The Effect of Social Network Site Use on Appearance Investment and Desire for Cosmetic Surgery Among Adolescent Boys and Girls

Although adolescents frequently use social network sites, little is known about whether the highly visual and self-presentation-centered character of such sites affects body-related outcomes such as investment in appearance and appearance-changing strategies. Due to gender differences in appearance pressures and appearance ideals, these effects of social network sites on body-related outcomes may differ between boys and girls. The aim of the current study was therefore to investigate the relationships between social network site use, appearance investment, and desire for cosmetic surgery among adolescents and to compare the experiences of boys and girls. We used data from a two-wave panel study among 604 Dutch adolescents (aged 11–18). Structural equation modeling showed that social network site use positively predicted adolescents’ desire to undergo cosmetic surgery indirectly through increased appearance investment. The relationships found between social network site use, investment in appearance, and cosmetic surgery desire applied to boys and girls and were not moderated by gender.     

Perceptual adaptation to structure-from-motion depends on the size of adaptor and probe objects,but not on the similarity of their shapes

Perceptual adaptation destabilizes the phenomenal appearance of multistable visual displays. Prolonged dominance of a perceptual state fatigues the associated neural population, lowering the likelihood of renewed perception of the same appearance (Nawrot & Blake in Perception & Psychophysics, 49, 230–44, 1991). Here, we used a selective adaptation paradigm to investigate perceptual adaptation for the illusory rotation of ambiguous structure-from-motion (SFM) displays. Specifically, we generated SFM objects with different three-dimensional shapes and presented them in random order, separating successive objects by brief blank periods, which included a mask. To assess the specificity of perceptual adaptation to the shape of SFM objects, we established the probability that a perceived direction of rotation persisted between successive objects of similar or dissimilar shape. We found that the strength of negative aftereffects depended on the volume, but not the shape, of adaptor and probe objects. More voluminous objects were both more effective as adaptor objects and more sensitive as probe objects. Surprisingly, we found these volume effects to be completely independent, since any relationship between two shapes (such as overlap between volumes, similarity of shape, or similarity of velocity profiles) failed to modulate the negative aftereffect. This pattern of results was the opposite of that observed for sensory memory of SFM objects, which reflects similarity between objects, but not volume of individual objects (Pastukhov et al. in Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 75, 1215–1229, 2013). The disparate specificities of perceptual adaptation and sensory memory for identical SFM objects suggest that the two aftereffects engage distinct neural representations, consistent with recent brain imaging results (Schwiedrzik et al. in Cerebral Cortex, 2012).     

Age stereotypes in younger and older women: analyses of accommodative shifts with a sentence-priming task

A sentence-priming technique was used to examine whether older women (N = 39) share a more positive view of aging than younger women (N = 35). Situationally specified statements about older and younger persons were presented, followed either by a semantically related word, an unrelated word of the same valence, or a nonword. The accessibility of target words was measured by reaction times in a lexical decision task. Whereas a semantic priming effect for negatively connoted materials emerged for both groups, a priming effect for positively connoted materials was found for older women only. Furthermore, an affective priming effect was found for the older group, i.e., older women tended to respond relatively faster (slower) to semantically unrelated positive (negative) words following a sentence about an older person. The results are discussed within a coping-theoretical framework.     

Stimulus and response conflict processing during perceptual decision making

Encoding and dealing with conflicting information is essential for successful decision making in a complex environment. In the present fMRI study, stimulus conflict and response conflict are contrasted in the context of a perceptual decision-making dot-motion discrimination task. Stimulus conflict was manipulated by varying dot-motion coherence along task-relevant and task-irrelevant dimensions. Response conflict was manipulated by varying whether or not competing stimulus dimensions provided evidence for the same or different responses. The right inferior frontal gyrus was involved specifically in the resolution of stimulus conflict, whereas the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex was shown to be sensitive to response conflict. Additionally, two regions that have been linked to perceptual decision making with dot-motion stimuli in monkey physiology studies were differentially engaged by stimulus conflict and response conflict. The middle temporal area, previously linked to processing of motion, was strongly affected by the presence of stimulus conflict. On the other hand, the superior parietal lobe, previously associated with accumulation of evidence for a response, was affected by the presence of response conflict. These results shed light on the neural mechanisms that support decision making in the presence of conflict, a cognitive operation fundamental to both basic survival and high-level cognition.     

Global effect of a nearby distractor on targeting eye and hand movements

Eye-hand coordination was investigated with the global effect paradigm. In this paradigm, saccades typically land in between the target and a nearby presented distractor, the configuration's center of gravity. This so-called global effect, or spatial averaging, is attributed to incomplete target selection. Four experiments demonstrated a similar effect for hand movements; thus, eye and hand are coupled during target selection. However, under some conditions the global effect was different for eye and hand, suggesting that their coupling is not achieved through a shared target representation. Instead, eye and hand seem to use 2 separate target representations that exchange information. The convergent amplitudes of eye and hand with simultaneous execution support this interpretation. Latencies showed a similar converging pattern.     

Depression in later life: cross-sequential patterns and possible determinants

Research on the relationship between age and depression has not yielded a consistent picture. Approaches emphasizing resilience compete with assumptions of an increased incidence of depressive problems in later life. This study investigated these issues within a research format combining cross-sectional and 8-year longitudinal assessments of depressive tendencies (690 participants, aged 54-77 years). The developmental patterns suggest 2 phases: Relative stability extending to about 70 years and a subsequent increase of depressive tendencies. Antecedent and mediating factors were explored within a broader context of variables (health status, social and economic resources, coping competences, and future perspectives). Differences in time perspective and a disposition of accommodative flexibility predicted subsequent changes in depression and mediated age effects in depressive tendencies.     

Coping with deficits and losses in later life: from compensatory action to accommodation

Processes of coping with performance deficits in different domains of functioning were investigated in a 4-year longitudinal study involving a core sample of 762 participants (initial age range: 58-81 years). Compensatory efforts to counteract functional impairments were found to increase up to the age of 70 years. Above that age, a decrease in compensatory efforts was observed that was linked to a decrease in the availability and efficiency of action resources. Contentment with actual performance levels remained stable across the entire age range of the study. Stability of self-evaluations was found to depend on adjustment of personal standards: Scarce action resources were accompanied by a lowering of personal comparison standards and by a downgrading of the importance of the respective domains. Accepting more lenient standards of comparison was found to buffer negative effects of performance deficits on contentment with performance among the older participants.     

Two types of serial dependence in visual working memory

Stimulus representations in working memory depend on memory traces of past stimuli both from previous trials and from the current trial. However, it is unclear whether the same or different mechanisms underlie this serial dependence across and within trials. We directly contrasted estimates of bias for pairs of immediately successive stimuli across and within trials. In each trial, participants memorized two consecutive motion direction stimuli (S1 and S2) and after a short delay were cued to report one of them. We found serial dependence across trials: The current S1 was attracted towards the preceding S2 when the latter had been cued for report. In contrast, within the same trial S2 was repulsed from S1. In addition, repulsion within a trial occurred for a broader range of motion direction differences between stimuli than attraction across trials. A second experiment in which 25% of trials did not require a response demonstrated that across‐trial attraction did not depend on whether the previous S2 actually had to be reported. Our findings provide evidence for two types of serial dependence operating across and within trials. They support the notion of different mechanisms integrating or segregating current from similar past memory contents depending on their task relevance.     

Gaze following: why (not) learn it?

We propose a computational model of the emergence of gaze following skills in infant-caregiver interactions. The model is based on the idea that infants learn that monitoring their caregiver's direction of gaze allows them to predict the locations of interesting objects or events in their environment (Moore & Corkum, 1994). Elaborating on this theory, we demonstrate that a specific Basic Set of structures and mechanisms is sufficient for gaze following to emerge. This Basic Set includes the infant's perceptual skills and preferences, habituation and reward-driven learning, and a structured social environment featuring a caregiver who tends to look at things the infant will find interesting. We review evidence that all elements of the Basic Set are established well before the relevant gaze following skills emerge. We evaluate the model in a series of simulations and show that it can account for typical development. We also demonstrate that plausible alterations of model parameters, motivated by findings on two different developmental disorders - autism and Williams syndrome - produce delays or deficits in the emergence of gaze following. The model makes a number of testable predictions. In addition, it opens a new perspective for theorizing about cross-species differences in gaze following.