Assessing the Structural and Psychometric Properties of a New Personality Measure for Use With Military Personnel in the French Armed Forces

We evaluated the measurement properties of a new personality scale for use with military personnel in the French Navy (N = 1,266). Principal components analyses indicated a five-factor structure assessing emotional stability, ascendancy, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Each factor comprised two facets that included 7 items per facet for a total of 70 items. Reliability analyses indicate that the factors and corresponding facets were internally consistent and temporally stable. Validity analyses indicate that the TAMI-P was significantly correlated with comparable measures of personality—correlations ranged from .53 to .68 with the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and the Big Five Questionnaire.     

Level of emotional awareness in the general French population: Effects of gender,age, and education level

The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) developed by Lane et al. ( 1990 1990) measures the ability of a subject to discriminate his or her own emotional state and that of others. The scale is based on a cognitive‐developmental model in which emotional awareness increases in a similar fashion to intellectual functions. Because studies performed using North American and German populations have demonstrated an effect of age, gender, and level of education on the ability to differentiate emotional states, our study attempts to evaluate whether these factors have the same effects in a general French population. 750 volunteers (506 female, 244 male), who were recruited from three regions of France (Lille, Montpellier, Paris), completed the LEAS. The sample was divided into five age groups and three education levels. The results of the LEAS scores for self and others and the total score showed a difference in the level of emotional awareness for different age groups, by gender and education level. A higher emotional level was observed for younger age groups, suggesting that emotional awareness depends on the cultural context and generational societal teachings. Additionally, the level of emotional awareness was higher in women than in men and lower in individuals with less education. This result might be explained by an educational bias linked to gender and higher education whereby expressive ability is reinforced. In addition, given the high degree of variability in previously observed scores in the French population, we propose a standard based on our French sample.     

Norms on the gender perception of role nouns in Czech,English, French,German, Italian,Norwegian, and Slovak

We collected norms on the gender stereotypicality of an extensive list of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak, to be used as a basis for the selection of stimulus materials in future studies. We present a Web-based tool (available at https://www.unifr.ch/lcg/) that we developed to collect these norms and that we expect to be useful for other researchers, as well. In essence, we provide (a) gender stereotypicality norms across a number of languages and (b) a tool to facilitate cross-language as well as cross-cultural comparisons when researchers are interested in the investigation of the impact of stereotypicality on the processing of role nouns.     

Effort responses to suboptimal reward cues are related to striatal dopaminergic functioning

Reward cues have been found to increase the investment of effort in tasks even when cues are presented suboptimally (i.e. very briefly), making them hard to consciously detect. Such effort responses to suboptimal reward cues are assumed to rely mainly on the mesolimbic dopamine system, including the ventral striatum. To provide further support for this assumption, we performed two studies investigating whether these effort responses vary with individual differences in markers of striatal dopaminergic functioning. Study 1 investigated the relation between physical effort responses and resting state eye-blink rate. Study 2 examined cognitive effort responses in relation to individually averaged error-related negativity. In both studies effort responses correlated with the markers only for suboptimal, but not for optimal reward cues. These findings provide further support for the idea that effort responses to suboptimal reward cues are mainly linked to the mesolimbic dopamine system, while responses to optimal reward cues also depend on higher-level cortical functions.     

Bayes Factors Have Frequency Properties—This Should Not Be Ignored: A Rejoinder to Morey,Wagenmakers, and Rouder

Hoijtink, van Kooten, and Hulsker (2016 Hoijtink, H., van Kooten, P., &; Hulsker, K. (2016). Why Bayesian psychologists should change the way they used the Bayes factor. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 51, 1--9. doi: 10.1080/00273171.2014.969364.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) outline a research agenda for Bayesian psychologists: evaluate and use the frequency properties of Bayes factors. Morey, Wagenmakers, and Rouder (2016 Morey, R. D., Wagenmakers, E. -J., &; Rouder, J. N. (2016). Calibrated Bayes factors should not be used: A reply to Hoijtink, van Kooten, and Hulsker. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 51, 10--17. doi: 10.1080/00273171.2015.1052710.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) respond that Bayes factors calibrated using frequency properties should not be used. This paper contains the response of Hoijtink, van Kooten, and Hulsker to the criticism of Morey, Wagenmakers, and Rouder (2016 Morey, R. D., Wagenmakers, E. -J., &; Rouder, J. N. (2016). Calibrated Bayes factors should not be used: A reply to Hoijtink, van Kooten, and Hulsker. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 51, 10--17. doi: 10.1080/00273171.2015.1052710.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).     

Behavioral evidence for two distinct memory systems in rats

Animal Cognition - Serial reaction time tasks, in which subjects have to match a target to a cue, are used to explore whether non-human animals have multiple memory systems. Predictable...     

Pigeons discriminate between human feeders

Considered as plague in many cities, pigeons in urban areas live close to human activities and exploit this proximity to find food which is often directly delivered by people. In this study, we explored the capacity of feral pigeons to take advantage of this human-based food resource and discriminate between friendly and hostile people. Our study was conducted in an urban park. Pigeons were fed by two experimenters of approximately the same age and skin colour but wearing coats of different colours. During the training sessions, the two human feeders displayed different attitudes: one of the feeders was neutral and the second was hostile and chased away the pigeons. During the two test phases subsequent to the training phase, both feeders became neutral. Two experiments were conducted, one with one male and one female feeder and the second with two female feeders. In both experiments, the pigeons learned to quickly (six to nine sessions) discriminate between the feeders and maintained this discrimination during the test phases. The pigeons avoided the hostile feeder even when the two feeders exchanged their coats, suggesting that they used stable individual characteristics to differentiate between the experimenter feeders. Thus, pigeons are able to learn quickly from their interactions with human feeders and use this knowledge to maximize the profitability of the urban environment. This study provides the first experimental evidence in feral pigeons for this level of human discrimination.     

Muscle coordination and force variability during static and dynamic tracking tasks

This study examined muscular activity patterns of extensor and flexor muscles and variability of forces during static and dynamic tracking tasks using compensatory and pursuit display. Fourteen volunteers performed isometric actions in two conditions: (i) a static tracking task consisting of flexion/pronation, ulnar deviation, extension/supination and radial deviation of the wrist at 20% maximum voluntary contraction (MVC), and (ii) a dynamic tracking task aiming at following a moving target at 20% MVC in the four directions of contraction. Surface electromyography (SEMG) from extensor carpi ulnaris, extensor carpi radialis, flexor carpi ulnaris and flexor digitorum superficialis muscles and exerted forces in the transverse and sagittal plane were recorded. Normalized root mean square and mutual information (index of functional connectivity within muscles) of SEMGs and the standard deviation and sample entropy of force signals were extracted. Larger SEMG amplitudes were found for the dynamic task (p < .05), while normalized mutual information between muscle pairs was larger for the static task (p < .05). Larger size of variability (standard deviation of force) concomitant with smaller sample entropy was observed for the dynamic task compared with the static task (p < .01 for both). These findings underline a rescaling of the muscles’ respective contribution influencing force variability relying on feedback and feed-forward control strategies in relation to display modes during static and dynamic tracking tasks.     

Influence of general and specific autobiographical recall on subsequent behavior: The case of cognitive performance

Two studies tested the impact of autobiographical recall of general versus specific academic success or failure on actual task performance. As expected, it was found that general memories of failure and specific memories of success resulted in worse performance than general memories of success and specific memories of failure. In Study 1, this performance pattern was obtained on a standard math test. In Study 2, it was replicated on a test of intellectual ability, and a mediation by fear of failure was documented. The present findings offer direct evidence that autobiographical memories of success and failure impact actual performance and also reveal the role of memory specificity in this influence.