Effects of Prime Type and Delay on Multiplication Priming: Evidence for a Dual-process Model

Two experiments investigated effects of numerical primes on production of simple multiplication facts (e.g. 4 × 8 = ?). In Experiment 1, a correct (32), related (24), unrelated (27), or neutral (##) prime appeared for 200 msec and was followed by a target problem at an ISI of 0, 750, or 1500 msec. Relative to neutral primes, correct primes produced constant RT and accuracy benefits across ISIs, and unrelated primes produced constant RT costs. Related primes produced costs compared to unrelated primes at the 0-msec ISI only. In Experiment 2, eliminating correct-answer primes from the stimulus set eliminated all the false-prime effects except the costs of related primes at the 0-msec ISI. We propose a dual-process account incorporating a familiarity-based name-the-prime strategy that produces benefits and costs insensitive to ISI and an automatic retrieval-priming process that is measurable only at short ISIs.     

Psychological adjustment among African American breast cancer patients: one-year follow-up results of a randomized psychoeducational group intervention.

The effectiveness of support group interventions for cancer patients has been established among White patients but has been virtually unstudied among minority patients. The current study represents the 1st randomized support group intervention targeted to African American women with breast cancer. Participants (N = 73) with nonmetastatic breast cancer were randomly assigned to an 8-week group intervention or an assessment-only control condition At 12 months, the intervention resulted in improved mood as well as improved general and cancer-specific psychological functioning among women with greater baseline distress or lower income. Subsequent research is needed to address effective methods of enrolling and following women with fewer psychosocial and financial resources, as they were the most likely to benefit from this particular intervention.     

Biological and psychological factors associated with memory function in fibromyalgia syndrome.

Fibromyalgia is a stress-related disorder characterized by chronic pain, memory impairment, and neuroendocrine aberrations. With the hypothesis that biological and psychological symptoms may underlie the cognitive problems, the relative influences of neuroendocrine function and psychological factors on declarative memory were examined among 50 women with fibromyalgia. This within-group analysis controlled for age, education, pain, and relevant medications. Neuroendocrine function and depression had significant independent associations with memory function. Higher log-transformed mean salivary cortisol levels were associated with better performance on both immediate and delayed visual recall and with delayed verbal recall. Depressive symptoms were negatively associated with verbal recall. These findings suggest that a basic disorder of endocrine stress responses may contribute to the cognitive symptoms experienced by fibromyalgia patients.     

j. Kellenberger,Kierkegaard and Nietzsche: Faith and Eternal Acceptance

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Craving healthy foods?! How sensory appeals increase appetitive motivational processing of healthy foods in adolescents

ABSTRACT

The study examined how sensory appeal characteristics promoting fruits and vegetables capture attention, emotion, and memory formation, indicative of approach motivational processing. Grounded in biopsychological and communication science frameworks such as evolutionary theories, information-processing, LC4MP, and the dimensional emotion theory, two within-subjects experiments investigated how adolescents process pronutritional images appealing to the senses. Study 1 (N = 58, aged 12–18, 54% female) examined how sensory cues broke through the clutter of promotional media, attracting attentional selection, arousal and affect. Study 2 (N = 165, aged 12–18, 53% female) explored whether sensory appeal characteristics further directed the attention and mental resources toward processing the core healthy foods of fruits and vegetables. Eye-tracking provided an assessment of visual attentional focus and recognition memory indicated encoding efficiency. As hypothesized, core nutritious foods became noticeable, highly arousing, and memorable stimuli with adaptive significance to the organism when portrayed as enjoyable and ripe, through hedonic and palatability appeals. Sensory cues increased adolescents’ attentional selection and positive emotions to the pronutritional images, but also attracted visual focus and high memory formation of the fruits and vegetables. Health communication practice should take advantage of these results and promote core healthy foods through hedonic and visual food palatability appeals.     

Better together: a unified perspective on appraisal and emotion regulation

ABSTRACT

Advances in our understanding of appraisal processes and emotion regulation have been two of the most important contributions of research on cognition and emotion in recent decades. Interestingly, however, progress in these two areas has been less mutually informative than one might expect or desire. To help remedy this situation, we provide an integration of appraisal theory and the process model of emotion regulation by describing parallel, interacting and iterative systems for emotion generation and emotion regulation. Outputs of the emotion generation system are perceived by the emotion regulation system, and emotion regulation strategies then modulate emotion by intervening at specific stages of the emotion generation system, ultimately changing appraisal dimensions. We hope that our unified perspective will encourage and guide future research at the interface of cognition and emotion.