Eye movements reveal mechanisms underlying attentional biases towards threat

Mechanisms underlying attentional biases towards threat (ABTs), such as attentional avoidance and difficulty of disengagement, are still unclear. To address this issue, we recorded participants' eye movements during a dot detection task in which threatening or neutral stimuli served as peripheral cues. We evaluated response times (RTs) in trials where participants looked at the central fixation cross (not at the cues), as they were required, and number and duration of (unwanted) fixations towards threatening or neutral cues; in all analyses trait anxiety was treated as a covariate. Difficulty in attentional disengagement (longer RTs) was found when peripheral threatening stimuli were presented for 100?ms. Moreover, we observed significantly shorter (unwanted) fixations on threatening than on neutral peripheral stimuli, compatible with an avoidance bias, for longer presentation times. These findings demonstrate that, independent of trait anxiety levels, disengagement bias occurs without eye movements, whereas eye movements are implied in threat avoidance.     

Procedural Multimedia Presentations: The Effects of Working Memory and Task Complexity on Instruction Time and Assembly Accuracy

Procedural text conveys information of a series of steps to be performed. This study examined the role of verbal and visuo‐spatial WM in comprehension and execution of assembly instructions, as a function of format (text, images, multimedia) and task complexity (three or five steps). One hundred and eight participants read and executed 27 instructions to assemble a LEGO^TM object, in single and dual task conditions. Study times and errors during assembly were measured. Participants processed faster pictorial and multimedia instructions than text instructions, and made fewer errors in the execution of multimedia instructions. Dual task affected more text or picture‐only, than multimedia presentation. A verbal secondary task caused more errors in text or picture‐only presentations, and spatial secondary task also caused interference in text‐only instructions. Overall, these results support the multimedia advantage, and the role of both verbal and visuo‐spatial WM, when understanding instructions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Development and Testing of a New Version of the Cognitive Reflection Test Applying Item Response Theory (IRT)

The cognitive reflection test (CRT) is a short measure of a person's ability to resist intuitive response tendencies and to produce a normatively correct response, which is based on effortful reasoning. Although the CRT is a very popular measure, its psychometric properties have not been extensively investigated. A major limitation of the CRT is the difficulty of the items, which can lead to floor effects in populations other than highly educated adults. The present study aimed at investigating the psychometric properties of the CRT applying item response theory analyses (a two‐parameter logistic model) and at developing a new version of the scale (the CRT‐long), which is appropriate for participants with both lower and higher levels of cognitive reflection. The results demonstrated the good psychometric properties of the original, as well as the new scale. The validity of the new scale was also assessed by measuring correlations with various indicators of intelligence, numeracy, reasoning and decision‐making skills, and thinking dispositions. Moreover, we present evidence for the suitability of the new scale to be used with developmental samples. Finally, by comparing the performance of adolescents and young adults on the CRT and CRT‐long, we report the first investigation into the development of cognitive reflection. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the (dis-)confirmability of stereotypic attributes

Two experiments investigated the linguistic abstractness and confirmability of elements contained in ingroup and outgroup stereotypes. The first experiment shows that positive elements of the ingroup stereotype (Italians) and negative elements of the outgroup stereotype (Jews, Germans) tended to be particularly abstract. Also, negative elements contained in the outgroup stereotypes required relatively little evidence to be considered ‘true’ but much disconfirming evidence to be rejected as ‘false’. No such bias emerged for ingroup stereotypes. The second experiment compared the abstraction of four outgroup stereotypes (Jews, Blacks, homosexuals, career women) finding the greatest abstraction for the oldest stereotype (Jews), and least abstraction for the most recent stereotype (career women) with the remaining two groups (Blacks, homosexuals) occupying an intermediate position. Results are interpreted as suggesting that stereotypes may become more abstract over time as they lose the concrete elements that are easier to disconfirm while maintaining the abstract elements that are more resistant to change. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological health in long-term cancer survivorship: an Italian survey on depression and anxiety

Since long-term survivorship is now a reality for an increasingly number of people with a history of cancer, understanding their psychological health can inform health care policy as well as help supporting individual patients. This study was aimed to describe depression and anxiety (i.e. two of the most common psychological symptoms reported in oncology) in a sample of Italian long-term cancer survivors (LTCSs) defined as people who have been free from cancer and cancer treatments for at least five years. Four hundred and four Italian adult LTCSs completed a battery of questionnaires including the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale and the State Anxiety sub-scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory respectively for depression and anxiety assessment. 16.5% of the sample displayed mild depression, 11.1% moderate depression, and 7.1% severe depression. depression was negatively associated with education (p = .017), perceived social support as provided by the family (p = .028), and perceived social support provided by friends (p = .008), and it was positively associated with occupational status (p = .023), presence of health issues (p = .010), and anxiety (p < .001). 8.7 and 15.8% of the sample were respectively possible and probable cases of anxiety. Anxiety was negatively associated with occupational status (p = .038) and it was positively associated with depression (p < .001). These data support ongoing assessment and monitoring of depression and anxiety in LTCSs, and stimulate the development and testing of psychological interventions for such individuals. In addition, they encourage further study on the psychological health of this specific population.     

The Role of the Listener on the Emotional Valence of Personal Memories in Emerging Adulthood

Many scholars stressed the role of social interactions in the construction of autobiographical memories, especially in late adolescence and emerging adulthood. This paper aims to assess the impact of the listener attitude on narrator’s emotional valence of past life events concerning the end of a close relationship. 157 emerging adults have been asked to recall a memory and to randomly narrate it to a listener previously trained to be distracted and detached (DL group) versus attentive and empathic (AL group). A control group (CG) had only to reflect internally on the recalled memory. Participants had to allocate one or more emotions to their memory from a 12-item list in a recall task, a narrative/reflection task and a 15-day recall follow-up. The percentages of negative, positive and neutral emotions were assessed and changes among the three emotional allocations were measured. Results showed that participants of the AL group after the narrative task increased the positive emotional engagement of memories and decreased the negative emotions in comparison to DL participants and the CG ones. The authors interpret the results suggesting that narrating autobiographical memories to attentive peers is a way to co-construct their emotional meaning and discuss findings in the light of the knowledge on the lifespan period of emerging adulthood.     

A class of k-modes algorithms for extracting knowledge structures from data

One of the most crucial issues in knowledge space theory is the construction of the so-called knowledge structures. In the present paper, a new data-driven procedure for large data sets is described, which overcomes some of the drawbacks of the already existing methods. The procedure, called k-states, is an incremental extension of the k-modes algorithm, which generates a sequence of locally optimal knowledge structures of increasing size, among which a “best” model is selected. The performance of k-states is compared to other two procedures in both a simulation study and an empirical application. In the former, k-states displays a better accuracy in reconstructing knowledge structures; in the latter, the structure extracted by k-states obtained a better fit.     

Distancing the present self from the past and the future: Psychological distance in anxiety and depression

Humans show a systematic tendency to perceive the future as psychologically closer than the past. Based on the clinical hypothesis that anxiety would be associated more with future threat life events, whereas depression with past loss events, here we explored whether people with anxiety- and depression-related personality traits perceive differently the psychological distance of temporal events. Results showed that the common tendency to perceive the future as psychologically closer than the past is exaggerated in individuals with anxiety-related personality traits, whereas this asymmetry drastically shrinks in individuals with depression-related personality traits. Beyond substantiating the hypothesis that the past and the future are differently faced by people with depression- and anxiety-related personality traits, the present findings suggest that temporal orientation of one’s self may be greatly altered in anxiety and depression.     

Neural substrates of the ‘low‐level’ system for speech articulation: Evidence from primary opercular syndrome

We describe a patient with progressive disorder of speech, without language impairment (opercular syndrome). Morphometric analysis confirmed asymmetric volume reduction of the precentral areas (>left). Diffusion imaging showed significant white matter changes in the left frontal lobe, with specific involvement of the left corticobulbar tract and connections between supplementary/pre‐supplementary motor areas and the frontal operculum (frontal aslant tract). We suggest that the organization of expressive language includes a ‘low level’ motor system principally distributed in the left hemisphere that shows specific susceptibility to neurodegeneration, distinct from neural systems subtending praxic, and cognitive aspects of language.