Lexical selection in bilingual speech production does not involve language suppression

The "hard problem" in bilingual lexical access arises when translation-equivalent lexical representations are activated to roughly equal levels and, thus, compete equally for lexical selection. The language suppression hypothesis (D. W. Green, 1998) solves this hard problem through the suppression of lexical representations in the nontarget language. Following from this proposal is the prediction that lexical selection should take longer on a language switch trial because the to-be-selected representation was just suppressed on the previous trial. Inconsistent with this prediction, participants took no longer to name pictures in their dominant language on language switch trials than they did on nonswitch trials. These findings indicate that nontarget lexical representations are not suppressed. The authors suggest that these results undermine the viability of the language suppression hypothesis as a possible solution to the hard problem in bilingual lexical access.     

One-year follow-up of pharmacotherapy-resistant patients with panic disorder treated with cognitive-behavior therapy: Outcome and predictors of remission

Non-response to pharmacotherapy for panic disorder (PD) is a well-documented problem. However, little information exists to guide next-step strategies for these non-responders. In addition to pharmacologic augmentation strategies, several studies support the efficacy of cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for these patients, although data on long-term outcomes has been lacking. In this study, we provide one-year outcomes on a sample of 63 patients who completed group CBT for PD after failing to respond adequately to previous pharmacotherapy. Sustained significant benefit was found for all dimensional outcome scores, and nearly two-thirds of the sample met remission criteria. This occurred with reductions in medication use over the follow-up period. Negative predictors of remission status included comorbid dysthymia, social phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder. These results provide additional evidence for the efficacy of CBT for medication non-responders with PD.     

Attachment and motivational strategies in adolescence: exploring links

Within the framework of attachment theory and of motivation goal theory, this study explored the relation between quality of attachment strategies and quality of motivational strategies in a sample of young adolescents. Specifically, this study examined patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions as they related to representations of attachment and motivational functioning in situations that challenge or threaten three psychological needs (emotional security, competence, and autonomy). Forty-four students, aged 11 to 14 years, responded to imagined stressful situations in order to: (a) assess attachment strategies; (b) identify and assess students' motivational strategies in stressful classroom circumstances; (c) assess motivational strategies of students with high and low control and agency beliefs; and (d) examine the relations between attachment and motivational strategies. Four distinct action patterns were identified: flexible action, rigid action, passive behavior, and disorganized behavior. Significant relations were found between control beliefs and motivational strategies, as well as a trend toward relations between attachment and motivational strategies, suggesting that secure adolescents show more constructive motivational strategies and less disorganized strategies when compared to insecure adolescents.     

Why do we share aggressive online content? Testing a short cycle model

The present study aimed to observe the impacts of aggressive online content exposure and personality on aggressive content sharing, considering the mediating role of positive and negative affects. A total of 302 Brazilians, equally divided into two groups, participated in a social network simulation, being exposed to aggressive (experimental group) or neutral (control group) posts and choosing what they would like to share on this site (among aggressive or nonaggressive material). A factorial MANOVA showed a significant difference for positive and negative affects and aggressive content sharing (Wilks' Λ = 0.936; F[3, 298] = 6.812; p = .001; η² = 0.064). Through structural equation modeling, an explanatory model was also tested, in which this behavior was directly predicted by aggressive online content exposure and suffered indirect effects from openness, conscientiousness, and extroversion, mediated by positive affects (goodness-of-fit index = 0.997, comparative fit-index = 0.998, Tucker-Lewis index = 0.996, SRMR = 0.028, root-mean-square error of approximation = 0.035, CI = 0.003−0.054). It is possible to conclude that the objectives are met, highlighting the contribution to understanding aggressive online behavior through the proximal processes described in the general aggression model.     

How tool use and arm position affect peripersonal space representation

Experiment 1 investigated whether tool use can expand the peripersonal space into the very far extrapersonal space. Healthy participants performed line bisection in peripersonal and extrapersonal space using wooden sticks up to a maximum of 240 cm. Participants misbisected to the left of the true midpoint, both for lines presented in peripersonal and for those presented in extrapersonal space, confirming a peripersonal space expansion up to a distance of 240 cm. Experiment 2 investigated whether arm position could influence the perception of peripersonal and extrapersonal space during tool use. Participants performed line bisection in the peripersonal and in the extrapersonal space (up to a maximum of 120 cm) using wooden sticks in two different conditions: either with the arm bent or with the arm stretched. Results showed stronger pseudoneglect in the stretched arm condition.     

Musicians' working memory for tones, words, and pseudowords

Studies investigating factors that influence tone recognition generally use recognition tests, whereas the majority of the studies on verbal material use self-generated responses in the form of serial recall tests. In the present study we intended to investigate whether tonal and verbal materials share the same cognitive mechanisms, by presenting an experimental instrument that evaluates short-term and working memories for tones, using self-generated sung responses that may be compared to verbal tests. This paradigm was designed according to the same structure of the forward and backward digit span tests, but using digits, pseudowords, and tones as stimuli. The profile of amateur singers and professional singers in these tests was compared in forward and backward digit, pseudoword, tone, and contour spans. In addition, an absolute pitch experimental group was included, in order to observe the possible use of verbal labels in tone memorization tasks. In general, we observed that musical schooling has a slight positive influence on the recall of tones, as opposed to verbal material, which is not influenced by musical schooling. Furthermore, the ability to reproduce melodic contours (up and down patterns) is generally higher than the ability to reproduce exact tone sequences. However, backward spans were lower than forward spans for all stimuli (digits, pseudowords, tones, contour). Curiously, backward spans were disproportionately lower for tones than for verbal material-that is, the requirement to recall sequences in backward rather than forward order seems to differentially affect tonal stimuli. This difference does not vary according to musical expertise.     

Using an eye-tracker to assess the effectiveness of a three-dimensional riding simulator in increasing hazard perception

A crucial factor contributing to the high rate of road accidents involving young people is inexperience, in particular the inability to promptly identify risky situations. The aim of this study is to test the effectiveness of a riding simulator in improving this skill in young inexperienced riders. We use the first fixation latency to measure the improvement in detecting the hazardous object. Results show that four training sessions can significantly affect promptness in detecting new hazardous objects as they appear, decreasing the time needed to orient the eyes to the hazard.     

Developing a Valid and Reliable Cross-cultural Measure of Coparenting Conflict between Divorced Parents: The Portuguese Version of the Acrimony Scale

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Coparenting conflict is predictive of parents’ and children’s adjustment to divorce. An accurate assessment of postdivorce acrimonious coparenting...     

The Italian Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire: A Contribution to its Validity and Reliability

Mindfulness refers to the ability to be aware of and attentive to internal and external events, without becoming overwhelmed or feeling the need to react automatically. Recent studies indicate that this ability is associated with the following factors: mental health, psychological functioning, and stress reduction. Although questionnaires have been developed to measure mindfulness, so far these have not been adapted for use within the Italian population. Thus, the aim of our studies was to investigate the reliability and validity of an Italian version of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al. Assessment, 13, 27–45, 2006). The FFMQ is a self-report measure that is based on a five-facet model (i.e., Observe, Describe, Act with Awareness, Nonjudge, and Nonreact). In the first study, internal consistency, factor structure, and concurrent validity analyses were carried out on a sample of 559 volunteers. The second study entailed test–retest analyses on a different sample of 43 students. The results showed that the Italian FFMQ: (a) has a similar factor structure to the original English version; (b) has good to excellent internal consistency as a whole (alpha?=?0.86) with sub-scale consistency ranging from 0.65 to 0.81, and test–retest stability for the total score being 0.71; (c) has good concurrent validity as demonstrated by significant correlations between the FFMQ scores and a number of self-report measures related to mindfulness. Our findings support both the adaptation of the FFMQ to the Italian context as well as the conceptualization of mindfulness in multi-faceted terms.     

Grasping with the eyes: The role of elongation in visual recognition of manipulable objects

Processing within the dorsal visual stream subserves object-directed action, whereas visual object recognition is mediated by the ventral visual stream. Recent findings suggest that the computations performed by the dorsal stream can nevertheless influence object recognition. Little is known, however, about the type of dorsal stream information that is available to assist in object recognition. Here, we present a series of experiments that explored different psychophysical manipulations known to bias the processing of a stimulus toward the dorsal visual stream in order to isolate its contribution to object recognition. We show that elongated-shaped stimuli, regardless of their semantic category and familiarity, when processed by the dorsal stream, elicit visuomotor grasp-related information that affects how we categorize manipulable objects. Elongated stimuli may reduce ambiguity during grasp preparation by providing a coarse cue to hand shaping and orientation that is sufficient to support action planning. We propose that this dorsal-stream-based analysis of elongation along a principal axis is the basis for how the dorsal visual object processing stream can affect categorization of manipulable objects.