The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning throughout adulthood

The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning has been widely explored. However, how aging modulates this association regarding both objective performance and subjective-perception is still neglected. Participants, aged between 18 and 81 years, performed a face memory test and completed subjective face recognition and socioemotional questionnaires. General and social anxiety, and neuroticism traits account for the individual variation in face recognition abilities during adulthood. Aging modulates these relationships because as they age, individuals that present a higher level of these traits also show low-level face recognition ability. Intriguingly, the association between depression and face recognition abilities is evident with increasing age. Overall, the present results emphasize the importance of embedding face metacognition measurement into the context of these studies and suggest that aging is an important factor to be considered, which seems to contribute to the relationship between socioemotional and face-cognitive functioning.     

Reflective team in caring for people living with dementia: a base for care improvement

A reflective team (RT) is a team of professional carers who reflect on a specific caring issue under the direction of an RT leader. The goal for the reflective process is to accomplish care improvement based on research and proven experience, and the first step is to reflect upon the competence that already exists in the context in which RT takes place. This study aims to bring previous unarticulated competence in caring for people living with dementia to the surface after it has been reflected during RT sessions. Ten assistant nurses who work closely with patients who have dementia and attend RT sessions on a regular basis were interviewed about their competence for caring for people living with dementia. Using a phenomenographic analysis, two qualitatively separate categories emerged: general caring skills and dementia-specific caring skills. It was concluded that specific skills in caring for people living with dementia build in caring skills and that tacit knowledge can be explicit and be expressed when it has been reflected in RT.     

Reflective team and process-oriented supervision – a case study on differences

To meet the Swedish healthcare legislation’s requirements for evidence-based care, a work model for reflection has been developed, called a reflective team (RT). Because this RT model can be perceived as either a competitor of or a complement to caring supervision, this case study aims to explore what distinguishes these two in psychiatric care. Five members of one RT who are psychiatric nurses with previous experiences in caring supervision were interviewed. The transcribed interviews were analysed according to phenomenography. The findings reveal three qualitatively separated categories, which describe differences in focus, competencies, and relationships between confirmation and demands. It is concluded that an RT by no means replaces supervision. Instead, both can contribute to care improvement by complementing each other and increasing the professionalism of psychiatric nurses.     

Sex differences in discrimination reversal learning in the guppy

In several mammalian and avian species, females show a higher performance than males in tasks requiring cognitive flexibility such as the discrimination reversal learning. A recent study showed that female guppies are twice as efficient as males in a reversal learning task involving yellow–red discrimination, suggesting a higher cognitive flexibility in female guppies. However, the possibility exists that the superior performance exhibited by females does not reflect a general sex difference in cognitive abilities, but instead, is confined to colour discrimination tasks. To address this issue, we compared male and female guppies in two different discrimination reversal learning tasks and we performed a meta-analysis of these experiments and the previous one involving colour discrimination. In the first experiment of this study, guppies were tested in a task requiring them to learn to select the correct arm of a T-maze in order to rejoin a group of conspecifics. In experiment 2, guppies were observed in a numerical task requiring them to discriminate between 5 and 10 dots in order to obtain a food reward. Although females outperformed males in one condition of the T-maze, we did not find any clear evidence of females’ greater reversal learning performance in either experiment. However, the meta-analysis of the three experiments supported the hypothesis of females’ greater reversal learning ability. Our data do not completely exclude the idea that female guppies have a generally higher cognitive flexibility than males; however, they suggest that the size of this sex difference might depend on the task.     

Do domestic dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis lupus familiaris</Emphasis>) perceive the Delboeuf illusion?

In the last decade, visual illusions have been repeatedly used as a tool to compare visual perception among species. Several studies have investigated whether non-human primates perceive visual illusions in a human-like fashion, but little attention has been paid to other mammals, and sensitivity to visual illusions has been never investigated in the dog. Here, we studied whether domestic dogs perceive the Delboeuf illusion. In human and non-human primates, this illusion creates a misperception of item size as a function of its surrounding context. To examine this effect in dogs, we adapted the spontaneous preference paradigm recently used with chimpanzees. Subjects were presented with two plates containing food. In control trials, two different amounts of food were presented in two identical plates. In this circumstance, dogs were expected to select the larger amount. In test trials, equal food portion sizes were presented in two plates differing in size: if dogs perceived the illusion as primates do, they were expected to select the amount of food presented in the smaller plate. Dogs significantly discriminated the two alternatives in control trials, whereas their performance did not differ from chance in test trials with the illusory pattern. The fact that dogs do not seem to be susceptible to the Delboeuf illusion suggests a potential discontinuity in the perceptual biases affecting size judgments between primates and dogs.     

Infant Predictors of Toddler Effortful Control: A Multi‐method Developmentally Sensitive Approach

Effortful control (EC) is a form of self‐regulation characterized by inhibition of dominant responses in favour of more adaptive subdominant responses. In the present study, temperamental antecedents in infancy were examined in relationship to toddler EC. Parents reported on infant temperament at 6, 8, 10, and 12 months, using the regulatory capacity/orienting (RCO) factor of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire‐Revised. Laboratory indicators of this temperamental construct were also collected at each time point via the Temperament Laboratory Assessment. Relations between changes in temperament across the first year of life and toddler EC (mean age = 22 months) were examined using multilevel modelling. Parent‐reported RCO and the component subscale of cuddliness more specifically were the only temperamental variables that prospectively predicted toddler EC. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

App-guided exposure and response prevention for obsessive compulsive disorder: an open pilot trial

Although effective treatments for obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) exist, there are significant barriers to receiving evidence-based care. Mobile health applications (Apps) offer a promising way of overcoming these barriers by increasing access to treatment. The current study investigated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of LiveOCDFree, an App designed to help OCD patients conduct exposure and response prevention (ERP). Twenty-one participants with mild to moderate symptoms of OCD were enrolled in a 12-week open trial of App-guided self-help ERP. Self-report assessments of OCD, depression, anxiety, and quality of life were completed at baseline, mid-treatment, and post-treatment. App-guided ERP was a feasible and acceptable self-help intervention for individuals with OCD, with high rates of retention and satisfaction. Participants reported significant improvement in OCD and anxiety symptoms pre- to post-treatment. Findings suggest that LiveOCDFree is a feasible and acceptable self-help intervention for OCD. Preliminary efficacy results are encouraging and point to the potential utility of mobile Apps in expanding the reach of existing empirically supported treatments.     

The impact of experiential avoidance on the relations between illness representations,pain catastrophising and pain interference in chronic pain

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of experiential avoidance (EA) on the indirect relationship of chronic pain patients’ illness representations to pain interference, through pain catastrophising

Design and main outcome measure: The sample consisted of 162 patients diagnosed with an arthritis-related or a musculoskeletal disorder. The effects of EA on the pathway between illness representations, pain catastrophising and pain interference were examined with PROCESS, a computational tool for SPSS

Results: After controlling for patient and illness-related variables and pain severity, the ‘illness representations–pain catastrophising–pain interference’ pathway was interrupted at the higher levels of EA. The reason was that, at the high levels of EA, either the relation of illness representations to pain catastrophising or the relation of pain catastrophising to pain interference was not statistically significant.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that EA is not a generalised negative response to highly aversive conditions, at least as far as the factors examined in this study are concerned. EA may rather reflect a coping reaction, the impact of which depends on its specific interactions with the other aspects of the self-regulation mechanism. At least in chronic pain, EA should become the focus of potential intervention only when its interaction with the illness-related self-regulation mechanism results in negative outcomes.     

From Motivation to Activation: Why Engaged Workers are Better Performers

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between work engagement and multiple dimensions of employee performance, as mediated by open-mindedness.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Survey data were obtained from 186 employees of a food processing plant and the findings were cross-validated in an independent convenience sample (N = 308).

Findings

SEM analyses revealed that the more engaged the employees were, the more they displayed extra-role and in-role performance. As expected, these associations were partially mediated by open-mindedness. Results were ambiguous for counterproductive performance showing a direct negative relation between engagement and counter productivity, and an indirect, positive relation through open-mindedness.

Implications

With its systematic look at the relation between engagement and multiple indicators of performance, the current study shows why it is important for both employers and employees to invest in engaged employees: there is a relationship with better performance which can partly be explained by the fact that engagement is associated with open-mindedness. This may help to inform organizations under what circumstances engagement leads to positive or negative forms of performance. Vice versa, a decrease in the multiple indicators of performance may signal organizations to look after their employees' mental health, i.e., engagement.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to include multiple dimensions of employee performance in relation to work engagement. Moreover, it is one of the first studies that focus on the underlying psychological process that might explain for this relationship.

     

Problem Space Matters: The Development of Creativity and Intelligence in Primary School Children

Previous research showed that in primary school, children’s intelligence develops continually, but creativity develops more irregularly. In this study, the development of intelligence, measured traditionally, i.e., operating within well-defined problem spaces (Standard Progressive Matrices) was compared with the development of intelligence operating in ill-defined problem spaces (Creative Reasoning Task) and the development of creativity (Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production), in primary school children (N = 175) across four grade levels. Results showed that problem space matters: Traditional intelligence test scores increased regularly with grade level, whereas creativity, as well as intelligence operating in an ill-defined problem space, developed irregularly but similarly. This suggests that when creativity is fostered, intelligence’s ability to operate in ill-defined problem space may be fostered, likewise.