The neural bases of sport fan reactions to teams: Evidence from a neuroimaging study

This study uses neuroimaging methods to identify patterns of brain activation among sport fans in reaction to team stimuli. In a whole-brain analysis without selected regions in advance, the purposes were to identify the structures involved when fans are exposed to positive, neutral, and negative events and to learn what events activate more limbic networks. A total of 53 individuals participated in and functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment involving the presentation of videos in various situations. Findings indicate the activation of the cingulate gyrus and other structures of the limbic system, as the hippocampus and parahippocampus. We also found involvement of the ventral tegmental area of the reward system. Additionally, brain activity in emotional regulation and memory areas were more influenced by positive than neutral and negative videos. It was also found the involvement of other areas not directly included in the limbic or reward systems. This study provides the neural basis of fan reactions to team-related stimuli. Sport clubs should be aware that negative content seems to be suppressed from emotional memory and positive videos trigger more emotion and memory areas than neutral and negative videos.     

Understanding of the current police caution (England and Wales)

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (England and Wales) modified suspects' right to silence during police questioning and required a new police caution. The current 37-word caution was introduced after it was found that a proposed 60-word draft version was too complex. The results of the present study show that, although more succinct, the current caution is no easier to explain. Even under optimal conditions, when the participants could focus on each sentence in turn, only 1 in 10 of the general population (n=15), 6 in 10 of A-level students preparing for university (n=72) and 9 in 10 police officers (n=21) demonstrated their understanding by explaining all three sentences correctly. For all groups, the difficulties were more marked when the caution was presented in its entirety, as would happen in real life. The complexity of the caution has serious implications for suspects in police detention. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Low-income African American women's attempts to convince their main partner to use condoms

In this cross-sectional study the authors examine condom use attempts and condom use among 305 high-risk, low-income African American women who reported having a main partner. Women who had recently attempted to convince their main partner to use condoms were almost 10 times more likely to have recently used condoms with their partner than women who had not made an attempt. Among the subsample of 116 women who had recently made a condom use attempt with their main partner, having a history of childhood abuse and having one's main partner raise infidelity questions in response to the condom use attempt were negatively associated with recent condom use with this partner. Findings provide initial insights into the importance of women's condom use attempts, as well as subgroups of women who may encounter special challenges convincing their main partner to use condoms.     

Looking at the actor's face: Identity cues and attentional focus in false memories of action performance from observation

Observing another's actions can induce false memories of self-performance. We investigated whether such observation inflation depends on the discriminability between the self and the observed actor. Discriminability was manipulated by presenting actions either with or without a key visual identity cue, i.e., the actor's face. We also examined whether self–other confusions in the face-visible condition depend on attentional focus (directed to the observed action vs. the actor's face). In the action-only condition, observation inflation was significant and greater than in the face-visible conditions, in which the effect was moderated by attentional focus: It persisted under an action focus but was eliminated under a face focus. Findings for correct memories of self-performance suggest that the reduced effect is not merely due to weaker encoding of the actions themselves. We conclude that self–other confusions in action memory are constrained by the availability of distinctive non-self cues during observation, and sustained by a visual focus on observed actions.     

Feature binding across different visual dimensions

The human brain represents different kinds of visual feature dimensions in different ways. For example, surface features exhibit some properties that are very different from contour features, and some feature dimensions may be represented more extensively in either the dorsal or the ventral visual stream. Given such differences, we investigated feature binding across different feature dimensions and whether some feature dimensions might be more easily bound together than others. In Experiment 1, we looked at cross-dimension bindings for all combinations of color, orientation, and shape dimensions, while at the same time controlling for feature discriminability. Rates of correct binding, illusory conjunctions, and feature errors were equivalent in all cases. There was no bias so that some feature dimensions were easier to combine than others. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the difficulty of feature discrimination for the key, target-defining feature and the report feature. Rates of binding errors increased with difficulty of the key feature, but not with that of the report feature. The accuracy of feature discrimination could be dissociated from the accuracy of binding the feature to an object. Across both experiments, the accuracy of feature binding was independent of specific feature dimensions or perceptibility. These findings are discussed in relation to both feature integration and multiple-stage accounts of visual feature integration.     

Individual and relational contributions to parallel and joint attention in infancy

Objective

This study examined the contributions of maternal bids for joint attention, relationship quality, and infant characteristics, to individual differences in infants’ parallel and joint attention.

Method

Fifty-two 10-month-olds and their mothers were assessed in order to investigate concurrent predictors of infant parallel attention, responding to joint attention, and initiating joint attention.

Results

Parallel attention was predicted by infants’ higher mental development, low expression of negative emotionality, and maternal entertaining behaviors. Responding to joint attention was marginally predicted by total maternal bids for joint attention. Initiating joint attention was predicted by the infants’ low expression of negative emotionality, as well as marginally predicted by fewer maternal teaching behaviors.

Conclusion

These results further the understanding of the factors influencing infant parallel as well as joint attention.     

Resource control and status as stimuli for arousing power motivation: An American-Chinese comparison

In this paper, we analyze power motivation from a cross-cultural perspective. Power motivation has been mainly studied within the Western culture. However, previous research suggests that some contours and nuances of power and power motivation may be culturally specific. In this article, we analyze cultural differences between American and Chinese students in how power motivation is aroused. Drawing from the cross-cultural literature, we propose that having decision-making control over resources increases levels of power motivation among Americans but not Chinese, whereas status-elevation increases power motivation among both Americans and Chinese. These hypotheses were tested experimentally with resource-control, status-elevation, and neutral conditions. The first hypothesis was fully supported, but the second one was only partially supported. Levels of power motivation in the neutral condition (i.e., dispositional power motives) were similar for American and Chinese participants, but power motivation arousal was greater for Americans than Chinese, in both power arousal conditions. These findings contribute to our understanding of the power motivation construct in a non-Western context.     

Race-specific perceptual discrimination improvement following short individuation training with faces

This study explores the effect of individuation training on the acquisition of race-specific expertise. First, we investigated whether practice individuating other-race faces yields improvement in perceptual discrimination for novel faces of that race. Second, we asked whether there was similar improvement for novel faces of a different race for which participants received equal practice, but in an orthogonal task that did not require individuation. Caucasian participants were trained to individuate faces of one race (African American or Hispanic) and to make difficult eye-luminance judgments on faces of the other race. By equating these tasks we are able to rule out raw experience, visual attention, or performance/success-induced positivity as the critical factors that produce race-specific improvements. These results indicate that individuation practice is one mechanism through which cognitive, perceptual, and/or social processes promote growth of the own-race face recognition advantage.     

Illusory conjunctions in the time domain and the resulting time-course of the attentional blink

Illusory conjunctions in the time domain are errors made in binding stimulus features presented In the same spatial position in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) conditions. Botella, Barriopedro, and Suero (2001) devised a model to explain how the distribution of responses originating from stimuli around the target in the series is generated. They proposed two routes consisting of two sequential attempts to make a response. The second attempt (sophisticated guessing) is only employed if the first one (focal attention) fails in producing an integrated perception. This general outline enables specific predictions to be made and tested related to the efficiency of focal attention in generating responses in the first attempt. Participants had to report the single letter in an RSVP stream of letters that was presented in a previously specified color (first target, T1) and then report whether an X (second target, T2) was or was not presented. Performance on T2 showed the typical U-shaped function across the T1-T2 lag that reflects the attentional blink phenomenon. However, as was predicted by Botella, Barriopedro, and Suero's model, the time-course of the interference was shorter for trials with a correct response to T1 than for trials with a T1 error. Furthermore, longer time-courses of interference associated with pre-target and post-target errors to the first target were indistinguishable.