On measuring time metaphors

Referring to the 2005 article by Wittmann and Lehnhoff, the problem of using time metaphors for measuring awareness of time is posed. Starting from clarification of meaning, the Metaphors Slowness scale which was not homogeneous, an alternative interpretation of the result was proposed, given that metaphors refer to two separate aspects of time speed, an ongoing passage of time, and ex post reflection on passage of time that has already passed. The former refers to the judgment of an ongoing passage of time, and the latter to the judgment of passage of past time from a particular point in the past till now. Time perception is multifaceted and perhaps ambiguous. This particular aspect of time perception is covered by a notion of a "dialectical time", when opposite aspects of time are combined, e.g., pleasant and unpleasant ones.     

Family well-being is valued more than personal well-being: A four-country study

Well-being is recognized as a fundamental human goal and a universal human aspiration. However, some cross-country studies suggest that the desirability of the most often studied concept of well-being—personal life satisfaction—varies across countries, and we know little about the desirability of other types of well-being. Extending this novel area of research, we argue that focusing on the family (as compared to the individual) as the subject of well-being may be another important distinction in how well-being is conceptualized and valued. With data collected in four countries that tend to occupy different positions in rankings of personal life satisfaction (i.e., Canada, Colombia, Japan, and Poland), we document that, irrespective of cultural context, family well-being is valued over personal well-being. These findings suggest that policy makers and scientists may need to pay more attention to family well-being than they currently do.

     

When sounds look right and images sound correct: Cross-modal coherence enhances claims of pattern presence

How do people decide whether a stimulus contains a pattern? One possibility is that they rely on a global, non-specific signal of coherence. Interestingly, this signal might reflect a combination of different stimulus sources. Consequently, the coherence of one stimulus might influence decisions about coherence of a second, unrelated stimulus. We explored this possibility in three experiments in which participants judged the presence of a pattern in targets from one sensory modality, while being exposed in the background to incidental coherent and incoherent stimuli in a different modality (visual → auditory, auditory → visual). Across all three experiments, using a variety of judgments, coherence of incidental background cross-modal patterns enhanced claims of pattern presence. These findings advance our understanding of how people judge order in the structured as well as in the unstructured world.     

Józef Bocheński and static religion

One of the most interesting aspects of Józef Bocheński’s philosophy was its relation to Henri Bergson’s thought, particularly to his philosophy of religion. Unlike the majority of the Catholic philosophers at that time, Bocheński did not stress the significance of dynamic religion, but rather focused on the role of static religion in human life. In his view, what was of particular interest within this religion was its fabulation function. This direction of the philosopher’s research stemmed from the realism and empiricism proper to the analytic philosophy developed by Bocheński and became increasingly visible as the years passed. In this text the author shows how Bocheński’s analyses of religion, referring to both daily human experiences and logic, moved towards Bergsonian static religion, while diverging from dynamic religion and its key notion of mysticism.     

Voices Inside Me: The Relationship Between Neuroticism and the Tendency to Engage in Internal Dialogue in the Context of Time Perspective

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between neuroticism, internal dialogues, and time perspective. Time perspective was examined as a moderator and mediator of the link between neuroticism and internal dialogues. One hundred and thirteen Polish people (aged 20 to 40?years) participated in this study. Our results suggest that in subjects with a high level of neuroticism, the Carpe Diem perspective functioned as a buffer, reducing the strength of the relationship between neuroticism and ruminative dialogues. Moreover, our findings provide evidence for the role of unbalanced time perspective in explaining the positive association between neuroticism and internal dialogues.     

Wild birds recognize individual humans: experiments on magpies, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pica pica</Emphasis>

The ability to distinguish among heterospecific individuals has been reported in only a few animal species. Humans can be viewed as a special type of heterospecifics because individuals differ widely in behavior, ranging from non-threatening to very threatening toward animals. In this study, we asked whether wild magpies can recognize individual humans who had accessed their nests. We compared the behavior of breeding pairs toward individual humans before and after the humans climbed up to the birds’ nests, and also toward climbers and non-climbers. We have evidence for (i) aggressive responses of the magpie pairs toward humans who had repeatedly accessed their nests (climbers) and a lack of response to humans who had not accessed the nest (non-climbers); (ii) a total lack of scolding responses toward climbers by magpie pairs whose nests had not been accessed; (iii) a selective aggressive response to the climber when a climber and a non-climber were presented simultaneously. Taken together, these results suggest that wild magpies can distinguish individual humans that pose a threat to their nests from humans that have not behaved in a threatening way. The magpie is only the third avian species, along with crows and mockingbirds, in which recognition of individual humans has been documented in the wild. Here, we propose a new hypothesis (adopted from psychology) that frequent previous exposure to humans in urban habitats contributes to the ability of birds to discriminate among human individuals. This mechanism, along with high cognitive abilities, may predispose some species to learn to discriminate among human individuals. Experimental tests of these two mechanisms are proposed.     

Effectiveness of group psychotherapy for adult outpatients traumatized by abuse, neglect, and/or pregnancy loss: a multiple-site, pre-post-follow-up, naturalistic study

The New Experience for Survivors of Trauma (NEST) is a group psychotherapy intervention for clients traumatized by consequences of abuse, neglect, and pregnancy loss. This multiple site study is the first investigation of its effectiveness. Ninety outpatients from a naturalistic setting completed the Symptom Checklist and the Sense of Coherence questionnaire at baseline, end of treatment, and one-year follow-up. Effectiveness was tested with statistical significance, effect size, and clinical significance. Clients from the total sample as well as from the abortion subsample showed improvement at the end of treatment and at follow-up. Lack of a control group is balanced to some extent by the high ecological validity. The findings suggest that the NEST treatment may be beneficial for traumatized clients and call for further research.     

Hemispheric asymmetry in the efficiency of attentional networks

Despite the fact that hemispheric asymmetry of attention has been widely studied, a clear picture of this complex phenomenon is still lacking. The aim of the present study was to provide an efficient and reliable measurement of potential hemispheric asymmetries of three attentional networks, i.e. alerting, orienting and executive attention. Participants (N=125) were tested with the Lateralized Attention Network Test (LANT) that allowed us to investigate the efficiency of the networks in both visual fields (VF). We found a LVF advantage when a target occurred in an unattended location, which seems to reflect right hemisphere superiority in control of the reorienting of attention. Furthermore, a LVF advantage in conflict resolution was observed, which may indicate hemispheric asymmetry of the executive network. No VF effect for alerting was found. The results, consistent with the common notion of general right hemisphere dominance for attention, provide a more detailed account of hemispheric asymmetries of the attentional networks than previous studies using the LANT task.     

Quality of Life Before and After Cataract Surgery: Research in a Sample of Polish Patients

The goal of this paper is to present possible change in quality of life (QoL) in older sample of people with vision disturbances. The patients were investigated twice: before (N = 193) and 4 month after the cataract surgery (N = 69), by means of the scale for vision functioning, and the Life Quality Questionnaire (Schalock & Keith, 1993) extend with the items measuring health related quality of life (HRQoL). Two problems were formulated: To what extent are visual defects associated with the decreased subjective QoL? What changes are observed in perceived QoL during the period of treatment of visual defects? The patients reported significant increase of HRQoL, however they did not report similar increase of a general QoL. Few reasons are considered: overlapping of the content of visual function scales and HRQoL and different indices of a general QoL and HRQoL, lack of a proper postoperative care, low socio-economic status of the participants, and too high expectation concerning better functioning after the surgery.