Investigating the parameters of transsaccadic memory: inhibition of return impedes information acquisition near a saccade target

A limited amount of visual information is retained between saccades, which is subsequently stored into a memory system, such as transsaccadic memory. Since the capacity of transsaccadic memory is limited, selection of information is crucial. Selection of relevant information is modulated by attentional processes such as the presaccadic shift of attention. This involuntary shift of attention occurs prior to execution of the saccade and leads to information acquisition at an intended saccade target. The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence that another attentional effect, inhibition of return (IOR), has on the information that gets stored into transsaccadic memory. IOR is the phenomenon where participants are slower to respond to a cue at a previously attended location. To this end, we used a transsaccadic memory paradigm in which stimuli, oriented on a horizontal axis relative to saccade direction, are only visible to the participant before executing a saccade. Previous research showed that items in close proximity to a saccade target are likely to be reported more accurately. In our current study, participants were cued to fixate one of the stimulus locations and subsequently refixated the centre fixation point before executing the transsaccadic memory task. Results indicate that information at a location near a saccade landing point is less likely to be acquired into transsaccadic memory when this location was previously associated with IOR. Furthermore, we found evidence which implicates a reduction of the overall amount of elements retained in transsaccadic memory when a location near a saccade target is associated with IOR. These results suggest that the presaccadic shift of attention may be modulated by IOR and thereby reduces information acquisition by transsaccadic memory.     

Individual differences in risk perception versus risk taking: handedness and interhemispheric interaction

Research indicates that right-hemisphere mechanisms are specifically sensitive to and averse to risk. Research also indicates that mixed degree of handedness is associated with increased access to right hemisphere processing. Accordingly, it was predicted that mixed-handers would exhibit greater risk aversion. Participants were presented with various risky activities and were asked to rate (i) the perceived risk, (ii) the perceived benefit, and (iii) their likelihood to engage in each activity. No handedness differences were found for any of these ratings. Regression analyses, however, indicated that the likelihood to engage in risky activities was predicted primarily by the perceived risks in mixed-handers and by the perceived benefits in strong-handers.     

Does distress tolerance moderate the impact of major life events on psychosocial variables and behaviors important in the management of HIV?

Living with HIV involves management of multiple stressful disease-related and other life events. Distress tolerance may provide a functional, individual-based context for qualifying the established relationships between major life events and psychosocial variables important in the management of HIV. The present study provided a preliminary test of the hypothesis that distress tolerance moderates the impact of major life events on these predictors of disease progression. HIV-positive patients (n=116) completed psychosocial and medical questionnaires. Results indicated that major life events interacted with distress tolerance such that lower distress tolerance and higher life events were associated with significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms, substance use coping, alcohol and cocaine use, and medication adherence. In addition, distress tolerance was directly related to self-reported HIV-related symptoms. These results suggest that low distress tolerance, particularly in the face of major life events, may present significant challenges to adaptive management of HIV. Distress tolerance assessment may help to specify targets for cognitive-behavioral and stress management treatments for people living with HIV.     

Translating Empirically Supported Strategies Into Accessible Interventions: The Potential Utility of Exercise for the Treatment of Panic Disorder

Many patients suffering from panic disorder do not receive adequate care. Advances in the conceptualization and treatment of panic disorder encourage innovative strategies for targeting core fears (fears of anxiety sensations) that underlie this disorder. In this article, we discuss the use of exercise as a potential strategy for therapeutic exposure to these feared sensations, and the role that exercise may play as an acceptable intervention to aid the dissemination of exposure-based approaches to the treatment of panic disorder. Evidence for the efficacy of exercise for the treatment of anxiety and panic is presented; along with strategies to enhance the role exercise can play as an interoceptive (internal sensation) exposure procedure. Finally, issues of comorbidity and exercise acceptability are discussed. Our conclusion is that exercise-based interventions are promising strategies for improving the utilization of exposure-based interventions for panic disorder. Clinical guidelines and future research directions are discussed.     

The Need for Inclusion: The relationships between Relational and Collective inclusion needs and psychological well-and ill-being

The Need to Belong concept encompasses the need for inclusion and the discomfort with exclusion. The Need to Belong Scale of Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, and Schreindorfer (2013, p. 610), however, primarily probes into the discomfort aspect, and it does not distinguish between relational and collective self-levels. Two studies (total N = 429) provided evidence of the reliability, distinctiveness, and validity of the newly developed Need for Inclusion scale. The results revealed that Relational Need for Inclusion positively contributes to psychological well-being and negatively to ill-being. Collective Need for Inclusion was distinctively related to collective and group-level outcomes of self, such as social trust and collective self-esteem. Need to Belong yielded a reversed pattern of results for the studied outcomes. It is concluded that inclusion needs and discomfort with exclusion are positively related but clearly distinct, and that future studies should investigate their joint effects in a single research design.     

Attention training to reduce attention bias and social stressor reactivity: an attempt to replicate and extend previous findings

Cognitive theories suggest that social anxiety is maintained, in part, by an attentional bias toward threat. Recent research shows that a single-session of attention modification training (AMP) reduces attention bias and vulnerability to a social stressor (Amir, Weber, Beard, Bomyea, &; Taylor, 2008). In addition, exercise may augment the effects of attention training by its direct effects on attentional control and inhibition, thereby allowing participants receiving the AMP to more effectively disengage attention from the threatening cues and shift attention to the neutral cues. We attempted to replicate and extend previous findings by randomizing participants (N = 112) to a single-session of: a) Exercise + attention training (EX + AMP); b) Rest + attention training (REST + AMP); c) Exercise + attention control condition (EX + ACC); or d) Rest + attention control condition (REST + ACC) prior to completing a public speaking challenge. We used identical assessment and training procedures to those employed by Amir et al. (2008). Results showed there was no effect of attention training on attention bias or anxiety reactivity to the speech challenge and no interactive effects of attention training and exercise on attention bias or anxiety reactivity to the speech challenge. The failure to replicate previous findings is discussed.     

The Role of Affect in the Relationship Between Distributive Justice Expectations and Applicants' Recommendation and Litigation Intentions

This paper examined the moderating role of positive and negative affect in the relationship between distributive justice expectations and applicants' intentions to recommend the organization or to litigate. Specifically, it was suggested and supported in two samples of, respectively, 1,409 and 486 applicants, that the positive relationship between distributive justice expectations and recommendation intentions was stronger for applicants high in positive affect. In the second sample, it was further found that the negative relationship between distributive justice expectations and litigation intentions was stronger among applicants high in negative affect. This research is the first to identify the distinct roles of positive and negative affect in shaping responses to expectations of (un)fairness in the personnel selection literature. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Finding theology in contemporary Chinese fiction

ABSTRACT

Literature can offer a space and hope for a possible creative theology, and this is true also of the contemporary literature of China. In 1923 Lu Xun expressed his hope that literature was capable of transforming the spirit of the Chinese people, Chinese fiction has drawn upon the ancient wisdom of China to explore possibilities after the Cultural Revolution in works that are sometimes banned in the Peoples Republic of China but increasingly have a world readership in English translations. They may be compared with some of the ideas of liberation theology in the western tradition.     

Backward Sensory Preconditioning When Reinforcement Is Delayed

In two experiments rats received an initial phase of training in which two neutral stimuli were presented as a serial compound (A-X). In a second phase, Awas established as a signal for a shock reinforcer, the shock being presented immediately after the termination of A (the immediate condition) or after a 5-sec interval (the trace condition). A final test phase showed that not only A but also X was capable of evoking conditioned suppression (a backward sensory preconditioning effect). The degree of suppression evoked by X was not correlated with that evoked by A. In both experiments the A trained with immediate reinforcement was more suppressive than that trained with the trace procedure, but in Experiment 1 the trace and immediate groups did not differ in the response they showed to X, and in Experiment 2 (which allowed a within-subject comparison) the trace procedure resulted in more suppression to X than did immediate conditioning of A. These results disconfirm the suggestion that the backward sensory preconditioning effect depends on the formation of an associative chain: X-A-shock. They are consistent with the proposal that the associatively activated representation of X is able to form a direct association with the reinforcer during A-shock training.