Physical activity and sedentary lifestyle in children as time-limited functions: Usefulness of the principal component analysis method

This study was designed to examine the hourly variation in and the interplay between physical activity and sedentary behavior (SB) in order to highlight key time periods for physical activity interventions for children. Data for physical activity and SB obtained with ActiGraph in 56 boys and 47 girls aged from 8 to 11 years. These data were divided into sixty minute-time samples for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and SB, and analyzed using a principal component analysis (PCA) and correlation statistics. The PCA provides 10 factors which account for 80.4% of the inertia. Only two of these factors did not display competition between MVPA and SB. Contrary to some reports, a coefficient of correlation of -.68 (p < 10(-4)) was found between daily time spent at MVPA and SB. Some salient traits of children's behaviors were shown through PCA. The results suggested that efficacy of interventions targeting the morning hours (07:00 AM-11:59 AM) and the afternoon period (02:00 PM-05:59 PM) warrants attention.     

HIV, Sex, and Social Change: Applying ESID Principles to HIV Prevention Research

The HIV epidemic has been the most significant public health crisis of the last 2 decades. Although Experimental Social Innovation and Dissemination (ESID) principles have been used by many HIV prevention researchers, the clearest application is the series of model-building and replication experiments conducted by Kelly and colleagues. The model mobilized, trained, and engaged key opinion leaders to serve as behavior change and safe-sex endorsers in their social networks. This paper illustrates how ESID principles were used to develop, test, and disseminate an innovative social model and discusses the challenges of applying ESID methodology in the midst of a public health emergency.     

DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE PATTERNS TO THE CONTROL CONDITION BETWEEN TWO PROCEDURES TO ASSESS SOCIAL REINFORCERS FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Historically, reinforcer assessment procedures focus primarily on identifying nonsocial reinforcers (e.g., tangibles and edibles). Far less empirical attention has been allocated to the systematic identification of social consequences that function as reinforcers. This discrepancy is problematic given that social consequences are commonly incorporated into behavioral treatment programs without systematic evaluation of their efficacy. In this study, two methodologies (a single operant and a concurrent choice) were used to assess social reinforcers for children with autism. Results highlighted differences in response allocation to the control condition between procedures. Specifically, responding occurred in the control condition of the single‐operant procedure but not in the concurrent‐operant procedure. These differences highlight the need for further evaluation of procedures to assess social reinforcers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of sound intensity and stop-consonant voicing on McGurk fusions and combinations

The present paper argues that generalisation is conservative. Our goal was to experimentally study the links between knowledge generalisation and the storage of contextual elements. The knowledge domain, very simple chess configurations, allowed subjects, novices in chess, to acquire micro-expertise based on the analysis of a single source problem. In the first experimental phase, subjects had to analyse a source problem. We induced two modes of source-problem encoding: In the first group, subjects were given explanations focused on the sequence of elementary solving steps; in the other group they were given the general principle relevant to the category of problems in question. Subjects had then to solve different tests (solving isomorphic problems, recall tests, similarity tests) designed to answer two questions: The first question was to test whether the experimental manipulation in the two groups had in fact generated knowledge that varied in abstractness; the second question was to determine whether generalisation is accompanied by storage of surface features of the source problem. Results show that the knowledge generalisation is conservative. Subjects who generalise their knowledge have a better memory retention of context-dependent elements than the other subjects.     

Organizational Support,Job Resources,Soldiers’ Motivational Profiles,Work Engagement,and Affect

The authors examined the relationships between soldiers’ motivational profiles and work correlates. Results showed that the profiles differentially related to perceived organizational support and work engagement in both samples, as well as to communication, supervisor support, and positive and negative affect in Sample 2. Specifically, soldiers with the highest autonomous motivation scores displayed the highest levels of perceived organizational support and work engagement. Moreover, the highest levels of autonomous motivation were associated with the highest levels of communication, supervisor support, and positive affect. Finally, soldiers with low to moderate levels of autonomous motivation reported higher levels of negative affect than those characterized by high autonomous motivation scores. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Lie,truth, lie: the role of task switching in a deception context

A cornerstone of the task switching literature is the finding that task performance is typically slower and more error-prone when the task switches than when it repeats. So far, deception research has largely ignored that such cognitive switch costs should also emerge when switching between truth telling and lying, and may affect the cognitive cost of lying as reflected in higher prefrontal brain activity and slower and less accurate responding compared to truth telling. To get a grasp on the relative size of the switch costs associated with lying and truth telling, the current study had participants perform a reaction time-based deception task, in which they alternated between lying and telling the truth to yes/no questions that were related to activities performed in the lab (Experiment 1) or neutral autobiographical facts (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the error and reaction time switch costs were found to be equally large for switching from truth telling to lying and from lying to truth telling. This symmetry in switch costs can be explained from the hypothesis that lying requires a first step of truth telling, and demonstrates that task switching does not contribute to the cognitive cost of lying when the repetition/switch ratio is balanced. Theoretical and methodological implications are considered.     

Knowledge of a second language influences auditory word recognition in the native language

Many studies in bilingual visual word recognition have demonstrated that lexical access is not language selective. However, research on bilingual word recognition in the auditory modality has been scarce, and it has yielded mixed results with regard to the degree of this language nonselectivity. In the present study, we investigated whether listening to a second language (L2) is influenced by knowledge of the native language (L1) and, more important, whether listening to the L1 is also influenced by knowledge of an L2. Additionally, we investigated whether the listener's selectivity of lexical access is influenced by the speaker's L1 (and thus his or her accent). With this aim, Dutch-English bilinguals completed an English (Experiment 1) and a Dutch (Experiment 3) auditory lexical decision task. As a control, the English auditory lexical decision task was also completed by English monolinguals (Experiment 2). Targets were pronounced by a native Dutch speaker with English as the L2 (Experiments 1A, 2A, and 3A) or by a native English speaker with Dutch as the L2 (Experiments 1B, 2B, and 3B). In all experiments, Dutch-English bilinguals recognized interlingual homophones (e.g., lief [sweet]-leaf /li:f/) significantly slower than matched control words, whereas the English monolinguals showed no effect. These results indicate that (a) lexical access in bilingual auditory word recognition is not language selective in L2, nor in L1, and (b) language-specific subphonological cues do not annul cross-lingual interactions.     

Transcultural discussion in bioethics drawn from research experience in China: building up a theoretical and methodological framework for further research cooperation

My article discusses bioethics in transcultural context and builds on an experience of conducting research in China in partnership with Chinese scholars and institutions. Key points are about the creation of ethical committees and their prerogatives, the regulation of experimenting in human and animal, and of donating and transplanting organs. Ethical issues are approached according to an anthropological reading. Three transversal lines for further research are suggested: global/local ethical governance applied to research ethics; implications of transnationalizing and delocalizing research practices with regards to governance; theoretical positioning--conceptual pluralism versus pragmatic pluralism--following actual confrontation to transcultural variations in research ethics. Moreover, this work claims for conceptualizing and implementing an ethics in context while assessing intangible (non-relative) principles based on knowledge production and a global patrimony.