Association of personality with physical,social, and mental activities across the lifespan: Findings from US and French samples

Despite evidence for its health‐related benefits, little is known on the psychological predictors of the participation in leisure activities across the lifespan. Therefore, this study aimed to identify whether personality is associated with a variety of different types of activities, involving physical, cognitive, and social components. The samples included individuals from the second wave of the National Study of Midlife in the United States (N = 3,396) and community‐dwelling French individuals (N = 2,917) aged between 30 and 84. Both samples completed measures of the five‐factor model of personality. To create an activity index, we combined the physical, social, and cognitive (games and developmental) activities performed at least once a month. In both samples, individuals who scored higher on extraversion and openness were more likely to engage in a variety of activity types. The findings were consistent across two samples from different western societies and suggest that extraversion and openness contribute to social, cognitive, and physical functioning across the lifespan.     

When does anxiety help or hinder cognitive test performance? The role of working memory capacity

Cognitive interference theories (e.g. attentional control theory, processing efficiency theory) suggest that high levels of trait anxiety predict adverse effects on the performance of cognitive tasks, particularly those that make high demands on cognitive resources. We tested an interaction hypothesis to determine whether a combination of high anxiety and low working memory capacity (WMC) would predict variance in demanding cognitive test scores. Ninety six adolescents (12‐ to 14‐years‐old) participated in the study, which measured self‐report levels of trait anxiety, working memory, and cognitive test performance. As hypothesized, we found that the anxiety‐WMC interaction explained a significant amount of variance in cognitive test performance (ΔR² .07, p < .01). Trait anxiety was unrelated to cognitive test performance for those adolescents with average WMC scores (β = .13, p > .10). In contrast, trait anxiety was negatively related to test performance in adolescents with low WMC (β = ?.35, p < .05) and positively related to test performance in those with high WMC (β = .49, p < .01). The results of this study suggest that WMC moderates the relationship between anxiety and cognitive test performance and may be a determinant factor in explaining some discrepancies found in the literature. Further research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms involved.     

The Effect of Masculinity on Community Reintegration Following TBI in Military Veterans

The present study examined the effect of level of traditional masculine gender role norms as well as the moderating effect of cognitive flexibility on community reintegration outcomes in a sample of 60 male military veterans who had sustained a traumatic brain injury during deployment. Data were collected through self-report measures and cognitive tests. Results suggested that greater endorsement of traditional masculine gender role beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors was significantly inversely related to the community integration domains of relationships and living skills and not significantly related to work and leisure. The effect of masculinity on healthy living skills was moderated by cognitive flexibility; the protective effect of low masculinity on living skills was only present if the veteran also had high cognitive flexibility skills. Results are discussed in the context of gender role strain, potential limiting aspects of stereotypy on recovery and reintegration, and the importance of cognitive flexibility in the recovery/reintegration process.     

Picturing the Clima(c)tic: Greenpeace and the Representational Politics of Climate Change Communication

Abstract

The concepts and methods used by regulatory agencies worldwide to assess the safety of flavouring additives were designed by and for the flavouring industry. They embody and embed, in routine regulatory practice, the industry's commercial interests in minimising regulatory costs and the risk that the market for its products might be restricted. First sketched out by US flavouring company scientists in the early 1960s, this approach required almost no experimental data, and was highly permissive, relative to both our knowledge (and lack of it) about chemical toxicity and the ways other kinds of food additives are regulated. A ‘realist constructivist’ analysis illustrates how the industry's approach was also anti-scientific and unscientific because it served to discourage scientific investigation of important aspects of the phenomena it purported to evaluate, and because it relied on assumptions and hypotheses that lacked any evidential basis. The industry approach was first used to assess flavourings in the USA, where the industry was allowed to design and run its own regulatory regime. In all other regulatory jurisdictions, the industry's approach was rejected; expert advisors argued that it was incompatible with mandates to protect consumer health. Yet, the approach eventually prevailed everywhere. It did so in large part because of the collective refusal of the flavouring industry over three decades to provide the experimental data that had been requested by the regulatory authorities. This has been a form of regulatory capture, which was triggered by a remarkably effective tactic of non-cooperation with demands for data.     

Target localization after saccades and at fixation: Nontargets both facilitate and bias responses

ABSTRACT

The image on our retina changes every time we make an eye movement. To maintain visual stability after saccades, specifically to locate visual targets, we may use nontarget objects as “landmarks”. In the current study, we compared how the presence of nontargets affects target localization after saccades and during sustained fixation. Participants fixated a target object, which either maintained its location on the screen (sustained-fixation trials), or displaced to trigger a saccade (saccade trials). After the target disappeared, participants reported the most recent target location with a mouse click. We found that the presence of nontargets decreased response error magnitude and variability. However, this nontarget facilitation effect was not larger for saccade trials than sustained-fixation trials, indicating that nontarget facilitation might be a general effect for target localization, rather than of particular importance to post-saccadic stability. Additionally, participants’ responses were biased towards the nontarget locations, particularly when the nontarget-target relationships were preserved in relative coordinates across the saccade. This nontarget bias interacted with biases from other spatial references, e.g., eye movement paths, possibly in a way that emphasized non-redundant information. In summary, the presence of nontargets is one of several sources of reference that combine to influence (both facilitate and bias) target localization.     

The representation and perception of 3D space: Interactions between 2D location and depth

ABSTRACT

We live in a 3D world, and yet the majority of vision research is restricted to 2D phenomena, with depth research typically treated as a separate field. Here we ask whether 2D spatial information and depth information interact to form neural representations of 3D space, and if so, what are the perceptual implications? Using fMRI and behavioural methods, we reveal that human visual cortex gradually transitions from 2D to 3D spatial representations, with depth information emerging later along the visual hierarchy, and demonstrate that 2D location holds a fundamentally special place in early visual processing.     

Eye movements and hazard perception in active and passive driving

ABSTRACT

Differences in eye movement patterns are often found when comparing passive viewing paradigms to actively engaging in everyday tasks. Arguably, investigations into visuomotor control should therefore be most useful when conducted in settings that incorporate the intrinsic link between vision and action. We present a study that compares oculomotor behaviour and hazard reaction times across a simulated driving task and a comparable, but passive, video-based hazard perception task. We found that participants scanned the road less during the active driving task and fixated closer to the front of the vehicle. Participants were also slower to detect the hazards in the driving task. Our results suggest that the interactivity of simulated driving places increased demand upon the visual and attention systems than simply viewing driving movies. We offer insights into why these differences occur and explore the possible implications of such findings within the wider context of driver training and assessment.