A truth that’s told with bad intent: An ERP study of deception

Human social cognition critically relies on the ability to deceive others. However, the cognitive and neural underpinnings of deception are still poorly understood. Why does lying place increased demands on cognitive control? The present study investigated whether cognitive control processes during deception are recruited due to the need to inhibit a tendency to state the truth, or reflect deceptive intent more generally. We engaged participants in a face-to-face interaction game and examined event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while participants lied and told the truth with or without deceptive intention. The same medial frontal negative deflection (N450) occurred when participants lied and when they told the truth with deceptive intent. This suggests that the main challenge of lying is not to inhibit a tendency to state the truth. Rather, the challenge is to handle the cognitive conflict resulting from the need to keep others’ mental states in mind while deceiving them.     

Krishna in heroes square: Devotees of Krishna and national identity in post-communist Hungary

In the present research note I deal with two different Krishna-admiring new religious communities in Hungary: the Hungarian Vaisnava Hindu Association and the students of Govinda Maharaja led by Attila Bakos. I focus on the way they intend to find their place and role in current Hungarian society. I concentrate on their relationship with national identity, as the situation of national identity is an important issue in post-communist Hungary. I demonstrate that the two religious communities aim to combine Indian spirituality and Hungarian national identity. The Hungarian Vaisnava Hindu Association attempts to create a cultural context for the original Indian teachings by keeping some of their religious ceremonies special: they use folkloric elements, like pieces or motives of folk costumes, folksongs, and traditional Hungarian musical instruments. The other community aims to re-interpret Hungary's official history and to prove that Hungarian cultural traditions and Indian spirituality are not alien to each other. I rely on various interviews with members and analysis of the communities' publications.     

Obediencia institucional en el laboratorio

Resumen

La presente investigación consistió en una réplica de los paradigmas experimentales de Milgram y Darley y Latané sobre conformidad y conducta de ayuda. Se utilizaron 28 S divididos en un grupo de control y uno experimental. La V.I. era la presencia o ausencia de una supuesta víctima que, en una estancia contigua, recibía descargas eléctricas contra su voluntad. La V.D. estudiada era la obediencia o no a las instrucciones del experimentador por parte de los S en ambas situaciones. Los resultados confirman los de anteriores trabajos al observarse altos porcentajes de conductas conformistas. Por último se discuten tales datos en base a su relevancia ecológica.     

Discourse-based emotional consistency modulates early and middle components of event-related potentials

In this study, participants read stories describing emotional episodes with either a positive or negative valence (Experiment 1). Following each story, participants were exposed to short sentences referring to the protagonist, and the event-related potential (ERP) for each sentence's last word was recorded. Some sentences described the protagonist's emotion, either consistent or inconsistent with the story; others were neutral; and others involved a semantically anomalous word. Inconsistent emotions were found to elicit larger N100/P200 and N400 than consistent emotions. However, when participants were exposed to the same critical sentences in a control experiment (Experiment 2) in which the stories had been removed, emotional consistency effects disappeared in all ERP components, demonstrating that these effects were discourse-level phenomena. By contrast, the ordinary N400 effect for locally anomalous words in the sentence was obtained both with and without story context. In conclusion, reading stories describing events with emotional significance determines strong and very early anticipations of an emotional word.     

Estrategias de comprensión del lenguaje. El desarrollo de la capacidad metalingüística

RESUMEN

Es este un artículo dedicado a la capacidad metalingüística, en la compresión de lenguaje, en el que se precisan algunas de las ideas de anteriores trabajos, sobre la génesis de la capacidad metalingüística del niño. Se basa el trabajo en la necesidad de emplear claves contextuales en las funciones de compresión (de la distinción sujeto-objeto, en este caso). La investigación presentada permite establecer varios niveles en las estrategias de compresión y captación de errores lingüísticos, centrándose especialmente en un nivel “intermedio” de desarrollo de la competencia metalingüística, caracterizado por respuestas oscilatorias entre los niños que requieren claves contextuales (aunque sean internas) para permitir la comprensión y aquellos otros, de nivel “formal”, en que dichas claves ya no son necesarias y de una captación consistente de los errores lingüísticos.     

Adaptive n-back training does not improve fluid intelligence at the construct level: Gains on individual tests suggest that training may enhance visuospatial processing

Short-term adaptive cognitive training based on the n-back task is reported to increase scores on individual ability tests, but the key question of whether such increases generalize to the intelligence construct is not clear. Here we evaluate fluid/abstract intelligence (Gf), crystallized/verbal intelligence (Gc), working memory capacity (WMC), and attention control (ATT) using diverse measures, with equivalent versions, for estimating any changes at the construct level after training. Beginning with a sample of 169 participants, two groups of twenty-eight women each were selected and matched for their general cognitive ability scores and demographic variables. Under strict supervision in the laboratory, the training group completed an intensive adaptive training program based on the n-back task (visual, auditory, and dual versions) across twenty-four sessions distributed over twelve weeks. Results showed that this group had the expected systematic improvements in n-back performance over time; this performance systematically correlated across sessions with Gf, Gc, and WMC, but not with ATT. However, the main finding showed no significant changes in the assessed psychological constructs for the training group as compared with the control group. Nevertheless, post-hoc analyses suggested that specific tests and tasks tapping visuospatial processing might be sensitive to training.     

Content and strategy in syllogistic reasoning.

Syllogistic reasoning has been investigated as a general deductive process (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991; Revlis, 1975; Rips, 1994). However, several studies have demonstrated the role of cognitive strategies in this type of reasoning. These strategies focus on the method used by the participants (Ford, 1995; Gilhooly, Logie, Wetherick, & Wynn, 1993) and strategies related to different interpretations of the quantified premises (Roberts, Newstead, & Griggs, 2001). In this paper, we propose that content (as well as individual cognitive differences) is an important factor in inducing a certain strategy or method for syllogistic resolution. Specifically, we suggest that syllogisms with a causal conditional premise that can be extended by an agency premise induce the use of a conditional method. To demonstrate this, we carried out two experiments. Experiment 1 provided evidence that this type of syllogism leads participants to draw the predicted conditional conclusions, in contrast with control content syllogisms. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that the drawing of conditional conclusions is based on a causal conditional to an agent representation of the syllogism premises. These results support the role of content as inducing a particular strategy for syllogistic resolution. The implications of these results are discussed.     

Predictors of healthcare resource use in fibromyalgia

This work identifies which psychosocial, clinical and perceived health status factors predict health-resource use in Fibromyalgia (FM), considering the patients' assistance level. Participants were 315 FM patients from Primary Care (PC: n=101) and Rheumatology Services (RS: n=214). Stepwise regression analysis showed that self-efficacy variables were significant predictors of medication intake in PC, and, along with Illness-focused coping, of the health service use. In RS, perceived health status was the best predictor of medication intake. In any case, Pain intensity significantly predicted the use of health resources. These data offer a new perspective for intervention in these patients, taking into account the level of assistance.     

Risk and protective factors in adolescents' drug use, and differences by age and sex

Adolescents' drug use has huge social and personal implications, so it is essential to identify risk and protective factors. In this research, the CTCYS was used with 2440 adolescents to detect risk and protective factors for drug use in the community, family, school and peers/individual; differences in risk and protective factors by age and sex; and relationships between risk and protective factors and substance use. Protective factors are high. Risk factors are high in the community, the school and the individual. Older adolescents have more risks and less protection than the youngest; and there are sex differences, because males have less protection and more risks. The risk factors more closely related to drug use are availability of drugs in the community, family attitudes favourable to drug use, family history of antisocial behaviour, early start and use of drugs by friends, perceived risk and attitudes favourable to drug use. In the protective factors, the role played by social skills for alcohol use is important.