Loss aversion is an affective forecasting error

Loss aversion occurs because people expect losses to have greater hedonic impact than gains of equal magnitude. In two studies, people predicted that losses in a gambling task would have greater hedonic impact than would gains of equal magnitude, but when people actually gambled, losses did not have as much of an emotional impact as they predicted. People overestimated the hedonic impact of losses because they underestimated their tendency to rationalize losses and overestimated their tendency to dwell on losses. The asymmetrical impact of losses and gains was thus more a property of affective forecasts than a property of affective experience.     

Manic thinking: independent effects of thought speed and thought content on mood

This experiment found that the speed of thought affects mood. Thought speed was manipulated via participants' paced reading of statements designed to induce either an elated or a depressed mood. Participants not only experienced more positive mood in response to elation than in response to depression statements, but also experienced an independent increase in positive mood when they had been thinking fast rather than slow--for both elation and depression statements. This effect of thought speed extended beyond mood to other experiences often associated with mania (i.e., feelings of power, feelings of creativity, a heightened sense of energy, and inflated self-esteem or grandiosity).     

Three-month-olds' sensitivity to orientation cues in the three-dimensional depth plane

Three-month-olds are sensitive to orientation changes of line drawings when they have a three-dimensional (3-D) interpretation and when the changes are defined by both 3-D depth and two-dimensional (2-D) picture plane cues [Bhatt, R. S., & Bertin, E. (2001). Pictorial cues and three-dimensional information processing in early infancy. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 80, 315-332]. In the current study, we examined whether 3-month-olds are sensitive to pictorial line junction cues that signal orientation changes solely in the 3-D depth plane. The results revealed that infants discriminated a misoriented elongated cube in an array when the stimuli contained both shading and lines (Experiment 2) but not when only lines depicted the elongated cubes (Experiment 1). Testing with comparable 2-D images revealed that, even in the presence of shading information, detection of orientation changes is specific to images that have a 3-D interpretation. Together, the results suggest that 3-month-olds are sensitive to pictorial line junction cues that signal orientation changes in the 3-D depth plane to adults provided that shading information is available and the images have a 3-D interpretation.     

Dynamics of learning new postural patterns: influence on preexisting spontaneous behaviors

In stance, rotations around the hips and ankles typically exhibit a relative phase close to 20 degrees or 180 degrees . In 2 experiments, the authors studied the reciprocal influence of those coordination tendencies with learning an ankle-hip relative phase of 135 degrees . Before, during, and after learning a new mode of coordination, they assessed participants' (N = 24 in each experiment) spontaneous postural patterns with a tracking task in which no specific coordination was required. Learning the 135 degrees phase relation led to persistent modifications of the spontaneous in-phase and antiphase modes. Contrary to the theoretical predictions of the dynamical approach, the initial stability of the preexisting patterns did not influence the difficulty of producing the new mode or the improvement in performance during learning. Initial stability did, however, influence the rate and type of modification of spontaneous patterns. The authors discuss the results in relation to conclusions drawn from bimanual studies.     

Trait and social processes in the link between social support and affect: an experimental, laboratory investigation

This study investigated the extent to which the link between perceived social support and affect reflected support recipients' trait perceived support as well as three distinct social processes: the objective supportiveness of providers, the unique relationships among recipients and providers that were stable over occasions, as well as the unique relationships that varied across occasions. Ten recipients interacted with each of the same four providers on five separate occasions, for a total of 200 interactions. Recipients and independent observers rated recipient affect and provider support. Greater perceived support was related to greater positive affect for recipients' trait perceived support, as well as for relationships that were stable over occasions and relationships that varied across occasions. No social support effects were found for negative affect. Perceived similarity was a consistent predictor of recipients' support perceptions. Implications for social support models and interventions were discussed.     

Fragments of the Roelofs effect: a bottom-up effect equal to the sum of its parts

The Roelofs effect is a distortion of perceived space that occurs when a large frame whose center is offset left or right from the objective midline is presented visually to an observer and causes a bias in the observer's subjective judgment of midline. Experiments were designed to test whether an isolated fragment (left or right end) of a Roelofs-inducing frame was capable of generating the Roelofs effect and to determine whether prior experience with intact frames would provide a top-down influence that would bias the Roelofs effect resulting from fragment presentation. Although the fragments did induce an effect, top-down information did not play a significant role even after a 5-day training paradigm. Instead, we found that the effect generated by an intact frame was equal in magnitude to the sum of the effects generated by the individual fragments. In addition, perception was found to be differentially affected by the two ends of the frame, with fragments falling in the right visual field causing a larger effect than those falling in the left.     

Directional preferences in turning behavior of girls and boys

Turning biases in humans and animals are known to be related to dopaminergic asymmetry between the brain hemispheres. A laboratory method, in which turning preference was evaluated, was adapted based upon the turning of the subject toward a particular sound in a square room. One of the aims of this study was to investigate the reliability of this method with children, and the other aim was to research the turning preference in boys and girls. 31 children between 7 and 13 yr. old volunteered as subjects, and 17 subjects were retested. The subjects tended significantly to turn leftward (60.1%), and fewer girls (53.7%) turned to the left than boys (66.2%). The correlation between the test and the retest was significant (r=.79, p< .01). Most studies have indicated that humans in childhood and adulthood exhibit left-turning preference, but conflicts between the results obtained on different types of rotation tasks have suggested that hemispheric dopaminergic activity might affect preference. That needs study.     

The control of saccade trajectories: direction of curvature depends on prior knowledge of target location and saccade latency

Recent reports have shown that saccades can deviate either toward or away from distractors. However, the specific conditions responsible for the change in initial saccade direction are not known. One possibility, examined here, is that the direction of curvature (toward or away from distractors) reflects preparatory tuning of the oculomotor system when the location of the target and distractor are known in advance. This was investigated by examining saccade trajectories under predictable and unpredictable target conditions. In Experiment 1, the targets and the distractors appeared unpredictably, whereas in Experiment 2 an arrow cue presented at fixation indicated the location of the forthcoming target prior to stimulus onset. Saccades were made to targets on the horizontal, vertical, and principal oblique axis, and distractors appeared simultaneously at an adjacent location (a separation of +/- 45 degrees of visual angle). On average, saccade trajectories curved toward distractors when target locations were unpredictable and curved away from distractors when target locations were known in advance. There was no overall difference in mean saccade latencies between the two experiments. The magnitude of the distractor modulation of saccade trajectory (either toward or away from) was comparable across the different saccade directions (horizontal, vertical, and oblique). These results are interpreted in terms of the time course of competitive interactions operating in the neural structures involved in the suppression of distractors and the selection of a saccade target. A relatively slow mechanism that inhibits movements to distractors produces curvature away from the distractor. This mechanism has more time to operate when target location is predictable, increasing the likelihood that the saccade trajectory will deviate away from the distractor.     

Validity and reliability of the Greek version of the Multisource Assessment of Social Competence Scale

The aim of this study was to adapt the Multisource Assessment of Social Competence Scale to the Greek language. The validity and reliability of the scale were examined in three studies with 209, 192, and 147 sixth-grade students, respectively. The subscale structure of the Multisource Assessment of Social Competence Scale was supported through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The hypothesized two main dimensions, Prosocial and Antisocial behavior, were divided into two factors, Cooperating skills and Empathy for Prosocial behavior and Quick-temperedness and Disruptiveness for Antisocial behavior. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were high. Additionally, correlations between each factor and social desirability scores were nonsignificant. The resultant model of the present study is a behavior rating scale that should be considered a reliable choice for assessing Greek middle school students' social skills.     

The possible benefits of difficulty: how stress can increase and decrease subjective well-being

This study explores the effects of stress, trauma, coping and growth orientation on subjective well-being. Based on cognitive stress theory, it was hypothesized that adversity may contribute to increased or decreased well-being, depending on the subsequent meaning these experiences are given. Survey data from Norwegian UN/NATO veterans (N= 142) showed that stress and well-being were negatively associated (r=-0.20, p < 0.05) at the level of zero-order correlations. However, a full structural equation model revealed that the effect of stress on well-being was mediated positively through a problem-focused coping process combined with a growth component. Stress was negatively mediated through an avoidant-focused coping process and a distress component. The effect from stress was fully mediated in the model. The hypothesis that stress can produce both increased and decreased subjective well-being was confirmed.