AIDS and social exclusion: personality features or adaptive behaviors?

The purpose of this survey is to detect common personality features in people infected with AIDS who have a case history of drug addiction and who live in a situation of social exclusion. The sample comprised 105 male participants from the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, divided into 4 groups: (a) 30 men with AIDS, having an intravenous drug addiction case history and who live in a condition of social exclusion; (b) 30 men with IVDA case history, also living in a situation of social exclusion; (c) 15 men in a social exclusion condition; and (d) 30 men in a condition of social adaptation. The evaluation instruments were an author-designed semi-structured interview and the Multiaxial Clinical Inventory (MCMI-II; Millon, 1987). Although some differences were found, the results indicate that there is no specific personality profile in the "social exclusion" population. People in a condition of social exclusion (AIDS, drug addicts, and poor people) may obtain similar scores in the variables studied, but there is no clear specific personality profile in the excluded population, although there may be certain situations in which the segregated groups present similar behaviors. Furthermore, these behaviors do not always correspond to personality features but are adaptive responses to a harsh and complex reality.     

Support for collective action against refugees: The role of national,European, and global identifications,and autochthony beliefs

To understand recent anti-refugee protests in Europe, we examined how different levels of inclusiveness of group identities (national, European, and global) are related to intentions to protest among native Europeans. We focused on the mediating role of autochthony (a belief that the first inhabitants of a territory are more entitled) and the moderating role of threat. Survey data from 11 European countries (N = 1,909) showed that national identification was positively associated with autochthony, and therefore, with the intention to protest against refugees. In contrast, global identification was related to lower protest intentions via lower autochthony. These paths were found only among Europeans who perceived refugees as a threat. European identification was not related to the endorsement of autochthony or to collective action. These findings indicate why and when majority members are willing to participate in collective action against refugees, and underscore the importance of global identification in the acceptance of refugees.     

Automatic Associations and Conscious Attitudes Predict Different Aspects of Men’s Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Harassment Proclivities

Intimate partner violence against women (IPV) and sexual harassment are both widespread. Research on their causes and attitudinal correlates has rarely examined implicit, automatic cognitive associations related to the partner (in IPV aggressors) or to women (in sexual harassment offenders). The aim of the present research was to study these implicit associations in 129 male German students. Participants completed scales of hostile sexism (HS), masculine gender role stress (MGRS), short-term (STMO) and long-term mating orientation (LTMO), and proclivity to both IPV and sexual harassment. Next they performed a primed lexical decision task that measured whether concepts of violence, power, hostility, and sexuality were differentially associated with representations of women, men, and the participant’s own intimate partner. Results showed that implicit associations of own partner with violence as well as hostility were generally high but did not correlate strongly with the proclivity measures. Furthermore, the proclivity measures were positively predicted by HS, MGRS, and STMO, whereas LTMO negatively predicted IPV proclivity. Practice implications point to the need to address early socialization processes that may shape men’s negative associations with female partners. Some strategies to prevent and reduce these types of implicit associations are discussed.

     

Effects of tobacco use on non-adherence to antiretroviral therapy among HIV-positive patients in South Africa

This study aimed to estimate the relationship between tobacco use and non-adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in a South African sample. Participants were 1 963 HIV patients who attended a primary care clinic in Pretoria (female = 68.5%; black African = 99.5%; median age = 37.0 years; tobacco users only = 8.6%, problem drinkers only = 14.9%, and tobacco users and problem drinkers = 10.5%). In adjusted logistic regression analysis, tobacco use only was not significantly associated with non-adherence to ART. Alcohol use only (OR: 1.72; CI: 1.26, 2.36) and tobacco use and problem drinking (OR: 2.31; CI: 1.60, 3.33) were highly associated with non-adherence to ART.     

The effects of aging on the working memory processes of multimodal information

Normal aging is associated with deficits in working memory processes. However, the majority of research has focused on storage or inhibitory processes using unimodal paradigms, without addressing their relationships using different sensory modalities. Hence, we pursued two objectives. First, was to examine the effects of aging on storage and inhibitory processes. Second, was to evaluate aging effects on multisensory integration of visual and auditory stimuli. To this end, young and older participants performed a multimodal task for visual and auditory pairs of stimuli with increasing memory load at encoding and interference during retention. Our results showed an age-related increased vulnerability to interrupting and distracting interference reflecting inhibitory deficits related to the off-line reactivation and on-line suppression of relevant and irrelevant information, respectively. Storage capacity was impaired with increasing task demands in both age groups. Additionally, older adults showed a deficit in multisensory integration, with poorer performance for new visual compared to new auditory information.     

Extended spider cognition

There is a tension between the conception of cognition as a central nervous system (CNS) process and a view of cognition as extending towards the body or the contiguous environment. The centralised conception requires large or complex nervous systems to cope with complex environments. Conversely, the extended conception involves the outsourcing of information processing to the body or environment, thus making fewer demands on the processing power of the CNS. The evolution of extended cognition should be particularly favoured among small, generalist predators such as spiders, and here, we review the literature to evaluate the fit of empirical data with these contrasting models of cognition. Spiders do not seem to be cognitively limited, displaying a large diversity of learning processes, from habituation to contextual learning, including a sense of numerosity. To tease apart the central from the extended cognition, we apply the mutual manipulability criterion, testing the existence of reciprocal causal links between the putative elements of the system. We conclude that the web threads and configurations are integral parts of the cognitive systems. The extension of cognition to the web helps to explain some puzzling features of spider behaviour and seems to promote evolvability within the group, enhancing innovation through cognitive connectivity to variable habitat features. Graded changes in relative brain size could also be explained by outsourcing information processing to environmental features. More generally, niche-constructed structures emerge as prime candidates for extending animal cognition, generating the selective pressures that help to shape the evolving cognitive system.     

Muscular Imaginings—A Phenomenological and Enactive Model for Imagination*

A phenomenological model (labeled ‘EC’) is developed as an alternative to current analyses of the imagination in sport philosophy, heirs to an Enlightenment notion that conceptualizes imaginings as abstract, eidetic, and representational. EC describes how Eidetic and Corporeal Imaginings (EIs & CIs) phenomenologically structure our imaginative undertakings. EIs keep the ‘ideal’ aspect, but CIs—enacted, corporeal, non-representational—are more fundamental and foundational. Sports are particularly suited to express CIs’ muscular imaginings, which result in novel performances. An enactive framework theorizes CIs as non-representational interactions.     

Right visual-field advantage in the attentional blink: Asymmetry in attentional gating across time and space

When two targets are presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), recognition of the second target (T2) is usually reduced when presented 150–500 ms after the first target, demonstrating an attentional blink (AB). Previous studies have shown a left visual-field (LVF) advantage in T2 recognition, when T2 was embedded in one of two streams, demanding top-down attention for its recognition. Here, we explored the impact of bottom-up saliency on spatial asymmetry in the AB. When T2 was spatially shifted outside from the RSVP, creating an abrupt onset of T2, right T2s showed a right visual-field (RVF) advantage. In lag-1 trials, right T2s were not only better recognized, but also showed a low T1-T2 order error rate. In contrast, recognized left T2s exhibited high order error rate. Without abrupt onset, symmetrical AB was found and order error rate was similarly low in both sides. Follow-up experiments showed that, while RVF advantage was related to bottom-up saliency, order errors were affected by T1 mask. The discrepancy between LVF and RVF advantage in the AB could be resolved in terms of two mechanisms of attentional gating: top-down attentional gating, which is biased towards LVF, and bottom-up attentional gating, which is biased towards RVF.     

Age slowing down in detection and visual discrimination under varying presentation times

The reaction time has been described as a measure of perception, decision making, and other cognitive processes. The aim of this work is to examine age‐related changes in executive functions in terms of demand load under varying presentation times. Two tasks were employed where a signal detection and a discrimination task were performed by young and older university students. Furthermore, a characterization of the response time distribution by an ex‐Gaussian fit was carried out. The results indicated that the older participants were slower than the younger ones in signal detection and discrimination. Moreover, the differences between both processes for the older participants were higher, and they also showed a higher distribution average except for the lower and higher presentation time. The results suggest a general slowdown in both tasks for age under different presentation times, except for the cases where presentation times were lower and higher. Moreover, if these parameters are understood to be a reflection of executive functions, these findings are consistent with the common view that age‐related cognitive deficits show a decline in this function.