The Minho Word Pool: Norms for imageability,concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 Portuguese words

Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive research. Because of their complexity, using words requires strict control of their objective (lexical and sublexical) and subjective properties. In this work, we present the Minho Word Pool (MWP), a dataset that provides normative values of imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 (European) Portuguese words—three subjective measures that, in spite of being used extensively in research, have been scarce for Portuguese. Data were collected with 2,357 college students who were native speakers of European Portuguese. The participants rated 100 words drawn randomly from the full set for each of the three subjective indices, using a Web survey procedure (via a URL link). Analyses comparing the MWP ratings with those obtained for the same words from other national and international databases showed that the MWP norms are reliable and valid, thus providing researchers with a useful tool to support research in all neuroscientific areas using verbal stimuli. The MWP norms can be downloaded along with this article or from http://p-pal.di.uminho.pt/about/databases.     

Boundaryless Mentoring: An Exploratory Study of the Functions Provided by Internal Versus External Organizational Mentors1

The changing nature of careers suggests that mentors and protégés may work in different employment settings. Little research has examined whether mentoring relationships that are interorganizational are as enriched, in terms of mentoring functions provided and received, as those that are intraorganizational. The present study examines the effect of the mentor's employment setting on both protégé and mentor reports of career support, psychosocial support, and role modeling received or provided. Data were collected via questionnaire from mentors and protégès in 2 computer technology firms. Results from a MANCOVA controlling for protégé gender and duration of relationship indicate that protégés whose mentors work in the same employment setting as themselves reported more career and psychosocial support than did protégés whose mentors work in a different setting. Results are discussed in view of current career structures.     

Effects of Emotional Valence and Arousal Manipulation on Eyeblink Classical Conditioning and Autonomic Measures

Using a classical eyeblink conditioning paradigm, we have previously shown that the rate of acquisition of a conditioned response may be manipulated by engaging subjects in background tasks of varying complexity concurrent to conditioning. To further examine the influence of the background environment on conditioning, a picture set designed to elicit emotional responses, the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), was presented to subjects during classical eyeblink conditioning. The results suggest that eyeblink conditioning does appear to be sensitive to contextual manipulations of arousal. Pictures rated as very arousing were found to engage subjects enough to enhance learning, although not to the point that autonomic functions were significantly altered between picture groups. We suggest that group differences in learning may be a result of either novelty of, or vigilance to, interesting pictures rather than as a direct result of physiological arousal.     

COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND HATHAYOGA

Abstract. Cognitive science and hathayoga both make emphatic claims about the relationship between the body and the mind. To examine this complementary relationship I draw upon the five main approaches currently being used by cognitive science and then consider their implications within the context of three specific points of contact with hathayoga theory: the rejection of dualism, the nature of consciousness, and the role of the nervous and circulatory systems in religious experience. This type of comparative analysis can provide additional information about the nature of consciousness and the potential practices that heighten our awareness or knowledge of it. Consequently, cognitive science offers a new and provocative way to dialogue with Indian yoga traditions in terms of the methods and theories of modernity.     

‘It all boils down to respect doesn't it?’: Enacting a sense of community in a deprived inner‐city area

Audio recordings of meetings of two community groups in a deprived inner‐city area were analysed, using discursive psychological and conversation analytic techniques to explore situated enactments of ‘community’. Participants situated themselves as members of a geographical community, of an ‘imagined’ community and of other constitutive communities. A sense of community was enacted through five interactional strategies: Affirming moral codes, ‘defending’ other members, distinguishing insiders from outsiders, enacting empowerment and challenging institutions. Participants regularly employed emotional displays and affirmed moral positions, both to constitute ‘community’ and to take action in it. In so doing they worked up social capital and positioned community concerns in ways more reflective of their own situated values than of criminal law or government policy. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health-Related Quality of Life and Adaptive Behaviors of Adolescents with Sickle Cell Disease: Stress Processing Moderators

The objective of this study was to examine resilience among adolescents with sickle cell disease (SCD), focusing on the interaction of health-related quality of life with stress processing to explain adaptive behavior. Forty-four adolescents with SCD completed paper-and-pencil measures of health-related quality of life, appraisals (hope), pain coping strategies (e.g. adherence), and adaptive behavior. Self-reported health-related quality of life was significantly associated with adaptive behavior, as was adherence. Findings for moderation were mixed. Pain coping strategies moderated the association of health-related quality of life with adaptive behavior such that at lower levels of Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ) Adherence, better quality of life was associated with higher adaptive behavior. Similarly, at higher levels of hope, better quality of life was associated with higher adaptive behavior, and poorer quality of life was associated with lower adaptive behavior. Adolescents with SCD showed resilience, particularly in terms of personal adjustment, that may be explained by their appraisals and stress processing strategies. Interventions to support an optimistic or hopeful outlook and improve adherence to recommendations for medical management of sickle cell pain may result in improved resilience/adaptive behavior.     

Nurses' behaviors and visual scanning patterns may reduce patient identification errors

Patient identification (ID) errors occurring during the medication administration process can be fatal. The aim of this study is to determine whether differences in nurses' behaviors and visual scanning patterns during the medication administration process influence their capacities to identify patient ID errors. Nurse participants (n = 20) administered medications to 3 patients in a simulated clinical setting, with 1 patient having an embedded ID error. Error-identifying nurses tended to complete more process steps in a similar amount of time than non-error-identifying nurses and tended to scan information across artifacts (e.g., ID band, patient chart, medication label) rather than fixating on several pieces of information on a single artifact before fixating on another artifact. Non-error-indentifying nurses tended to increase their durations of off-topic conversations-a type of process interruption-over the course of the trials; the difference between groups was significant in the trial with the embedded ID error. Error-identifying nurses tended to have their most fixations in a row on the patient's chart, whereas non-error-identifying nurses did not tend to have a single artifact on which they consistently fixated. Finally, error-identifying nurses tended to have predictable eye fixation sequences across artifacts, whereas non-error-identifying nurses tended to have seemingly random eye fixation sequences. This finding has implications for nurse training and the design of tools and technologies that support nurses as they complete the medication administration process.