The dynamics of team coordination: A social network analysis as a window to shared awareness

Shared awareness was studied in one novice and one expert basketball team during real games. Teams were considered dynamic social networks with team members as nodes and members’ awareness of other members during ongoing performance as relations. Networks, and changes to them across games, were analysed at different levels of organization using social network analysis to identify patterns of awareness within the teams. The results showed that one team member in each team often heeded, or was heeded by, his teammates, indicating his leadership role in coordinating the team. Also, expert team members had a low level of awareness of their teammates, which may be explained by implicit coordination processes. Finally, there was less variability in intra-team relations in the expert (vs. novice) team, which may be explained by the enhanced ability of the expert team to achieve and maintain an optimal level of awareness during the game. At a practical level, teams might be alerted during performance when their network of connections approaches connectedness thresholds that predict coordination breakdowns, affording online regulation of team processes. Future studies should explore the generalizability of these early findings using larger samples.     

Maternal Weight Control Behaviors for Preschoolers Related to Children’s Gender

The purpose of this study was to identify significant factors associated with Korean mothers’ behaviors in controlling their preschool children’s weight and to examine gender differences among the significant associated factors. This study involved a convenience sample of 223 pairs of mothers and their preschool children (114 boys and 109 girls) in South Korea. Maternal desire for their children to lose weight, concern about children being overweight or obese, and interaction between gender and concern about children being overweight or obese were significant factors associated with maternal behaviors to control children’s weight. Regarding the interaction between gender and concern about children being overweight or obese, mothers who were concerned about their daughter being overweight or obese were more likely to control their child’s weight than those who were concerned about their son being overweight or obese. Additionally, mothers with concerns about their daughter being overweight or obese were more likely to conduct weight control behaviors for their child than mothers of girls without such concern. However, among mothers of boys, there was no difference in maternal behaviors to control their child’s weight between those with concern and without concern. Therefore, health care providers should understand gender specific maternal concerns regarding their child’s weight and provide tailored weight control interventions for mother and child pairs considering the child’s gender.     

Continuing Medical Education: A Cross Sectional Study on a Developing Country’s Perspective

To determine the attitude of general practitioners towards continuing medical education (CME) and reasons motivating or hindering them from attending CME procedures, we conducted a cross-sectional survey from November 2013 to April 2014 in Karachi. Three hundred general practitioners who possessed a medical license for practice in Pakistan filled a pre-designed questionnaire consisting of questions pertaining to attitudes towards CME. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS v16.0. 70.3% (n = 211) of the participants were males. Mean age was 47.75 ± 9.47 years. Only 67.33% knew about CME and only 52% had attended a CME session. Reasons for attending CME procedures reported were: need for updating knowledge, skills and competencies (67.30%), opportunity to meet colleagues (18.58%) and presenting scientific papers (8.97%). Mean Likert score was 1.67 (±0.667) for those who thought CME is worthwhile and 1.44 (±0.686) for those who consider their clinical duties as the major hurdle in attending CME procedures. Most common cause for not attending CME was lack of knowledge (32.66%) followed by time constraint (24%). Most physicians were not sufficiently informed about the potential benefits of CME and had never attended a CME session. Most common reason for attending CME procedures reported was need for updating knowledge, skills and competencies while reasons hindering physicians from attending CME were lack of knowledge and time constraint.     

Editorial: The role of reasoning in mathematical thinking

ABSTRACT

Research into mathematics often focuses on basic numerical and spatial intuitions, and one key property of numbers: their magnitude. The fact that mathematics is a system of complex relationships that invokes reasoning usually receives less attention. The purpose of this special issue is to highlight the intricate connections between reasoning and mathematics, and to use insights from the reasoning literature to obtain a more complete understanding of the processes that underlie mathematical cognition. The topics that are discussed range from the basic heuristics and biases to the various ways in which complex, effortful reasoning contributes to mathematical cognition, while also considering the role of individual differences in mathematics performance. These investigations are not only important at a theoretical level, but they also have broad and important practical implications, including the possibility to improve classroom practices and educational outcomes, to facilitate people's decision-making, as well as the clear and accessible communication of numerical information.     

Safe and sensible preprocessing and baseline correction of pupil-size data

Measurement of pupil size (pupillometry) has recently gained renewed interest from psychologists, but there is little agreement on how pupil-size data is best analyzed. Here we focus on one aspect of pupillometric analyses: baseline correction, i.e., analyzing changes in pupil size relative to a baseline period. Baseline correction is useful in experiments that investigate the effect of some experimental manipulation on pupil size. In such experiments, baseline correction improves statistical power by taking into account random fluctuations in pupil size over time. However, we show that baseline correction can also distort data if unrealistically small pupil sizes are recorded during the baseline period, which can easily occur due to eye blinks, data loss, or other distortions. Divisive baseline correction (corrected pupil size = pupil size/baseline) is affected more strongly by such distortions than subtractive baseline correction (corrected pupil size = pupil size ? baseline). We discuss the role of baseline correction as a part of preprocessing of pupillometric data, and make five recommendations: (1) before baseline correction, perform data preprocessing to mark missing and invalid data, but assume that some distortions will remain in the data; (2) use subtractive baseline correction; (3) visually compare your corrected and uncorrected data; (4) be wary of pupil-size effects that emerge faster than the latency of the pupillary response allows (within ±220 ms after the manipulation that induces the effect); and (5) remove trials on which baseline pupil size is unrealistically small (indicative of blinks and other distortions).     

Book reviews

Institutions represent both the conscious and unconscious aspects of the interacting members. Psychotherapists need to address their unconscious position in the institution as well as the conscious aspects of their work. This paper describes the possible relevance that psychotherapy may have at the unconscious level. The notion of the ‘social defence system’ is extremely useful in finding one's way in the engulfing emotional attitudes, and for tolerating the often dismaying sense of irrelevance that psychotherapy appears to attract. The social defence system of a prison and a mental hospital are considered in this light and some thought are devoted to the changing state of the National Health Service at present.     

Ethical Dilemmas in Genetic Testing: Examples from the Cuban Program for Predictive Diagnosis of Hereditary Ataxias

Predictive testing protocols are intended to help patients affected with hereditary conditions understand their condition and make informed reproductive choices. However, predictive protocols may expose clinicians and patients to ethical dilemmas that interfere with genetic counseling and the decision making process. This paper describes ethical dilemmas in a series of five cases involving predictive testing for hereditary ataxias in Cuba. The examples herein present evidence of the deeply controversial situations faced by both individuals at risk and professionals in charge of these predictive studies, suggesting a need for expanded guidelines to address such complexities.     

Bridging the Gap: Does Closure to Efficient Causation Entail Quantum-Like Attributes?

This paper explores the similarities between the conceptual structure of quantum theory and relational biology as developed within the Rashevsky-Rosen-Louie school of theoretical biology. With this aim, generalized quantum theory and the abstract formalism of (M,R)-systems are briefly presented. In particular, the notion of organizational invariance and relational identity are formalized mathematically and a particular example is given. Several quantum-like attributes of Rosen’s complex systems such as complementarity and nonseparability are discussed. Taken together, this work emphasizes the possible role of self-referentiality and impredicativity in quantum theory.     

Vasopressin/oxytocin-related peptides influence long-term memory of a passive avoidance task in the cuttlefish,Sepia officinalis

The vasopressin (VP)/oxytocin (OT)-related peptides constitute a large superfamily found in a wide range of both vertebrate and invertebrate species. While intensive literature reports that these neuropeptides influence behavior, especially learning and memory, in numerous species from diverse vertebrate groups, their roles in behavioral regulation have never been studied in invertebrates. Here, we investigated the role of two VP/OT superfamily peptides, octopressin (OP) and cephalotocin (CT), on long-term memory (LTM) formation of a passive avoidance task in a cephalopod mollusc, the cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis. Subadult cuttlefish were intravenously injected, in a dose range of 3–60 μg/kg, 1 h after the training phase (consolidation design); retention performance was tested 24 h post-training. We found that administration of OP at low dose (3 μg/kg) enhanced LTM, whereas a dose of 60 μg/kg attenuated it. No effect of OP on LTM was observed for the 15 μg/kg dose. Conversely, an enhancement of retention performance was observed at all doses of CT tested. This study is the first to demonstrate the behavioral effects of VP/OT superfamily peptides in an invertebrate species. The valuable role of VP/OT-like peptides on memory processes offers new evolutionary perspectives on peptidergic transmission and neuromodulation.     

The ability to regulate emotion is associated with greater well-being, income, and socioeconomic status

Are people who are best able to implement strategies to regulate their emotional expressive behavior happier and more successful than their counterparts? Although past research has examined individual variation in knowledge of the most effective emotion regulation strategies, little is known about how individual differences in the ability to actually implement these strategies, as assessed objectively in the laboratory, are associated with external criteria. In two studies, we examined how individual variation in the ability to modify emotional expressive behavior in response to evocative stimuli is related to well-being and financial success. Study 1 showed that individuals who can best suppress their emotional reaction to an acoustic startle are happiest with their lives. Study 2 showed that individuals who can best amplify their emotional reaction to a disgust-eliciting movie are happiest with their lives and have the highest disposable income and socioeconomic status. Thus, being able to implement emotion regulation strategies in the laboratory is closely linked to well-being and financial success.