The Personal Significance of Religiousness and Spirituality in Patients With Schizophrenia

Religiousness and spirituality were examined in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Features and subjective significance are described, and associations with psychopathological phenomena are analyzed. The majority of the patients reported that religiousness and spirituality serve a vital positive influence in their ability to cope with their disorder. This positive influence was observed less among those patients with more negative symptoms. The spiritual experience of a divine presence was a common part of spirituality for our respondents, independent of psychopathology, whereas more extraordinary spiritual experiences were associated with certain psychopathological symptoms. Religious patients ruminated less than nonreligious patients did on existential issues, especially regarding the meaning of life, which, together with self-acceptance, was among the key existential issues for these patients.     

An electrophysiological study of the object-based correspondence effect: Is the effect triggered by an intended grasping action?

We examined Goslin, Dixon, Fischer, Cangelosi, and Ellis’s (Psychological Science 23:152–157, 2012) claim that the object-based correspondence effect (i.e., faster keypress responses when the orientation of an object’s graspable part corresponds with the response location than when it does not) is the result of object-based attention (vision–action binding). In Experiment 1, participants determined the category of a centrally located object (kitchen utensil vs. tool), as in Goslin et al.’s study. The handle orientation (left vs. right) did or did not correspond with the response location (left vs. right). We found no correspondence effect on the response times (RTs) for either category. The effect was also not evident in the P1 and N1 components of the event-related potentials, which are thought to reflect the allocation of early visual attention. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 for centrally located objects, even when the object was presented 45 times (33 more times than in Exp. 1). Critically, the correspondence effects on RTs, P1s, and N1s emerged only when the object was presented peripherally, so that the object handle was clearly located to the left or right of fixation. Experiment 3 provided further evidence that the effect was observed only for the base-centered objects, in which the handle was clearly positioned to the left or right of center. These findings contradict those of Goslin et al. and provide no evidence that an intended grasping action modulates visual attention. Instead, the findings support the spatial-coding account of the object-based correspondence effect.     

Even frequent and expected words are not identified without spatial attention

Previous studies have disagreed about the extent to which people extract meaning from words presented outside the focus of spatial attention. The present study examined a possible explanation for such discrepancies inspired by attenuation theory: Unattended words can be read more automatically when they are expected within a given context (e.g., due to frequent repetition). We presented a brief prime word in lowercase, followed by a target word in uppercase. Participants indicated whether the target word belonged to a particular category (e.g., “sports”). When we used a visual cue to draw attention to the location of the prime word, it produced substantial priming effects on target responses (i.e., especially fast responses when the prime and target words were identical or from the same category). When prime words were not attended, however, they produced no priming effects. This finding replicated even when there were only four words, each repeated 160 times during the experiment. It appears that very little word processing is possible without spatial attention, even for words that are expected and frequently presented.     

Contingent attentional capture by top-down control settings: converging evidence from event-related potentials

Theories of attentional control are divided over whether the capture of spatial attention depends primarily on stimulus salience or is contingent on attentional control settings induced by task demands. The authors addressed this issue using the N2-posterior- contralateral (N2pc) effect, a component of the event-related brain potential thought to reflect attentional allocation. They presented a cue display followed by a target display of 4 letters. Each display contained a green item and a red item. Some participants responded to the red letter and others to the green letter. Converging lines of evidence indicated that attention was captured by the cues with the same color as the target. First, these target-color cues produced a cuing validity effect on behavioral measures. Second, distractors appearing in the cued location produced larger compatibility effects. Third, the target-color cue produced a robust N2pc effect, similar in magnitude to the N2pc effect to the target itself. Furthermore, the target-color cue elicited a similar N2pc effect regardless of whether it competed with a simultaneous abrupt onset. The findings provide converging evidence for attentional capture contingent on top-down control settings.     

Is the psychological refractory period effect for ideomotor compatible tasks eliminated by speed-stress instructions?

It has been argued that the psychological refractory period (PRP) effect is eliminated with two ideomotor compatible tasks when instructions stress fast and simultaneous responding. Three experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In all experiments, Task 1 required spatially compatible manual responses (left or right) to the direction of an arrow, and Task 2 required saying the name of the auditory letter A or B. In Experiments 1 and 3, the manual responses were keypresses made with the left and right hands, whereas in Experiment 2 they were left-right toggle-switch movements made with the dominant hand. Instructions that stressed response speed reduced reaction time and increased error rate compared to standard instructions to respond fast and accurately, but did not eliminate the PRP effect on Task 2 reaction time. These results imply that, even when response speed is emphasized, ideomotor compatible tasks do not bypass response selection.     

The Role of Attachment and Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies in the Development of Bulimic Symptoms in Adolescents

Following the theoretical propositions of the Emotion Regulation model of attachment, the current study investigated whether attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance might play a differential contributing role in the development of bulimic symptoms, through assumed differences in adopting specific maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in a sample of adolescents. Developmentally appropriate self-report questionnaires were administered to a community sample of 397 adolescents (Mean age: 14.02; 62.7% female) and this at 2 time points with a 1-year time lag. Results provided longitudinal evidence for the Emotion Regulation model of attachment in confirming the differential contributing role of the attachment dimensions on the development of bulimic symptoms in a sample of adolescents. More specifically, attachment anxiety seemed to be related to bulimic symptoms through rumination, while attachment avoidance through emotional control. These results may have clinical implications for assessment and treatment of bulimic symptoms in adolescents.     

Distinguishing genuine from spurious causes: a coherence hypothesis

Two opposing views have been proposed to explain how people distinguish genuine causes from spurious ones: the power view and the covariational view. This paper notes two phenomena that challenge both views. First, even when 1) there is no innate specific causal knowledge about a regularity (so that the power view does not apply) and 2) covariation cannot be computed while controlling for alternative causes (so that the covariation view should not apply), people are still able to systematically judge whether a regularity is causal. Second, when an alternative cause explains the effect, a spurious cause is judged to be spurious with greater confidence than otherwise (in both cases, no causal mechanism underlies the spurious cause). To fill the gap left by the traditional views, this paper proposes a new integration of these views. According to the coherence hypothesis, although a genuine cause and a spurious one may both covary with an effect in a way that does not imply causality at some level of abstraction, the categories to which these candidate causes belong covary with the effect differently at a more abstract level: one covariation implies causality; the other does not. Given this superordinate knowledge, the causal judgments of a reasoner who seeks to explain as much as possible with as few causal rules as possible will exhibit the properties that challenge the traditional views. Two experiments tested and supported the coherence hypothesis. Both experiments involved candidate causes that covary with an effect without implying causality at some level, manipulating whether covariation that implies causality has been acquired at a more abstract level. The experiments differed on whether an alternative cause explains the effect.     

On the difficulty of task switching: Assessing the role of task-set inhibition

This study assessed whether or not the difficulty of task switching stems from previous inhibition of the task set. A predictable sequence of univalent stimuli (affording performance of one active task) and bivalent stimuli (affording performance of two tasks) was used in two experiments. Experiment 1 used an alternating-runs paradigm (AABB) and Experiment 2 used a strictly alternating sequence (ABAB). The critical variable was whether the incentive for task-set inhibition was strong (on bivalent trials) or weak (on univalent trials). The question was whether it would be more difficult to switch to a task that previously needed to be inhibited than to a task that did not need to be inhibited. This pattern was not observed in either experiment. Thus, the data provide no evidence that task switching is difficult because of the need to overcome recent task-set inhibition.     

Confirming and disconfirming theories about ideomotor compatibility in dual-task performance: a reply to Greenwald (2005)

Because small dual-task costs with ideomotor-compatible tasks do not necessarily indicate the absence of a bottleneck, M.-C. Lien, R. S. McCann, E. Ruthruff, and R. W. Proctor (2005) considered additional sources of evidence regarding bottleneck bypass. This evidence argued against complete bottleneck bypass and, instead, supported an engage-bottleneck-later model in which early bottleneck substages are bypassed but late substages are not. A. G. Greenwald (2005), however, contended that M.-C. Lien et al. did not use the procedures needed to produce complete bottleneck bypass and that a complete bottleneck bypass hypothesis, combined with additional assumptions, could explain their data. The authors contend that this disagreement stems from Greenwald's focus on confirming predictions of complete bottleneck bypass (small dual-task costs) without disconfirming predictions of bottleneck presence. In particular, Greenwald neglects to consider the possibility that a latent bottleneck limitation could also produce small dual-task costs.