Cross-sectional age variance extraction: what's change got to do with it?

In cross-sectional age variance extraction (CAVE), age, the indicator of a hypothesized developmental mechanism, and a developmental outcome are specified as independent, mediator, and target variables, respectively, to test hypotheses about behavioral development. We show that: (a) longitudinal change in a mediator variable accounting for substantial cross-sectional age-related variance in the target variable need not correlate with the target variable's longitudinal change; and, conversely, (b) longitudinal change in a mediator not sharing cross-sectional age-related variance with the target variable may nevertheless correlate highly with that variable's longitudinal change. We discourage use of CAVE for testing multivariate hypotheses about behavioral development.     

“Everybody feels a broken bone,but only we can feel a broken heart”: Group membership influences the perception of targets' suffering

There is surmounting evidence in the literature demonstrating that social pain (e.g. rejection, humiliation, and isolation) and physical pain (e.g. injury or assault) overlap in personal experiences. The present investigation focuses on second‐hand perceptions of social and physical pain. We argue that judgments of others' pain may vary as a function of group membership. By integrating research on intergroup bias in pain judgment with intergroup attributions of humanity, we predicted that observers tend to underestimate social pain more than physical pain in out‐groups compared with in‐groups. Across two studies that considered different scenarios, we found that Italian participants attributed less severe social pain when considering an out‐group (Chinese and Ecuadorian) than an in‐group member. No such effect was found for physical pain. Overall, the current work suggests an additional way through which people preserve a privileged human status to in‐group members while denying out‐group members' humanness. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Context, not conflict, drives cognitive control

Theories of cognitive control generally assume that perceived conflict acts as a signal to engage inhibitory mechanisms that suppress subsequent conflicting information. Crucially, an absence of conflict is not regarded as being a relevant signal for cognitive control. Using a cueing, a priming, and a Simon task, we provide evidence that conflict does not have this unique signal status: Encountering a conflict does not lead to behavioral adjustments on subsequent conflict trials, whereas encountering a nonconflict trial does lead to behavioral adjustments on subsequent nonconflict trials. We propose that this apparent role-reversal can be explained by a mechanism that responds to both the presence and the absence of conflict, down-regulating the visuomotor system following conflict, and up-regulating it following nonconflict.     

Deduction without awareness

We investigated whether two basic forms of deductive inference, Modus Ponens and Disjunctive Syllogism, occur automatically and without awareness. In Experiment 1, we used a priming paradigm with a set of conditional and disjunctive problems. For each trial, two premises were shown. The second premise was presented at a rate designed to be undetectable. After each problem, participants had to evaluate whether a newly-presented target number was odd or even. The target number matched or did not match a conclusion endorsed by the two previous premises. We found that when the target matched the conclusion of a Modus Ponens inference, the evaluation of the target number was reliably faster than baseline even when participants reported that they were not aware of the second premise. This priming effect did not occur for any other valid or invalid inference that we tested, including the Disjunctive Syllogism. In Experiment 2, we used a forced-choice paradigm in which we found that some participants were able to access some information on the second premise when their attention was explicitly directed to it. In Experiment 3, we showed that the priming effect for Modus Ponens was present also in subjects who could not access any information about P(2). In Experiment 4 we explored whether spatial relations (e.g., "a before b") or sentences with quantifiers (e.g., "all a with b") could generate a priming effect similar to the one observed for Modus Ponens. A priming effect could be found for Modus Ponens only, but not for the other relations tested. These findings show that the Modus Ponens inference, in contrast to other deductive inferences, can be carried out automatically and unconsciously. Furthermore, our findings suggest that critical deductive inference schemata can be included in the range of high-level cognitive activities that are carried out unconsciously.     

Role of the dorsal hippocampus in object memory load

The dorsal hippocampus is crucial for mammalian spatial memory, but its exact role in item memory is still hotly debated. Recent evidence in humans suggested that the hippocampus might be selectively involved in item short-term memory to deal with an increasing memory load. In this study, we sought to test this hypothesis. To this aim we developed a novel behavioral procedure to study object memory load in mice by progressively increasing the stimulus set size in the spontaneous object recognition task. Using this procedure, we demonstrated that naive mice have a memory span, which is the number of elements they can remember for a short-time interval, of about six objects. Then, we showed that excitotoxic selective lesions of the dorsal hippocampus did not impair novel object discrimination in the condition of low memory load. In contrast, the same lesion impaired novel object discrimination in the high memory load condition, and reduced the object memory span to four objects. These results have important heuristic and clinical implications because they open new perspective toward the understanding of the role of the hippocampus in item memory and in memory span deficits occurring in human pathologies, such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.     

Understanding Engineers’ Responsibilities: A Prerequisite to Designing Engineering Education

Science and Engineering Ethics - The development of the curriculum for engineering education (course requirements as well as extra-curricular activities like study abroad and internships) should be...     

Sociodemographic and Clinical Differences Between Suicide Ideators and Attempters: A Study of Mood Disordered Patients 50 Years and Older

Our study sought to characterize mood disordered suicide ideators and attempters 50 years and older admitted to a psychiatric ward either for a recent suicide attempt or for ongoing suicidal ideation. We enrolled 50 patients with suicide ideation consecutively admitted to an inpatient department and 50 patients admitted for a suicide attempt made in the last 48 hours. Suicide attempters more frequently had low social support and an age of onset of mood disorder of 46 years and older, and less frequently had a history of suicidal behaviors in the family members and pharmacological treatment, despite the fact that the groups did not differ with regard to antidepressants prescribed. The groups were not distinguishable based on several variables assumed to be risk factors for suicide behavior, such as proximal life events and stressors or alcohol use disorders. In both samples, comorbidity with organic diseases, the presence of stressful life events in the past 12 months, and a diagnosis of major depression were frequently reported. In conclusion, the presence of low social support and the absence of a pharmacotherapy may increase suicidal behaviors in patients at risk.     

A technique for the measurement of aggressive behavior in mice

This paper describes an apparatus permitting the study of aggressive behavior in mice. Aggressive behavior may be spontaneous or induced by means of an electric shock delivered through the tail.