Relative quantity judgments in South American sea lions (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Otaria flavescens</Emphasis>)

There is accumulating evidence that a variety of species possess quantitative abilities although their cognitive substrate is still unclear. This study is the first to investigate whether sea lions (Otaria flavescens), in the absence of training, are able to assess and select the larger of two sets of quantities. In Experiment 1, the two sets of quantities were presented simultaneously as whole sets, that is, the subjects could compare them directly. In Experiment 2, the two sets of quantities were presented item-by-item, and the totality of items was never visually available at the time of choice. For each type of presentation, we analysed the effect of the ratio between quantities, the difference between quantities and the total number of items presented. The results showed that (1) sea lions can make relative quantity judgments successfully and (2) there is a predominant influence of the ratio between quantities on the subjects’ performance. The latter supports the idea that an analogue representational mechanism is responsible for sea lions’ relative quantities judgments. These findings are consistent with previous reports of relative quantities judgments in other species such as monkeys and apes and suggest that sea lions might share a similar mechanism to compare and represent quantities.     

Donation after circulatory death: burying the dead donor rule

Despite continuing controversies regarding the vital status of both brain-dead donors and individuals who undergo donation after circulatory death (DCD), respecting the dead donor rule (DDR) remains the standard moral framework for organ procurement. The DDR increases organ supply without jeopardizing trust in transplantation systems, reassuring society that donors will not experience harm during organ procurement. While the assumption that individuals cannot be harmed once they are dead is reasonable in the case of brain-dead protocols, we argue that the DDR is not an acceptable strategy to protect donors from harm in DCD protocols. We propose a threefold alternative to justify organ procurement practices: (1) ensuring that donors are sufficiently protected from harm; (2) ensuring that they are respected through informed consent; and (3) ensuring that society is fully informed of the inherently debatable nature of any criterion to declare death.     

Cognitive correlates of emotional traits: perceptions of self and others

Two studies examined how individuals' perceptions of self and others are associated with different emotional traits. Study 1 (N = 386) used structural equation modeling of questionnaire data to examine the relations between emotional traits (i.e., affect intensity, affect variability, and trait pleasant and unpleasant affect) and self- and other-perceptions (i.e., self-instability, self-esteem, other-instability, and perceived treatment by others). Study 2 (N = 99) used path analyses of data collected using an event sampling method in which online measures of emotional experiences (i.e., intensity, frequency, and variability of pleasant and unpleasant affect) as well as perceptions of self and others (i.e., self-instability, self-esteem, other-instability, perceived treatment by others) were collected. The strongest and most consistent finding was that affect variability was associated with both self- and other-instability. The results linking affect intensity with self- and other-instability were limited to negative intensity. There was also evidence of pleasant affect being associated with both self-esteem and perceived treatment by others, and unpleasant affect being associated with self-esteem and other-instability.     

Test of Spanish sentences to measure speech intelligibility in noise conditions

This article describes the development of a test for measuring the intelligibility of speech in noise for the Spanish language, similar to the test developed by Kalikow, Stevens, and Elliot (Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 5, 1337–1360, 1977) for the English language. The test consists of six forms, each comprising 25 high-predictability (HP) sentences and 25 low-predictability (LP) sentences. The sentences were used in a perceptual task to assess their intelligibility in babble noise across three different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions in a sample of 474 normal-hearing listeners. The results showed that the listeners obtained higher scores of intelligibility for HP sentences than for LP sentences, and the scores were lower for the higher SNRs, as was expected. The final six forms were equivalent in intelligibility and phonetic content.     

Recording online processes in task-oriented reading with Read&;Answer

We present an application to study task-oriented reading processes called Read&Answer. The application mimics paper-and-pencil situations in which a reader interacts with one or more documents to perform a specific task, such as answering questions, writing an essay, or similar activities. Read&Answer presents documents and questions with a mask. The reader unmasks documents and questions so that only a piece of information is available at a time. This way the entire interaction between the reader and the documents on the task is recorded and can be analyzed. We describe Read&Answer and present its applications for research and assessment. Finally, we explain two studies that compare readers’ performance on Read&Answer with students’ reading times and comprehension levels on a paper-and-pencil task, and on a computer task recorded with eye-tracking. The use of Read&Answer produced similar comprehension scores, although it changed the pattern of reading times.     

On being victimized by peers in the advent of adolescence: prospective relationships to objectified body consciousness

Previous research indicates that peer victimization is tied to children's negative appearance evaluations. The current study examines whether early peer victimization is also prospectively related to objectified body consciousness. Six-hundred-and-two Swedish boys and girls answered questionnaires at age 10, and again at age 18. Main findings showed that being the target of peer victimization at age 10 was related to more habitual appearance monitoring and body shame at age 18. Gender moderated the relations between victimization and body shame, with victimized girls experiencing stronger body shame than victimized boys. Additionally, whereas boys experienced less body shame than girls, they were equally likely to monitor their appearance. In sum, this study provides preliminary support to the notion that peer victimization is involved in the processes by which young adolescents’ self-objectify. Future studies are warranted to further validate these findings.     

Influence of a psychological perspective on scene viewing and memory for scenes

In the study, 33 participants viewed photographs from either a potential homebuyer's or a burglar's perspective, or in preparation for a memory test, while their eye movements were recorded. A free recall and a picture recognition task were performed after viewing. The results showed that perspective had rapid effects, in that the second fixation after the scene onset was more likely to land on perspective-relevant than on perspective-irrelevant areas within the scene. Perspective-relevant areas also attracted longer total fixation time, more visits, and longer first-pass dwell times than did perspective-irrelevant areas. As for the effects of visual saliency, the first fixation was more likely to land on a salient than on a nonsalient area; salient areas also attracted more visits and longer total fixation time than did nonsalient areas. Recall and recognition performance reflected the eye fixation results: Both were overall higher for perspective-relevant than for perspective-irrelevant scene objects. The relatively low error rates in the recognition task suggest that participants had gained an accurate memory for scene objects. The findings suggest that the role of bottom-up versus top-down factors varies as a function of viewing task and the time-course of scene processing.     

Confirmation of the three-factor model of problematic internet use on off-line adolescent and adult samples

As the Internet became widely used, problems associated with its excessive use became increasingly apparent. Although for the assessment of these problems several models and related questionnaires have been elaborated, there has been little effort made to confirm them. The aim of the present study was to test the three-factor model of the previously created Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ) by data collection methods formerly not applied (off-line group and face-to-face settings), on the one hand, and by testing on different age groups (adolescent and adult representative samples), on the other hand. Data were collected from 438 high-school students (44.5 percent boys; mean age: 16.0 years; standard deviation=0.7 years) and also from 963 adults (49.9 percent males; mean age: 33.6 years; standard deviation=11.8 years). We applied confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the measurement model of problematic Internet use. The results of the analyses carried out inevitably support the original three-factor model over the possible one-factor solution. Using latent profile analysis, we identified 11 percent of adults and 18 percent of adolescent users characterized by problematic use. Based on exploratory factor analysis, we also suggest a short form of the PIUQ consisting of nine items. Both the original 18-item version of PIUQ and its short 9-item form have satisfactory reliability and validity characteristics, and thus, they are suitable for the assessment of problematic Internet use in future studies.     

Prevalence of Internet addiction in Latino adolescents with psychiatric diagnosis

Internet addiction (IA) is particularly relevant in the adolescent population. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence of IA in a clinical sample of Latino adolescents receiving ambulatory psychiatric treatment. The correlation between their pattern of Internet use and their respective psychiatric diagnosis was also studied. Adolescent patients from the Psychiatric Ambulatory Clinic at the Pediatric University Hospital (N=71) completed the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and a questionnaire about Internet use. Information regarding demographic and diagnostic data was retrieved from their clinical records. None of the subjects presented severe IA. A total of 71.8% (n=51) of the adolescents obtained scores reflecting no problem related to IA. Only 11.6% (n=5) of subjects have discussed Internet use with their therapist. Mood disorders showed a statistically significant (p=0.044) correlation with a higher score on the IAT. Mental health care practitioners must consider questions on Internet use as an essential part of the patients' evaluation given its significant correlation with diagnosis of a mood disorder.