Measurement of nerve growth factor serum concentration in a psychologically stressful situation in men

Psychologically stressful events have been reported to elevate nerve growth factor (NGF) serum concentrations. NGF and cortisol serum concentrations were measured in 20 healthy male volunteers before (3 p.m.) and after (5 p.m.) an academic oral presentation and on a control day. Cortisol showed a significant overall change (p=0.001), i.e. cortisol serum concentrations were increased on the lecture day at 3 p.m. (p=0.007; 155%) and at 5 p.m. (p=0.001; 175%) as compared with the control day. In contrast to cortisol no significant differences among the four serum NGF measurements was detected (Chi-quadrat 2.94, df=3, p=0.401), i.e. the NGF serum concentrations remained unchanged on the lecture day at 3 p.m. (p=0.279) and at 5 p.m. (p=0.627) as compared with the control day. We conclude that NGF serum levels do not change during acute stress, at least after this type of stressor.     

On the replicability of the affective priming effect in the pronunciation task

Bargh, Chaiken, Raymond, and Hymes (1996) and Hermans, De Houwer, and Eelen (1994) showed that a valenced target word is pronounced faster after the presentation of an affectively related prime word than after the presentation of an affectively unrelated prime word. This finding is important because it provides crucial evidence for the hypotheses that stimulus evaluation (a) is goal-independent and (b) facilitates the encoding of stimuli that have the same valence. However, recent studies indicate that the affective priming effect is not a reliable finding in the standard pronunciation task. We report the results of a nearly exact replication of Bargh et al.'s (1996) Experiment 2. In line with previous replication studies, we failed to detect the affective priming effect.     

Evidence for effects of phonological correspondence between visible speech and written syllables

The present study investigated compatibility effects between written and spoken syllables. Participants saw the syllables "Ba" or "Da" printed on a speaker's mouth that was articulating either /b wedge / or /d wedge /. Participants classified either the printed syllable or the mouth movement by pressing a left or right key. Responses were faster when mouth movement and letters were congruent regardless of imperative stimulus dimension. As the two stimulus dimensions (mouth movements and letters) showed dimensional overlap, but did not overlap with the response, stimulus-response compatibility was ruled out according to some models. It is argued that the compatibility effect was due to the competition of phonological codes at a stage preceding response selection. Also, the results lend support to the view that Stroop-like tasks are ambiguous with regard to the locus of compatibility effects. Stimulus-response and stimulus-stimulus compatibility may be observed.     

The DAPP-BQ in The Netherlands: factor structure and relationship with basic personality dimensions

After discarding eight items in the Dutch translation of Livesley's DAPP-BQ that showed item-total correlations < 0.20 in a sample of 223 normal subjects. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were calculated for the remaining items in the 18 scales of this instrument. The 'Dutch' alpha coefficients proved to be satisfactory. Furthermore, the Dutch DAPP-BQ scales were factor analyzed, retaining four factors. Three of these factors proved to be identical (Emotional Dysregulation and Dissocial) or nearly identical (Compulsivity) to the Canadian factors. However, the original factor Inhibition was not the same as the remaining Dutch factor Intimacy Problems. In a sample of 115 students, the estimated scores for the Dutch Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ) factors were correlated with the scales of Van Kampen's Four-Dimensional Personality Test. As expected, Emotional Dysregulation was found to correlate with Neuroticism, Dissocial with Insensitivity, and Compulsivity with Orderliness. The Intimacy Problems factor proved to be negatively correlated with Extraversion. The results obtained are embedded in the context of the evidence favoring a dimensional model of personality disorder. Furthermore, Livesley's proposal that separate diagnostic criteria for the existence of a personality disorder must be formulated to supplement the assessment by means of the DAPP-BQ is critically discussed.     

The Judgement-Stroke As A Truth-Operator: A New Interpretation Of The Logical Form Of Sentences In Frege''s Scientific Language

The syntax of Frege's scientific language iscommonly taken to be characterized by two oddities:the representation of the intended illocutionary roleof sentences by a special sign, the judgement-stroke,and the treatment of sentences as a species ofsingular terms. In this paper, an alternative view isdefended. The main theses are: (i) the syntax ofFrege's scientific language aims at an explication ofthe logical form of judgements; (ii) thejudgement-stroke is, therefore, a truth-operator, nota pragmatic operator; (iii) in Frege's first system,` ' expresses that the circumstance is a fact, and in his second system that thetruth-value - is the True; (iv) in bothsystems, the judgement-stroke is construed as a signsui generis, not as a genuine predicate; (v) itscounterpart in natural language is the syntactic ``formof assertoric sentences', not the (redundant)truth-predicate; (vi) neither in Frege's first nor inhis second system sentences are treated as singular terms.     

Asynchronous perception of motion and luminance change

Observers were asked to indicate when a target moving on a circular trajectory changed its luminance. The judged position of the luminance change was displaced from the true position in the direction of motion, indicating differences between the times-to-consciousness of motion and luminance change. Motion was processed faster than luminance change. The latency difference was more pronounced for a small (116–134 ms) than for a large luminance decrement (37 ms). The results show that first-order motion is perceived before an accurate representation of luminance is available. These findings are consistent with current accounts of the flash-lag effect. Two control experiments ruled out that the results were due to a general forward tendency. Localization of the target when an auditory signal was presented did not produce forward displacement, and the judged onset of motion was not shifted in the direction of motion.     

Attention maintains mental extrapolation of target position: irrelevant distractors eliminate forward displacement after implied motion

Observers' judgments of the final position of a moving target are typically shifted in the direction of implied motion ("representational momentum"). The role of attention is unclear: visual attention may be necessary to maintain or halt target displacement. When attention was captured by irrelevant distractors presented during the retention interval, forward displacement after implied target motion disappeared, suggesting that attention may be necessary to maintain mental extrapolation of target motion. In a further corroborative experiment, the deployment of attention was measured after a sequence of implied motion, and faster responses were observed to stimuli appearing in the direction of motion. Thus, attention may guide the mental extrapolation of target motion. Additionally, eye movements were measured during stimulus presentation and retention interval. The results showed that forward displacement with implied motion does not depend on eye movements. Differences between implied and smooth motion are discussed with respect to recent neurophysiological findings.     

Autobiographical memory specificity and affect regulation: an experimental approach

This study investigated J. M. G. Williams's (1996) affect-regulation hypothesis that level of specificity of autobiographical memory (AM) is used to minimize negative affect. It was found that a negative event leads to more reports of subjective stress in high- as compared with low-specific participants. Also, afterward, high-specific participants rated their unprompted memories for the event as more unpleasant. The results indicate that, relative to high specificity, being less specific in the retrieval of AMs is associated with less affective impact of a negative event. Results are discussed within the affect-regulation model. It is suggested that future research take a more functional perspective on AM specificity.     

Stem Complexity and Inflectional Encoding in Language Production

Three experiments are reported that examined whether stem complexity plays a role in inflecting polymorphemic words in language production. Experiment 1 showed that preparation effects for words with polymorphemic stems are larger when they are produced among words with constant inflectional structures compared to words with variable inflectional structures and simple stems. This replicates earlier findings for words with monomorphemic stems (Janssen et al., 2002). Experiments 2 and 3 showed that when inflectional structure is held constant, the preparation effects are equally large with simple and compound stems, and with compound and complex adjectival stems. These results indicate that inflectional encoding is blind to the complexity of the stem, which suggests that specific inflectional rather than generic morphological frames guide the generation of inflected forms in speaking words.     

The Compensatory Association of Autonomy and Relatedness Satisfaction on Affect and Aggressive Feelings

Journal of Happiness Studies - This article presents the results of an examination of self-determination theory; in this examination, the theory is extended through deeper insight into the...