The lights are on but no one’s home: Meta-awareness and the decoupling of attention when the mind wanders

In a recent review, we suggested that an important aspect of mind-wandering is whether participants are aware that they are off task (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). We tested this hypothesis by examining the informationprocessing correlates of mind wandering with and without awareness in a task requiring participants to encode words and detect targets with either a high or a low probability. Target detection was measured via response inhibition. Mind wandering in the absence of awareness was associated with a failure to supervise task performance, as indicated by short RTs, and was predictive of failures in response inhibition. Under conditions of low target probability, mind wandering was associated with a relative absence of the influence of recollection at retrieval. The results are consistent with the notion that mind wandering involves a state of decoupled attention and emphasizes the importance of meta-awareness of off-task episodes in determining the consequences of these mental states.     

Explicit Sexual Movie Viewing in the United States According to Selected Marriage and Lifestyle,Work and Financial,Religion and Political Factors

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate explicit sexual movie use among men and women in the United States according to relationship, lifestyle, work, financial, religious, and political factors. Analyses involved 11,372 adults who responded to questions about demographics and explicitly sexual movie use in the General Social Survey (GSS) from 2000 to 2014. Viewing of an explicit sexual movie in the previous year was significantly greater in men than women (35 vs. 16%); Blacks than Whites (33 vs. 22%); and never married (41 vs. 18% married, 31% separated, and 24% divorced). It also decreased with older age, higher education, and more children in the household. After model adjustment for these variables, viewing an explicit sexual movie was associated with a number of relationship, lifestyle, financial, religious, political, and other variables. For example, viewing such movies was related to less happiness in marriage, multiple sex partners in past year, less satisfaction with one’s financial situation, no religious preference, and a more liberal political orientation. The effect of some variables on pornography viewing differed between men and women. For example, out of men and women who consider themselves to be “not spiritual”, men were more likely to view pornography than women. Explicit sexual movie viewing is associated with factors from diverse domains, including poorer relationship quality, more liberal sexual views and practices, poorer economic conditions, lower religious orientation or commitment, and more liberal political views.     

Perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth among college students

Self-esteem scales tend to represent conditional perceptions of self-esteem. The Worth Index has been previously validated as an effective measure for identifying both conditional and unconditional perceptions of worth. We administered the Worth Index to 1,161 college-aged students at Brigham Young University to assess their current perceptions of unconditional and conditional worth. Both men and women agreed more strongly with items involving unconditional worth than conditional worth. A negative correlation was found between ratings of unconditional and conditional worth. Women had lower unconditional worth scores than men, which was related to being more likely to wish they were someone else, desire to have a better body, and to being concerned about weight. Agreement with two overview measures of self-esteem involving a "good" sense of self and stability of self-esteem was positively associated with agreement on statements about unconditional worth. This research shows the importance of incorporating unconditional worth into self-esteem measures.     

The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in outcome encoding in instrumental and Pavlovian conditioning

Considerable evidence suggests that dopamine in the core subregion of the nucleus accumbens is not only involved in Pavlovian conditioning but also supports instrumental performance. However, it is largely unknown whether NAc dopamine is required for outcome encoding which plays an important role both in Pavlovian stimulus-outcome learning and instrumental action-outcome learning. Therefore, we tested rats with 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) induced dopamine depletion of the NAc core for their sensitivity to outcome devaluation in a Pavlovian and an instrumental task. Results indicate that 6-OHDA-lesioned animals were sensitive to outcome devaluation in an instrumental task. This finding provides support to the notion that NAc core dopamine may not be crucial in encoding action-outcome associations. However, during instrumental conditioning lever pressing rates in 6-OHDA-lesioned animals were markedly lower which could reflect an impaired behavioral activation. By contrast, after outcome-specific devaluation in a Pavlovian task, performance in 6-OHDA-lesioned animals was impaired, i.e. their magazine-directed responding was non-selectively reduced. One possibility to explain non-selective responding is that NAc core DA depletion impaired the ability of conditioned stimuli to activate the memory of the current value of the reinforcer.     

Interstitial deletion on chromosome 5q33.3q35.1 in a 6-year-old girl -- neuropsychological findings and follow-up in an extremely rare chromosomal aberration.

Interstitial deletion on chromosome 5q33.3q35.1 is an extremely rare chromosomal aberration for which a characteristic syndrome could not yet be delineated. In most patients with 5q deletions severe mental retardation is described. Recently, Spranger et al. (2000) described the case of a 4-year-old girl with a de novo deletion on 5q33.3q35.1 presenting only with mild psychomotor delay, minor facial anomalies, and seizures. The patient was admitted for outpatient neuropsychological assessment when she was 6.2 years old. Neurocognitive tests revealed an overall developmental delay of about 32 months and an intelligence score in the range of mild mental retardation. Her cognitive phenotype was characterized by a considerable visual-spatial deficit in the form of disorganized drawings or block designs indicating a profound lack of cohesion and overall global organization (decay of gestalt). The patient's behavioral phenotype was dominated by a distinct disinhibition syndrome demonstrating severe hyperactivity, utilization behavior, and aggressive behavior.     

Substance abusers: role of personal and professional role traits in caregivers' causal attributions

Substance abuse continues to be a major health problem compounded by caregivers' negative attitudes toward these patients. We investigated attributions 55 primary care physicians and 315 senior medical students make toward substance abusers. Half of both groups expressed negative causal attributions, with women slightly less negative than men. Mental models based on LISREL regression coefficients showed that higher negative attributions by both physicians and students were related to their increased authoritarianism and depressed mood. Medical students choosing careers in primary care specialties, including psychiatry, expressed a less negative attributional style toward substance abusers than those students entering nonprimary careers. Health professional educators may find that using attribution theory to redefine successful outcomes in management of substance abuse can result in better attitudes for caregivers.     

Locke on the Idea of Substratum

Locke's treatment of substratum is notoriously difficult. Accordingto one commentator, 'nothing else in the writings of any philosopher matches the doubleness of attitude of the passages about substratum in Locke's Essay' (Bennett 1987, 197). The aim of the present paper is to render consistent Locke's seemingly divergent strands on the subject. My efforts are organized around three levels of apparent duplicity. At each level, I argue that the doubleness of attitude in Locke's treatment is merely apparent. I argue further that Locke means to ground an empiricist-friendly idea of substratum in the customary experience of simple ideas that 'go constantly together.'