Enquiring into the qualitative nature of anger: Challenges and strengths of the introspective method

Current Psychology - Anger is known to be a negatively valenced emotion that can trigger different forms of harmful actions. Traditionally, it is studied from a third-person point of view using...     

Navigating two-dimensional mazes: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and capuchins (Cebus apella sp.) profit from experience differently

We examined whether navigation is impacted by experience in two species of nonhuman primates. Five chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and seven capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) navigated a cursor, using a joystick, through two-dimensional mazes presented on a computer monitor. Subjects completed 192 mazes, each one time. Each maze contained one to five choices, and in up to three of these choices, the correct path required moving the cursor away from the Euclidean direction toward the goal. Some subjects completed these mazes in a random order (Random group); others in a fixed order by ascending number of choices and ascending number of turns away from goal (Ordered group). Chimpanzees in both groups performed equivalently, demonstrated fewer errors and a higher rate of self-correcting errors with increasing experience at solving the mazes, and made significantly fewer errors than capuchin monkeys. Capuchins were more sensitive to the mode of presentation than chimpanzees; monkeys in the Ordered group made fewer errors than monkeys in the Random group. However, capuchins’ performance across testing changed little, and they remained particularly susceptible to making errors when the correct path required moving away from the goal. Thus, these two species responded differently to the same spatial challenges and same learning contexts. The findings indicate that chimpanzees have a strong advantage in this task compared to capuchins, no matter how the task is presented. We suggest that differences between the species in the dynamic organization of attention and motor processes contribute to their differences in performance on this task, and predict similar differences in other tasks requiring, as this one does, sustained attention to a dynamic visual display and self-produced movements variably towards and away from a goal.     

In defense of the possibilism–actualism distinction

Philosophical Studies - In Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson claims that the possibilism–actualism (P–A) distinction is badly muddled. In its place, he introduces a...     

Appearance-related teasing,body dissatisfaction,and disordered eating: A meta-analysis

A meta-analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between appearance and weight-based teasing and three outcome measures: body dissatisfaction, restrictive eating, and bulimic behaviors. Four meta-analyses were conducted. Fifty effect sizes (N = 10,618) resulted in a moderate effect size of .39 for the relationship between weight teasing and body dissatisfaction; 24 effect sizes (N = 7190) resulted in an effect size of .32 for the relationship between appearance teasing and body dissatisfaction; 20 effect sizes (N = 4792) resulted in an effect size of .35 for the relationship between weight teasing and dietary restraint; and 22 effect sizes (N = 5091) resulted in an effect size of .36 for the relationship between weight teasing and bulimic behaviors. Significant moderators that emerged were teasing measure type, publication type, study type, age group, and gender. The findings offer further support for the inclusion of strategies in body image and eating disorders’ prevention and intervention programs that focus on handling negative, appearance-related commentary.     

Multiple birth and its influence on the mothering experience: A case study of parent/infant psychotherapy with quadruplets

The treatment of a mother of quadruplets during the first year of the infants' lives serves as a case example of the issues associated with a multiple birth and how these issues can be addressed via parent/infant psychotherapy. Issues concerning an individual's self-esteem, dependency, envy, and competency as a parent are exaggerated by a multiple birth. The ensuing developmental crisis provides an ideal opportunity for therapeutic work.     

Sensory responsiveness and the effects of equal subjective rewards on tactile learning and memory of honeybees

In tactile learning, sucrose is the unconditioned stimulus and reward, which is usually applied to the antenna to elicit proboscis extension and which the bee can drink when it is subsequently applied to the extended proboscis. The conditioned stimulus is a tactile object that the bee can scan with its antennae. In this paper we describe the quantitative relationships between gustatory antennal stimulation, gustatory proboscis stimulation, and tactile learning and memory. Bees are 10-fold more responsive to sucrose solutions when they are applied to the antenna compared to proboscis stimulation. During tactile conditioning, the sucrose solution applied to the proboscis determines the level of acquisition, whereas antennal input is of minor importance. Bees differing in their gustatory responsiveness measured at the antenna differ strongly in their tactile acquisition and memory. We demonstrate how these differences in tactile acquisition and memory can be greatly reduced by calculating equal subjective rewards, based on individual gustatory responsiveness.