Attentional Demands Associated With Postural Control Depend on Task Difficulty and Visual Condition

The authors aimed to assess the effect of vision on variations in attentional resources allocated to postural control during tasks of various levels of difficulty. Test-retest reliability of postural and cognitive parameters was also evaluated. Twenty adults stood quietly on a force platform during 30-s trials (primary task). Twelve conditions involving combinations of three bases of support, two vision conditions, and the presence or absence of a simple reaction time task (secondary task) were tested. Baseline trials of the reaction time task were also performed with the participants seated. Reaction time and postural parameters demonstrated good to excellent test-retest reliability in most conditions. Postural control was altered by the reduction of the base of support and by the absence of vision. Maintaining an upright stance increased reaction time compared with a seated position, indicating that quiet standing tasks required some attention even in young adults. Changes in postural steadiness were correlated with changes in reaction time, showing a significant relationship between the difficulty of the postural task and the attentional resources allocated to postural control. However, reaction time increased with the reduction of the base of support only without vision. This dual task paradigm showed that vision can compensate for the increase in attentional demands during the most difficult postural tasks.     

Peirce's Search for a Graphical Modal Logic (Propositional Part)

This paper deals with modality in Peirce's existential graphs, as expressed in his gamma and tinctured systems. We aim at showing that there were two philosophically motivated decisions of Peirce's that, in the end, hindered him from producing a modern, conclusive system of modal logic. Finally, we propose emendations and modifications to Peirce's modal graphical tinctured systems and to their underlying ideas that will produce modern modal systems.     

Non-selective lexical access in bilinguals is spontaneous and independent of input monitoring: Evidence from eye tracking

Language non-selective lexical access in bilinguals has been established mainly using tasks requiring explicit language processing. Here, we show that bilinguals activate native language translations even when words presented in their second language are incidentally processed in a nonverbal, visual search task. Chinese–English bilinguals searched for strings of circles or squares presented together with three English words (i.e., distracters) within a 4-item grid. In the experimental trials, all four locations were occupied by English words, including a critical word that phonologically overlapped with the Chinese word for circle or square when translated into Chinese. The eye-tracking results show that, in the experimental trials, bilinguals looked more frequently and longer at critical than control words, a pattern that was absent in English monolingual controls. We conclude that incidental word processing activates lexical representations of both languages of bilinguals, even when the task does not require explicit language processing.     

Reconsidering Advertising Literacy as a Defense Against Advertising Effects

It is widely assumed that advertising literacy makes children less susceptible to advertising effects. However, empirical research does not provide convincing evidence for this view. In this article, we explain why advertising literacy as it is currently defined (i.e., conceptual knowledge of advertising) is not effective in reducing children's advertising susceptibility. Specifically, based on recent insights on children's advertising processing, we argue that due to the affect-based nature of contemporary advertising, children primarily process advertising under conditions of low elaboration and, consequently, are unlikely to use their advertising knowledge as a critical defense. Moreover, literature on cognitive development suggests that children's ability to use advertising knowledge as a defense will be further limited by their immature executive functioning and emotion regulation abilities. Therefore, we argue that the current conceptualization of advertising literacy needs to be extended with two dimensions: advertising literacy performance, which takes into account the actual use of conceptual advertising knowledge, and attitudinal advertising literacy, which includes low-effort, attitudinal mechanisms that can function as a defense under conditions of low elaboration. We conclude our article with specific directions for future research and implications for the ongoing societal and political debate about children and advertising.     

Interest as a Moderator in the Relationship Between Challenge/Skills Balance and Flow at Work: An Analysis at Within-Individual Level

Considering flow as a non-ergodic process (i.e. non-homogeneous across individuals and non-stationary over time) that happens at the within-individual level, in this research we work with Bakker’s model that propose flow as made up by three components: intrinsic motivation, enjoyment, and absorption. Taking into account that flow theory can be considered as an intrinsic motivation theory, and the recent proposals about the need to distinguish between pre-conditions of flow and the flow experience itself, we look at interest as a moderator between the challenge/skills balance and the experience of flow, rather than a component of the flow experience. A total of 3640 recordings were collected from a sample of 58 workers using an experience sampling method (several registers a day, during 21 working days). The data was analyzed using regression techniques in each participant (i.e. at within-individual level). Our work tries to respond to the following two research questions: Will interest play a moderating role in the relationship between challenge/skills balance and flow? Will a non-linear model (cusp catastrophe model) better explain the relationship among challenge/skills balance, interest, and flow? The results suggest that our hypotheses were correct: including interest as moderator better explains the relationship between challenge/skills balance and flow in comparison to a model without moderation (R² values change from 0.33 to 0.50). Additionally, carrying out the analysis following non-linear techniques explained more variance as well (R² = 0.67), and this increment was significant. These results support the idea that interest should be considered as a key precondition for the appearance of flow, and this relationship is non-linear. We could say that these findings are exemplary in the field and brings up questions for their application in further research.     

I’ll Never Forgive You: High Conflict Divorce,Social Network,and Co-Parenting Conflicts

The relation between divorce, co-parenting conflicts, and children’s adjustment problems has been well established. An unresolved question for research and clinical interventions, however, is how conflicts between parents are maintained and/or escalate. This cross-sectional research tested the hypothesis that co-parenting conflicts in divorced couples are associated with perceived social network disapproval and that this relation is mediated by parents’ tendency to forgive each other. In Study 1, a convenience sample of 136 divorced parents recruited via online forums, we showed that perceived social network disapproval was indeed positively related to co-parenting conflicts and that parents’ tendency to forgive the other parent—albeit partly—explained this relationship. Strength of our research is that in Study 2, 110 parents referred to children’s mental health care because the wellbeing of the children was severely compromised by the severity of the conflicts between parents, we replicated these results. In both studies perceived social network disapproval and co-parenting conflicts were positively related and this link was mediated by forgiveness: perceived social network disapproval was negatively related to forgiveness, which in turn was negatively related to more parental conflicts.     

Heterosexual, lesbian, and gay male relationships: a comparison of couples in 1975 and 2000

This study examined the differences among lesbians, gay men, and heterosexuals at two points in time (1975 and 2000) using responses of 6,864 participants from two archival data sets. Groups were compared on variables representing equality of behaviors between partners in seven realms: traditionally "feminine" housework, traditionally "masculine" housework, finances, support, communication, requesting/refusing sex, and decision-making. In addition, the current study compared monogamy agreements and monogamy behaviors reported by the two cohorts of couple types. Overall, the results indicate that on the equality variables, there have been many statistically significant behavioral shifts among the different sexual orientations across 25 years. In addition, all couple types reported substantially greater rates of monogamy in the year 2000 than in 1975. The present study has important clinical implications for therapists working with couples because it provides new baseline evidence regarding how couples now interact with one another (especially about monogamy) and how this has shifted over time. In addition, it elucidates the differences that still exist between different couple types, which could serve to inform couple therapists as they strive to become more culturally competent working with same-sex couples.     

Constructive Empiricism and the Closure Problem

In this paper I articulate a fictionalist solution to the closure problem that affects constructive empiricism. Relying on Stephen Yablo’s recent study of closure puzzles, I show how we can partition the content of a theory in terms of its truthmakers and claim that a constructive empiricist can believe that all the observable conditions that are necessary to make a part of her theory true obtain and remain agnostic about whether or not the other truthmakers for the other parts of her theory obtain. This can be done even though she asserts her theory as if it was wholly true.     

The effects of mothers' past infant-holding preferences on their adult children's face processing lateralisation

Face processing development is negatively affected when infants have not been exposed to faces for some time because of congenital cataract blocking all vision (Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer, & Brent, 2001). It is not clear, however, whether more subtle differences in face exposure may also have an influence. The present study looked at the effect of the mother's preferred side of holding an infant, on her adult child's face processing lateralisation. Adults with a mother who had a left-arm preference for holding infants were compared with adults with a mother who had a right-arm holding preference. All participants were right-handed and had been exclusively bottle-fed during infancy. The participants were presented with two chimeric faces tests, one involving emotion and the other one gender. The left-arm held individuals showed a normal left-bias on the chimeric face tests, whereas the right-arm held individuals a significantly decreased left-bias. The results might suggest that reduced exposure to high quality emotional information on faces in infancy results in diminished right-hemisphere lateralisation for face processing.     

Prejudice,polyculturalism, and the influence of contact and moral exclusion: A comparison of responses toward LGBI,TI, and refugee groups

Prejudice toward marginalized groups is recognized as a complex and harmful social issue. The present study investigates the role of polyculturalism in undermining prejudice toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people and refugees. A pilot study (N = 76) compared participants' prejudice, contact, and moral exclusion toward lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) and transgender or intersex (TI) people. There were differences for three out of four variables; thus, LGB and TI variables were separated in the study proper (N = 154). In this study, we investigated moral exclusion and contact (quantity and quality) relating to LGB, TI, and refugee groups as simultaneous mediators of the relationship between polyculturalism and prejudice, while taking into account openness as per previous research. Structural equation modeling indicated that moral exclusion and contact quality acted as mediators between polyculturalism and prejudice for LGB people, TI people, and refugees.