“Man's best friend:” How the presence of a dog reduces mental distress after social exclusion

A substantial amount of research shows that social exclusion is a threat to mental health. In the research reported here, we tested the hypothesis that the presence of a companion animal can serve as a buffer against these adverse effects. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we found that only socially excluded participants who did not work in the presence of a dog reported lower mental well-being compared with socially excluded participants who performed in the presence of a dog and participants who were not socially excluded. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Dialogical Connexive Logic

Synthese - Many of the discussions about conditionals can best be put as follows:can those conditionals that involve an entailment relation be formulatedwithin a formal system? The reasons for the...     

Against a Minimalist Reading of Bell's Theorem: Lessons from Fine

Since the validity of Bell's inequalities implies the existence of joint probabilities for non-commuting observables, there is no universal consensus as to what the violation of these inequalities signifies. While the majority view is that the violation teaches us an important lesson about the possibility of explanations, if not about metaphysical issues, there is also a minimalist position claiming that the violation is to be expected from simple facts about probability theory. This minimalist position is backed by theorems due to A. Fine and I. Pitowsky.Our paper shows that the minimalist position cannot be sustained. To this end,we give a formally rigorous interpretation of joint probabilities in thecombined modal and spatiotemporal framework of `stochastic outcomes inbranching space-time' (SOBST) (Kowalski and Placek, 1999; Placek, 2000). We show in this framework that the claim that there can be no joint probabilities fornon-commuting observables is incorrect. The lesson from Fine's theorem is notthat Bell's inequalities will be violated anyhow, but that an adequate modelfor the Bell/Aspect experiment must not define global joint probabilities. Thus we investigate the class of stochastic hidden variable models, whichprima facie do not define such joint probabilities. The reasonwhy these models fail supports the majority view: Bell's inequalities are notjust a mathematical artifact.     

The use of fruiting synchrony by foraging mangabey monkeys: a ‘simple tool’ to find fruit

Previous research has shown that a considerable number of primates can remember the location and fruiting state of individual trees in their home range. This enables them to relocate fruit or predict whether previously encountered fruit has ripened. Recent studies, however, suggest that the ability of primates to cognitively map fruit-bearing trees is limited. In this study, we investigated an alternative and arguably simpler, more efficient strategy, the use of synchrony, a botanical characteristic of a large number of fruit species. Synchronous fruiting would allow the prediction of the fruiting state of a large number of trees without having to first check the trees. We studied whether rainforest primates, grey-cheeked mangabeys in the Kibale National Park, Uganda, used synchrony in fruit emergence to find fruit. We analysed the movements of adult males towards Uvariopsis congensis food trees, a strongly synchronous fruiting species with different local patterns of synchrony. Monkeys approached within crown distance, entered and inspected significantly more Uvariopsis trees when the percentage of trees with ripe fruit was high compared to when it was low. Since the effect was also found for empty trees, the monkeys likely followed a synchrony-based inspection strategy. We found no indication that the monkeys generalised this strategy to all Uvariopsis trees within their home range. Instead, they attended to fruiting peaks in local areas within the home range and adjusted their inspective behaviour accordingly revealing that non-human primates use botanical knowledge in a flexible way.     

Translating intentions into sunscreen use: an interaction of self-efficacy and appearance norms

The study examines whether self-efficacy mediates between intention and behavior, and whether appearance norms and self-efficacy are additive or synergistic predictors of sunscreen use. At two measurement points in time, 14 weeks apart, 154 individuals responded to an online questionnaire. Moderated mediation was tested by hierarchical regression analyses. Self-efficacy mediated the intention-behavior relationship, whereas appearance norms emerged as a moderator of the self-efficacy-sunscreen use relationship. The model accounted for 22% of the behavior variance at time 2. For individuals who believe that they would look more attractive with a tan, self-efficacy did not have a strong effect on behavior. Thus, for skin-protection motivation to become effective, self-efficacy is needed in conjunction with less positive appearance norms. Implications for public health promotion and mass media sunscreen use campaigns are discussed.     

The recognition of facial expressions: An investigation of the influence of age and cognition

ABSTRACT The present study aimed to investigate changes in facial expression recognition across the lifespan, as well as to determine the influence of fluid intelligence, processing speed, and memory on this ability. Peak performance in the ability to identify facial affect was found to occur in middle-age, with the children and older adults performing the poorest. Specifically, older adults were impaired in their ability to identify fear, sadness, and happiness, but had preserved recognition of anger, disgust, and surprise. Analyses investigating the influence of cognition on emotion recognition demonstrated that cognitive abilities contribute to performance, especially for participants over age 45. However, the cognitive functions did not fully account for the older adults' impairments on expression recognition. Overall, the age-related deficits in facial expression recognition have implications for older adults' use of non-verbal communicative information.     

Knowing minds, controlling actions: the developmental relations between theory of mind and executive function from 2 to 4 years of age

This longitudinal study examined the concurrent and predictive relations between executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) in 82 preschoolers who were assessed when they were 2, 3, and 4 years old. The results showed that the concurrent relation between EF and ToM, after controlling for age, verbal ability, and sex, was significant at 3 and 4 years of age but not at 2 years of age. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that EF at age 2 significantly predicted ToM at age 3 and that EF at age 3 significantly predicted ToM at age 4, over and above the effects of age, verbal ability, and prior performance on ToM tasks. However, ToM at ages 2 and 3 did not explain a significant amount of variance in EF at age 4. Bootstrap procedures revealed that verbal ability at age 3 fully mediated the relation between ToM at age 2 and EF at age 4.     

Age-related differences in interhemispheric visuomotor integration measured by the redundant target effect

Presentation of bilateral redundant visual stimuli produces faster reaction times (RT) than presentation of a single unilateral stimulus; an effect known as the redundant target effect (RTE; Miller, 1982), and is a means of testing interhemispheric visuomotor integration (Ouimet, 2009). RTEs that exceed expectations, based on Miller's race model of inequality (RMI), are referred to as "enhanced RTEs" and imply neural coactivation. Paradoxically, enhanced RTEs are observed in cases of corpus callosum disruption. The Hemispheric Coactivation Hypothesis accounts for this paradox by positing that bihemispheric processing occurs to both unilateral and bilateral stimuli in the normal brain, but occurs only with bilateral stimuli in the disconnected brain. Neuroimaging has revealed decreases in the microstructural integrity of the corpus callosum with age (Ota et al., 2006), but research investigating the bilateral RTE in healthy older individuals is lacking. The present study investigated the bilateral RTE in healthy younger and healthy older adults using simple RT and choice RT tasks. Our prediction that older individuals would show significantly larger RTEs than younger individuals was found to be true for both tasks. Tests of the RMI produced little evidence for coactivation. The crossed-uncrossed difference, generally used as a means of testing visuomotor interhemispheric transfer, was also investigated, but no age effects were found. The observation of greater RTE in age is congruent with the Hemispheric Coactivation hypothesis (Miller, 2004) in which callosal disconnection is associated with increased RTE.