Psychological profile of Polish skydivers

To identify personality factors, personal values, time perspective, and attitude toward death of 53 Polish skydivers (M age = 28.4 yr., SD = 9.8) and 59 low-risk sport athletes (controls, M age = 27.3 yr., SD = 5.3), several scales were used. These were the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire, Schwartz's Value Survey, the Present and Future Time Perspective Questionnaire, and Death Attitude Questionnaire. It was found that skydivers scored higher on Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Hedonism, Stimulation, and Self-direction values, concentration on the present, preferring a fast death, and belief about controlling death in comparison to the control group. Skydivers also scored lower on Tradition, Universalism, and Benevolence values in comparison to the control group.     

Increasing stimulus intensity does not affect sensorimotor synchronization

When people synchronize taps with isochronously presented stimuli, taps usually precede the pacing stimuli [negative mean asynchrony (NMA)]. One explanation of NMA [sensory accumulation model (SAM), Aschersleben in Brain Cogn 48:66–79, 2002] is that more time is needed to generate a central code for kinesthetic-tactile information than for auditory or visual stimuli. The SAM predicts that raising the intensity of the pacing stimuli shortens the time for their sensory accumulation, thereby increasing NMA. This prediction was tested by asking participants to synchronize finger force pulses with target isochronous stimuli with various intensities. In addition, participants performed a simple reaction-time task, for comparison. Higher intensity led to shorter reaction times. However, intensity manipulation did not affect NMA in the synchronization task. This finding is not consistent with the predictions based on the SAM. Discrepancies in sensitivity to stimulus intensity between sensorimotor synchronization and reaction-time tasks point to the involvement of different timing mechanisms in these two tasks.     

Frontal EEG alpha band asymmetry as a predictor of reasoning deficiency in depressed people

Cognitive deficits in depression are mostly apparent in executive functions, especially when integration of information and reasoning is required. In parallel, there are also numerous studies pointing to the frontal alpha band asymmetry as a psychophysiological marker of depression. In this study, we explored the role of frontal alpha asymmetry as a potential factor explaining the cognitive problems accompanying depression. Twenty-six depressed and 26 control participants completed a reasoning task and underwent 5 minutes of electroencephalography recording. In line with the previous studies, depressed people showed difficulties with reasoning but we did not observe the relationship between frontal asymmetry in the alpha band and depression. However, we found that in the depressed group the frontal alpha asymmetry index was characterised by larger variance than in the control group, and it was also a strong predictor of cognitive functioning exclusively in the depressed group. Our results point to the disruption of a psychophysiological balance, reflected in changed frontal alpha asymmetry (into more left-sided frontal asymmetry in the alpha band, reflecting more right-sided cortical activity) as a possible brain correlate of cognitive disturbances present in depressive disorders.     

Applying Social Empowerment Strategies as Tools for Self‐Advocacy in Counseling Lesbian and Gay Male Clients

Social empowerment is designed to prepare individuals to reconstruct their political, economic, psychological, and social environments. Addressing empowerment for lesbian and gay male populations is critical because of the numerous stereotypical situations that result in their powerlessness. The application of social empowerment strategies as tools for self‐advocacy with lesbian and gay male populations is presented as a consideration for counseling.     

The representation of predictive force control and internal forward models: evidence from lesion studies and brain imaging

Force control on the basis of prediction avoids time delays from sensory feedback during motor performance. Thus, self-produced loads arising from gravitational and inertial forces during object manipulation can be compensated for by simultaneous anticipatory changes in grip force. It has been suggested that internal forward models predict the consequences of our movements, so that grip force can be programmed in anticipation of movement-induced loads. The cerebellum has been proposed as the anatomical correlate of such internal models. Here, we present behavioural data from patients with cerebellar damage and data from brain imaging in healthy subjects further elucidating the role of the cerebellum in predictive force control. Patients with cerebellar damage exhibited clear deficits in the coupling between grip force and load. A positron-emission-tomography (PET) paradigm that separated the process of the grip force/load coupling from the isolated production of similar grip forces and loads was developed. Interaction and conjunction analyses revealed a strong activation peak in the ipsilateral posterior cerebellum particularly devoted to the predictive coupling between grip force and load. Both approaches clearly demonstrate that the cerebellum plays a major role in force prediction that cannot be compensated for by other sensorimotor structures in case of cerebellar disease. However, evidence suggests that also extra-cerebellar structures may significantly contribute to predictive force control: (1) grip force/load coupling may also be impaired after cerebral and peripheral sensorimotor lesions, (2) a coupling-related activation outside the cerebellum was observed in our PET study, and (3) the scaling of the grip force level and the dynamic grip force coupling are dissociable aspects of grip force control.     

Ordinary life and the tragedy of solidarity

In his texts, Józef Tischner (1930–2000) referred to significant problems characteristic of the end of the communist regime and the first years of the liberal-democratic system in Poland. He tried to understand, among other things, the sources of Polish society’s disappointment with their regained political and economic freedom. This article discusses the late period of Tischner’s life and work, when his philosophy was heavily influenced by the ideas of Charles Taylor. On the one hand, the author analyzes Tischner’s attitude toward the concept of ordinary life, while on the other, Tischner’s understanding of solidarity combined with the concept of the spirit of capitalism. The article shows numerous similarities and significant differences between the way of thinking of both philosophers. The former concern above all the consentaneous assessment of the disappearance of heroism in liberal-democratic societies, while the latter concern the discrepancies in the assessment of the possibility of fully implementing the idea of solidarity in these societies.

     

Effects of repetition priming on recognition memory: testing a perceptual fluency-disfluency model

Five experiments explored the effects of immediate repetition priming on episodic recognition (the "Jacoby-Whitehouse effect") as measured with forced-choice testing. These experiments confirmed key predictions of a model adapted from D. E. Huber and R. C. O'Reilly's (2003) dynamic neural network of perception. In this model, short prime durations pre-activate primed items, enhancing perceptual fluency and familiarity, whereas long prime durations result in habituation, causing perceptual disfluency and less familiarity. Short duration primes produced a recognition preference for primed words (Experiments 1, 2, and 5), whereas long duration primes produced a preference against primed words (Experiments 3, 4, and 5). Experiment 2 found prime duration effects even when participants accurately identified short duration primes. A cued-recall task included in Experiments 3, 4, and 5 found priming effects only for recognition trials that were followed by cued-recall failure. These results suggest that priming can enhance as well as lower familiarity, without affecting recollection. Experiment 4 provided a manipulation check on this procedure through a delay manipulation that preferentially affected recognition followed by cued-recall success.     

Creating cluster‐specific purchase profiles from point‐of‐sale scanner data and geodemographic clusters: improving category management at a major US grocery chain

In the retail grocery industry, category management is the process of managing categories of products for greater profitability and customer value. Category management is a data‐driven process and, as a result, can benefit from point‐of‐sale (POS) scanner data. This paper describes the results of a one‐year project that shows how to use POS scanner data and geodemographic clusters to improve the practice of category management at Price Chopper, a large US grocery chain. The paper demonstrates how to merge POS scanner data with geodemographic clusters to create detailed purchase profiles that provide valuable information to category managers. It also discusses the trials and tribulations of using scanner data and provides several findings as implications (eg store‐specific promotions should be more effective than chain‐wide promotions for stores servicing a small number of geodemographic clusters with distinct shopping profiles) that supermarket managers can immediately use to improve existing promotional strategies. The paper's contents should be relevant to academicians and practitioners interested in improving the practice of category management in the UK, USA, Western Europe and Australia. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Big five domain and gender as determinants of rater agreement: a comparison based on self- and peer-rating on the Polish Adjective List

The study tested the hypothesis that with respect to the big five domains associated with temperament, agreement between self- and others' ratings is higher than with respect to other domains. The same was expected with respect to peer–peer agreement. There were two groups of subjects: self-raters (n=639) and peer-raters (n=1278). All subjects completed the Polish Adjective List (PAL), which consists of five scales: Dynamism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Excitability and Intellect, which are Polish representations of the big five personality factors extracted in American lexical studies. Each target person completed one self-rating inventory and was assessed by two peer-raters. Domains associated with temperament (Dynamism and Excitability) elicited higher agreement between self-and peer-ratings than Agreeableness and Intellect, although in case of Conscientiousness judges appeared to be as accurate as in the case of Excitability. The pattern was even less clear with respect to the peer–peer comparison. The other finding shows that in case of female raters there was more agreement between self- and peer-rating, than in case of male raters.