Repeated checking causes distrust in memory but not in attention and perception

Repeated checking to reduce memory distrust seems to be counterproductive: it increases memory distrust. Obsessive-compulsive (OC) patients tend to be uncertain about other cognitive domains as well, like attention and perception. In an experiment with 70 healthy participants, we tested whether perseverative checking induces distrust not only in memory, but also in attention and perception. Participants were administered a computer task in which they had to activate, deactivate, and check threat-irrelevant stimuli, and rate their confidence in memory, attention, and perception in a pre-test and post-test. In between these tests, the relevant checking group performed 20 checks of the same stimuli used in the pre- and post-test. The irrelevant checking group performed 20 checks of different stimuli. Although memory accuracy improved in both groups, repeated checking reduced confidence in memory, vividness, and detail in the relevant checking group, but not in the irrelevant checking group. A trend was found towards a decline in attentional confidence in the relevant checking group only. Perception was not affected by repetitive checking. A replication study revealed similar results of relevant checking on meta-memory, however, the trend for attentional distrust was not confirmed. The results suggest that perseveration may be domain specific, i.e., only the cognitive processes that are subject to perseveration are affected.     

Influences of Gender as a Basic-Level Category in Person Perception on the Gender Belief System

The use of gender as an organizing category in social perception and its influence on the gender belief systemwere investigated. A modified version of the Role Construct Repertory Test and selected self-report questionnaires were completed by 190 college students (165 women and 25 men). All the participants used gender to organize their person schemas, and using gender in this way related positively to gender stereotyping. Both sexist gender attitudes and use of gender as an organizing category predicted gender stereotyping. Components of the gender belief system were only correlated if they were conceptually similar. The findings are congruent with gender transcendent and multifactorial gender identity theories.     

Validity of Big Five personality judgments in childhood: a 9 year longitudinal study

In a 9 year longitudinal study over childhood, the Big Five personality traits were assessed at ages 4–6 by teacher Q‐sorts, at age 10 by parental Q‐sorts, and at age 12 by parental and friend ratings on bipolar adjective scales. The Big Five Q‐sort indices were based on definitions proposed by John, Caspi, Robins, Moffitt, and Stouthamer‐Loeber ( 1994 ) for adolescent boys. They were related to judgments and behavioural observations of inhibition and aggressiveness, and to antecedents and consequences of school achievement such as IQ and cognitive self‐esteem. Neuroticism and low extraversion correlated with social inhibition, low agreeableness and low conscientiousness with aggressiveness, and conscientiousness and/or culture/intellect/openness with antecedents and outcomes of school achievement. These correlations were consistently found throughout childhood. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Promise of Postmodern Theology

Books reviewed in this article:
Graham Ward (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology     

Policy Discourses on Mosques in the Netherlands 1980–2002: Contested Constructions

The establishment of mosques is an incentive for public discussions on Islam and the presence of Muslims in Western European societies. This article critically reconstructs Public Policy discourses on mosque establishment in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. It shows how urban-planning discourses, and their specific frames, which came to dominate mosque establishment as a policy issue in Rotterdam from the 1980s onwards, created their own set of meanings. The article analyses these discourses in terms of their enabling and constraining roles during a period in which local authorities became more involved in the improvement and placement of new mosques in the Rotterdam area. On the one hand, the urban renewal framework allowed for a substantial improvement in the housing of Islamic religious and cultural practice. On the other hand, urban planning policy discursive practices gave less attention to issues such as visibility and presence that are now at the heart of the heated debates about Muslim populations in Dutch society. More recent discussions on the aesthetics and location of mosques in Rotterdam illustrate how these dominant discourses are not only contestable but are also being contested from all quarters.     

Action-effect coupling in pianists

Recent theories have stressed the role of effect anticipation in action control. Such a mechanism requires the prior acquisition of integrated action-effect associations. The strength of such associations should directly depend on the amount of learning, and therefore be most pronounced in motor experts. Using an interference paradigm, we investigated whether evidence of such representations can be demonstrated in expert pianists. Participants were required to play chords on a keyboard in response to imperative visual stimuli. Concurrently, task-irrelevant auditory stimuli (potential action effects) were presented that were congruent or incongruent with the chords to be played. In Experiment 1 we found evidence that expert pianists, compared with non-musicians, have acquired such action-effects representations. Response times were slower when the auditory stimulus was incongruent with the required response. In order to ascertain the locus of interference, we varied imperative stimuli and responses in Experiments 2 and 3. The results indicate that, for the most part, interference occurs on the response level rather than on an abstract level. However, the perception of action effects also evokes processing of abstract features, like the concept of major–minor mode.     

Interactions between the dorsal and the ventral pathways in mental rotation: An fMRI study

In this fMRI study, we examined the relationship between activations in the inferotemporal region (ventral pathway) and the parietal region (dorsal pathway), as well as in the prefrontal cortex (associated with working memory), in a modified mental rotation task. We manipulated figural complexity (simple vs. complex) to affect the figure recognition process (associated with the ventral pathway) and the amount of rotation (0° vs. 90°), typically associated with the dorsal pathway. The pattern of activation not only showed that both streams are affected by both manipulations, but also showed an overadditive interaction. The effect of figural complexity was greater for 90° rotation than for 0° in multiple regions, including the ventral, dorsal, and prefrontal regions. In addition, functional connectivity analyses on the correlations across the time courses of activation between regions of interest showed increased synchronization among multiple brain areas as task demand increased. The results indicate that both the dorsal and the ventral pathways show interactive effects of object and spatial processing, and they suggest that multiple regions interact to perform mental rotation.     

Anxiety sensitivity: association with intensity of retrospectively-rated smoking-related withdrawal symptoms and motivation to quit

The present cross-sectional study evaluated the associations between anxiety sensitivity, intensity of retrospectively-rated nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and motivation to quit smoking. Participants were 127 young adult (mean age 20.4 years (SD 4.6)) regular smokers (mean cigarettes per day 10.2 (SD 5.1)). Anxiety sensitivity predicted intensity of retrospectively rated withdrawal symptoms during the first week of the most recent quit attempt as well as concurrent and lifetime indices of motivation to quit smoking even after controlling for theoretically-relevant smoking (e.g. nicotine dependence) and affect (e.g. panic attack history) factors. These results are discussed in relation to better understanding panic-related vulnerability factors in smoking cessation.     

Left hemisphere specialization for response to positive emotional expressions: a divided output methodology

An extensive literature credits the right hemisphere with dominance for processing emotion. Conflicting literature finds left hemisphere dominance for positive emotions. This conflict may be resolved by attending to processing stage. A divided output (bimanual) reaction time paradigm in which response hand was varied for emotion (angry; happy) in Experiments 1 and 2 and for gender (male; female) in Experiment 3 focused on response to emotion rather than perception. In Experiments 1 and 2, reaction time was shorter when right-hand responses indicated a happy face and left-hand responses an angry face, as compared to reversed assignment. This dissociation did not obtain with incidental emotion (Experiment 3). Results support the view that response preparation to positive emotional stimuli is left lateralized.