Interhemispheric Transfer Time in Sportsmen

The authors’ aim was to compare interhemispheric transfer time between 2 groups: highly skilled sportsmen and control subjects. Left- and right-handed individuals were included in the study. The Poffenberger paradigm was used to measure the crossed–uncrossed difference, representing the time to transfer information from one hemisphere to the other. No difference in laterality was found, but the results revealed a greater crossed–uncrossed difference in the skilled sportsmen than in the controls. The authors suggest that this may be due to more highly developed within-hemisphere integration of inputs and outputs, at the expense of cross-hemisphere integration.     

Contextual Interference in Motor Learning: Dissociated Effects Due to the Nature of Task Variations

The contextual interference effect in motor learning refers to the interference that results from practising a task within the concept of other tasks in a practice session. Several studies have shown that practice under conditions of high contextual interference (i.e. with a random practice order) degrades performance during acquisition trials, compared to low contextual interference conditions (i.e. with a blocked order, where practice is completed on one task before practice on another task is undertaken). In contrast to acquisition performance, random practice usually leads to more effective learning than blocked practice, as measured by retention and transfer tests. One of the hypotheses regarding the effect suggests that a random practice schedule induces more extensive planning operations during practice than a blocked practice condition. If so, then differences between these two conditions should emerge to the degree that the set of tasks requires complete reconstruction of these planning operations on each trial. To address this issue, we compared four groups of subjects: a blocked and random group that practised three timing tasks that shared a common characteristic (same relative timing), and a blocked and random group that practised three tasks that each had different relative timing structures. Subjects practised these tasks on each of two days, with a retention test and two transfer tests that required either a relative timing structure that had been practised previously or had not previously been practised. No random/ blocked differences occurred regardless of the relative timing of the patterns during acquisition or retention. However, for both transfer tests, random practice enhanced learning only for the group that had practised with tasks that each had different relative timing during acquisition. Implications of these results for an explanation of contextual interference are discussed.     

A Note on the Nomic Possibility of a Dynamic Shift

In this note, I argue that a dynamically shifted world—i.e. a world identical to our own except for a fixed constant difference in the absolute acceleration of each object—is nomically impossible in a Newtonian world populated by finitely many objects. A dynamic shift however seems to be nomically possible in a world populated by infinitely many objects, but only in a broad sense of nomic possibility.

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Age-related differences in valence and arousal ratings of pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS): Do ratings become more extreme with age?

The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) has been widely used in aging-oriented research on emotion. However, no ratings for older adults are available. The aim of the present study was to close this gap by providing ratings of valence and arousal for 504 IAPS pictures by 53 young and 53 older adults. Both age groups rated positive pictures as less arousing, resulting in a stronger linear association between valence and arousal, than has been found in previous studies. This association was even stronger in older than in young adults. Older adults perceived negative pictures as more negative and more arousing and positive pictures as more positive and less arousing than young adults did. This might indicate a dedifferentiation of emotional processing in old age. On the basis of a picture recognition task, we also report memorability scores for individual pictures and how they relate to valence and arousal ratings. Data for all the pictures are archived at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Eldercare demands, strain, and work engagement: The moderating role of perceived organizational support

Demographic changes give rise to an increasing number of middle-aged employees providing home-based care to an elderly family member. However, the potentially important role of employees' perceptions of organizational support for eldercare has so far not been investigated. The goal of this study was to examine a stressor–strain–outcome model (Koeske & Koeske, 1993) of eldercare strain as a mediator of the relationship between eldercare demands and caregivers' work engagement. Perceived organizational eldercare support was expected to attenuate the positive relationship between eldercare demands and eldercare strain and to buffer the negative relationship between eldercare strain and work engagement. Results of mediation and moderated mediation analyses with data collected from 147 employees providing eldercare supported the hypotheses. The findings suggest that perceived organizational eldercare support is especially beneficial for employees' work engagement when eldercare demands and strain are high.     

Irrational and Metacognitive Beliefs Mediate the Relationship Between Content Beliefs and GAD Symptoms: A Study on a Normal Population

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) models show both similarities and differences in conceptualizing anxiety. This work assumes that REBT’s irrational and MCT’s metacognitive beliefs play a mediation role while CBT’s disorder specific content beliefs act as triggers. This hypothesis is tested using a regression model in which metacognitive and irrational beliefs play a mediation role while content disorder beliefs are independent variables. This paper applied this model to generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a psychiatric diagnosis in which anxiety is the major feature. In GAD, the specific content beliefs are negative problem orientation and intolerance of uncertainty. Therefore, 149 non clinical subjects completed 4 self-report questionnaires: the Negative Orientation to the Problems Questionnaire and the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale as measures for content cognitive beliefs, the Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for irrational beliefs, and the Metacognitive Questionnaire 30 Items Version for metacognitive beliefs. The generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire was chosen in order to measure anxiety as dependent variable. Regression analyses confirmed that irrational and metacognitive beliefs mediate the relation between cognitive content beliefs and GAD. We clinically interpret mediation as a second level regulation.     

Why did I do that? Explaining actions activated outside of awareness

We review the latest research investigating how people explain their own actions when they have been activated nonconsciously. We will discuss evidence that when nonconsciously activated behavior is unexpected (e.g., norm- violating, against self -standards), negative affect arises and triggers confabulations aimed to explain the behavior. Nonconsciously activated behaviors may provide a window into everyday confabulation of (erroneous) explanations for behavior, which may also affect self-knowledge. Implications for self-concept formation and intentionality are discussed.