Iteration of Partially Specified Target Matrices: Application to the Bi-Factor Case

The current study proposes a new bi-factor rotation method, Schmid-Leiman with iterative target rotation (SLi), based on the iteration of partially specified target matrices and an initial target constructed from a Schmid-Leiman (SL) orthogonalization. SLi was expected to ameliorate some of the limitations of the previously presented SL bi-factor rotations, SL and SL with target rotation (SLt), when the factor structure either includes cross-loadings, near-zero loadings, or both. A Monte Carlo simulation was carried out to test the performance of SLi, SL, SLt, and the two analytic bi-factor rotations, bi-quartimin and bi-geomin. The results revealed that SLi accurately recovered the bi-factor structures across the majority of the conditions, and generally outperformed the other rotation methods. SLi provided the biggest improvements over SL and SLt when the bi-factor structures contained cross-loadings and pure indicators of the general factor. Additionally, SLi was superior to bi-quartimin and bi-geomin, which performed inconsistently across the types of factor structures evaluated. No method produced a good recovery of the bi-factor structures when small samples (N = 200) were combined with low factor loadings (0.30–0.50) in the specific factors. Thus, it is recommended that larger samples of at least 500 observations be obtained.     

Social Job Resources as Sources of Meaningfulness and its Effects on Nurses’ Vigor and Emotional Exhaustion: A Cross-Sectional Study Among Spanish Nurses

This study investigates the mediating role of psychological meaningfulness among social job resources (i.e., coworkers and supervisor support), vigor, and emotional exhaustion in a nursing context. In spite of progress in understanding which organizational influence affects nurses’ vigor and emotional exhaustion, the psychological mechanisms assumed to underlie the associations have not been fully explored. The sample for this study consisted of 171 nurses from Spanish hospitals (54.4 %) and Primary Care Centers (45.6 %). The mediation model was tested using the bootstrapping procedure. Our findings confirmed that psychological meaningfulness fully mediates the impact of social job resources on vigor at work. Moreover, psychological meaningfulness partially mediated the impact of social job resources on emotional exhaustion. Results suggest that meaningfulness plays an important role in the connection between job resources, vigor, and emotional exhaustion. The findings contribute to our understanding of the psychological processes that can explain how job resources contribute to the energetic aspect of burnout and engagement among nurses. Providing nurses with more social job resources, such as coworker and supervisor support, could activate their levels of personal meaningfulness and thus enhance their levels of well-being at work.     

Motor skill learning in the middle-aged: limited development of motor chunks and explicit sequence knowledge

The present study examined whether middle-aged participants, like young adults, learn movement patterns by preparing and executing integrated sequence representations (i.e., motor chunks) that eliminate the need for external guidance of individual movements. Twenty-four middle-aged participants (aged 55–62) practiced two fixed key press sequences, one including three and one including six key presses in the discrete sequence production task. Their performance was compared with that of 24 young adults (aged 18–28). In the middle-aged participants motor chunks as well as explicit sequence knowledge appeared to be less developed than in the young adults. This held especially with respect to the unstructured 6-key sequences in which most middle-aged did not develop independence of the key-specific stimuli and learning seems to have been based on associative learning. These results are in line with the notion that sequence learning involves several mechanisms and that aging affects the relative contribution of these mechanisms.     

Can angelfish (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pterophyllum scalare</Emphasis>) count? Discrimination between different shoal sizes follows Weber’s law

The ability to discriminate between larger and smaller quantities has been demonstrated in several mammalian and avian species suggesting the possibility of evolutionary conservation of this characteristic. Preference for the larger of two groups has also been shown in fish species, although this ability has rarely been systematically studied in lower order vertebrates, and thus the mechanisms of such ability are not understood. Here, we exploit the tendency of angelfish to seek protection in an unfamiliar environment by joining a group of conspecifics, a behaviour called shoaling. Test fish were given a simultaneous choice between shoals varying both in terms of numerical ratios and absolute numbers of fish. Our results provide evidence for quantity discrimination in angelfish. In general, experimental subjects chose the larger of two shoals. Furthermore, in agreement with Weber’s law, which holds that discrimination between two quantities depends on their ratio, the discrimination between shoals of different quantities of fish was more difficult when the shoal sizes became more similar. The limit of discrimination ratio was found to be below 2:1. Briefly, angelfish are able to discriminate between different quantities of conspecifics subject to a ratio limit, a finding that implies a fitness component in this behaviour similar to what has been demonstrated in higher order vertebrates.     

Effects of spatial frequency content on classification of face gender and expression

The role of different spatial frequency bands on face gender and expression categorization was studied in three experiments. Accuracy and reaction time were measured for unfiltered, low-pass (cut-off frequency of 1 cycle/deg) and high-pass (cutoff frequency of 3 cycles/deg) filtered faces. Filtered and unfiltered faces were equated in root-mean-squared contrast. For low-pass filtered faces reaction times were higher than unfiltered and high-pass filtered faces in both categorization tasks. In the expression task, these results were obtained with expressive faces presented in isolation (Experiment 1) and also with neutral-expressive dynamic sequences where each expressive face was preceded by a briefly presented neutral version of the same face (Experiment 2). For high-pass filtered faces different effects were observed on gender and expression categorization. While both speed and accuracy of gender categorization were reduced comparing to unfiltered faces, the efficiency of expression classification remained similar. Finally, we found no differences between expressive and non expressive faces in the effects of spatial frequency filtering on gender categorization (Experiment 3). These results show a common role of information from the high spatial frequency band in the categorization of face gender and expression.     

The Social Phobia Inventory: screening and cross-cultural validation in Spanish adolescents

Availability of brief, self-report measures to be used as screening instruments is crucial to detect correctly youth with social anxiety disorder and therefore, reach those otherwise under-detected and under-treated. A previous study revealed that the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) was potentially an appropriate measure for screening social anxiety among US adolescents. However, there is a lack of information concerning its properties as a screening test in other cultures and languages. This is the main objective of this study, although further validity of the scale is provided as well. The sample consisted of 192 adolescents (a sample composed of 114 subjects with a principal diagnosis of social anxiety disorder; and a group consisting of 78 subjects with no diagnosis of social phobia). Results suggest that the Social Phobia Inventory has demonstrated good psychometric properties and indeed may be used as a screening tool in Spanish-speaking adolescents.     

The Psychoanalytic Conception of Trauma in Ferenczi and the Question of Temporality

A reciprocal and ongoing interaction about theory and clinical technique developed between Freud and Ferenczi in the years from 1908 to 1933. During the course of this ongoing dialogue, the concept of psychic trauma gradually transformed. Ferenczi continued to elaborate on this issue, and concluded with his work on the interaction of trauma and fantasy. Ferenczi initially refuted Freud's early trauma theses and finally conceptualized a metapsychological reformulation of trauma, an inverse development to Freud's formulations. Ferenczi highlighted two essential concepts in the theory and technique of trauma: the processes of identification and the splitting of the ego, while he stressed the enormous role of disavowal in the dynamics of trauma. The author hopes to demonstrate how Ferenczi's contributions added to developments of the concepts of disavowal and temporality, to the recovery of traumatic memory and the modification of the classical concept of interpretations.     

Mental workload and visual impairment: differences between pupil, blink, and subjective rating

This research has two aims: (a) To study the concurrent validity of three measures of mental workload, NASA TLX rating scale, pupil dilation and blink rate, testing the hypothesis that they will provide convergent results using a single-task, and dissociative results for dual-task; and (b) To analyse their capability to predict visual search impairment. These three measures were analyzed in the same cognitive tasks in single-task and dual-task (cognitive task and visual search) conditions in a within-subjects experiment with twenty-nine participants. Mental workload measures showed concurrent validity under single-task condition, but a complex pattern of results arose in the dual-task condition: it is suggested that NASA TLX would be a subjective addition of the rating of each task; pupil dilation would measure the average arousal underlying the cognitive tasks; and the blink rate would produce opposite effects: whereas mental workload of cognitive tasks would increase blink rate, visual demand would inhibit it. All three measures were good predictors of visual impairment. The soundness of these measures is discussed with regard to the applied field of driving and other activities.     

Analysis of effects of distribution of practice in learning and retention of a continuous and a discrete skill presented on a computer

This investigation examined the effects of distributed and massed practice on the learning and retention of a discrete computerized skill (Exp. 1) and a continuous computerized skill (Exp. 2). 40 men were randomly assigned to one of four groups, of which two groups took part in Exp. 1 and two groups in Exp. 2. Performance was assessed at various points during acquisition and then on 8 retention tests conducted at varying times after acquisition. Learning curves for practice were highly similar for the two conditions. Participants in the distributed-practice group performed significantly better than those in the massed-practice group at the end of practice on both the discrete and continuous skills. However, participants in the distributed-practice group performed significantly more poorly on retention during 24 hr. and after acquisition. Participants in the massed-practice condition performed significantly better on retention tests than did those who learned in the distributed-practice condition.