Language-guided visual processing affects reasoning: The role of referential and spatial anchoring

Language is more than a source of information for accessing higher-order conceptual knowledge. Indeed, language may determine how people perceive and interpret visual stimuli. Visual processing in linguistic contexts, for instance, mirrors language processing and happens incrementally, rather than through variously-oriented fixations over a particular scene. The consequences of this atypical visual processing are yet to be determined. Here, we investigated the integration of visual and linguistic input during a reasoning task. Participants listened to sentences containing conjunctions or disjunctions (Nancy examined an ant and/or a cloud) and looked at visual scenes containing two pictures that either matched or mismatched the nouns. Degree of match between nouns and pictures (referential anchoring) and between their expected and actual spatial positions (spatial anchoring) affected fixations as well as judgments. We conclude that language induces incremental processing of visual scenes, which in turn becomes susceptible to reasoning errors during the language-meaning verification process.     

Sexuality and Teen Television: Emerging Adults Respond to Representations of Queer Identity on Glee

Academic scholarship on teen television programs indicates that images of queer sexualities can strongly impact the identities of emerging adults. Yet what is missing from this body of scholarship is an in-depth examination of how these representations are incorporated into the identity projects of the emerging adults who watch these shows. This study fills this gap by examining qualitative interviews with emerging adults who watch Glee. The participants consistently and overwhelmingly identified Glee as representing “progressive” emerging adult sexuality. Within that, three key themes emerged. First, identifying with Glee is a gendered practice. Second, Glee fandom aligns with an affinity for musical theater, which is traditionally considered a mirror for gay culture. Finally, while viewers recognized queer narrative content, it did not produce a broader acceptance of non-heterosexual identities. Viewers normalized their own (real, straight) identities in relation to the (fake, queer) identities shown in the narrative.     

The effect of personality pathology on treatment outcome for Axis I disorders in dysfunctional clergy

The relationship between Narcissistic, Compulsive, Dependent, and Antisocial personality traits, as measured by the MCMI-III, and the clinical presentation and the treatment outcome for Axis I disorders, as measured by the MMPI-II was investigated. The subjects were 86 Roman Catholic priests and nuns who participated in 6 to 8 months of residential treatment. Pretreatment evaluation of the patients included the MCMI-III and the MMPI-2. Clinical presentation of Axis I disorders was measured by pretreatment scores on MMPI scales 2 (Depression), 7 (Psychasthenia), content scale DEP (Depression), and content scale ANX (Anxiety). Treatment outcome was measured by posttreatment MMPI-2 scores on these four variables. The results of this study suggest that the level of personality traits a patient possesses can significantly impact the clinical presentation of an Axis I disorder. Although the 48 patients with MCMI-III base rate scores above 74 had significantly higher pretreatment MMPI-2 scores than the patients with lower MCMI-III scores, both groups obtained posttreatment MMPI scores well within normal limits. The intensive individual and group therapy, extended length of stay, and emphasis on community living that the residential program provides may account for these results.     

Toward a grounded theory of self-regulation in mixed martial arts

ObjectivesThe purpose of the current study was to use a grounded theory methodology to better understand the psychological factors involved in training and competition in MMA.DesignA grounded theory methodology underpinned by an interpretivist epistemology was utilized in the current study.MethodsNine MMA athletes participated in formal, recorded interviews with one athlete participating in two recorded interviews. Additionally, observations and field notes from the first author were collected over a one-year period, and aided data collection and analysis. In line with grounded theory methodology (Weed, 2009), an iterative and constant comparison approach to data collection and analysis was employed until saturation was reached.ResultsThroughout data collection and analysis, self-regulation during a training camp emerged as integral to optimal performance. Motivation and ongoing evaluation aided fighters in their ability to self-regulate both external and internal factors related to training and performance. External factors associated with self-regulation consisted of the creation and maintenance of an ascetic routine through environmental regulation, social support, and structured amnesty. Internal factors associated with self-regulation consisted of deliberately induced pain and distress, which facilitated self-efficacy, and produced stress and fatigue.ConclusionsResults of the current study advance the scientific literature in sport psychology by examining the role of self-regulation in the performance of MMA fighters. As the popularity of MMA continues to increase, future research should also examine the role of self-regulation in other aspects of MMA (e.g., injury rehabilitation, life balance).     

‘Acting in the Children’s Best Interest?’: Examining Victims’ Responses to Intimate Partner Violence

Victims’ responses to violent experiences within intimate relationships are highly diverse and can range from remaining silent, at least temporarily, to disclosing the abuse to informal and formal sources of support. Decisions to remain silent or to reach out for support are influenced by a complex range of factors, including situational circumstances, such as the presence of children. Using data from in-depth interviews with victims of IPV (N = 29) in Southeast Queensland, Australia, I examined victims’ responses to IPV when children are present in the abusive household. Victims, who accessed general formal support sources, including the criminal justice systems and Child Protection Services (CPS), frequently faced stereotypical and victim-blaming attitudes along with a lack of understanding of the dynamics of IPV and the circumstances surrounding victims’ help-seeking decisions. The presence of children in abuse relationships complicated victims’ help-seeking decisions because fear of harm and loss of custody often delayed or hindered the disclosure of IPV to formal support sources. Once disclosing the abuse victims often found themselves trapped between CPS expectations to protect their children by leaving the abusive partner and a reluctance on behalf of judges and magistrates to offer the necessary protection by including children on granted Domestic Violence Orders (DVO). These findings highlight the ongoing need for specialized training of CPS personnel, judges and magistrates along with an ongoing collaboration with the women’s sector to ensure the safety of victims and their children throughout the help-seeking process and to improve victims’ confidence in disclosing IPV.     

Using the visual world paradigm to study language processing: a review and critical evaluation

We describe the key features of the visual world paradigm and review the main research areas where it has been used. In our discussion we highlight that the paradigm provides information about the way language users integrate linguistic information with information derived from the visual environment. Therefore the paradigm is well suited to study one of the key issues of current cognitive psychology, namely the interplay between linguistic and visual information processing. However, conclusions about linguistic processing (e.g., about activation, competition, and timing of access of linguistic representations) in the absence of relevant visual information must be drawn with caution.     

How to Revise a Total Preorder

Most approaches to iterated belief revision are accompanied by some motivation for the use of the proposed revision operator (or family of operators), and typically encode enough information in the epistemic state of an agent for uniquely determining one-step revision. But in those approaches describing a family of operators there is usually little indication of how to proceed uniquely after the first revision step. In this paper we contribute towards addressing that deficiency by providing a formal framework which goes beyond the first revision step in two ways. First, the framework is obtained by enriching the epistemic state of an agent starting from the following intuitive idea: we associate to each world x two abstract objects x ⁺ and x ⁻, and we assume that, in addition to preferences over the set of worlds, we are given preferences over this set of objects as well. The latter can be considered as meta-information encoded in the epistemic state which enables us to go beyond the first revision step of the revision operator being applied, and to obtain a unique set of preferences over worlds. We then extend this framework to consider, not only the revision of preferences over worlds, but also the revision of this extended structure itself. We look at some desirable properties for revising the structure and prove the consistency of these properties by giving a concrete operator satisfying all of them. Perhaps more importantly, we show that this framework has strong connections with two other types of constructions in related areas. Firstly, it can be seen as a special case of preference aggregation which opens up the possibility of extending the framework presented here into a full-fledged framework for preference aggregation and social choice theory. Secondly, it is related to existing work on the use of interval orderings in a number of different contexts.     

Employee commitment in context: The nature and implication of commitment profiles

It is well established that employee commitment can take different forms (e.g., affective, normative, and continuance), yet it is only recently that theory has been advanced to explain how these different forms combine to influence behavior (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001). We tested this theory with data from employees in three human services organizations (N = 403). Using latent profile analyses, we identified six distinct profile groups and found that they differed on measures of need satisfaction, regulation, affect, engagement, organizational citizenship behavior, and well-being. The observed differences are consistent with the notion that a commitment profile provides a context that determines how the individual components are experienced (Gellatly, Meyer, & Luchak, 2006). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this context effect.     

On the Ternary Relation and Conditionality

One of the most dominant approaches to semantics for relevant (and many paraconsistent) logics is the Routley?CMeyer semantics involving a ternary relation on points. To some (many?), this ternary relation has seemed like a technical trick devoid of an intuitively appealing philosophical story that connects it up with conditionality in general. In this paper, we respond to this worry by providing three different philosophical accounts of the ternary relation that correspond to three conceptions of conditionality. We close by briefly discussing a general conception of conditionality that may unify the three given conceptions.     

Using Drama Therapy to Explore Religion and Spirituality in Counselor Education

Exploring spirituality and religion continues to be an important component when considering multicultural issues. However, understanding how to incorporate spiritual and religious diversity into counseling courses continues to be a challenge for educators. An exercise using drama therapy was developed to explore religion and spirituality.