Domestic dogs conceal auditory but not visual information from others

A number of studies have shown that dogs are sensitive to a human’s perspective, but it remains unclear whether they use an egocentric strategy to assess what humans perceive. We investigated whether dogs know what a human can see and hear, even when the dogs themselves are unable to see the human. Dogs faced a task in which forbidden food was placed in a tunnel that they could retrieve by using their paw. Whereas the dogs could not see the experimenter during their food retrieval attempts, the experimenter could potentially see the dog’s paw. In the first experiment, dogs could choose between an opaque and a transparent side of the tunnel, and in the second experiment, they could choose between a silent and a noisy approach to the tunnel. The results showed that dogs preferred a silent approach to forbidden food but they did not hide their approach when they could not see a human present. We conclude that dogs probably rely on what they themselves can perceive when they assess what the human can see and hear.     

Influence of Religiosity on the Quality of Life and on Pain Intensity in Chronic Pancreatitis Patients After Neurolytic Celiac Plexus Block: Case-Controlled Study

The quality of life in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP) is reduced due to their suffering of high levels of pain. It has been presented that quality of life can also be linked to religiosity and/or spirituality. The aim of this study is to assess the influence of religious practices on the quality of life and on the subjective level of pain in CP patients. Ninety-two patients (37 women and 55 men) with chronic pancreatitis were treated invasively for pain with neurolytic celiac plexus block (NCPB). The religiosity of the patients was recorded and served as a dichotomizer. Group 1 was for patients who claimed to have no contact with the church or to have very sporadic contact (N = 35 patients). Group 2 was for patients who claimed to have deep faith and were regular participants at church activities (N = 57 patients). Visual analogue scale was used to assess pain, while the quality of life was measured by using QLQ C-30 questionnaire adapted for chronic pancreatitis patients in Polish population. The patients were assessed prior to the pain-relieving intervention and subsequently 2 and 8 weeks after it. The intensity of pain was reduced in both groups significantly after performing the NCPB. Patients who declared a deep faith reported higher level of pain on the VAS scale prior to intervention than non-religious patients. Quality of life in both groups of patients significantly improved after NCPB. Following NCPB, global quality of life in patients who declared higher religiosity/church attendance was significantly higher (79.88) than for those patients who have no contact or sporadic contact with the church (44.21, P < 0.05). NCPB resulted in significant reduction of pain and increase in quality of life in both groups of patients with CP. Nevertheless, in the group declaring higher religiosity/church attendance, reported pain was higher, but, despite that, quality of life better. It may be concluded that religious practices might serve as an additional factor improving quality of life and coping in patients suffering from chronic pancreatitis.     

Processing emotion information from both the face and body: An eye-movement study

This study examined the perception of emotional expressions, focusing on the face and the body. Photographs of four actors expressing happiness, sadness, anger, and fear were presented in congruent (e.g., happy face with happy body) and incongruent (e.g., happy face with fearful body) combinations. Participants selected an emotional label using a four-option categorisation task. Reaction times and accuracy for the categorisation judgement, and eye movements were the dependent variables. Two regions of interest were examined: face and body. Results showed better accuracy and faster reaction times for congruent images compared to incongruent images. Eye movements showed an interaction in which there were more fixations and longer dwell times to the face and fewer fixations and shorter dwell times to the body with incongruent images. Thus, conflicting information produced a marked effect on information processing in which participants focused to a greater extent on the face compared to the body.     

Defenders of faith? Victims of secularisation? Polish politicians and religion in the European Parliament

Recent years have shown a growing academic interest in the role and function of religion in the EU. This resulted from ongoing discussions on the symbolic deficit of the European project and politicised debate on the Christian roots of European identity, as well as from the enlargement of 2004, which brought into the EU new member-states with different traditions of church–state relations and distinctive forms of religious governance. Our study contributes to this scholarship by focusing on the role of religion in the context of the European Parliament (EP) as exercised by Polish members. The first part provides some background information on the relationship between religion and politics in the Polish domestic context. This is followed by presentation of the research findings from a survey conducted among Polish members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and from a qualitative content analysis of the arguments used by them in plenary sessions. In conclusion, we argue that religion is an important resource in the hands of right-wing politicians for justifying various claims in the EP. Furthermore, we also maintain that the national context and the national understanding of the functions of religion influence the way it is presented and used at the European level.     

Not moved,still lonely: the negative relation between loneliness and being moved

Motivation and Emotion - Three studies (total N?=?501) showed a negative association between loneliness and the emotion of being moved. People who were lonelier than others consistently...     

Individual Differences in Mood Changes

The study explores the influence of individual tendencies toward mood improvement/deterioration and the Big Five personality traits on mood changes. Participants (218 students) completed NEO-FFI and The Mood Regulation Scales. Based on the within-person structure of individual tendencies toward mood improvement/deterioration four mood regulative types were distinguished (increasing, decreasing, hot and cool type). In the experimental stage participants were randomly assigned to one of four group conditions created by experimental factors: (1) induced mood (positive/negative), and (2) the level of cognitive loading (easy/hard condition). Direct (Mood Adjective Check List) and indirect (emotional version of Lexical Decision Task) measurements were used to assess mood changes. The results showed different patterns of mood changes for increasing and decreasing regulative types. Those differences were visible especially in the positive mood regulation. While the decreasing type decreased the induced positive mood, the increasing type was characterized by mood changes manifested in energetic arousal increase and tense reduction. Moreover, high Neuroticism and low Extraversion in the decreasing type contributed to a negative mood increment manifested in reduction of energetic arousal. The same effect was revealed for high Conscientiousness for the increasing type. The results are discussed in the context of psychological status of mood regulation strategies (automatic/controlled) and with reference to previous research in this area.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting,delay, and sleep

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) refers to the finding that retrieval of a subset of previously studied material can cause forgetting of related unpractised material. Prior work on the role of delay between practice and test for RIF reported mixed results. Whereas some studies found RIF to be a relatively transient phenomenon, others found RIF to persist over time. We examined whether the persistence of RIF can depend on whether wakefulness or sleep follows retrieval practice. We employed a variant of the retrieval-practice paradigm with short (20 minutes) and long (12 hours) delay conditions. In all conditions participants studied a perceptually categorised list followed by retrieval practice on some of the items from some of the categories. Participants studied and practised the material in the morning or the evening. RIF was present in the short-delay conditions, and it was present in the long-delay condition if the delay included nocturnal sleep; if the long delay was filled with diurnal wakefulness, RIF was absent. Results show that whether delay eliminates RIF or not can depend on whether sleep or wake follows retrieval practice. Connections of the results to recent findings about the role of delay and sleep for RIF are discussed.     

Negative Relations Between Pacifier Use and Emotional Competence

Research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that facial mimicry plays a causal role in understanding facial expression of emotion. Accurate understanding of facial emotion, in turn, grounds emotional development. Are pacifiers, which disrupt facial mimicry in the user, associated with compromised emotional development? We examined facial mimicry in children and found that duration of pacifier use was associated with reduced facial mimicry in boys. In two questionnaire studies of young adults, pacifier use also predicted lower perspective taking and emotional intelligence in males. Pacifier use did not predict these emotion processing skills in girls. Future confirmatory studies are proposed.     

Range Shrinkage of Cognitive Ability Test Scores in Applicant Pools for German Governmental Jobs: Implications for range restriction corrections

Range restriction corrections require the predictor standard deviation in the applicant pool of interest. Unfortunately, this information is frequently not available in applied contexts. The common strategy in this type of situations is to use national‐norm standard deviation estimates. This study used data from 8,276 applicants applying to nine jobs in German governmental organizations to compare applicant pool standard deviations for two cognitive ability tests with national‐norm standard deviation estimates, and standard deviations for the total group of governmental applicants. Results revealed that job‐ and organizational context‐specific applicant pool standard deviations were on average about 10–12% smaller than estimates from national norms, and about 4–6% smaller than standard deviations for the total group of governmental applicants.     

ROC in animals: Uncovering the neural substrates of recollection and familiarity in episodic recognition memory

It is a consensus that familiarity and recollection contribute to episodic recognition memory. However, it remains controversial whether familiarity and recollection are qualitatively distinct processes supported by different brain regions, or whether they reflect different strengths of the same process and share the same support. In this review, I discuss how adapting standard human recognition memory paradigms to rats, performing circumscribed brain lesions and using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) methods contributed to solve this controversy. First, I describe the validation of the animal ROC paradigms and report evidence that familiarity and recollection are distinct processes in intact rats. Second, I report results from rats with hippocampal dysfunction which confirm this finding and lead to the conclusion that the hippocampus supports recollection but not familiarity. Finally, I describe a recent study focusing on the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) that investigates the contribution of areas upstream of the hippocampus to recollection and familiarity.