Dysphorics cannot ignore unpleasant information

Using a negative affective priming (NAP) design that allows the disentanglement of NAP for unpleasant and pleasant information, we found significant NAP only for unpleasant information for low scorers on the BDI, whereas high scorers showed significant but reversed NAP for unpleasant information and a significant NAP effect for pleasant information. The result is compatible with the hypothesis that depression is associated with an inability to suppress task-irrelevant negative information.     

Nonverbal signals speak up: Association between perceptual nonverbal dominance and emotional intelligence

Emotional communication uses verbal and nonverbal means. In case of conflicting signals, nonverbal information is assumed to have a stronger impact. It is unclear, however, whether perceptual nonverbal dominance varies between individuals and whether it is linked to emotional intelligence. Using audiovisual stimulus material comprising verbal and nonverbal emotional cues that were varied independently, perceptual nonverbal dominance profiles and their relations to emotional intelligence were examined. Nonverbal dominance was found in every participant, ranging from 55 to 100%. Moreover, emotional intelligence, particularly the ability to understand emotions, correlated positively with nonverbal dominance. Furthermore, higher overall emotional intelligence as well as a higher ability to understand emotions were linked to smaller reaction time differences between emotionally incongruent and congruent stimuli. The association between perceptual nonverbal dominance and emotional intelligence, and more specifically the ability to understand emotions, might reflect an adaptive process driven by the experience of higher authenticity in nonverbal cues.     

Associations between components of rumination and autobiographical memory specificity as measured by a Minimal Instructions Autobiographical Memory Test

Clinical studies have shown that rumination functions as a mediator between overgeneral memory—the tendency to retrieve autobiographical memories in a non-specific format—and depression. Recently, rumination has been dismantled into two distinct subcomponents: reflection, which is more adaptive, and brooding, which is more maladaptive. In the present study we examined the differential relationships of these two rumination subcomponents with autobiographical memory specificity and their mediational role for the relationship between reduced memory specificity and depression in a non-clinical sample. In addition, we investigated the usefulness of a “minimal instructions” version of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) to measure memory specificity in non-clinical populations. Results indicated that the use of minimal instructions can increase the AMT's sensitivity to detect reduced autobiographical memory specificity in non-clinical individuals. Further it was found that brooding, and not reflection, is significantly associated with reduced autobiographical memory specificity and functions as a mediator between reduced memory specificity and depression.     

Content,not context,facilitates memory for real-world scenes

ABSTRACT

Can eye movements tell us whether people will remember a scene? In order to investigate the link between eye movements and memory encoding and retrieval, we asked participants to study photographs of real-world scenes while their eye movements were being tracked. We found eye gaze patterns during study to be predictive of subsequent memory for scenes. Moreover, gaze patterns during study were more similar to gaze patterns during test for remembered than for forgotten scenes. Thus, eye movements are indeed indicative of scene memory. In an explicit test for context effects of eye movements on memory, we found recognition rate to be unaffected by the disruption of spatial and/or temporal context of repeated eye movements. Therefore, we conclude that eye movements cue memory by selecting and accessing the most relevant scene content, regardless of its spatial location within the scene or the order in which it was selected.     

How Do Perceptions of God as Autonomy Supportive or Controlling Relate to Individuals' Social-Cognitive Processing of Religious Contents? The Role of Motives for Religious Behavior

Using self-determination theory as a guiding framework, this study examined whether perceptions of God as autonomy supportive and controlling were related to individuals' belief in a transcendent reality and to their social-cognitive style of approaching religious contents (i.e., literal and rigid vs. symbolic and flexible). Further, we examined whether individuals' motives for religious behavior (i.e., autonomous vs. controlled) would mediate these associations. In a sample of 267 religiously active participants, we found that the two types of perceptions of God were positively related to belief in transcendence but were differentially related to a symbolic approach. Specifically, a perception of God as autonomy supportive related positively and a perception of God as controlling related negatively to a symbolic approach. Some evidence was obtained for a mediating role of motives for religious behavior in these associations. Discussion focuses on how self-determination theory can contribute to research on the psychology of religion.     

MMPI Characteristics of Professional Prostitutes: A Cross-Cultural Replication

The personality characteristics of 41 professional prostitutes in Brussels, Belgium, were examined using either a French- or a Flemish-language version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality inventory (MMPI). A comparison group of 96 nonprostitute women was recruited from among employees of an international airline. Age differences within the prostitute group were also examined. In some contrast to prior research findings, the prostitute group was significantly more deviant on several indicators of psychopathology. Also, older prostitutes were more deviant than younger ones. An appreciable number of the women in this profession are in need of psychological treatment.     

Faith Alone: Reflections on an Adverb

In response to critics of his New Testament translation, Luther points out that they simply do not understand the grammar restrictions of language that requires the addition of the word alone in his translation of Paul's letter to the Romans. Luther also points out that they do not understand that alone in this passage is an adverb and not an adjective. This article explores the significance of the word alone (in “faith alone”) when it is considered an adverb as opposed to an adjective. As an adverb, alone resists attempts to manipulate it into a metaphysical principle. Alone as an adverb keeps faith as a living, dynamic relationship that God established and which comes to expression in the celebration of the sacrament.     

Coordinating perspectives: De se and taste attitudes in communication

The received picture of linguistic communication understands communication as the transmission of information from speaker's head to hearer's head. This picture is in conflict with the attractive Lewisian view of belief as self-location, which is motivated by de se attitudes – first-personal attitudes about oneself – as well as attitudes about subjective matters such as personal taste. In this paper, I provide a solution to the conflict that reconciles these views. I argue for an account of mental attitudes and communication on which mental content and speech act content is understood as sets of multicentered worlds – roughly, possible worlds ‘centered’ on a sequence of individuals at a time. I develop a Stalnakerian model of communication based on multicentered worlds content, and I provide a suitable semantics for personal pronouns and predicates of personal taste. The resulting picture is one on which the point of conversation is the coordination of individual perspectives.     

Illusory correlation,group size and memory

Two studies were conducted to test the predictions of a multi-component model of distinctiveness-based illusory correlation (IC) regarding the use of episodic and evaluative information in the production of the phenomenon. Extending on the standard paradigm, participants were presented with 4 groups decreasing in size, but all exhibiting the same ratio of positive to negative behaviours. Study 1 (N = 75) specifically tested the role of group size and distinctiveness, by including a zero-frequency cell in the design. Consistent with predictions drawn from the proposed model, with decreasing group size, the magnitude of the IC effect showed a linear increase in judgments thought to be based on evaluative information. In Study 2 (N = 43), a number of changes were introduced to a group assignment task (double presentation, inclusion of decoys) that allowed a more rigorous test of the predicted item-specific memory effects. In addition, a new multilevel, mixed logistic regression approach to signal-detection type analysis was used, providing a more flexible and reliable analysis than previously. Again, with decreasing group size, IC effects showed the predicted monotonic increase on the measures (group assignment frequencies, likability ratings) thought to be dependent on evaluative information. At the same time, measures thought to be based on episodic information (free recall and group assignment accuracy) partly revealed the predicted enhanced episodic memory for smaller groups and negative items, while also supporting a distinctiveness-based approach. Additional analysis revealed that the pattern of results for judgments though to be based on evaluative information was independent of interpersonal variation in behavioral memory, as predicted by the multi-component model, and in contrast to predictions of the competing models. The results are discussed in terms of the implications of the findings for the proposed mechanisms of illusory correlation.