Examining the process by which marital adjustment affects maternal warmth: the role of coparenting support as a mediator.

This study assessed the longitudinal process by which marital adjustment affects change in maternal warmth over time. Change in coparenting support was examined as the potential mechanism by which the marriage affects parenting. Self-report data were gathered from 148 married mothers of first-born 4th graders at 3 time points, over the transition to early adolescence. Path analyses supported the proposed hypothesis, indicating that marital adjustment leads to increased coparenting support, which then leads to increased maternal warmth. Two alternative models of the time-ordered direction of effects among the study variables were ruled out. This study has important implications for the development of parenting interventions targeting the promotion of maternal warmth.     

Examining Cognitive Functioning Following TASER Exposure: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Individuals who experience electrical injury suffer significant, sometimes long‐term deficits in neuropsychological functioning. The TASER, an electrical device used by thousands of police departments, generates a high‐voltage (up to 50 000 V), low‐amperage (2.1 mA) current of electricity that is designed to disable a resistive criminal suspect. Questions have emerged regarding the potential for TASER exposure to cause impairment in cognitive functioning. In the current study, healthy human volunteers were randomly assigned to four groups, two of which received a TASER exposure. Participants completed a battery of cognitive tests before and after receiving their assigned treatment. Participants who received a TASER exposure experienced statistically meaningful declines in measures of verbal learning and memory, although deficits lasted less than 1 hour. After TASER exposure, participants also self‐reported significant difficulties with concentration, anxiety, and feeling overwhelmed. Other dimensions of cognitive functioning were not affected. Our findings show that the effects of TASER exposure on brain functioning are not well understood. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamics of priming-effect for subliminally presented ambiguous pictures

ABSTRACT

The results of this study confirmed that people react differently to preferred meanings of ambiguous images (to those that will get into consciousness later) and to rejected meanings of ambiguous images (those that will not). We observed a facilitative after-effect of the preferred meaning which was expressed in the positive priming-effect, and the following dynamics of the rejected meaning after-effect: positive priming at small values of SOA (30?ms), negative at bigger SOA values (530?ms) and positive priming at all the following SOA values (1,030, 3,030 and 5,030?ms). These results imply that subliminal perception, as well as supraliminal, is selective. We believe that negative priming for one of the meanings of an ambiguous image presented subliminally might be associated with an unconscious decision as to whether or not a particular stimulus will enter into consciousness, in accordance with the negative choice theory.