Age-related differences in the use of background layout in visual search

The effect of background layout on visual search performance, and more specifically on the tendency to refixate previously inspected locations and objects, was investigated. Older and younger adults performed a search task in which a background layout or landmark was present or absent in a gaze contingent visual search paradigm. Regardless of age, participants demonstrated fewer refixations when landmarks were present, with older adults showing a larger landmark advantage. This visual search advantage did not come at the cost of saccadic latency. Furthermore, the visual search performance advantage obtained in the presence of a background layout or landmark was observed both for individuals with small and large memory spans.     

Construct and Criterion‐Related Validation of a Measure of Emotional Reasoning Skills: A two‐study investigation

In a two‐study investigation, the construct and criterion‐related validities of the Test of Emotional Intelligence, an ability‐based measure of emotional reasoning skills, were examined. In Study 1, as hypothesized, emotional reasoning skills were related to emotion recognition ability (i.e., as measured by Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy), emotional empathy, and three measures of successful social functioning (i.e., social astuteness, interpersonal influence, and apparent sincerity) assessed by peers, after controlling for personality and occupational environment characteristics. In Study 2, results from a predictive validation study demonstrated that Emotional Intelligence explained additional variance in overall job performance ratings beyond general mental ability and personality traits. Contributions and implications of this research investigation, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Integrating core conflictual relationship themes in neurobiological assessment of interpersonal processes in psychotherapy

Interpersonal processes are a key target in counselling and psychotherapy. It is of paramount importance to sharpen their assessment using integrated methods. Hence, this methodological paper describes how fields of research in psychotherapy and neuroimaging can be integrated into one novel complementary neurobehavioural paradigm that can be applied to enhance our understanding of interpersonal processes in psychotherapy. To illustrate this integration, we present selected data from a pre–post pilot study where the authors assessed interpersonal processes in brief treatment for borderline personality disorder using the core conflictual relationship theme, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and outcome questionnaires. To do so, they measured individual changes in neural activity using an fMRI task pre‐ and post‐treatment where clients gave feedback on the emotional valence of sentences extracted from their own Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm interviews mixed with neutral ones. In this paper, using data from two participants of said study, we discuss how to implement this methodology and what can be achieved in terms of results.     

Managing Uncertainty During a Corporate Acquisition

This study examined pilots' (N at T1 = 140; N at T2 = 126; N at T3 = 104) reactions to communication and uncertainty during the acquisition of their airline by another airline. Quantitative results indicate that communication helped to reduce uncertainty and was predictive of affective responses to the acquisition. However, contrary to expectations, reductions in uncertainty did not lead to more positive affective responses. In addition, while pilots felt more job security over time, they developed less positive attitudes toward the acquisition. Qualitative data indicated that this occurred because the pilots felt more secure about having a job since the acquiring organization was more financially solvent, but that they were dissatisfied with how their seniority was credited. These results contribute to an increased understanding of the complex relationships among communication, uncertainty, and outcomes in organizational contexts.     

Rank on Emotional Intelligence,Unlearning and Self-Leadership

Propelled from the inner circle after publishing The Trauma of Birth (1924), Otto Rank jettisoned Freud's science of knowing because it denied the intelligence of the emotions. Transforming therapy from knowing to being-in-relationship, Rank invented modern object-relations theory, which advocates continual learning, unlearning and relearning: that is, cutting the chains that bind us to the past. Separating, no matter how anxiety-provoking, from outworn phases of life, including previously taken-for-granted ideologies and internalized others, is essential for self-leadership. In 1926, Rank coined the terms “here-and-now” and “pre-Oedipal.” By 1926, Rank had formulated a model of “creative willing”—self-leadership infused with the intelligence of the emotions—as the optimal way of being-in-relationship with others.     

Object-based control of attention is sensitive to recent experience

How is attention guided by past experience? In visual search, numerous studies have shown that recent trials influence responses to the current trial. Repeating features such as color, shape, or location of a target facilitates performance. Here we examine whether recent experience also modulates a more abstract dimension of attentional control, object-based and location-based control. Participants performed a cued target discrimination task with stimuli presented on 2 rectangles. Response times to targets appearing in an uncued location on a cued rectangle were faster than to targets on the uncued rectangle, demonstrating an object-based attentional benefit. We investigated the object-based benefit on the current trial contingent on the cue-target relationship on the previous trial. The object-based benefit was significant only when the cued object contained the target on the previous trial, not when the uncued object contained the target. This effect of recent experience was not due to either the repetition of spatial cue-target location or the repetition of the response, but to adaptation to contingencies in the environment. Our results suggest a unifying view of attentional control that spans the concrete dimensions of control (e.g., determining the relative importance of red vs. blue) to the abstract (determining the relative importance of objects vs. locations in space). Attention closely tracks the short time scale structure of the environment and automatically adapts to optimize performance to this structure.     

Forgetting Trauma: Socially Shared Retrieval‐induced Forgetting and Post‐traumatic Stress Disorder

Memory for related but unpracticed aspects of an event can be impaired by selectively retrieving parts of the same event. This occurs when selective retrieval [within‐individual retrieval‐induced forgetting (WI‐RIF)] is undertaken by individuals and has been extended to social contexts—RIF can be produced in listeners [socially shared retrieval‐induced forgetting (SS‐RIF)] by a speaker's selective recounting. The effects of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on WI‐RIF and SS‐RIF were examined by two experiments. In Experiment 1, combat veterans (with or without PTSD) and non‐veteran dyads participated in a RIF paired‐associates paradigm adapted for combat‐related stimuli. WI‐RIF and SS‐RIF occurred for combat‐related and neutral pairs regardless of group. However, greater WI‐RIF and SS‐RIF for combat‐related words were shown by individuals with PTSD. These findings were replicated by Experiment 2, in which either a combat‐related or neutral story was learned by participants, and selective retrieval was embedded in a conversation. That the selective retrieval of trauma‐related stimuli leads to enhancement of induced forgetting for individuals with PTSD under certain conditions is suggested by these data. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Révéler son humanité ? L’autorévélation du thérapeute à la lumière de la recherche empirique

Self-disclosure, which consists in revealing personal information about oneself to one's client, could be a beneficial therapeutic technique. There are yet many definitions of this concept. However, empirical research shows that self-disclosure may be favourably perceived by clients and that it could influence how they perceive their therapist. Moreover, it could positively influence treatment outcome. Self-disclosure about immediate feelings in the therapy and about the therapist–client relationship would be particularly effective in resolving problematic events by enabling feelings to be expressed and accepted and by providing clients with interpersonnal learning. Several authors finally advise using this technique infrequently, about moderately intimate but relevant themes in relation to the therapy, examining each client's specific needs, and always with the intention of helping them or improving the therapeutic relationship.     

Modulation of oculomotor capture by abrupt onsets during attentionally demanding visual search

The influence of abrupt onsets on attentionally demanding visual search (i.e., search for a letter target among heterogeneous letter distractors), as indexed by performance and eye movement measures, was investigated in a series of studies. In Experiments 1 and 2 we examined whether onsets would capture the eyes when the appearance of an onset predicted neither the location nor the identity of the target. Subjects did direct their eyes to the abrupt onsets on a disproportionate number of trials in these studies. Interestingly, however, onset capture was modulated by subjects' scan strategies. Furthermore, onsets captured the eyes less frequently than would have been predicted by paradigms showing attentional capture when no eye movements are required. Experiment 3 examined the question of whether onsets would capture the eyes in a situation in which they never served as the target. Capture was observed in this study. However, the magnitude of capture effects was substantially diminished as compared to previous behavioural studies in which the onset had a chance probability of serving as the target. These data are discussed in terms of the influence of top-down constraints on stimulus-driven attentional and oculomotor capture by abrupt onset stimuli.