A forced-attention dichotic listening fMRI study on 113 subjects

We report fMRI and behavioral data from 113 subjects on attention and cognitive control using a variant of the classic dichotic listening paradigm with pairwise presentations of consonant-vowel syllables. The syllable stimuli were presented in a block-design while subjects were in the MR scanner. The subjects were instructed to pay attention to and report either the left or right ear stimulus. The hypothesis was that paying attention to the left ear stimulus (FL condition) induces a cognitive conflict, requiring cognitive control processes, not seen when paying attention to the right ear stimulus (FR condition), due to the perceptual salience of the right ear stimulus in a dichotic situation. The FL condition resulted in distinct activations in the left inferior prefrontal gyrus and caudate nucleus, while the right inferior frontal gyrus and caudate were activated in both the FL and FR conditions, and in a non-instructed (NF) baseline condition.     

The contribution of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to the presurgical assessment of language function in children

Before performing neurosurgery, an exhaustive presurgical assessment is required, usually including an investigation of language cerebral lateralization. Among the available procedures, the intracarotid amobarbital test (IAT) was formerly the most widely used. However, this procedure has many limitations: it is invasive and potentially traumatic, especially for children. To overcome these limitations, neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have been used. Again, these methods are difficult to use with children, who must remain motionless during data acquisition. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a noninvasive functional imaging technique that is easily applied to pediatric and cognitively limited patients. It has been used recently in epileptic children for presurgical assessment of expressive and receptive language brain lateralization. The aim of this review is to present the contribution of fNIRS to the presurgical assessment of language function in children with neurological diseases.     

Correlates of personality trait levels and their changes in very old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921

We tested the associations between individual differences in the Big Five personality traits and their changes over the ninth decade of life and levels of and changes in cognitive functioning, physical fitness, and everyday functioning. Besides mean-level changes in personality traits, there were significant individual differences in their rates of change between ages 81 and 87. The changes in the Big Five traits were not strongly intercorrelated, suggesting little common influence on personality change. Lower IQ at age 79 predicted lower Intellect and higher Extraversion, and more decline in Conscientiousness from ages 81 to 87. Also, decreases in physical fitness were associated with declines in Conscientiousness.     

Bullying in Classrooms: Participant Roles From a Social Network Perspective

The aim of this research was to investigate if and how the group process of bullying can be examined using a social network perspective. In two studies, bullying was investigated using a social network version of the participant‐role questionnaire. Study 1 explored the social network structure of one classroom in detail. The findings provide evidence that ingroup and outgroup effects are important in explaining the group process of bullying, and shed new light on defending, suggesting that not only victims are defended. In line with Study 1, Study 2, using data from 494 children in 25 elementary school classes (M age = 10.5), revealed that victims as well as bullies were defended by their ingroup members. The social network perspective can be integrated in antibullying interventions by using it to inform teachers about the positive and negative relations among students, and the group structure of the classroom. Aggr. Behav. 38:494‐509, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Human aging compromises attentional control of auditory perception

Older adults often experience hearing difficulties in multitalker situations. Attentional control of auditory perception is crucial in situations where a plethora of auditory inputs compete for further processing. We combined an intensity-modulated dichotic listening paradigm with attentional manipulations to study adult age differences in the interplay between perceptual saliency and attentional control of auditory processing. When confronted with two competing sources of verbal auditory input, older adults modulated their attention less flexibly and were more driven by perceptual saliency than younger adults. These findings suggest that aging severely impairs the attentional regulation of auditory perception.     

A Psycho-linguistic Study on Adult Playfulness: Its Hierarchical Structure and Theoretical Considerations

By means of a linguistic corpus analysis, statements were derived that reflect trait-like characteristics of playful adults. These were given to a sample of 240 adults who also completed two measures of adult playfulness. Using Goldberg’s (J Res Pers 40:347–358, 2006) top-down approach, the hierarchical factor structure of playfulness in this data set was examined. A solution with seven factors fits the data well and could be clearly interpreted. The retrieved factors were (1) cheerful-engaged; (2) whimsical; (3) impulsive; (4) intellectual-charming; (5) imaginative; (6) lighthearted; and (7) kind-loving. The two playfulness measures did not cover all of these dimensions. The intellectual-charming and the kind-loving variants of playfulness were less well represented in these instruments. The study contributes to the basic question of what factors underlie playfulness and suggests that there are aspects of adult playfulness that were hitherto less well described.     

False-belief understanding in 2.5-year-olds: evidence from two novel verbal spontaneous-response tasks

Recent research indicates that toddlers and infants succeed at various non-verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks; here we asked whether toddlers would also succeed at verbal spontaneous-response false-belief tasks that imposed significant linguistic demands. We tested 2.5-year-olds using two novel tasks: a preferential-looking task in which children listened to a false-belief story while looking at a picture book (with matching and non-matching pictures), and a violation-of-expectation task in which children watched an adult 'Subject' answer (correctly or incorrectly) a standard false-belief question. Positive results were obtained with both tasks, despite their linguistic demands. These results (1) support the distinction between spontaneous- and elicited-response tasks by showing that toddlers succeed at verbal false-belief tasks that do not require them to answer direct questions about agents' false beliefs, (2) reinforce claims of robust continuity in early false-belief understanding as assessed by spontaneous-response tasks, and (3) provide researchers with new experimental tasks for exploring early false-belief understanding in neurotypical and autistic populations.     

Validation d’une Échelle de Frustration des Besoins Psychologiques au Travail (EFBPT)

The purpose of the three present studies was to adapt in French in the work context a questionnaire developed by Bartholomew, Ntoumanis, Ryan, and Thøgersen- Ntoumani (2011) designed to assess thwarting of the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Exploratory (Study 1) and confirmatory analyses (Study were conducted among French workers. These studies demonstrated an acceptable internal consistency and confirmed the three-factor structure of the questionnaire (i.e., EFBPT). In addition, the construct validity of the scale was also corroborated in Study 3.     

Identifying Profit-producing Salesforce Members

Abstract

A procedure for estimating a salesperson's long-run profit performance is proposed. Based on historical personnel and accounting data, it takes into account the flows of revenues and costs that a company is likely to experience when a “typical” salesperson of a prespecified profile is kept on territory. In the reported case study, salesmen with a degree in liberal arts (and to some extent in the sciences) and previous non-sales experience could be identified as the best long-run profit producers. The results showed important differences with the conclusions of a more conventional analysis which emphasized short-run sales performance.