Can magical intervention affect subjective experiences? Adults' reactions to magical suggestion

In three experiments, undergraduates' subjective experiences were affected by positive magical intervention. A large number of participants accepted the offer of magical help, yet the outcomes they reported were contrary to the aims of the magical intervention. In Experiment 1, participants were offered magical help that aimed to improve their practical skills. However, in the magical‐suggestion condition, they reported no improvement significantly more frequently than in the control no‐suggestion condition. In Experiment 2, participants who accepted the offer of magical help aimed at improving their general life satisfaction reported a significant decrease in this satisfaction. Those who declined the offer of magical help reported a significant increase in satisfaction. In Experiment 3, in the magical‐suggestion condition, participants experienced bad dreams significantly more frequently than in the control condition. In conclusion, the data suggest that adult participants protect their subjective experiences against magical intervention.     

Mimics: A symbolic conflict/cooperation simulation program,with embedded protocol recording and automatic psychometric assessment

This paper describes an interactive software environment designed as a social interaction simulator with embedded comprehensive recording and flexible assessment facilities. Using schematized visual sketches similar to cross-cultural facial universals (Ekman, 1999), Mimics (Shmelyov & Aidman, 1997) employs a computer-game-like scenario that requires the subject to identify with anavatar and navigate it through a playing field inhabited byhosts who display a range of facial expressions. From these expressions (which are highly consequential), the player has to anticipate the hosts’ reactions to the avatar (which may vary from friendly to obstructing or aggressive) and choose between negotiating with a host (by altering the avatar’s facial expression), attacking it, or searching for an escape route. Comprehensive recording of player moves and interactions has enabled computation of several finegrained indices of interactive behavior, such as aggressive response styles, efficiency, and motivation in conflict/cooperation contexts. Initial validation data and potential applications of the method in the assessment of personality and social behavior are discussed.     

Intuition: A fundamental bridging construct in the behavioural sciences

The concept of intuition has, until recently, received scant scholarly attention within and beyond the psychological sciences, despite its potential to unify a number of lines of inquiry. Presently, the literature on intuition is conceptually underdeveloped and dispersed across a range of domains of application, from education, to management, to health. In this article, we clarify and distinguish intuition from related constructs, such as insight, and review a number of theoretical models that attempt to unify cognition and affect. Intuition's place within a broader conceptual framework that distinguishes between two fundamental types of human information processing is explored. We examine recent evidence from the field of social cognitive neuroscience that identifies the potential neural correlates of these separate systems and conclude by identifying a number of theoretical and methodological challenges associated with the valid and reliable assessment of intuition as a basis for future research in this burgeoning field of inquiry.     

Effects of Including a Graphic Warning Label in Advertisements for Reduced‐Exposure Products: Implications for Persuasion and Policy1

Considerable interest has focused on making warning labels on tobacco‐product packaging more effective in communicating risk to current and potential smokers. However, none of this work to date has involved the communication of risk information about reduced‐exposure products, or how a graphic warning label may function in advertisements. Reduced‐exposure products pose an interesting public health challenge in light of the fact that many advertisements for such products convey safety claims that may undermine the likelihood that potential consumers will process warnings about the products. The present study examines the influence of graphic warning labels on ratings of advertisements for 3 different types of tobacco products. Results showed that including a graphic picture lowered the appeal ratings for the product.     

Use of experienced retrieval ease in self and social judgments

People base judgments from memory on both the content of the information they retrieve and the ease they experience in retrieving it (Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991). Ease of retrieval as information: another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 195-202). Four studies demonstrate that people rely relatively more on the experienced ease of recall when making judgments about the self compared to judgments about others. This pattern was found for judgments of an “average” (Study 1a) or specific (Study 1b) other. Subjective retrieval ease was less informative when people were relatively less familiar with the specific other person. Providing an alternative explanation for the experienced difficulty of recall affected self, but not social, assessments (Study 2). In addition, the effect generalized to risk judgments about a state of the world; namely, the safety of one’s town (Study 3). A deeper appreciation of when and why people rely on different sources of accessible information when making judgments may help in understanding and reducing social conflict.     

Selective blockade of 5-HT2A receptors attenuates the increased temperature response in brown adipose tissue to restraint stress in rats

Previous studies have demonstrated that 5-HT2A receptors may be involved in the central control of thermoregulation and of the cardiovascular system. Our aim was to test whether these receptors mediate thermogenic and tachycardiac responses induced by acute psychological stress. Three groups of adult male Hooded Wistar rats were instrumented with: (i) a thermistor in the interscapular area (for recording brown adipose tissue temperature) and an ultrasound Doppler probe (to record tail blood flow); (ii) temperature dataloggers to record core body temperature; (iii) ECG electrodes. On the day of the experiment, rats were subjected to a 30-min restraint stress preceded by s.c. injection of either vehicle or SR-46349B (a serotonin 2A receptor antagonist) at doses of 0.01, 0.1 and 1.0 mg/kg. The restraint stress caused a rise in brown adipose tissue temperature (from, mean +/- s.e.m., 36.6 +/- 0.2 to 38.0 +/- 0.2 degrees C), transient cutaneous vasoconstriction (tail blood flow decreased from 12 +/- 2 to 5 +/- 1 cm/s), increase in heart rate (from 303 +/- 15 to 453 +/- 15 bpm at the peak, then reduced to 393 +/- 12 bpm at the steady state), and defaecation (6 +/- 1 pellets per restraint session). The core body temperature was not affected by the restraint. Blockade of 5-HT2A receptors attenuated the increase in brown adipose tissue temperature and transient cutaneous vasoconstriction, but not tachycardia and defaecation elicited by restraint stress. These results indicate that psychological stress causes activation of 5-HT2A receptors in neural pathways that control thermogenesis in the brown adipose tissue and facilitate cutaneous vasoconstriction.     

Clinical assessment of motor function: a processes oriented instrument based on a speed-accuracy trade-off paradigm

In this study, we developed a digitizing tablet-based instrument for the clinical assessment of human voluntary movements targeting motor processes of planning, programming and execution. The tool was used to investigate an adaptation of Fitts' reciprocal tapping task [10], comprising four conditions, each of them modulated by three indices of difficulty related to the amplitude of movement required. Temporal, spatial and sequential constraints underlying the various conditions allowed the intricate motor processes to be dissociated. Data obtained from a group of elderly healthy subjects (N=50) were in agreement with the literature on motor control, in the temporal and spatial domains. Speed constraints generated gains in the temporal domain and costs in the spatial one, while spatial constraints generated gain in the spatial domain and costs in the temporal one; finally, sequential constraints revealed the integrative nature of the cognitive operations involved in motor production. This versatile instrument proved capable of providing quantitative, accurate and sensitive measures of the various processes sustaining voluntary movement in healthy subjects. Altogether, analyses performed in this study generated a theoretical framework and reference data which could be used in the future for the clinical assessment of patients with various movement disorders, in particular Parkinson's disease.