Walking perception by walking observers

People frequently analyze the actions of other people for the purpose of action coordination. To understand whether such self-relative action perception differs from other-relative action perception, the authors had observers either compare their own walking speed with that of a point-light walker or compare the walking speeds of 2 point-light walkers. In Experiment 1, observers walked, bicycled, or stood while performing a gait-speed discrimination task. Walking observers demonstrated the poorest sensitivity to walking speed, suggesting that perception and performance of the same action alters visual-motion processes. Experiments 2-6 demonstrated that the processes used during self-relative and other-relative action perception differ significantly in their dependence on observers' previous motor experience, current motor effort, and potential for action coordination. These results suggest that the visual analysis of human motion during traditional laboratory studies can differ substantially from the visual analysis of human movement under more realistic conditions.     

Expectancy Accessibility and the Influence of Outcome Expectancies on Adolescent Smokeless Tobacco Use

This study investigated the moderating influence of expectancy accessibility on the relation between outcome expectancies and drug use intentions. Specifically, it was hypothesized that expectancies made temporarily more accessible would predict smokeless tobacco intentions to a greater degree than would less accessible expectancies. In addition, it was anticipated that expectancies regarding positive outcomes of smokeless tobacco use would be better predictors of intention than would expectancies about negative outcomes. Results partially supported the accessibility hypothesis, but this effect occurred for positive outcome expectancies only. In addition, the anticipated prepotency of positive over negative expectancies in predicting drug use intentions was strongly supported. These findings are consistent with theories of problem behavior which differentiate between positive and negative outcome expectancies and which postulate that accessibility of expectancies plays an important role in expectancy-behavior relations.     

Stress in adolescents

This article describes some of the recent major theoretical frameworks underpinning the study of stress in adolescents and assesses their usefulness to teachers and counsellors in establishing a rationale for school-based intervention. It is argued that for a model to be acceptable in this context, it must allow for the complexities and flexibility of individual behavior. It is further argued that the model described by Lazarus & Folkman (1984) fulfills both these conditions as it incorporates the psychoanalytic along with the cognitive and is also dynamic and phenomenological. Also, one of the premises upon which Lazarus and Folkman build needs further exploration. This premise is that individual's ‘appraisals generally correlate with reality’.     

Flood of emotions: emotional work and long-term disaster recovery

This paper uses concepts of emotion work and emotional labour to explore people’s experiences of the long-term disaster recovery process. It draws on data taken from two qualitative research projects which looked at adults’ and children’s recovery from the floods of June 2007 in Hull, UK. The paper argues that the emotional work of recovery cannot be separated from the physical and practical work of recovering the built environment. It shows that a focus on emotion work can lead to a more nuanced understanding of what recovery actually means and who is involved, leading to the identification of hidden vulnerabilities and a better understanding of the longer timescales involved in the process.     

Explaining efficient search for conjunctions of motion and form: Evidence from negative color effects

Dent, Humphreys, and Braithwaite (2011) showed substantial costs to search when a moving target shared its color with a group of ignored static distractors. The present study further explored the conditions under which such costs to performance occur. Experiment 1 tested whether the negative color-sharing effect was specific to cases in which search showed a highly serial pattern. The results showed that the negative color-sharing effect persisted in the case of a target defined as a conjunction of movement and form, even when search was highly efficient. In Experiment 2, the ease with which participants could find an odd-colored target amongst a moving group was examined. Participants searched for a moving target amongst moving and stationary distractors. In Experiment 2A, participants performed a highly serial search through a group of similarly shaped moving letters. Performance was much slower when the target shared its color with a set of ignored static distractors. The exact same displays were used in Experiment 2B; however, participants now responded “present” for targets that shared the color of the static distractors. The same targets that had previously been difficult to find were now found efficiently. The results are interpreted in a flexible framework for attentional control. Targets that are linked with irrelevant distractors by color tend to be ignored. However, this cost can be overridden by top-down control settings.     

British-English norms and naming times for a set of 539 pictures: The role of age of acquisition

In the present study, we presented picture-naming latencies along with ratings for a set of important characteristics of pictures and picture names: age of acquisition, frequency, picture-name agreement, name agreement, visual complexity, familiarity, and word length. The validity of these data was established by calculating correlations with previous studies. Regression analyses show that our ratings account for a larger amount of variance in RTs than do previous data. RTs were predicted by all variables except complexity and length. A complete database presenting details about all of these variables is available in the supplemental materials, downloadable from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Acting,feeling and thinking: psychoanalytic psychotherapy with Tracey

This paper consists of a case study and commentary which formed a part of the inaugural lecture in a series entitled ‘Working with Psychosomatic Issues’*. The audience consisted of psychoanalytic, body psychotherapy and integrative practitioners. The presentation was divided into three parts, (1) an outline of philosophical themes that inform perspectives on health, illness and psychosomatic phenomena, (2) the case study reproduced below and (3) a summary of Winnicott's work (1960, 1966, 1988) on ‘the indwelling of the psyche in the soma’. The case study describes work with a young woman who harms herself through self-hitting and, in addition, expresses other physical manifestations of psychological distress. The core approach of the practitioner is psychoanalytic. The work is informed also by postmodern sensibilities and phenomenological themes.     

Touch,enjoyment and health: in adult life

This is the second of two linked papers. Like the first, it offers a perspective on interconnections between touch, enjoyment and health, on this occasion in adult life rather than in infancy. The theoretical underpinning for the work resides in Winnicott's account of the establishment, resilience and susceptibility to damage of a sense of ‘the psyche indwelling in the soma’ (Winnicott 1960a: 45). Drawing on case study material, the author considers some of the ways in which touch deprivation in adult life might find expression and illustrates how such deprivation might be worked with verbally in the psychotherapy setting.     

In sickness and in health?: Psychoanalysis and psychosomatics

Abstract

This article revolves around the question of physicality and its relationship to emotional health. Several different perspectives on the mind-body relationship, from within popular culture, philosophy and psychoanalytic literature, are compared and contrasted. The author then suggests ways in which psychodynamic insights might more effectively be brought to bear upon benign and beneficial aspects of bodily expression and offers illustrative clinical material.     

Capacity limitations and representational shifts in spatial short-term memory

Performance was examined in a task requiring the reconstruction of spatial locations. Previous research suggests that it may be necessary to differentiate between memory for smaller and larger numbers of locations (Postma & DeHaan, 1996), at least when locations are presented simultaneously (Igel & Harvey, 1991). Detailed analyses of the characteristics of performance showed that such a differentiation might also be required for sequential presentation. Furthermore the slope of the function relating each successive response to accuracy was greater with 3 than with 6, 8, or 10 locations that did not differ. Participants also reconstructed the arrays as being more proximal than in fact they were; sequential presentation eliminated this distortion when there were three but not when there were more than three locations. These results support the idea that very small numbers of locations are remembered using a specific form of representation, which is unavailable to larger numbers of locations.