The Embodied Penman: Effector‐Specific Motor–Language Integration During Handwriting

Several studies have illuminated how processing manual action verbs (MaVs) affects the programming or execution of concurrent hand movements. Here, to circumvent key confounds in extant designs, we conducted the first assessment of motor–language integration during handwriting—a task in which linguistic and motoric processes are co‐substantiated. Participants copied MaVs, non‐manual action verbs, and non‐action verbs as we collected measures of motor programming and motor execution. Programming latencies were similar across conditions, but execution was faster for MaVs than for the other categories, regardless of whether word meanings were accessed implicitly or explicitly. In line with the Hand‐Action‐Network Dynamic Language Embodiment (HANDLE) model, such findings suggest that effector‐congruent verbs can prime manual movements even during highly automatized tasks in which motoric and verbal processes are naturally intertwined. Our paradigm opens new avenues for fine‐grained explorations of embodied language processes.     

Common Sense and the Natural Light in George Berkeley’s Philosophy

Philosophia - It is argued that George Berkeley’s term ‘common sense’ does not indicate shared conviction, but the shared capacity of reasonable judgement, and is therefore to be...     

Nonsuicidal Self-injury,Suicide Planning,and Suicide Attempts Among High-risk Adolescents Prior to Psychiatric Hospitalization

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - The purpose of this study was to understand the trajectories of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide plans (SP) in the 90 days...     

The Role of Emotional Content and Perceptual Saliency During the Programming of Saccades Toward Faces

Previous studies have shown that the human visual system can detect a face and elicit a saccadic eye movement toward it very efficiently compared to other categories of visual stimuli. In the first experiment, we tested the influence of facial expressions on fast face detection using a saccadic choice task. Face-vehicle pairs were simultaneously presented and participants were asked to saccade toward the target (the face or the vehicle). We observed that saccades toward faces were initiated faster, and more often in the correct direction, than saccades toward vehicles, regardless of the facial expressions (happy, fearful, or neutral). We also observed that saccade endpoints on face images were lower when the face was happy and higher when it was neutral. In the second experiment, we explicitly tested the detection of facial expressions. We used a saccadic choice task with emotional-neutral pairs of faces and participants were asked to saccade toward the emotional (happy or fearful) or the neutral face. Participants were faster when they were asked to saccade toward the emotional face. They also made fewer errors, especially when the emotional face was happy. Using computational modeling, we showed that this happy face advantage can, at least partly, be explained by perceptual factors. Also, saccade endpoints were lower when the target was happy than when it was fearful. Overall, we suggest that there is no automatic prioritization of emotional faces, at least for saccades with short latencies, but that salient local face features can automatically attract attention.     

Injustice impairs self-regulation and affects food choice

Overweight and obesity are risk factors for a range of chronic diseases, many of them caused by excessive consumption of unhealthy foods and insufficient consumption of healthy foods. The present study aims to experimentally test the effect of being exposed to injustice on the intention to consume healthy and unhealthy foods, through self-regulation. We predicted that injustice decreases self-regulation which in turn increases the intention to consume unhealthy foods and decreases the intention to consume healthy foods. Undergraduate students (N = 175; 89% women; M_age = 24.28, SD = 7.36) were randomly exposed to a scenario describing an unjust or a just academic situation. In a subsequent allegedly unrelated task, participants were asked to indicate their intention to consume each of 26 food items (half depicting unhealthy foods and half healthy foods, random order) during the subsequent week. As expected, injustice decreased self-regulation which in turn increased the intention to consume unhealthy foods and decreased the intention to consume healthy foods. These results highlight the central importance of justice perceptions in the study of consumption and contribute to frame it in the study of the consequences of economic inequalities for nutrition.