Associations Among Perceived Autonomy Support,Forms of Self-Regulation,and Persistence: A Prospective Study

According to self-determination theory, when the social context is autonomy supportive, people are motivated to internalize the regulation of important activities, and whereas when the context is controlling, self-determined motivation is undermined. A model that incorporates perceptions of coaches' interpersonal behaviors (autonomy support vs. control), 5 forms of regulation (intrinsic motivation, identified, introjected and external regulation, and amotivation), and persistence was tested with competitive swimmers (N = 369) using a prospective 3-wave design. Analyses using structural equation modeling revealed that experiencing relationships as controlling fostered non–self-determined forms of regulation (external regulation and amotivation). Greater levels of self-determined motivation occurred when relationships were experienced as autonomy supportive. Individuals who exhibited self-determined types of regulation at Time 1 showed more persistence at both Time 2 (10 months later) and Time 3 (22 months later). Individuals who were amotivated at Time 1 had the highest rate of attrition at both Time 2 and Time 3. Introjected regulation was a significant predictor of persistence at Time 2 but became nonsignificant at Time 3. External regulation was not a significant predictor of behavior at Time 2, but became negatively associated with persistence at Time 3. The findings are discussed in light of the determinants of the internalization process and the consequences of different forms of self-regulation for psychological functioning.     

Mechanisms for ovarian cycle disruption by immune/inflammatory stress

This review summarizes highlights of our experiments investigating mechanisms, mediators and sites by which endotoxin disrupts reproductive neuroendocrine activity and interferes with the estrous cycle of sheep. Endotoxin, or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), is a commonly used model for immune and inflammatory stress. When administered to ovary-intact ewes, endotoxin interrupts the follicular phase of the cycle by interfering with several steps in the preovulatory chain of endocrine events. One such step is the development of high frequency LH pulses, which provide an essential stimulus for the preovulatory increase in estradiol secretion from the ovarian follicle. Follow-up experiments in ovariectomized ewes demonstrate that endotoxin inhibits pulsatile LH secretion at both the hypothalamic and pituitary levels, suppressing pulsatile GnRH secretion and reducing pituitary responsiveness to GnRH. This disruption of GnRH and LH pulsatility is mediated by pathways that include the synthesis of prostaglandins and cortisol, both of which are increased by endotoxin. It is postulated that a prostaglandin-mediated pathway disrupts the cycle during immune and inflammatory stress, whereas a separate cortisol-mediated pathway reinforces this disruption and also participates more generally in suppressing cyclicity during other stressful situations that activate the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis.     

The relation between consciousness and attention: An empirical study using the priming paradigm

Dehaene et al., 2006, Koch and Tsuchiya, 2007 recently proposed taxonomies that distinguish between four processing states, based on bottom-up stimulus strength and top-down attentional amplification. The aim of the present study was to empirically test these processing states using the priming paradigm. Our results showed that attention (prime attended or not) and stimulus strength (prime presented subliminally or not) significantly modulated priming effects: either receiving top-down attention or possessing sufficient bottom-up strength was a prerequisite for a stimulus to elicit priming. When both top-down attention and sufficient bottom-up strength were present, the priming effect was boosted. The origins of the observed priming effects also varied between different processing states. We can conclude that our empirical study using the priming paradigm confirmed the presence of four processing states, which displayed a differential pattern of response priming effects and differential origins of the response priming effects.     

Having to identify a target reduces latencies in prosaccades but not in antisaccades

In a princeps study, Trottier and Pratt (2005) showed that saccadic latencies were dramatically reduced when subjects were instructed to not simply look at a peripheral target (reflexive saccade) but to identify some of its properties. According to the authors, the shortening of saccadic reactions times may arise from a top-down disinhibition of the superior colliculus (SC), potentially mediated by the direct pathway connecting frontal/prefrontal cortex structures to the SC. Using a “cue paradigm” (a cue preceded the appearance of the target), the present study tests if the task instruction (Identify vs. Glance) also reduces the latencies of antisaccades (AS), which involve prefrontal structures. We show that instruction reduces latencies for prosaccade but not for AS. An AS requires two processes: the inhibition of a reflexive saccade and the generation of a voluntary saccade. To separate these processes and to better understand the task effect we also test the effect of the task instruction only on voluntary saccades. The effect still exists but it is much weaker than for reflexive saccades. The instruction effect closely depends on task demands in executive resources.     

Sensitive but not sentimental: Emotionally intelligent people can put their emotions aside when necessary

Are emotionally intelligent people sentimental? Does their greater sensitivity handicap them or are they able, as theory would expect, to experience and regulate emotions flexibly, depending on their goals? We examined this issue in organizational settings. Good managers are indeed expected to be both attuned to feelings (theirs as well as their subordinates’) and able to put them aside when needed to take tough (but necessary) decisions. Our results show that emotionally intelligent managers do make better managers, as reflected by greater managerial competencies, higher team efficiency and less stressed subordinates. Moreover, and most importantly, emotionally intelligent managers are not just nicer managers. As our results show, emotional intelligence has nothing to do with sentimentality. Actually, it is managers with low EI who have the greatest difficulties to put their emotions aside and not let them interfere when inappropriate.     

Older adults' configural processing of faces: role of second-order information

Problems with face recognition are frequent in older adults. However, the mechanisms involved have only been partially discovered. In particular, it is unknown to what extent these problems may be related to changes in configural face processing. Here, we investigated the face inversion effect (FIE) together with the ability to detect modifications in the vertical or horizontal second-order relations between facial features. We used a same/different unfamiliar face discrimination task with 33 young and 33 older adults. The results showed dissociations in the performances of older versus younger adults. There was a lack of inversion effect during the recognition of original faces by older adults. However, for modified faces, older adults showed a pattern of performance similar to that of young participants, with preserved FIE for vertically modified faces and no detectable FIE for horizontally modified faces. Most importantly, the detection of vertical modifications was preserved in older relative to young adults whereas the detection of horizontal modifications was markedly diminished. We conclude that age has dissociable effects on configural face-encoding processes, with a relative preservation of vertical compared to horizontal second-order relations processing. These results help to understand some divergent results in the literature and may explain the spared familiar face identification abilities in the daily lives of older adults.