How do we process prices? Electrophysiological evidence of componential analysis

The aim of this study was to evaluate if the processing of prices (e.g., 8 euro) involves separate analysis of the digit (8) and the monetary category (euro). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when participants performed a price comparison task in which a pair of prices was presented and they selected the one with higher monetary value. There were compatible comparisons where the digit and the monetary category of one price were higher than those of the other price (e.g., 7 euro – 4 cent, 7 > 4 and euro > cent), and incompatible comparisons where the number of one price was larger but the monetary category smaller than those of the other price (e.g., 4 euro – 7 cent, 4 < 7 but euro > cent). Compatibility effect modulated ERPs in the 350–450 ms time window, with more negative amplitudes in incompatible trials relative to compatible trials. This pattern of results suggests that prices were processed in a componential manner, challenging the evidences of the holistic model. The results of this study agree with the general model framework for multi-symbol number comparison: The constituents of a multi-symbol magnitude are processed and compared to each other separately in a componential manner.     

The paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus is involved in cardiovascular responses to acute restraint stress in rats

The paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) has been implicated in several aspects of cardiovascular control. Stimulation of the PVN evokes changes in blood pressure and heart rate. Additionally, this brain area is connected to several limbic structures implicated in behavioral control, as well as to forebrain and brainstem structures involved in cardiovascular control. This evidence indicates that the PVN may modulate cardiovascular correlates of behavioral responses to stressful stimuli. Acute restraint is an unavoidable stressor that evokes marked and sustained cardiovascular changes, which are characterized by elevated mean arterial pressure (MAP) and an intense heart rate (HR) increase. We report on the effect of inhibition of PVN synapses on MAP and HR responses evoked by acute restraint in rats. Bilateral microinjection of the nonspecific synaptic blocker cobalt (CoCl(2), 1 mM/100 nl) into the PVN did not change the HR response or the initial peak of the MAP response to restraint stress, but reduced the area under the curve of the MAP response. Moreover, bilateral microinjection of cobalt in areas surrounding the PVN did not change the cardiovascular response to restraint. These results indicate that synapses in the PVN are involved in the neural pathway that controls blood pressure changes evoked by restraint.     

Hoops and Barns: a new dilemma for Sosa

Synthese - This paper critically assesses Sosa’s normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa’s central...     

Variability in the semantic errors produced by brain-injured patients

One of the most common types of errors produced by aphasic patients during oral word production is semantic errors. However, although aphasia semantic errors are often treated as a single homogenous group, there are, in fact, several subtypes defined by the nature of the error-target relationship: paradigmatic, if the two words are category coordinates; syntagmatic, if they are associatively related but from different semantic categories; and superordinate, if the meaning of the error is broader than the meaning of the target. The goal of this study was to investigate whether or not these various subtypes of semantic errors have a similar processing origin. With this objective, we compared the patterns of semantic errors made by a group of Alzheimer patients in a picture-naming task with those made by a group of aphasic patients. We examined the percentages of the different error types, the degree of association between target and error, and the frequency values both of errors and targets. The results suggest that the three subtypes of semantic errors have different origins: the superordinate appear to arise at the semantic level, the syntagmatic at the lexical level, and the paradigmatic at both levels of processing.     

Learning to read in children with Williams syndrome

People with Williams syndrome are characterized by linguistic abilities that are higher than their level of intelligence. There is controversy concerning their reading level because there are few studies. The aim of this work was to test reading abilities in a group of school-age children with Williams syndrome. Their performance was contrasted with a control group of the same mental age. Three kinds of tasks were used: word and pseudoword reading, phonological awareness, and naming speed. Results show that the Williams syndrome children performed similarly to control children in reading accuracy but were slower in reading words and pseudowords. They were also slower in the naming speed tasks. These results suggest that Williams syndrome children do not have difficulties in developing grapheme-phoneme decoding but do present some difficulties in developing lexical reading.     

Relations and effects of transformational leadership: a comparative analysis with traditional leadership styles

This study has two main goals: (a) to compare the relationship between transformational leadership and other important leadership styles (i.e., democratic versus autocratic or relations- and task-oriented leadership) and (b) to compare the effects of transformational leadership and the other styles on some important organizational outcomes such as employees' satisfaction and performance. For this purpose, a sample of 147 participants, working in 35 various work-teams, was used. Results show high correlations between transformational leadership, relations-oriented, democratic, and task-oriented leadership. On the other hand, according to the literature, transformational leadership, especially high levels, significantly increases the percentage of variance accounted for by other leadership styles in relevant organizational outcome variables (subordinates' performance, satisfaction and extra effort).     

Objective age of acquisition norms for a set of 328 words in Spanish

Age of acquisition is one of the most important variables in picture naming. For this reason, a large number of findings concerning age-of-acquisition data have been published in recent years in a number of different languages. In this article, objective age-of-acquisition data in Spanish for 328 pictures were collected from a pool of 760 children, half of whom were boys and the other half girls. A total of 246 pictures were selected from the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) set, and 82 were new pictures. Like the results of other studies, we found that objective age of acquisition correlates less than rated age of acquisition with familiarity and frequency, which indicates that the objective measure is less contaminated by other variables than are rated estimates. A very high correlation was obtained between the norms from this study and those published in English, French, Icelandic, and Italian. These norms will be very useful to Spanish psycholinguists and clinicians. Related materials may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Co-occurrence of non-suicidal self-injury and impulsivity in extreme weight conditions

The aims of the present study were to determine the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in different eating disorder (ED) groups and morbid obesity, and to investigate whether NSSI in different ED/obesity groups co-occur with impulsivity. We assessed 535 individuals (365 ED and 170 obese patients) by means of a single item assessing lifetime NSSI and the Barratt Impulsivity Scale, which measures different dimensions of impulsivity. The results showed that 19.1% of the ED patients engaged in at least one act of NSSI during their life-time. NSSI was more prevalent in Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified compared to Anorexia Nervosa, Restrictive type and morbid obesity. Finally, ED/obese patients who engaged in NSSI scored significantly higher on the attentional, motor and non-planning subscales than patients without NSSI. The implications of these findings for the treatment of NSSI in binge/purging ED patients are discussed.     

Pragmatic Concerns and Images of the World

I defend a pragmatist reinterpretation of Sellars’s famous manifest-scientific distinction. I claim that in order to do justice to this important distinction we must first recognize, despite what philosophers—including, arguably, Sellars—often make of it, that the distinction does not draw an epistemological or metaphysical boundary between different kinds of objects and events, but a pragmatic boundary between different ways in which we interact with objects and events. Put differently, I argue that the manifest-scientific distinction, in my view, can be best understood, not as a metaphysical distinction between apparent and real objects and events, or an epistemological distinction between perceptible and imperceptible objects and events, but rather as a distinction, which is not necessarily rigid over time, between distinct ways in which we collectively deal, in practice, with objects and events.     

Factores psicosociales y cáncer: una revisión crítica

Resumen

Se presenta en este artículo una introducción al campo de estudio de las relaciones entre factores psicosociales y neoplasia, enmarcándolo dentro de la medicina conductual y desde un enfoque interdisciplinar. A continuación se discute el papel que pueden desempeñar las variables psicosociales (estrés) en la vulnerabilidad del ser humano a la enfermedad en general a través de su acción sobre el sistema inmune. En el apartado III se realiza una revisión crítica en la investigación en la que se ha intentado delimitar la influencia de factores psicosociales en la aparición y pronóstico del cáncer, en animales (cáncer experimental) y en el ser humano. Se discute por último el papel de los mediadores biológicos propuestos como más importantes hasta el momento en la literatura del área (sistemas neuroendocrino e inmune). De esta revisión se desprende que los resultados de la investigación, aunque su- gerentes no son definitivos, ni tampoco están claros los mecanismos biológicos a través de los cuales se puede producir la influencia. Después de analizar algunas de las deficiencias metodológicas más importantes de los trabajos realizados, creemos que en enfoque más adecuado para poner a prueba la hipótesis de que los factores psicosociales afectan al desarrollo del cáncer debería ser longitudinal, utilizando grandes muestras y estudiando variables psicosociales y biomédicas conjuntamente.