Common Mental Health Challenges in a University Context in Hong Kong: a Study Based on a Review of Medical Records

Applied Research in Quality of Life - While numerous studies have suggested the rising prevalence of common mental disorders amongst university students, studies examining mental health of Chinese...     

Inexperienced newborn chicks use geometry to spontaneously reorient to an artificial social partner

A fundamental process underlying navigation behaviour, shown to occur in every species tested, uses geometric properties of the environment for location memory and orientation. Here we employ a new method to ask whether this basic geometric orientation ability is innately predisposed in the brain or depends on specific experiences navigating in a geometrically rich environment. Using the newborn domestic chick as a model system, we present a working memory task testing reorientation towards a filial imprinting object under rigorous controlled rearing conditions. In the absence of any previous exposure to a geometrically rich environment, newly hatched chicks spontaneously recovered their bearings by making use of distances and directional relations to reorient themselves to an artificial social partner. These findings provide evidence for an innate capacity to navigate by the geometric structure of the environment.     

Energy‐Related Behaviors in Office Buildings: A Qualitative Study on Individual and Organisational Determinants

An analysis of individual and organisational determinants of energy‐related behaviors in office buildings and the interplay between the two is presented. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with office workers from four organisations in two Dutch provinces. The results indicate that, overall, work efficiency and productivity was prioritised over energy conservation. In general, self‐efficacy was the most salient individual determinant, and social norm the least discussed determinant of current office energy‐related behaviors. Nevertheless, both self‐efficacy and social norm elements were encountered in employees' proposed strategies to achieve future office energy‐saving. Formal and informal aspects of the organisational context were found to equally affect individual determinants and their related behaviors. Facility managers' and general office workers' views differed in a few but important ways. Interorganisational comparisons showed that differences in organisational foci were linked to the relative salience of normative, gain, and hedonic motivations.     

A comparison of the McGurk effect for spoken and sung syllables

The importance of visual cues in speech perception is illustrated by the McGurk effect, whereby a speaker’s facial movements affect speech perception. The goal of the present study was to evaluate whether the McGurk effect is also observed for sung syllables. Participants heard and saw sung instances of the syllables /ba/ and /ga/ and then judged the syllable they perceived. Audio-visual stimuli were congruent or incongruent (e.g., auditory /ba/ presented with visual /ga/). The stimuli were presented as spoken, sung in an ascending and descending triad (C E G G E C), and sung in an ascending and descending triad that returned to a semitone above the tonic (C E G G E C#). Results revealed no differences in the proportion of fusion responses between spoken and sung conditions confirming that cross-modal phonemic information is integrated similarly in speech and song.     

Adolescents’ heightened risk-seeking in a probabilistic gambling task

This study investigated adolescent males’ decision-making under risk, and the emotional response to decision outcomes, using a probabilistic gambling task designed to evoke counterfactually mediated emotions (relief and regret). Participants were 20 adolescents (aged 9–11), 26 young adolescents (aged 12–15), 20 mid-adolescents (aged 15–18) and 17 adults (aged 25–35). All were male. The ability to maximize expected value improved with age. However, there was an inverted U-shaped developmental pattern for risk-seeking. The age at which risk-taking was highest was 14.38 years. Although emotion ratings overall did not differ across age, there was an increase between childhood and young adolescence in the strength of counterfactually mediated emotions (relief and regret) reported after receiving feedback about the gamble outcome. We suggest that continuing development of the emotional response to outcomes may be a factor contributing to adolescents’ risky behaviour.     

Origins of spatial, temporal and numerical cognition: Insights from comparative psychology

Contemporary comparative cognition has a large repertoire of animal models and methods, with concurrent theoretical advances that are providing initial answers to crucial questions about human cognition. What cognitive traits are uniquely human? What are the species-typical inherited predispositions of the human mind? What is the human mind capable of without certain types of specific experiences with the surrounding environment? Here, we review recent findings from the domains of space, time and number cognition. These findings are produced using different comparative methodologies relying on different animal species, namely birds and non-human great apes. The study of these species not only reveals the range of cognitive abilities across vertebrates, but also increases our understanding of human cognition in crucial ways.     

Role resources and work–family enrichment: The role of work engagement

This article proposes a theoretical model of work-family enrichment and tests the mediating role of work engagement. The inclusion of work engagement extends prior research on work-family interface, and allows for examination of the effects of role resources (job resources, family support) on work-family enrichment. A two-wave survey was conducted among a matched sample of 786 employees in China. The model was tested with structural equation modeling techniques. The results showed that work engagement was the most proximal predictor of work-family enrichment. Work engagement fully mediated the relationship between family-friendly organizational policies and work-family enrichment, and also between job autonomy and family-work enrichment. Further, work engagement partially mediated the relationships between two job resources (supervisor support, job autonomy) and work-family enrichment, and also between family support and family-work enrichment. No difference was found in gender and marital status in the proposed model. Implications for future research and practices are discussed.     

An experiential avoidance conceptualization of depressive rumination: Three tests of the model

This study examined an experiential avoidance conceptualization of depressive rumination in 3 ways: 1) associations among questionnaire measures of rumination, experiential avoidance, and fear of emotions; 2) performance on a dichotic listening task that highlights preferences for non-depressive material; and 3) psychophysiological reactivity in an avoidance paradigm modeled after the one used by Borkovec, Lyonfields, Wiser, and Deihl (1993) in their examination of worry. One hundred and thirty-eight undergraduates completed questionnaire measures and participated in a clinical interview to diagnose current and past episodes of depression. Of those, 100 were randomly assigned to a rumination or relaxation induction condition and participated in a dichotic listening task, rumination/relaxation induction, and depression induction. Questionnaire measures confirmed a relationship between rumination status and avoidance; however, no significant effects were found in the dichotic listening task. Psychophysiological measures indicated no difference in physiological response to a depression induction among high ruminators (HR). However, low ruminators (LR) in the relaxation condition exhibited a larger IBI response than LR in the rumination condition. Overall, these results provide partial support for an avoidance conceptualization of depressive rumination. Implications of these findings are discussed.