Emotional processing in people with obsessive-compulsive symptomatology

The present study was aimed at assessing obsessive-compulsive symptomatology based on visualization of affective pictures, elaborated following Peter Lang's dimensional model of emotion. Participants were 370 psychology students at Malaga University, selecting those with high and low scores in obsessive-compulsive symptomatology. All participants assessed a set of pictures containing obsessive-compulsive cues using the three scales of the Self-Assessment Manikin: affective valence, arousal, and control/dominance. The results show that participants with high scores in obsessive-compulsive symptomatology experience reduced control over the affective pictures and rate as more unpleasant the neutral and obsessive-compulsive pictures.     

Motor inhibition, reflection impulsivity, and trait impulsivity in pathological skin picking

Pathological skin picking (PSP) is often recognized as an impulse control disorder. The current study sought to investigate the relationship between PSP and different forms of impulsivity. University students that met criteria for PSP (n = 55) and university students without history of PSP (n = 55) answered a multidimensional impulsivity questionnaire (the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale) and completed 2 neurocognitive tasks that assess impulsivity (the Stop Signal Task and the Information Sampling Task). The PSP group scored significantly higher than the control group on the negative and positive urgency subscales of the UPPS, but the groups did not differ on other subscales or the neurocognitive tasks. Logistic regression demonstrated that the urgency scales added to the prediction of PSP after negative affect and other forms of impulsivity were adjusted for. The results indicate that PSP sufferers are characterized by emotion-based impulsivity and do not appear to be impulsive in other ways.     

NEW PHENOMENOLOGY IN FRANCE

Phenomenology is a basic philosophical movement belonging to what is called “continental philosophy.” Recently, a new phenomenology has emerged in France. In the period from Levinas and Henry to Marion and Richir, it has become evident that the phenomenon as such cannot be reduced to a mere constitution by intentional consciousness; rather, it must be considered as an event of appearing that establishes itself by itself. This fundamental insight entails important consequences: on the one hand, a new concept of the subject has been elaborated; on the other hand, a new approach to effective reality and objectivity has been developed. Idealism is overcome, transcendentalism is revised and reinterpreted. These changes will certainly have an impact on the destiny of continental philosophy.     

Schizophrenia and modern culture: reasons for insanity

After pointing out the uncertainty and confusion to which neurobiological research has led schizophrenia, as shown and acknowledged in recent reviews, we offer seven reasons for reconsidering schizophrenia a disorder of the self, rather than of the brain. The first reason starts out conceiving schizophrenia as a disorder of the self, in the perspective of current phenomenology. The second relates the fact of its recent origin (as of 1750) with the particular configuration of the modern self and with the great transformation of the community into a society of individuals (industrialization, urbanization). The third reason emphasizes the affinity between schizophrenia and adolescence, a critical age in the formation of the self, which started to be problematic at the end of the 18th century. The fourth is the better prognosis of schizophrenia in developing countries, in comparison to developed countries, which probably has to do with the process of modernization (which still maintains community structures in less developed countries). The fifth is the high incidence of schizophrenia among immigrants, as a fact to be explained in terms of a socio-evolutionary model. The sixth reason reviews the genetic legend of schizophrenia, and how epigenetics gives protagonism back to the environment. The seventh and last reason refers to the reconsideration of psychological therapy as the possible treatment of choice and not merely an adjunct to medication, as it is known that, for patients, interpersonal chemistry is more important than neurochemistry.     

Imputation methods for missing data in educational diagnostic evaluation

In the diagnostic evaluation of educational systems, self-reports are commonly used to collect data, both cognitive and orectic. For various reasons, in these self-reports, some of the students' data are frequently missing. The main goal of this research is to compare the performance of different imputation methods for missing data in the context of the evaluation of educational systems. On an empirical database of 5,000 subjects, 72 conditions were simulated: three levels of missing data, three types of loss mechanisms, and eight methods of imputation. The levels of missing data were 5%, 10%, and 20%. The loss mechanisms were set at: Missing completely at random, moderately conditioned, and strongly conditioned. The eight imputation methods used were: listwise deletion, replacement by the mean of the scale, by the item mean, the subject mean, the corrected subject mean, multiple regression, and Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm, with and without auxiliary variables. The results indicate that the recovery of the data is more accurate when using an appropriate combination of different methods of recovering lost data. When a case is incomplete, the mean of the subject works very well, whereas for completely lost data, multiple imputation with the EM algorithm is recommended. The use of this combination is especially recommended when data loss is greater and its loss mechanism is more conditioned. Lastly, the results are discussed, and some future lines of research are analyzed.     

(Re)Building an Image for a City: Is A Landmark Enough? Bilbao and the Guggenheim Museum, 10 Years Together1

The new global economic scenario has driven cities to urban entrepreneurialism and to a holistic marketing approach to define and manage successful redevelopment projects. Positioning in the chosen target market requires an image and a brand to communicate the city values, the assets that make her unique and better than her competitors. Urban design based on iconic buildings is one of the models of the culture‐led regeneration programs that are being developed to re‐image the city, to make her an attractive tourist destination. The present study analyzed the image and perception of Bilbao 10 years after the opening of the Guggenheim Museum, and concluded that more than the spectacular landmark should be considered to create a new image.     

Choice in Transition,Changeover Response Requirements,and Local Preference

The Psychological Record - Rats responded for food on concurrent random interval schedules arranging seven unsignaled food-rate ratios within sessions. Pressing a changeover lever allowed...     

Sublexical and Lexico-Syntactic Factors in Gender Access in Spanish

The influence of sublexical and lexico-syntactic factors during the grammatical gender assignment process in Spanish was studied in two experiments using the gender decision task. In Experiment 1, the regularity of the ending of gender-marked nouns (masculine nouns ended in $-o$ and feminine nouns ended in $-a$ ) and of nouns with gender-correlated but unmarked word-endings (e.g., $-ad$ ) was manipulated. The results showed that regularity affected reaction times and error rates only in the case of gender-marked nouns, suggesting that the mere statistical distribution of a word-ending across genders is not responsible for the regularity effect. In Experiment 2, gender-marked nouns and gender-unmarked nouns were preceded by a masked prime which could be a definite article (which provides information about the gender of the noun) or a possessive pronoun (which does not contain gender information). The presentation of the definite article led to shorter reaction times and less errors only when the word-ending was different from $-o$ or $-a$ . Taken together, these results indicate that gender assignment in Spanish is carried out through different processes depending on the noun ending: gender decisions for gender-marked nouns are based on the gender-to-ending distribution. Meanwhile, gender decisions for unmarked nouns seem to require the retrieval of the corresponding definite grammatical article, regardless of the statistical distribution of the noun ending across genders.     

Tourist Assessment of Archaeological Sites: The Case of The Archaeological Complex of Itálica (Seville,Spain)

ABSTRACT

Few studies have examined visitors’ assessments of their stay at archaeological complexes. This study analyzed this issue, focusing on Itálica (Seville, Spain). The results show that three factors are important in assessing a visit: quality of service, perceived sacrifice and satisfaction. With regard to these three factors, significant differences were found depending on whether the visitor had previously been to Itálica and where he or she came from. From these results, the authors have identified possible ways of improving the services provided, and, consequently, visitor satisfaction.