Q-Coh: A tool to screen the methodological quality of cohort studies in systematic reviews and meta-analyses

The evaluation of the methodological quality of primary studies in a systematic review is a key process to enhance the likelihood of achieving valid results. When considering non-randomized designs as cohort studies, this process becomes even more critical, since these designs are more susceptible to bias than randomized controlled trials are. Taking this into account, a tool, named Q-Coh, was designed with the aim to screen the methodological quality of the primary studies with a cohort design priming specificity over sensitivity in a reasonable application time. After applying it to 21 prospective cohort studies by three raters, all domains had a moderate to good agreement, with all except one of them having statistically significant kappa values. Despite there is no gold standard for the methodological quality, arguments supporting its validity are given. Future research should assess the psychometric properties of Q-Coh in the context of real meta-analyses, evaluate the influence of the raters’ substantive and methodological expertise on these properties, and explore different ways of including the domains-based ratings of the quality provided by Q-Coh into meta-analyses.     

Understanding the representational mind: A phenomenological perspective

This paper reflects on the relationship between Husserlian phenomenology and scientific psychology. It tries to show how phenomenological results have relevance and validity for present-day cognitive developmental psychology by arguing that consciousness matters in the study of the representational mind. The paper presents some methodological remarks concerning empirical or applied phenomenology; it describes the conception of an exploratory developmental study with 3 to 9-year-old children viewing a complex pictorial display; it then illustrates how a phenomenological interpretation of the data works; in conclusion, it sketches a view of realism about conscious experiences which is taken to be inherent in the phenomenological perspective of understanding the representational mind.     

Exercise motivation in university community members: a behavioural intervention

The purpose of this study was to examine how exercise level, exercise motives, and barriers changed from the baseline phase to the follow-up phase after a behavioural and cognitive intervention aimed at increasing exercise. Seventy-five members of our university community (43 subjects in the control group and 32 in the experimental group), all of whom received cognitive feedback, agreed to complete the baseline phase. Only the experimental group received behavioural feedback and a free-access gym ticket with personal training in order to facilitate their adherence to exercise. The results suggest that a combination of behavioural and psychological techniques is an efficient strategy for increasing exercise level. In addition, the results showed that extrinsic motivation predominates the early stages of change-of-exercise behaviour, and that intrinsic motivation is important for progression towards maintenance. Subjects who decreased their exercise level increased their extrinsic exercise motivation and subjects who increased their exercise level decreased the barriers related to intrinsic motivation. These findings indicate that, in order to facilitate exercise adherence, feedback about motives for undertaking exercise is needed, combined with advice about how to improve physical condition. This combination could help eliminate certain barriers that hinder engaging in an active and healthy life-style.     

Friend versus foe: Neural correlates of prosocial decisions for liked and disliked peers

Although the majority of our social interactions are with people we know, few studies have investigated the neural correlates of sharing valuable resources with familiar others. Using an ecologically valid research paradigm, this functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of prosocial and selfish behavior in interactions with real-life friends and disliked peers in young adults. Participants (N = 27) distributed coins between themselves and another person, where they could make selfish choices that maximized their own gains or prosocial choices that maximized outcomes of the other. Participants were more prosocial toward friends and more selfish toward disliked peers. Individual prosociality levels toward friends were associated negatively with supplementary motor area and anterior insula activity. Further preliminary analyses showed that prosocial decisions involving friends were associated with heightened activity in the bilateral posterior temporoparietal junction, and selfish decisions involving disliked peers were associated with heightened superior temporal sulcus activity, which are brain regions consistently shown to be involved in mentalizing and perspective taking in prior studies. Further, activation of the putamen was observed during prosocial choices involving friends and selfish choices involving disliked peers. These findings provide insights into the modulation of neural processes that underlie prosocial behavior as a function of a positive or negative relationship with the interaction partner.