The Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale: initial examination of its factor structure and correlates among Brazilian adults

The present study conducted a preliminary examination of the psychometric properties of a recently developed Portuguese translation of the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale (ACSS; Henderson-King & Henderson-King, 2005). A total of 311 Brazilian adults completed the ACSS along with Portuguese translations of measures of actual-ideal body weight discrepancy, body appreciation, sociocultural attitudes toward appearance, and demographics. Results showed that the Portuguese ACSS reduced to a three-factor solution consisting of the Intrapersonal, Social, and Consider factors uncovered in the original work using the ACSS. Moreover, there were only small sex differences on these subscales. In addition, the Portuguese ACSS showed a good pattern of convergent validity. The availability of the Portuguese ACSS is expected to stimulate more in-depth, quantitative research on attitudes toward cosmetic surgery within the Brazilian context.     

Efficacy and feeling of a vibrotactile Frontal Collision Warning implemented in a haptic pedal

A haptic pedal has been designed to emulate the behaviour of a common vehicle pedal and render superimposed vibrations with different characteristics. It was installed in a driving simulator, as an accelerator pedal with the secondary function of a vibrotactile Frontal Collision Warning (FCW). The efficacy and feeling of this solution was tested with 30 subjects using vibrotactile signals with 0.50, 1.05, and 1.60 Nm, at 2.5, 5, and 10 Hz, against a baseline visual FCW. Participants had to match the speed of a leading vehicle when the FCW was triggered. Their braking response was evaluated in terms of brake reaction time, matching speed time, control of velocity and headway reduction. Driver’s feelings were assessed with Kansei methodologies. Haptic stimuli were found to be more effective than visual signals, and the characteristics of the vibration also influenced the results. The best performance was achieved at the maximum amplitude, and in the range between 5 and 10 Hz. The perceived functionality and discomfort followed a trend coherent with the objective measurements. The conclusions of this study may be applied to develop effective and safe warning systems in vehicles, limiting the annoyance that they might cause to drivers.     

The effect of expectancy of a threatening event on time perception in human adults

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of a threatening stimulus in human adults in a temporal bisection task. In Experiment 1, for two anchor duration conditions (400/800 vs. 800/1600 ms), the participants completed trials in which the probe duration was followed by an aversive stimulus or a nonaversive stimulus. The results showed that the duration was judged longer when the participants expected an aversive rather than a nonaversive stimulus. In Experiment 2, the effect of the temporal localization of the aversive stimulus was also tested, with the aversive stimulus being presented at the beginning or at the end of the probe duration. The results revealed a temporal overestimation in each condition compared to the trials in which no aversive stimulus was presented. Furthermore, the temporal overestimation was greater when the expectation for the forthcoming threatening stimulus was longer. This temporal overestimation is explained in terms of a speeding-up of the neural timing system in response to the increase in the arousal level produced by the expectation of a threatening stimulus.     

The predictive value of school climate and teacher techniques on students’ just world beliefs: a comprehensive Brazilian sample

Social Psychology of Education - Substantial research has established the connection between students’ beliefs in a just world (BJW) and their perceptions of and behaviors in the school....     

Matching Messages to Motives in Persuasion: A Functional Approach to Promoting Volunteerism1

This study examined a functional strategy for investigating audience responses to motivationally-based persuasive appeals. It was predicted that people exposed to advertisements informing them how they could satisfy personally relevant motivations through volunteering (i.e., functionally matched messages) would judge these ads to be more persuasive, more emotionally positive, and would report being more likely to volunteer than people exposed to advertisements unrelated to their personally relevant motivations (i.e., functionally mismatched messages). These predictions were confirmed in an experiment wherein participants whose attitudes toward volunteerism served a Social Adjustive, Value Expressive, Utilitarian, Knowledge, or Ego Defensive function viewed advertisements promoting volunteerism that either matched or mismatched their personally relevant motivations. Results confirmed predictions as participants responded more favorably to the functionally matched than mismatched messages. The implications of this research for understanding the mechanisms by which functionally matched messages exert persuasive influence and the ramifications of the research for the practice of volunteerism are discussed.     

Influence of memory strategies on memory test performance: a study in healthy and pathological aging

The ability to generate memory strategies is a key factor in the performance of episodic memory tasks. Whether the ability to generate memory strategies exerts an influence in the performance of memory tests in the elderly population is still a matter of debate. Here we present results from an experimental memory task (Test of Memory Strategies, TMS), comprised of five lists of words starting from an incidental learning task, and four more lists which progressively gain in their external organization of the material, reducing the necessity of mobilizing complex memory strategies. TMS has been applied to four groups of elderly patients (amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment - aMCI, multidomain (mMCI), and Vascular Cognitive Impairment - VCI and Depression) and a healthy aging group. In conditions with low organization of the material, the mMCI and VCI groups (both showing a greater executive function impairment) have shown lower performance. However, as the material was progressively organized, they improved their performance. The aMCI group showed similar performance to the control group at the lower level of external organization but did not improve performance in conditions with a high level of external organization. The mMCI and VCI groups showed lower performance on all TMS conditions compared with controls. Discriminant analysis revealed 90% sensitivity and specificity to differentiate between groups based on TMS conditions. These results indicate how executive functions influence performance on memory tasks in elderly subjects with different neuropsychological profiles.     

Processing of basic speech acts following localized brain damage: a new light on the neuroanatomy of language

We examined the effect of localized brain lesions on processing of the basic speech acts (BSAs) of question, assertion, request, and command. Both left and right cerebral damage produced significant deficits relative to normal controls, and left brain damaged patients performed worse than patients with right-sided lesions. This finding argues against the common conjecture that the right hemisphere of most right-handers plays a dominant role in natural language pragmatics. In right-hemisphere damaged patients, there was no correlation between location and extent of lesion in perisylvian cortex and performance on BSAs. By contrast, processing of the different BSAs by left hemisphere-damaged patients was strongly affected by perisylvian lesion location, with each BSA showing a distinct pattern of localization. This finding raises the possibility that the classical left perisylvian localization of language functions, as measured by clinical aphasia batteries, partly reflects the localization of the BSAs required to perform these functions.     

Effects of task interdependence and communication technologies synchrony on performance in virtual teams

Effects of task interdependence and communication technologies synchrony on performance in virtual teams. Survey results of 197 employees from 41 work groups in a large multinational software firm were used to investigate the effects of within-group task interdependence and the degree of communication synchrony on performance in virtual teams (VTs). The analyses revealed a moderating effect of task interdependence on the relationship between the degree of communications synchrony and performance in VT. We found that superior VTs performance is contingent on the fit between the nature of the task (i.e., task interdependence) and the choice of communications modality. This study complements previous research providing additional evidence of how task-technology interaction affects VTs performance, and extends previous findings obtained with ad-hoc groups in laboratory settings to natural, organizational teams.