The Processing of Grammatical Gender Agreement in Brazilian Portuguese: ERP Evidence in Favor of a Single Route

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - The present study used event-related potentials to investigate whether the processing of grammatical gender agreement involving gender regular and irregular...     

Hypnotic susceptibility in patients with conversion disorder

Conversion disorder has been associated with hypnotic susceptibility for over a century and is currently still believed to be a form of autohypnosis. There is, however, little empirical evidence for the relation between hypnotic susceptibility and conversion symptoms. The authors compared 50 patients with conversion disorder with 50 matched control patients with an affective disorder on measures of hypnotic susceptibility, cognitive dissociation, and somatoform dissociation. Conversion patients were significantly more responsive to hypnotic suggestions than control patients. In addition, conversion patients showed a significant correlation between hypnotic susceptibility and the number of conversion complaints. These results provide the first evidence of a relationship between hypnotic susceptibility and the presence and number of conversion symptoms.     

Gaze behaviour of experienced and novice beach lifeguards – An exploratory in situ study

For lifeguards, recognizing a swimmer in trouble is a key factor in the rescue process. Although reports show that lifeguards outperform non‐lifeguards in their surveillance task, it is unclear to what extent this difference is reflected in gaze behaviour. In the current study, gaze behaviour of nine novice and seven experienced beach lifeguards was recorded for 45 min while they were on active duty. Results showed that fixation duration of experienced lifeguards was longer and more variable than that of novice lifeguards, and that these differences were more pronounced when looking at the task‐relevant region (i.e., swimming zone). Compared to experienced lifeguards, novices were found to be more distracted by the task‐irrelevant regions when there were more people swimming. These findings suggest that experienced lifeguards use a more flexible and task‐related gaze strategy, and that there might be differences in visual information processing between novice and experienced beach lifeguards.     

Acoustic features of palilalia: a case study

While a number of authors have suggested that patients with palilalia typically show a tendency to repeat words or phrases with an increasing rate, others maintain that an accelerating speech rate is not essential. The present paper reports the results of an instrumental analysis of the reiterations in a 60-year-old man with palilalia. Results indicate that there is not necessarily an increasing rapidity in palilalia. Duration of the repetition trains, duration of the pauses between the trains, and average number and average duration of the components within a train were variable but did not show a pattern indicative of a systematically increasing rate. The variation in the reiterations suggests that novel or varying motor processes are deployed to produce the elements in a sequence rather than an invariant motor program.     

The Dangers of Resource Myopia in Work and Organisational Psychology: A Plea for Broadening and Integration

On souligne dans cet essai les limites de l'approche quantitative traditionnelle en psychologie du travail et des organisations. Il est nécessaire de s'orienter vers un élargissement de la palette des méthodes une ouverture sur de nouveaux problèmes et une meilleure intégration d'une part avec les disciplines connexes, d'autre part avec les applications des résultats des recherches pour garantir l'utilité et la mise en œuvre de la future psychologie du T&O. Ce qui ne signifie pas que les microproblèmes doivent être laissés de côté, mais on part du principe que la psychologie du T&O ne doit pas être privée de la possibilité de s'attaquer aux questions de niveau moyen et global, souvent les plus pertinentes, sous prétexte que l'on ne dispose pas des outils appropriés pour les traiter.
In this essay the limitations of the traditional quantitative approach in work and organisational psychology are put forward. It is argued that an extension of the methods, a broadening of the type of problems to be addressed, and a stronger integration with associated disciplines as well as with the application and implementation of the research findings are needed to ensure the usefulness and application of future W&O psychology. It is not suggested that micro-level problems should not be investigated, but it is postulated that W&O psychology should not be deprived of the opportunity to tackle other, and often more relevant, meso- and macro-level issues because we lack appropriate tools for attacking them.     

Personality terms of abuse in three cultures: type nouns between description and insult

In this study terms of abuse are investigated in three different cultures. Spontaneous verbal aggression is to a certain extent reminiscent of the values of a certain culture. One hundred and ninety‐two male subjects from Spain, Germany and the Netherlands were asked to write down terms of abuse that they would use given a certain stimulus situation, and in addition to give their rating of the offensive character of those terms. A total set of 830 useful expressions was thus collected. The frequencies of the expressions were established, and the total list of expressions was categorized in terms of what they were about. In Spanish abusive language is typically about family and relations, in Germany it is typically about anal aspects, and in the Netherlands it is mainly about genitals. Explanations are provided in terms of dimensions on which the three cultures differ. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Team history and choking under pressure in major soccer penalty shootouts

This study examined the links between historical team results and individual players' subsequent performances in a high-pressure real-world sport situation. Videos were obtained from all soccer penalty shootouts held in two major international tournaments (World Cup and European Championships) between 1976 and 2006 (n=260 players/309 kicks), and we controlled for team ability and country. The results showed that players on teams with preceding losses performed worse and generally took their shots more quickly than players on teams with preceding wins. These differences were also found with players who took no personal part in the preceding games. In conclusion, the results support the existence of historical dependency effects for performance on important and dramatic high-pressure tasks and they are in part consistent with a view of choking under pressure as a function of threatened egotism and self-regulation failure.     

Dopamine transporter gene moderates response to behavioral parent training in children with ADHD: a pilot study

There is great variability in the degree to which children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) improve through behavioral treatments. This study investigates the influence of the dopamine transporter gene (SCL6A3/DAT1) on outcome of behavioral parent training (BPT). Study subjects were a subsample (n = 50, for whom DAT1 genotypes were available) of a randomized controlled BPT effectiveness study (N = 94) comparing BPT plus ongoing routine clinical care (RCC) versus RCC alone in referred children (4-12 years old) with ADHD. Treatment outcome was based on parent-reported ADHD symptoms and behavioral problems. Presence of 2 versus no or 1 DAT1 10-repeat allele served as moderator variable. Time × Treatment × Genotype effect was analyzed with repeated-measures analysis of variance, controlling for baseline medication status. Results indicate that DAT1 moderated treatment response (p = .009). In children with no or 1 DAT1 10-repeat allele, superior treatment effects of BPT + RCC compared with RCC alone were present (p = .005), which was not the case in children with 2 DAT1 10-repeat alleles (p = .57). Our findings suggest that genetic differences in DAT1 in children with ADHD influence their susceptibility to a behavioral intervention directed at shaping their environment through their parents. The role of the dopamine system in motivation and learning and in the aberrant sensitivity to reinforcement in children with ADHD may explain this moderating effect, given that the management of contingencies is typically addressed in BPT.