Mindfulness reduces habitual responding based on implicit knowledge: Evidence from artificial grammar learning

Participants were unknowingly exposed to complex regularities in a working memory task. The existence of implicit knowledge was subsequently inferred from a preference for stimuli with similar grammatical regularities. Several affective traits have been shown to influence AGL performance positively, many of which are related to a tendency for automatic responding. We therefore tested whether the mindfulness trait predicted a reduction of grammatically congruent preferences, and used emotional primes to explore the influence of affect. Mindfulness was shown to correlate negatively with grammatically congruent responses. Negative primes were shown to result in faster and more negative evaluations. We conclude that grammatically congruent preference ratings rely on habitual responses, and that our findings provide empirical evidence for the non-reactive disposition of the mindfulness trait.     

Symptom-positive and symptom-negative items in the state-trait anxiety inventory: A comparison and replication

Substantially higher mean scores on symptom-negatively versus symptom-positively worded items have consistently been reported in the literature for the balanced Stait-Trait Anxiety Inventory. In this study we aimed at replicating and comparing these findings for the Dutch adaptation of the inventory. Results indicated significantly higher mean subscale scores for symptom-negative as opposed to symptompositive items of both the Trait and State version, across sexes and age groups as well as across different levels of distress in students, policemen and psychiatric out-patients. Positive-negative mean difference scores were consistently larger for the State than for the Trait version. State and Trait mean difference scores were found to be mainly confined to symptom-positive subscales. Scale intercorrelations were lowest between symptom-positive and symptom-negative subscales both within and across measures. Factor analyzing the combined versions identified separate symptom-negative and symptom-positive factors, tentatively labeled “absence of positive affect” and “presence of negative affect”. Several explanations of the findings among which item-intensity specificity, the response style of social desirability and the model of positive and negative affectivity are discussed.     

The Hull Method for Selecting the Number of Common Factors

A common problem in exploratory factor analysis is how many factors need to be extracted from a particular data set. We propose a new method for selecting the number of major common factors: the Hull method, which aims to find a model with an optimal balance between model fit and number of parameters. We examine the performance of the method in an extensive simulation study in which the simulated data are based on major and minor factors. The study compares the method with four other methods such as parallel analysis and the minimum average partial test, which were selected because they have been proven to perform well and/or they are frequently used in applied research. The Hull method outperformed all four methods at recovering the correct number of major factors. Its usefulness was further illustrated by its assessment of the dimensionality of the Five-Factor Personality Inventory (Hendriks, Hofstee, &; De Raad, 1999 Hendriks, A. A. J., Hofstee, W. K. B. and De Raad, B. 1999. The Five-Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI). Personality and Individual Differences, 27: 307–325. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This inventory has 100 items, and the typical methods for assessing dimensionality prove to be useless: the large number of factors they suggest has no theoretical justification. The Hull method, however, suggested retaining the number of factors that the theoretical background to the inventory actually proposes.     

The diagnosticity of color for emotional objects

Object classification can be facilitated if simple diagnostic features can be used to determine class membership. Previous studies have found that simple shapes may be diagnostic for emotional content and automatically alter the allocation of visual attention. In the present study, we analyzed whether color is diagnostic of emotional content and tested whether emotionally diagnostic hues alter the allocation of visual attention. Reddish-yellow hues are more common in (i.e., diagnostic of) emotional images, particularly images with positive emotional content. An exogenous cueing paradigm was employed to test whether these diagnostic hues orient attention differently from other hues due to the emotional diagnosticity. In two experiments, we found that participants allocated attention differently to diagnostic hues than to non-diagnostic hues, in a pattern indicating a broadening of spatial attention when cued with diagnostic hues. Moreover, the attentional broadening effect was predicted by self-reported measures of affective style, linking the behavioral effect to emotional processes. These results confirm the existence and use of diagnostic features for the rapid detection of emotional content.     

Is the Flynn effect on g?: A meta-analysis

Black/White differences in mean IQ have been clearly shown to strongly correlate with g loadings, so large group differences on subtests of high cognitive complexity and small group differences on subtests of low cognitive complexity. IQ scores have been increasing over the last half century, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. Flynn effect gains are predominantly driven by environmental factors. Might these factors also be responsible for group differences in intelligence? The empirical studies on whether the pattern of Flynn effect gains is the same as the pattern of group differences yield conflicting findings. A psychometric meta-analysis on all studies with seven or more subtests reporting correlations between g loadings and standardized score gains was carried out, based on 5 papers, yielding 11 data points (total N = 16,663). It yielded a true correlation of − .38, and none of the variance between the studies could be attributed to moderators. It appears that the Flynn effect and group differences have different causes. Suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Constructing bootstrap confidence intervals for principal component loadings in the presence of missing data: a multiple-imputation approach

Earlier research has shown that bootstrap confidence intervals from principal component loadings give a good coverage of the population loadings. However, this only applies to complete data. When data are incomplete, missing data have to be handled before analysing the data. Multiple imputation may be used for this purpose. The question is how bootstrap confidence intervals for principal component loadings should be corrected for multiply imputed data. In this paper, several solutions are proposed. Simulations show that the proposed corrections for multiply imputed data give a good coverage of the population loadings in various situations.     

Through the eyes of dieters: Biased size perception of food following tempting food primes

Why do some dieters succeed in controlling their diet while others do not? This research focused on a perceptual process—size perception of food objects—that may moderate the success of dieters in self-control dilemmas. We assessed successful and unsuccessful dieters' size perception of palatable food (Study 1) and diet-food (Study 2) after pre-exposing them to tempting food primes. Dieters perceived palatable food as bigger when primed with tempting food (vs. control prime), regardless of self-regulatory success in dieting (Study 1). Palatable food thus looms larger for both unsuccessful and successful dieters when in a “hot” state. In contrast, the perceived size of diet-food was increased by a tempting food prime only for successful dieters, but decreased for unsuccessful dieters (Study 2). These results are interpreted in terms of differences in the mental accessibility of competing goals (eating enjoyment vs. dieting) in successful vs. unsuccessful dieters. Indeed, when the dieting goal was made accessible for all dieters by a diet prime, even unsuccessful dieters perceived diet-food as bigger (Study 2). This research provides insight into a perceptual process that may be detrimental or beneficial in resolving self-control conflicts in the domain of eating and dieting behavior—and probably other domains of self-control as well.     

There is a fire burning in my heart: the role of causal attribution in affect transfer

The role of causal attribution in affect transfer of primes was addressed by examining the consequences of explicit evaluation of primes within the framework of the affect misattribution procedure (AMP; Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005). We reasoned that affect transfer occurs when primed affect remains diffuse and not bound to a specific object, hence capable of freely colouring subsequent evaluations of ambiguous objects. Accordingly, we propose that when people explicitly evaluate the prime, affect is clearly bound to the prime and becomes less capable of influencing subsequent judgements. Supporting this notion, affect transfer in the AMP was observed when participants ignored the primes, thereby keeping the primed affect relatively unbound. However, this effect disappeared when participants explicitly evaluated the primes before target stimuli were presented. Implications of these findings in determining how and when affect arising from one object carries over to another is discussed.     

As pleasure unfolds. Hedonic responses to tempting food

Why do chronic dieters often violate their dieting goals? One possibility is that they experience stronger hedonic responses to tempting food than normal eaters do. We scrutinized hedonic processing in dieters and normal eaters (a) by manipulating food preexposure and (b) by assessing both immediate and delayed hedonic responses to tempting food with an adapted affect-misattribution procedure. Without food preexposure, dieters showed less positive hedonic responses than normal eaters (Study 1). When preexposed to tempting-food stimuli, however, dieters exhibited more positive delayed hedonic responses than normal eaters (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, delayed hedonic responding was meaningfully related to self-reported power of food and state cravings (Study 2). These findings suggest that dieters experience difficulties in down-regulating hedonic affect when in a "hot" state and that self-regulation research may benefit from a greater emphasis on temporal dynamics rather than static differences.