Haptic subitizing across the fingers

Numerosity judgments of small sets of items (≤ 3) are generally fast and error free, while response times and error rates increase rapidly for larger numbers of items. We investigated an efficient process used for judging small numbers of items (known as subitizing) in active touch. We hypothesized that this efficient process for numerosity judgment might be related to stimulus properties that allow for efficient (parallel) search. Our results showed that subitizing was not possible for raised lines among flat surfaces, whereas this type of stimulus could be detected in parallel over the fingers. However, subitizing was possible when the number of fingers touching a surface had to be judged while the other fingers were lowered in mid-air. In the latter case, the lack of tactile input is essential, since subitizing was not enabled by differences in proprioceptive information from the fingers. Our results show that subitizing using haptic information from the fingers is possible only when some fingers receive tactile information while other fingers do not.     

Predicting Intense Levels of Child Anxiety During Anesthesia Induction at Hospital Arrival

In children, intense levels of anxiety during anesthetic induction are associated with a higher risk of pain, poor recovery, and emergence delirium. Therefore, it is important to identify these high-risk children at hospital arrival. The current study examined internalizing behavior (Child Behavior Checklist, CBCL) and state anxiety measures (modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale, mYPAS, and State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, STAIC) at hospital arrival as predictors of anxiety during induction of anesthesia. One hundred children (aged 4 to 12 years) undergoing elective daycare surgery were included. The STAIC and mYPAS at hospital arrival were significant predictors of anxiety during induction, whereas CBCL was not. The STAIC state form at hospital arrival was the strongest predictor and could be used to identify children who will experience intense levels of anxiety during anesthetic induction, with sufficient to good diagnostic accuracy. Using the STAIC at hospital arrival allows targeted interventions to reduce anxiety in children.

     

Comparing Online Adjustments to Distance and Direction in Fast Pointing Movements

It has been suggested that movements are planned in terms of direction and distance. If so, online adjustments to changes in the direction and distance of the movements may also differ. The authors therefore investigated whether fast online movement adjustments are the same for perturbations of the direction and of the distance. While subjects made fast pointing movements, the authors perturbed either target direction or distance or both shortly after movement initiation. Both kinds of perturbations resulted in accurate online adjustments. The latency and intensity of corrections for distance and direction perturbations were quite similar. This suggests that there might be one mechanism controlling both distance and direction perturbations.     

A model for evidence accumulation in the lexical decision task

We present a new model for lexical decision, REM-LD, that is based on REM theory (e.g., ). REM-LD uses a principled (i.e., Bayes' rule) decision process that simultaneously considers the diagnosticity of the evidence for the 'WORD' response and the 'NONWORD' response. The model calculates the odds ratio that the presented stimulus is a word or a nonword by averaging likelihood ratios for lexical entries from a small neighborhood of similar words. We report two experiments that used a signal-to-respond paradigm to obtain information about the time course of lexical processing. Experiment 1 verified the prediction of the model that the frequency of the word stimuli affects performance for nonword stimuli. Experiment 2 was done to study the effects of nonword lexicality, word frequency, and repetition priming and to demonstrate how REM-LD can account for the observed results. We discuss how REM-LD could be extended to account for effects of phonology such as the pseudohomophone effect, and how REM-LD can predict response times in the traditional 'respond-when-ready' paradigm.     

Seeing or hearing? Perceptual independence,modality confusions,and crossmodal congruity effects with focused and divided attention

Observers were given brief presentations of pairs of simultaneous stimuli consisting of a visual and a spoken letter. In the visual focused-attention conditon, only the visual letter should be reported; in the auditory focused-attention condition, only the spoken letter should be reported; in the divided-attention condition, both letters, as well as their respective modalities, should be reported (forced choice). The proportions of correct reports were nearly the same in the three conditions (no significant divided-attention decrement), and in the divided-attention condition, the probability that the visual letter was correctly reported was independent of whether the auditory letter was correctly reported. However, with a probability much higher than chance, the observers reported hearing the visual stimulus letter or seeing the spoken stimulus letter (modality confusions). The strength of the effect was nearly the same with focused as with divided attention. We also discovered a crossmodal congruity effect: Performance was better when the two letters in a stimulus pair were the same than when they differed in type.     

A general framework for the analysis of concept identification tasks

A general framework is presented for concept identification based on hypothesis-testing theory. It is a modification of the duoprocess theory presented by Chumbley (1972). It is shown how Markov models for various complex concept identification tasks may be derived from this framework and how such models may be analyzed by making use of probability generating functions. Two experiments are described. In experiment 1 three tasks were used: two simple tasks, where the subject either only had to select the relevant dimension in order to solve the problem or only had to learn a short list of paired-associates, and a more complex task, where both processes were needed to reach the solution. The results were in general favorable to the theory. Experiment 2 was designed to test the application of the theory to the four-choice concept problem. The predictions of the theory are compared to those of the subproblem learning theory of trabasso and Bower (1964), modified to include a ‘learning-on-errors’ assumption. The fit of the duoprocess theory was reasonably good and superior to that of the subproblem learning theory.     

Androgenetic alopecia: stress of discovery

The psychological problems of men in the initial stages of alopecia androgenetica (hereditary male hair loss) have seldom been studied. We evaluated two groups of 80 men with alopecia androgenetica in Stages II to IV, indicating the amount of hair loss (overall N=160; for Group I: M=48 yr., SD=18.2; for Group II: M=50 yr., SD=18.0) who visited a dermatology clinic for benign dermatological complaints but not for hair loss, by questionnaires and interview, retrospectively. As predicted, hair problems were reported to be significantly greater overall at the moment of discovery of hair loss than later. About half of the men reported feeling annoyed to very annoyed about the discovery of hair loss. For those patients, provision of information by internet might facilitate a visit to the dermatologist.     

Violating equality in social dilemmas: emotional and retributive reactions as a function of trust, attribution, and honesty

In social dilemmas, equality is an important coordination rule. When equality is violated, people seek explanations. In Experiment 1, the authors assessed dispositional trust and found that especially high trusters were affected by the given explanation. High trusters reacted less negatively to external than internal explanations. Experiment 2, using a manipulation of trust in others, revealed a similar pattern across a wider range of negative emotions. In Experiment 3, the authors only induced high trust and showed that when the external explanation turned out to be a lie, emotional and retributive reactions became more negative. Moreover, attribution information did not influence reactions when participants realized that the information was dishonest.     

E-mailed standardized cognitive behavioural treatment of work-related stress: a randomized controlled trial

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of a 7-week standardized cognitive behavioural treatment of work-related stress conducted via e-mail. A total of 342 people applied for treatment in reaction to a newspaper article. Initial screening reduced the sample to a heterogeneous (sub)clinical group of 239 participants. Participants were assigned randomly to a waiting list condition (n = 62), or to immediate treatment (n = 177). A follow-up was conducted 3 years after inception of the treatment. The outcome measures used were the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-42) and the Emotional Exhaustion scale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS). Fifty participants (21%) dropped out. Both groups showed statistically significant improvements. Intention-to-treat analysis of covariance (ANCOVAs) revealed that participants in the treatment condition improved significantly more than those in the waiting control condition (0.001

or = d > or = 0.5 (anxiety)). The between-group effects ranged from d = 0.6 (stress) to d = 0.1 (anxiety). At follow-up, the effects were more pronounced, but this result requires replication in view of high attrition at follow-up. The results warrant further research on Internet-driven standardized cognitive behavioural therapy for work-related stress. Such research should include the direct comparison of this treatment with face-to-face treatment, and should address the optimal level of therapist contact in Internet-driven treatment.     

Sound improves diminished visual temporal sensitivity in schizophrenia

Visual temporal processing and multisensory integration (MSI) of sound and vision were examined in individuals with schizophrenia using a visual temporal order judgment (TOJ) task. Compared to a non-psychiatric control group, persons with schizophrenia were less sensitive judging the temporal order of two successively presented visual stimuli. However, their sensitivity to visual temporal order improved as in the control group when two accessory sounds were added (temporal ventriloquism). These findings indicate that individuals with schizophrenia have diminished sensitivity to visual temporal order, but no deficits in the integration of low-level auditory and visual information.