Task control and cognitive abilities of self and spouse in collaboration in middle-aged and older couples

Collaborative problem solving may be used by older couples to optimize cognitive functioning, with some suggestion that older couples exhibit greater collaborative expertise. The study explored age differences in 2 aspects of collaborative expertise: spouses' knowledge of their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities and the ability to fit task control to these cognitive abilities. The participants were 300 middle-aged and older couples who completed a hypothetical errand task. The interactions were coded for control asserted by husbands and wives. Fluid intelligence was assessed, and spouses rated their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities. The results revealed no age differences in couple expertise, either in the ability to predict their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities or in the ability to fit task control to abilities. However, gender differences were found. Women fit task control to their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities; men only fit task control to their spouse's cognitive abilities. For women only, the fit between control and abilities was associated with better performance. The results indicate no age differences in couple expertise but point to gender as a factor in optimal collaboration.     

From terror to joy: automatic tuning to positive affective information following mortality salience

Reminders of death tend to produce strong cognitive and behavioral responses, but little or no emotional response. In three experiments, mortality salience produced an automatic coping response that involved tuning to positive emotional information. Subjects showed increased accessibility of positive emotional information (Experiments 1 and 3) and gave more weight to positive emotion in their judgments of word similarity (Experiment 2) after contemplating death than after thinking about dental pain. This automatic coping response was found both after a delay (Experiments 1 and 2) and directly after the mortality-salience manipulation (Experiment 3), which suggests that the coping process begins immediately. Tuning to positive emotional information in response to mortality salience was unconscious and counterintuitive (Experiment 3). These findings shed light on the coping process that ensues immediately following mortality salience and help to explain why a delay is often necessary to produce effects in line with terror management theory.     

Differential challenge stressor-hindrance stressor relationships with job attitudes, turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior: a meta-analysis

In this article, a 2-dimensional work stressor framework is used to explain inconsistencies in past research with respect to stressor relationships with retention-related criteria. Results of meta-analyses of 183 independent samples indicated that whereas hindrance stressors had dysfunctional relationships with these criteria (negative relationships with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and positive relationships with turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior), relationships with challenge stressors were generally the opposite (positive relationships with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and negative relationships with turnover intentions and turnover). Results also suggested that the differential relationships between challenge stressors and hindrance stressors and the more distal criteria (withdrawal behavior and turnover) were due, in part, to the mediating effects of job attitudes.     

Is optimal vision required for the successful execution of an interceptive task?

The importance of optimal visual function in demanding interceptive tasks is far from established. The aim of the study was to determine whether induced myopic blur and hence sub-optimal visual function would give rise to a detrimental effect on performance in the execution of an interceptive task. The batting performance of grade level cricket players was assessed facing a bowling machine whilst wearing contact lenses of four different refractive conditions (plano (nil), +1.00, +2.00 and +3.00D over-refraction), inducing increasing amounts of myopic blur. Performance for each condition was assessed based both on the shot quality against each delivery judged by a qualified cricket coach blind to each condition, along with an evaluation of the quality of ball-bat contact for each delivery. No significant change was found in batting performance with the introduction of +1.00 and +2.00D of induced myopic blur. A +3.00D over-correction was required before any significant decrease in batting performance was detected, demonstrating that batters needed to be essentially legally blind (as simulated through the use of the +3.00D over-refraction) before there was any significant measurable decrement in batting performance. We concluded that optimal visual correction is not necessarily required for optimal performance in a demanding interceptive task, and that the human perceptual-motor system is capable of compensating for marked alterations in input.     

Mental Illness Publications in Major Pastoral Care Journals from 1950 to 2003

The issue of mental illness has been of considerable interest to both of us over the past several years. The first author has taught a course on the subject for a decade, and his recent publications on the subject include several articles on John Nash (Capps, 2003b, 2004a,b, 2005b), a book on mental illness for pastoral care professionals (2005a), and an article on whether William James was a patient at McLean Hospital (2007). The second author has had experience with the mentally ill through his pastoral work at Trenton Psychiatrist Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, a mental hospital with a rather checkered history (see Scull, 2005), and in Scotland and has also written an article on John Nash (Carlin, 2006). This shared interest, together with evidence that serious mental illness in America has been steadily increasing (Torrey &; Miller, 2001, pp. 295–299), caused us to wonder what sort of attention mental illness has received in our major journals of pastoral care from 1950 to the present. Specifically, has this attention kept pace with the increase in mental illness?     

The role of body-based sensory information in the acquisition of enduring spatial representations

Although many previous studies have shown that body-based sensory modalities such as vestibular, kinesthetic, and efferent information are useful for acquiring spatial information about one's immediate environment, relatively little work has examined how these modalities affect the acquisition of long-term spatial memory. Three groups of participants learned locations along a 146 m indoor route, and subsequently pointed to these locations, estimated distances between them, and constructed maps of the environment. One group had access to visual, proprioceptive, and inertial information, another had access to matched visual and matched inertial information, and another had access only to matched visual information. In contrast to previous findings examining transient, online spatial representations, our results showed very few differences among groups in the accuracy of the spatial memories acquired. The only difference was the improved pointing accuracy of participants who had access to proprioceptive information relative to that of participants in the other conditions. Results are discussed in terms of differential sensory contributions to transient and enduring spatial representations.     

Salience,Imagination, and Moral Luck

One key desideratum of a theory of blame is that it be able to explain why we typically have differing blaming responses in cases involving significant degrees of luck. T.M. Scanlon has proposed a relational account of blame, and he has argued that his account succeeds in this regard and that this success makes his view preferable to reactive attitude accounts of blame. In this paper, I aim to show that Scanlon's view is open to a different kind of luck-based objection. I then offer a way of understanding moral luck cases which allows for a plausible explanation of our differential blaming responses by appealing to the salience of certain relevant features of the action in question.