The perception of visual emotion: Comparing different measures of awareness

Here, we explore the sensitivity of different awareness scales in revealing conscious reports on visual emotion perception. Participants were exposed to a backward masking task involving fearful faces and asked to rate their conscious awareness in perceiving emotion in facial expression using three different subjective measures: confidence ratings (CRs), with the conventional taxonomy of certainty, the perceptual awareness scale (PAS), through which participants categorize “raw” visual experience, and post-decision wagering (PDW), which involves economic categorization. Our results show that the CR measure was the most exhaustive and the most graded. In contrast, the PAS and PDW measures suggested instead that consciousness of emotional stimuli is dichotomous. Possible explanations of the inconsistency were discussed. Finally, our results also indicate that PDW biases awareness ratings by enhancing first-order accuracy of emotion perception. This effect was possibly a result of higher motivation induced by monetary incentives.     

Cultural influences on terror management: Independent and interdependent self-esteem as anxiety buffers

Terror management theory (TMT) proposes that self-esteem serves as a defense against the fear of death. Previous research has suggested that independent self-esteem is more salient in individualist cultures, whereas interdependent self-esteem is more salient in collectivist cultures. Thus, we hypothesized that in collectivist cultures, independent self-esteem would play a lesser role and interdependent self-esteem a greater role in terror management, compared to individualist cultures. The results support this prediction. In Study 1, personal self-esteem was negatively associated with death anxiety in samples from a Western (Austria) and Eastern (China) culture. However, both self-liking and self-competence were negatively associated with death anxiety among Austrian participants, but only self-liking (and not self-competence) was so among Chinese participants. Surprisingly, collective self-esteem was not significantly correlated with death anxiety. Yet, Study 2 showed that among Chinese participants, relational self-esteem was negatively associated with death anxiety. Study 3 examined the roles of relational versus personal self-esteem in moderating the effects of mortality salience on worldview defense. Among Chinese participants, relational rather than personal self-esteem increased the defense of worldviews centered on collectivist-Chinese values following mortality salience (Study 3a). In contrast, among Austrian participants, personal rather than relational self-esteem attenuated the effect of mortality salience on the defense of individualist-Austrian worldviews (Study 3b). Self-esteem serves a terror management function in both collectivist and individualist cultures; however, the differences between cultural worldviews determine the type of self-esteem that is more relevant to terror management processes.     

Short-Term Kinesthetic Training for Sensorimotor Rhythms: Effects in Experts and Amateurs

The authors’ aim was to examine whether short-term kinesthetic training affects the level of sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) in different frequency band: alpha (8–12 Hz), lower beta (12.5–16 Hz) and beta (16.5–20 Hz) during the execution of a motor imagery task of closing and opening the right and the left hand by experts (jugglers, practicing similar exercises on an everyday basis) and amateurs (individuals not practicing any sports). It was found that the performance of short kinesthetic training increases the power of alpha rhythm when executing imagery tasks only in the group of amateurs. Therefore, kinesthetic training may be successfully used as a method increasing the vividness of motor imagery, for example, in tasks involving the control of brain–computer interfaces based on SMR.     

Construct Validity of the Social Physique Anxiety Scale in a French Adolescent Sample

The present study explored the validity of constriction as an indicator of depression. Twenty-five patients displaying constriction in their Bender records and 25 patients not showing this indicator were compared with regard to MMPI Depression scores. A significant difference was found between D scores of these two groups (p<.05), supporting the validity of the indicator as an index of depression. Constriction was found to be infrequent, occurring in only 5.5% of the patient records. Although the indicator seems to be of some value as an indicator of depression its utility is lessened due its low rate of occurrence.     

Responsividad y condicionamiento semántico en relación con el ciclo menstrual

Resumen

El trabajo examina el efecto de cambios internos atribuibles al ciclo menstrual en la responsividad y condicionamiento psicofisiológico de un grupo de mujeres normales con ciclos naturales. Los sujetos fueron examinados Premenstrualmente (PM) o Intermenstrualmente (IM), utilizando como variables dependientes medidas psicofisiológicas (Conductancia de la Piel y Tasa Cardíaca) y cuestionarios. Los sujetos IM mostraron mayor responsividad y habituación en la actividad cardíaca y menores latencies de recuperación en la conductancia de la piel ante estimulación auditiva intensa, así como mayor condicionamiento en la conductancia de la piel (respuestas al segundo intervalo) que los sujetos PM. Las medidas actuales y retrospectivas de estados emocionales mostraron mayor afecto negativo (fatiga y tensión) en los sujetos PM y en l a fase premenstrual. Estos resultados son comparados con los de estudios similares realizados con pacientes fóbicas y son discutidos en términos de diferentes estados emocionales y de activación fisiológica asociados a las fases menstruales examinadas.     

La falacia de la validación personal: Más efectos placebo

RESUMEN

En este artículo se pone a prueba la influencia de efectos placebo en la aceptación de informes evaluativos y diagnósticos por los sujetos. Tras introducir brevemente el tema y plantear las hipótesis, los autores describen el método y los resultados de su investigación. En la discusión explican que estos resultados sugieren que la aceptación del diagnóstico que ofrece un profesional es un fenómeno general independiente de las características personales de los individuos que lo reciben, poniendo en entredicho el fenómeno de la validación personal y, al mismo tiempo, interactúa con determinadas características profesionales de los sujetos, ligadas a imágenes de personalidad a las que son más propensos. Los autores también analizan una limitación importante de su trabajo, el tamaño reducido de la muestra, y finalizan destacando que es el contenido del informe, más que el tipo de pruebas o profesionales, lo que parece afectar diferencialmente a distintos grupos profesionales.     

Ambivalence,prejudice and negative behavioural tendencies towards out-groups: The moderating role of attitude basis

Two experiments explored the relations between prejudice (suppression), (cognitive) ambivalence and negative behavioural tendencies towards out-groups. The current work argues that expressing out-group ambivalence based on cognitive, but not affective, information is a strategy to justify one's otherwise suppressed prejudice, which may ultimately “cover” the discriminatory nature of out-group-directed negative behavioural tendencies. Two experiments show that (1) participants evaluating the out-group in a normative context inducing prejudice suppression are more likely to self-report ambivalent beliefs rather than ambivalent emotions concerning the out-group as compared with participants whose prejudice expression is induced and (2) high-prejudice participants compared with low-prejudice participants are more prone to out-group-directed negative behavioural tendencies when these latter are self-reported after the expression of ambivalent beliefs but not ambivalent emotions concerning the out-group, and when the expression of their prejudicial evaluations is salient but not when it is not. In light of the extent to which ambivalent attitudes towards out-groups are often seamlessly integrated into public discourse, the implications of the findings are discussed not only for intergroup research but also at the societal level.