The Minho Word Pool: Norms for imageability,concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 Portuguese words

Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive research. Because of their complexity, using words requires strict control of their objective (lexical and sublexical) and subjective properties. In this work, we present the Minho Word Pool (MWP), a dataset that provides normative values of imageability, concreteness, and subjective frequency for 3,800 (European) Portuguese words—three subjective measures that, in spite of being used extensively in research, have been scarce for Portuguese. Data were collected with 2,357 college students who were native speakers of European Portuguese. The participants rated 100 words drawn randomly from the full set for each of the three subjective indices, using a Web survey procedure (via a URL link). Analyses comparing the MWP ratings with those obtained for the same words from other national and international databases showed that the MWP norms are reliable and valid, thus providing researchers with a useful tool to support research in all neuroscientific areas using verbal stimuli. The MWP norms can be downloaded along with this article or from http://p-pal.di.uminho.pt/about/databases.     

Moved by words: Affective ratings for a set of 2,266 Spanish words in five discrete emotion categories

The two main theoretical accounts of the human affective space are the dimensional perspective and the discrete-emotion approach. In recent years, several affective norms have been developed from a dimensional perspective, including ratings for valence and arousal. In contrast, the number of published datasets relying on the discrete-emotion approach is much lower. There is a need to fill this gap, considering that discrete emotions have an effect on word processing above and beyond those of valence and arousal. In the present study, we present ratings from 1,380 participants for a set of 2,266 Spanish words in five discrete emotion categories: happiness, anger, fear, disgust, and sadness. This will be the largest dataset published to date containing ratings for discrete emotions. We also present, for the first time, a fine-grained analysis of the distribution of words into the five emotion categories. This analysis reveals that happiness words are the most consistently related to a single, discrete emotion category. In contrast, there is a tendency for many negative words to belong to more than one discrete emotion. The only exception is disgust words, which overlap least with the other negative emotions. Normative valence and arousal data already exist for all of the words included in this corpus. Thus, the present database will allow researchers to design studies to contrast the predictions of the two most influential theoretical perspectives in this field. These studies will undoubtedly contribute to a deeper understanding of the effects of emotion on word processing.     

A computational framework for attentional object discovery in RGB-D videos

We present a computational framework for attention-guided visual scene exploration in sequences of RGB-D data. For this, we propose a visual object candidate generation method to produce object hypotheses about the objects in the scene. An attention system is used to prioritise the processing of visual information by (1) localising candidate objects, and (2) integrating an inhibition of return (IOR) mechanism grounded in spatial coordinates. This spatial IOR mechanism naturally copes with camera motions and inhibits objects that have already been the target of attention. Our approach provides object candidates which can be processed by higher cognitive modules such as object recognition. Since objects are basic elements for many higher level tasks, our architecture can be used as a first layer in any cognitive system that aims at interpreting a stream of images. We show in the evaluation how our framework finds most of the objects in challenging real-world scenes.     

Temporal and spatial dimensions in the perception of environmental problems: An investigation of the concept of environmental hyperopia

Environmental problems have been perceived as more worrying when they take place at greater distances. This phenomenon has been called “environmental hyperopia” ( 9 Uzzell, 2000; 7 Uzzell, Rice, Ballantyne, & Podlucká, 1994). Some studies have demonstrated that local environmental problems are perceived as being less important than the problems generated in other places, such as global warming or Amazon deforestation, unless the problem leads to an immediate risk. This article is part of a broader research programme, which tries to analyse the most relevant variables in the formation of pro‐environmental attitudes. More precisely, our intention is to explore the difference between attitudes about local and global environments. We present a study of the assessment of several environmental problems, in which 12 scales measured the importance given to these problems by a sample of students. The results were analysed with multidimensional methods, allowing us to establish temporal and space dimensions in the perception of environmental problems. The conclusions allowed us not only to explore the social representation of environmental problems, but also to establish priorities and recommendations for future environmental education programmes.     

General self‐efficacy in various domains of human functioning: Evidence from five countries

Based on social‐cognitive theory ( 1 Bandura, 1997), this paper examined whether perceived self‐efficacy is a universal psychological construct that accounts for variance within various domains of human functioning. Perceived self‐efficacy is not only of a task‐specific nature, but it can also be identified at a more general level of functioning. General self‐efficacy (GSE) is the belief in one's competence to tackle novel tasks and to cope with adversity in a broad range of stressful or challenging encounters, as opposed to specific self‐efficacy, which is constrained to a particular task at hand. The study aimed at exploring the relations between GSE and a variety of other psychological constructs across several countries. Relations between general self‐efficacy and personality, well‐being, stress appraisals, social relations, and achievements were examined among 8796 participants from Costa Rica, Germany, Poland, Turkey, and the USA. Across countries, the findings provide evidence for associations between perceived general self‐efficacy and the selected variables. The highest positive associations were with optimism, self‐regulation, and self‐esteem, whereas the highest negative associations emerged with depression and anxiety. Academic performance is also associated with self‐efficacy as hypothesized. The replication across languages or cultures adds significance to these findings. The relations between self‐efficacy and other personality measures remained stable across cultures and samples. Thus, perceived general self‐efficacy appears to be a universal construct that yields meaningful relations with other psychological constructs.     

Depression,Panic-Fear,and Quality of Life in Near-Fatal Asthma Patients

The aim of this study was to assess the relationships between depressive symptoms and symptom-centered panic-fear (P-F), and reports of health-related quality of life (HRQOL), in persons with near-fatal asthma (NFA), controlling for age, gender, and pulmonary function. Forty persons with NFA were interviewed. Sociodemographic and clinical asthma-related information were collected. HRQOL was assessed by the SF-36 Health Questionnaire, depressive symptoms were assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory, and P-F was assessed by the P-F scale of the Asthma Symptom Checklist. Multiple regression analyses were carried out with the Physical Component Summary (PCS) and the Mental Component Summary (MCS) of the SF-36 as a dependent variable, and depressive symptoms, P-F, age, gender, and pulmonary function as independent variables. Results showed that P-F and age were associated with PCS, whereas depressive symptoms accounted for a marked percentage of the variance explained in MCS. Neither gender nor pulmonary function were related to HRQOL. In conclusion, depressive symptoms and P-F play an important role in how persons with NFA assess their HRQOL. These patient-centered variables are potentially modifiable and may offer new ways to intervene in order to improve HRQOL in persons with NFA.     

Invariance of the “NEO-PI-R” factor structure across exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) carried out in the last decades to test the Five-factor simple structure have generally obtained negative results. McCrae, Zonderman, Costa, Bond, and Paunonen (1996) suggested that CFA limitations were the main cause of such negative results. They also claim that Procrustes Orthogonal rotation method is an adequate procedure to test the replicability of the Five-factor structure. The aim of the present paper is twofold: (A) comparing several Exploratory factor procedures (including the Procrustes rotation) to test what is the most appropriate one to analyse the replicability of the Five-factor structure, and (B) replicating the CFA results of the McCrae et al.’s study with a larger number of subjects. The normative American (N = 1000), and Spanish (2000) standardization samples of the NEO-PI-R, together with an independent university sample (N = 948) were analysed. Results were replicated in the three samples, and suggest that: (1) structural properties of the Five-factor model, as measured by the NEO-PI-R, are invariant irrespective of the Exploratory factor procedure used, and (2) when CFA limitations are surpassed, the Five-factor structure is supported.     

Inventory of Overburden in Alzheimer's Patient Family Caregivers with no Specialized Training

Background/Objective: Alzheimer-type dementia is one of the most frequent causes of dependence in an aging population, which combines with a considerable demand for care. Furthermore, when the caregiver is a family member or person without specialized training, such care impacts on that person's health. The Inventory of Overburden in Alzheimer's Patient Family Caregivers with no Specialized Training (IPSO-CA24) was designed to find out the needs of these caregivers and evaluate the caregiver's burden or distress. Method: The psychometric properties of the questionnaire were analyzed (in a reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory analysis) based on the responses of 255 caregivers. Results: The factor analyses showed a six-factor structure (Reaction to diagnosis, Physical health, Psychological symptomatology (caretaker), Behavioral symptomatology (patient), Knowledge of the illness, and Level of dependence) explaining 66.52% of the total variance with a reliability of .75 to .93. Support was also found for its convergent validity. Conclusions: The IPSO-CA24 responds to the need for an instrument enabling multidimensional evaluation of the burden on the family caregiver without specialized training.     

Estimating the effect of emotional intelligence in wellbeing among priests

Background/Objective: Emotional intelligence is a variable which has been the subject of significantly increased research in recent years. Relationships have been shown with both physical and psychological problems. The aim of this study is to analyse the direct and indirect effect that emotional intelligence exerts over the manifestation of physical and psychological clinical symptomatology and to severe disorders such as burnout syndrome in a professional group in which social function is fundamental. Method: So that, 881 Latin-American catholic priests (M_age = 45.89; SD_age = 11.58) were evaluated using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-22 and the General Health Questionnaire-28. Results: Using path analysis, emotional intelligence, especially Attention and Emotional Clarity, shows a high effect on psychological and somatic issues. Conclusions: Thus, both specific disorders and general well-being are related to emotional intelligence. Providing effective emotional intelligence training sessions seems to be able to reduce possible physical and emotional disorders.     

Disentangling the effects of word frequency and contextual diversity on serial recall performance

Research shows that contextual diversity (CD; the number of different contexts in which a word appears within a corpus) constitutes a better predictor of reading performance than word frequency (WF), that it mediates the access to lexical representations, and that controlling for contextual CD abolishes the effect of WF in lexical decision tasks. Despite the theoretical relevance of these findings for the study of serial memory, it is not known how CD might affect serial recall performance. We report the first independent manipulation of CD and WF in a serial recall task. Experiment 1 revealed better performance for low CD and for high WF words independently. Both effects affected omissions and item errors, but contrary to past research, word frequency also affected order errors. These results were confirmed in two more experiments comparing pure and alternating lists of low and high CD (Experiment 2) or WF (Experiment 3). The effect of CD was immune to this manipulation, while that of WF was abolished in alternating lists. Altogether the findings suggest a more difficult episodic retrieval of item information for words of high CD, and a role for both item and order information in the WF effect.