Visual content of words delays negation

Many studies have shown the advantage of processing visualizable words over non-visualizables due to the associated image code. The present paper reports the case of negation in which imagery could slow down processing. Negation reverses the truth value of a proposition from false to true or vice versa. Consequently, negation works only on propositions (reversing their truth value) and cannot apply directly to other forms of knowledge representation such as images (although they can be veridical or not). This leads to a paradoxical hypothesis: despite the advantage of visualizable words for general processing, the negation of clauses containing words related to the representation of an image would be more difficult than negation containing non-visualizable words. Two experiments support this hypothesis by showing that sentences with a previously negated visualizable word took longer to be read than sentences with previously negated non-visualizable words. The results suggest that a verbal code is used to process negation.     

How personal resources predict work engagement and self‐rated performance among construction workers: A social cognitive perspective

Traditionally, research focussing on psychosocial factors in the construction industry has focused mainly on the negative aspects of health and on results such as occupational accidents. This study, however, focuses on the specific relationships among the different positive psychosocial factors shared by construction workers that could be responsible for occupational well‐being and outcomes such as performance. The main objective of this study was to test whether personal resources predict self‐rated job performance through job resources and work engagement. Following the predictions of Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory and the motivational process of the Job Demands‐Resources Model, we expect that the relationship between personal resources and performance will be fully mediated by job resources and work engagement. The sample consists of 228 construction workers. Structural equation modelling supports the research model. Personal resources (i.e. self‐efficacy, mental and emotional competences) play a predicting role in the perception of job resources (i.e. job control and supervisor social support), which in turn leads to work engagement and self‐rated performance. This study emphasises the crucial role that personal resources play in determining how people perceive job resources by determining the levels of work engagement and, hence, their self‐rated job performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Patienten- und Elternzufriedenheit bei intensiver,klinikvernetzter Zu-Hause-Behandlung

Background

Due to the increasing importance of effective, patient-oriented treatment options for mentally ill children and adolescents, new alternatives to established inpatient and outpatient care in child and adolescent psychiatry have to be found. Intensive cross-sectoral treatment settings may be an alternative but have not yet been evaluated or implemented in routine care.

Aim

The objective of this randomized study was to compare and assess satisfaction with a new model of care within the underlying BeZuHG (“behandelt zu Hause gesund werden”, treated at home become healthy) study with regular inpatient care (TAU). Patients in BeZuHG received early discharge from inpatient care followed by 3 months of intensive home treatment enhanced by clinical elements.

Material and methods

Youths and parents were asked to fill in a patient satisfaction questionnaire (BesT) at completion of treatment. Participants in the study were evaluated between April 2012 and January 2013.

Results

Neither BeZuHG nor inpatient care was clearly superior. Youths in the control group stated a higher satisfaction with the overall treatment than youths in the BeZuHG group (p?=?0.031), while youths in the BeZuHG group named a significantly higher satisfaction with the home treatment component than with the inpatient component of treatment (p?=?0.007).

Conclusion

Patient satisfaction could be shown for inpatient and BeZuHG treatment at discharge. Data may change at follow-up. A long-term follow-up should be implemented to confirm these results or to allow other conclusions.     

Clinical Practice With Cases of Extreme Traumatization 40 Years After the Military Coup in Chile (1973–1990): The Impact on the Therapists

This paper presents our clinical experience with patients who were severely traumatized by the systematic violation of human rights during the military dictatorship in Chile (1973–1990). The lack of recognition of trauma of sociopolitical origin encapsulates the traumatic experience and forces it to remain as part of the present. Clinical vignettes of two therapeutic processes—mother and son—are presented: The mother was detained; sexually tortured; and, as a result of this, gave birth to the torturer’s son. Her therapeutic process is an account of her ambivalence towards her son, of how his origins were kept a family secret, and of how this secret was unconsciously transmitted. The young man’s therapeutic process centers on the transgenerational transmission of trauma and how the torturer–tortured dynamic seeps into the relationship with the analyst. The impact on the analysts’ subjectivity in working with extreme trauma is described.     

Conversational role influences speech imitation

This study assessed the impact of a conscious imitation goal on phonetic convergence during conversational interaction. Twelve pairs of unacquainted talkers participated in a conversational task designed to elicit between-talker repetitions of the same lexical items. To assess the degree to which the talkers exhibited phonetic convergence during the conversational task, these repetitions were used to elicit perceptual similarity judgments provided by separate sets of listeners. In addition, perceptual measures of phonetic convergence were compared with measures of articulation rates and vowel formants. The sex of the pair of talkers and a talker's role influenced the degree of phonetic convergence, and perceptual judgments of phonetic convergence were not consistently related to individual acoustic-phonetic attributes. Therefore, even with a conscious imitative goal, situational factors were shown to retain a strong influence on phonetic form in conversational interaction.     

The Interplay Among Levels of Personality: The Mediator Effect of Personal Projects Between the Big Five and Subjective Well-Being

Comprehensive models of personality aspire to integrate the several aspects related to the study of personality in a coherent whole. One of the great research challenges in this field is to understand if and how different levels of personality analysis interrelate to promote human well-being. The aim of the present study is to explore the mediator effect of personal projects’ efficacy on the relationship between Big Five and subjective well-being (SWB) components. We conducted a cross-sectional study in which a battery of self-report questionnaires was used to assess personality and SWB in 396 teachers. Path analysis results indicated that personal projects’ efficacy fully mediated the effects of openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness on life satisfaction and on negative affect. The effects of neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness on positive affect were direct but also indirect, partially mediated by personal projects’ efficacy. Neuroticism had a direct and an indirect effect through a decreased personal projects’ efficacy on the three components of SWB. Extraversion only directly predicted increased positive affect. These findings corroborate the conceptualization that these two types of personality analysis units (Big Five and personal projects) have their own direct, unique and irreducible effect on life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect. However, their impact on SWB components seems to be also explained through their effect upon personal projects’ efficacy.     

Examining attentional biases underlying trait anxiety in younger and older adults

Previous research has not adequately assessed the independent contributions of component attentional processes to anxiety-linked biases. MacLeod and Sadler developed a novel, lexical decision task using negative and neutral word stimuli, to enable the independent measurement of attentional engagement and disengagement. Their results suggest that anxiety-linked attentional biases are associated with facilitated attentional engagement with negative information. The present study aimed to determine the replicability of these findings, with two important extensions. First, this study included positive word stimuli in the lexical decision task, to determine whether anxiety-linked attentional biases exist only towards negative information, or toward emotionally arousing information in general. Second, this study explored age-related differences in anxiety-linked attentional biases. Younger (N=32) and older adults (N=32) with both high and low trait anxiety completed the lexical decision task. The results suggest that heightened anxiety may be associated with a deficit in engaging with positive words. No age-related differences in anxiety-linked attentional biases were apparent.     

From face to face: the contribution of facial mimicry to cognitive and emotional empathy

ABSTRACT

Despite advances in the conceptualisation of facial mimicry, its role in the processing of social information is a matter of debate. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between mimicry and cognitive and emotional empathy. To assess mimicry, facial electromyography was recorded for 70 participants while they completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test, which presents complex context-embedded emotional expressions. As predicted, inter-individual differences in emotional and cognitive empathy were associated with the level of facial mimicry. For positive emotions, the intensity of the mimicry response scaled with the level of state emotional empathy. Mimicry was stronger for the emotional empathy task compared to the cognitive empathy task. The specific empathy condition could be successfully detected from facial muscle activity at the level of single individuals using machine learning techniques. These results support the view that mimicry occurs depending on the social context as a tool to affiliate and it is involved in cognitive as well as emotional empathy.     

Source and destination memory: Two sides of the same coin?

Whereas source memory involves remembering from whom you have heard something, destination memory involves remembering to whom you have told something. Despite its practical relevance, destination memory has been studied little. Recently, two reports suggested that generally destination memory should be poorer than source memory, and that it should be particularly difficult for older people. We tested these predictions by having young and older participants read sentences to two examiners (destination encoding) and listen to sentences read by two examiners (source encoding), under intentional (Experiment 1) or incidental encoding (Experiments 2 and 3). Only in Experiment 3 (in which cognitive demands during destination encoding were increased) was destination memory significantly poorer than source memory. In none of the experiments were older adults inferior to the young on destination or source memory. Destination- and source-memory scores were significantly correlated. Item memory was consistently superior for sentences that had been read out loud (during destination encoding) versus those that had been heard (during source encoding). Destination memory needs not always be poorer than source memory, appears not to be particularly impaired by normal ageing and may depend on similar processes to those supporting source memory.     

Is Perceptual Priming Affected by Culture? A Study With German Middle-Class and Cameroonian Nso Farmer Children

The authors explored priming in children from different cultural environments with the aim to provide further evidence for the robustness of the priming effect. Perceptual priming was assessed by a picture fragment completion task in 3-year-old German middle-class and Cameroonian Nso farmer children. As expected, 3-year-olds from both highly diverging cultural contexts under study showed a priming effect, and, moreover, the effect was of comparable size in both cultural contexts. Hence, the children profited similarly from priming, which was supported by the nonsignificant interaction between cultural background and identification performance as well as the analysis of absolute difference scores. However, a culture-specific difference regarding the level of picture identification was found in that German middle-class children identified target as well as control pictures with less perceptual information than children in the Nso sample. Explanations for the cross-cultural demonstration of the priming effect as well as for the culturally diverging levels on which priming occurs are discussed.