this study, we investigated the effects of acute oral administration of guanosine on inhibitory avoidance task in rats and mice. We also studied its effects on locomotor activity, anxiety-related behaviors and mechanisms of action involving the purinergic system. Guanosine (2.0 and 7.5mg/kg, per os), administered 75min pretraining, dose-dependently impaired retention of the inhibitory avoidance task in rats and mice, an effect not prevented by the adenosine receptor antagonist caffeine. Guanosine presented no effects on locomotor activity and anxiety-related behaviors. This amnesic effect of guanosine may be compatible with inhibition of glutamatergic system and seems to be not mediated by adenosine.     

Impacts of Non-Driving Related License Suspensions on Quality of Life: a Qualitative Study

Applied Research in Quality of Life - The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine if and how non-driving related license suspensions impact affected individuals’ quality of life....     

Solving Smullyan Puzzles with Formal Systems

Solving numeric, logic and language puzzles and paradoxes is common within a wide community of high school and university students, fact witnessed by the increasing number of books published by mathematicians such as Martin Gardner (popular books as old as Gardner in Aha! insight. W. H. Freeman & Co., London, 1978, Wheels, life and other mathematical amusements. W H Freeman & Co., London, 1985), Douglas Hofstadter [in one of the best popular science books on paradoxes (Hofstadter in Godel, escher, bach: an eternal golden braid, Penguin, London, 2000)], inspired by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems), Patrick Hughes and George Brecht (see Hughes and Brecht in Vicious circles and infinity, an anthology of paradoxes. Penguin Books, London, 1993) and Raymond M. Smullyan (the most well known being Smullyan in Forever undecided, puzzle guide to godel. Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford 1988, To Mock a Mockingbird and other logic puzzles. Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford 2000, The lady or the tiger? And other logic puzzles. Dover Publications Inc., Mineola 2009), inter alia. Books by Smullyan (such as Smullyan 1988, 2000) are, however, much more involved, since they introduce learning trajectories and strategies across several subjects of mathematical logic, as difficult as combinatorial logic (see, e.g., Smullyan 2000), computability theory (see Smullyan 1988), and proof theory (see Smullyan 1988, 2009). These books provide solutions to their suggested exercises. Both statements and their solutions are written in the natural language, introducing some informal algorithms. As an exercise in Mathematics we wonder if an easy proof system could be devised to solve the amusing equations proposed by Smullyan in his books. Moreover, university students of logic could well train themselves in constructing deductive systems to solve puzzles instead of a non-uniform treatment one by one. In this paper, addressing students, we introduce one such formal systems, a tableaux approach able to provide the solutions to the puzzles involving either propositional logic, first order logic, or aspect logic. Let the reader amuse herself or himself!     

Spatial location and emotion modulate voice perception

ABSTRACT

How do we perceive voices coming from different spatial locations, and how is this affected by emotion? The current study probed the interplay between space and emotion during voice perception. Thirty participants listened to nonverbal vocalizations coming from different locations around the head (left vs. right; front vs. back), and differing in valence (neutral, positive [amusement] or negative [anger]). They were instructed to identify the location of the vocalizations (Experiment 1) and to evaluate their emotional qualities (Experiment 2). Emotion-space interactions were observed, but only in Experiment 1: emotional vocalizations were better localised than neutral ones when they were presented from the back and the right side. In Experiment 2, emotion recognition accuracy was increased for positive vs. negative and neutral vocalizations, and perceived arousal was increased for emotional vs. neutral vocalizations, but this was independent of spatial location. These findings indicate that emotional salience affects how we perceive the spatial location of voices. They additionally suggest that the interaction between spatial (“where”) and emotional (“what”) properties of the voice differs as a function of task.     

Parents’ Marital Status and Child Physical Abuse Potential: The Mediation of Depression Symptoms

Informed by a social interactional framework of stress and parenting, the aim of this study was to examine the mediating effect of depression symptoms on the association between parents’ marital status (married and divorced parents) and child physical abuse potential, in a Portuguese community sample. It was hypothesized that the possible observed differences between divorced and married parents in the child physical abuse potential would be explained by their depression symptoms. Parents (N?=?892) were assessed in their marital status, severity of depression symptoms and child physical abuse potential. Results showed that, when compared with married parents, divorced parents had higher child physical abuse potential. However, parents’ depression symptomatology was found as a mediator of the effect of marital status differences on child physical abuse potential. The influence of the status of divorced parents on the increase of child physical abuse potential was explained by the increase of the parents’ depression symptoms. This finding suggested that parents’ divorced status had no longer an effect on child physical abuse potential when parents’ depression symptomatology was tested as a mediator variable. The present mediation model explained 47?% of the variability in the child physical abuse potential score. Practical implications of these findings for prevention and psychological intervention are also discussed.     

Saccadic eye movements: what do they tell us about aging cognition?

Although the relationship between age-related cognitive decline and saccadic eye movement (SEM) deficits has been outlined, specific cognitive alterations underlying age-related changes in saccadic performance remain unclear. This study attempted to better understand the nature of aging effects on SEMs. We compared SEMs in younger and older adults in prosaccade (PS) and antisaccade (AS) tasks under gap, step, and overlap conditions. We also examined relationships between these performances and several neuropsychological scores. Twenty-eight younger adults (YA), 24 older adults under 65 years (OA_<65) and 24 over 65 years (OA_>65) of age completed a neuropsychological evaluation, PS and AS tasks. Our results showed that latencies, AS cost, time to correct AS errors, and uncorrected AS, increased with aging. YA showed higher overlap effects than OA_>65 and OA_<65. Importantly, correlations and regressions revealed close relationships not only between latencies and processing speed measures but also between the AS cost and the inhibition process measures. Correct saccades and the time to correct AS errors were closely related to the inhibition process and cognitive flexibility measures. These findings suggest that the progressive age-related decline of processing speed and executive attention are associated with, and can be highlighted though SEMs in PS and AS tasks.     

Amnesic effect of GMP depends on its conversion to guanosine

Extracellular guanine-based purines, namely the nucleotides GTP, GDP, GMP and the nucleoside guanosine, exert important neuroprotective and neuromodulator roles in the central nervous system, which may be related to inhibition of the glutamatergic neurotransmission activity. In this study, we investigated GMP effects on mice inhibitory avoidance performance and the dependence on its conversion to guanosine for such effect, by using the ecto-5'-nucleotidase specific inhibitor AOPCP. We also investigated if this conversion occurs in the central nervous system or peripherally, and if guanosine and GMP affect nociception by the tail-flick test. I.p. GMP or guanosine (7.5 mg/kg) or i.c.v. GMP (480 nmol) pretraining administration was amnesic for the inhibitory avoidance task. I.c.v. AOPCP (1 nmol) administration completely reversed the amnesic effect of i.c.v. GMP, but not of i.p. GMP, indicating that peripheral conversion of GMP to guanosine is probably relevant to this effect. AOPCP alone did not interfere with the performance. Furthermore, tail-flick measurement was unaffected by i.p. GMP and guanosine, suggesting that the amnesic effect of both purines was not due to some antinociceptive effect against the footshock used in the task. All these data together, in accordance to those previously observed in studies involving glutamate uptake and seizures reinforce the idea that guanosine is the specific extracellular guanine-based purines effector and indicate that its conversion occurs not only in the central nervous system but also peripherally.     

Psychophysiological Synchrony During Verbal Interaction in Romantic Relationships

Previous studies about romantic relationships have shown that the reciprocal influence between partners occurs not only at the behavioral and socio‐emotional levels, but also at the psychophysiological level. This reciprocal influence is expressed in a pattern of physiological synchrony between partners (i.e., coordinated dynamics of the physiological time series). The main aim of the present study was to explore the presence of a pattern of physiological synchrony in electrodermal activity (EDA) during a couple interaction task. A second objective was to compare the synchrony levels during a negative interaction condition versus a positive interaction condition. Finally, we analyzed the association between synchrony and self‐perception of empathy, dyadic empathy, and relationship satisfaction. Thirty‐two couples (64 individuals) participated in this study. Each couple performed a structured interaction task while the EDA of both partners was being registered. The quantification of synchrony was based on the cross‐correlation of both members' EDA time‐series. In order to control for coincidental synchrony, surrogate datasets were created by repeatedly shuffling the original data of spouses X and Y of a dyad and computing synchronies on the basis of the shuffled data (pseudosynchrony values). Our results confirmed the presence of significant EDA synchrony during the interaction. We also found that synchrony was higher during the negative interactions relative to the positive interactions. Additionally, physiological synchrony during positive interaction was higher for those couples in which males scored higher in dyadic empathy. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.