A visual object segmentation algorithm with spatial and temporal coherence inspired by the architecture of the visual cortex

Cognitive Processing - Scene analysis in video sequences is a complex task for a computer vision system. Several schemes have been addressed in this analysis, such as deep learning networks or...     

Aggression and prosocial behaviors in social conflicts mediating the influence of cold social intelligence and affective empathy on children's social preference

This study proposes a model in which aggressive and prosocial behaviors exhibited in social conflicts mediate the influence of empathy and social intelligence to children's social preference by same‐sex peers. Data were obtained from kindergarten to the end of the first grade. The sample yielded 117 Spanish children (64 girls and 53 boys) with a mean age of 62.8 months (SD = 3.3) at the beginning of the study. For boys, affective empathy contributed to boys’ social preference through a decrease in physical aggression as responses to social conflict. For girls, affective empathy had an indirect effect on girls’ preference by increasing assistance to others in their conflicts. No mediating effect in the contribution of social intelligence on girls’ social preference was detected. Our results suggest that, only for girls, cold social intelligence can promote both indirect aggression (coercive strategic that do not leave social preference, at least at these ages) and behaviors that lead social preference (such as prosocial behaviors).     

Additions are biased by operands: evidence from repeated versus different operands

Recent evidence led to the conclusion that addition problems are biased towards overestimation, regardless of whether information is conveyed by symbolic or non-symbolic stimuli (the Operational Momentum effect). The present study focuses on the role of operands in the overestimation of addition problems. Based on the tie effect, and on recent evidence that the nature of operands biases addition problems towards an underestimation when operands are repeated, but towards an overestimation when different, we aim here to further elucidate the contribution of operands to addition problems. Experiment 1 replicates the underestimation of repeated-operand additions and overestimation of different-operand additions, with large numbers (around 50), and explores whether these effects also apply to small operand additions (around 10). Experiment 2 further explores the overestimation of different-operand additions by investigating the roles of operand order and numerical distance between operands. The results show that both factors have an impact on the overestimation size, but are not crucial for overestimation to occur. The results are discussed in terms of arithmetic strategies, spatial organization of numbers and magnitude representation.     

Men in the Office,Women in the Kitchen? Contextual Dependency of Gender Stereotype Activation in Spanish Women

In a set of two studies, we tested whether gender-stereotypical associations are automatically activated by Spanish women in a categorization task, and how this process is conditioned by the context in which the target is presented (kitchen vs. office). We hypothesized that gender stereotypes would be activated implicitly when the target (men vs. women) appeared in an office context (associated with male dominant roles), but not when they appeared in a kitchen context (traditionally associated with female roles). The studies were conducted with two samples (N?=?44; N?=?47) of female undergraduate students from the University of Granada (Spain). In both studies, a priming effect was found, indicating that a traditional, role-congruent stereotype pattern (men-competence, women-warmth) emerged when primes appeared in an office context, but not in a kitchen context. Further, negative competence traits were evaluated faster when a male prime was presented in the context of a kitchen (role-incongruent). The purpose of Study 2 was to clarify the implicit nature of this contextual contingency effect by manipulating the controllability of the priming effect (i.e., Stimulus Onset Asynchrony duration-SOA, and restricted response time). The results of Study 1 were replicated in only the short SOA condition, which implies faster and presumably less controlled processing of the stimuli. Theoretical implications for stereotyping and gender role research are discussed.     

Using the Implicit Association Test to Assess Risk Propensity Self‐concept: Analysis of its Predictive Validity on a Risk‐taking Behaviour in a Natural Setting

The present work analyses the predictive validity of measures provided by several available self‐report and indirect measurement instruments to assess risk propensity (RP) and proposes a measurement instrument using the Implicit Association Test: the IAT of Risk Propensity Self‐Concept (IAT‐RPSC), an adaptation of the prior IAT‐RP of Dislich et al. Study 1 analysed the relationship between IAT‐RPSC scores and several RP self‐report measures. Participants' risk‐taking behaviour in a natural setting was also assessed, analyzing the predictive validity of the IAT‐RPSC scores on risk‐taking behaviour compared with the self‐report measures. Study 2 analysed the predictive validity of the IAT‐RPSC scores in comparison with other indirect measures. Results of these studies showed that the IAT‐RPSC scores exhibited good reliability and were positively correlated to several self‐report and indirect measures, providing evidence for convergent validity. Most importantly, the IAT‐RPSC scores predicted risk‐taking behaviour in a natural setting with real consequences above and beyond all other self‐report and indirect measures analysed. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Engaged at Work and Happy at Home: A Spillover–Crossover Model

The current diary study among 50 Spanish dual-earner couples examines whether engagement at work has an impact on own and partners’ well-being. Based on the Spillover–Crossover model, we hypothesized that individuals’ work engagement would spill over to the home domain, increasing their happiness level at the end of the day. Moreover, we predicted a crossover of happiness between the members of the couple. Participants filled in a diary booklet during five consecutive working days (N = 100 participants and N = 500 occasions). The results of multilevel analyses showed that daily work engagement has a direct effect on daily happiness. We also found that employees’ daily work engagement influenced partner’s daily happiness through employees’ daily happiness. Finally, results showed a clear bidirectional crossover of daily happiness between both members of the couple. These findings indicate that the positive effects of work engagement go beyond the work setting and beyond the employee.     

Brain processing of task-relevant and task-irrelevant emotional words: An ERP study

Although there is evidence for preferential perceptual processing of written emotional information, the effects of attentional manipulations and the time course of affective processing require further clarification. In this study, we attempted to investigate how the emotional content of words modulates cerebral functioning (event-related potentials, ERPs) and behavior (reaction times, RTs) when the content is task-irrelevant (emotional Stroop Task, EST) or task-relevant (emotional categorization task, ECT), in a sample of healthy middle-aged women. In the EST, the RTs were longer for emotional words than for neutral words, and in the ECT, they were longer for neutral and negative words than for positive words. A principal components analysis of the ERPs identified various temporospatial factors that were differentially modified by emotional content. P2 was the first emotion-sensitive component, with enhanced factor scores for negative nouns across tasks. The N2 and late positive complex had enhanced factor scores for emotional relative to neutral information only in the ECT. The results reinforce the idea that written emotional information has a preferential processing route, both when it is task-irrelevant (producing behavioral interference) and when it is task-relevant (facilitating the categorization). After early automatic processing of the emotional content, late ERPs become more emotionally modulated as the level of attention to the valence increases.     

Making Common Sense of Vaccines: An Example of Discussing the Recombinant Attenuated Salmonella Vaccine with the Public

Researchers have iterated that the future of synthetic biology and biotechnology lies in novel consumer applications of crossing biology with engineering. However, if the new biology’s future is to be sustainable, early and serious efforts must be made towards social sustainability. Therefore, the crux of new applications of synthetic biology and biotechnology is public understanding and acceptance. The RASVaccine is a novel recombinant design not found in nature that re-engineers a common bacteria (Salmonella) to produce a strong immune response in humans. Synthesis of the RASVaccine has the potential to improve public health as an inexpensive, non-injectable product. But how can scientists move forward to create a dialogue of creating a ‘common sense’ of this new technology in order to promote social sustainability? This paper delves into public issues raised around these novel technologies and uses the RASVaccine as an example of meeting the public with a common sense of its possibilities and limitations.