Discrimination of small numerosities in young chicks

Chicks were trained to discriminate small sets of identical elements. They were then tested for choices (unrewarded) between sets of similar numerosities, when continuous physical variables such as spatial distribution, contour length, and overall surface were equalized. In all conditions chicks discriminated one versus two and two versus three stimulus sets. Similar results were obtained when elements were presented under conditions of partial occlusion. In contrast, with sets of four versus five, four versus six, and three versus four elements chicks seemed unable to discriminate on the basis of number, although nonnumerical discrimination based on perceptual cues was observed. This adds to increasing evidence for discrimination of small numerosities of up to three elements in human infants and nonhuman animals.     

Investigations of hemispheric specialization of self-voice recognition

Three experiments investigated functional asymmetries related to self-recognition in the domain of voices. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to identify one of three presented voices (self, familiar or unknown) by responding with either the right or the left-hand. In Experiment 2, participants were presented with auditory morphs between the self-voice and a familiar voice and were asked to perform a forced-choice decision on speaker identity with either the left or the right-hand. In Experiment 3, participants were presented with continua of auditory morphs between self- or a familiar voice and a famous voice, and were asked to stop the presentation either when the voice became "more famous" or "more familiar/self". While these experiments did not reveal an overall hand difference for self-recognition, the last study, with improved design and controls, suggested a right-hemisphere advantage for self-compared to other-voice recognition, similar to that observed in the visual domain for self-faces.     

Absence of hardly pursued updating in a running memory task

In a running memory span task, the participants are presented with a list of items (e.g. numbers or words) of an unknown length, because this length varies from trial to trial. In one variation of the procedure the participants must report a certain fixed number of items (e.g. four) from the end of the list. According to Morris and Jones (British Journal of Psychology, 81, 111-121, 1990), the recalled items must be updated in memory as the presentation of the list progresses. Ruiz, Elosúa and Lechuga (The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 5, 887-905, 2005) noted that an active strategy implies an inhibition in memory of the final discarded items, and did not find results which supported this hypothesis. The aim of this study is to check whether or not participants adopt an active processing strategy in extreme conditions. Experiment 1 uses catch trials, which induce the participants not to discard the first items of the lists, and also short lists (of 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10 items); these could be considered optimal conditions for updating. However, it should also be pointed out that with an upper limit of 10 items per list, participants could try to memorise the whole list in most of the trials. One way to discourage this strategy is including lists well over span (e.g. 14-26 items). The purpose of Experiment 2 was to analyse the 10-item lists in two conditions: within a context of much longer lists (well over span) in most of the trials and within a context of shorter lists (data of Experiment 1). Results in both experiments, from the analysis of location errors, indicate that even in these conditions the participants do not seem to carry out the supposed active updating of the memory set.     

Temporomandibular Disorder in Brazilian Patients: A Preliminary Study

The objective of the current study was to evaluate disease-related beliefs, adherence to treatment, quality of life, coping strategies and cognitive status in a group of Brazilian patients with Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD). Thirty patients were evaluated with a semi-directed interview, the Coping Strategies Inventory, and a Mini-Mental State Examination. Although half (50%) of the patients had known their diagnosis long term, 40% of the sample were not correctly following proposed treatment. All patients had a similar pattern of pain behavior related to TMD, while disease-related beliefs, quality of life and coping strategies were variable. Expectations about treatment also had significant association with treatment adherence. The findings of this study suggest that a more thorough understanding of individual differences in TMD is warranted.     

Comparison of single- and double-stage designs in the prevalence estimation of eating disorders in community samples

The aim of this research was to compare two different case-identification designs: (a) a one-stage anonymous design using the Eating Disorders Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q; Fairburn & Beglin, 1994) as diagnostic instrument and (b) a two-stage-non-anonymous design using the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT; Garner & Garfinkel, 1979) and the EDE-Q as screening instruments and the clinical interview Eating Disorders Examination (EDE; Fairbumrn & Cooper, 1993) as diagnostic instrument, in the estimation of eating disorders prevalence in community samples. Both epidemiological designs were compared in: eating disorders prevalence, population at risk, and weekly frequency of associated symptomatology (binge eating episodes, self-vomiting) within a sample of 559 scholars (14 to 18 year-old males and females) studying in the region of Madrid. Eating disorders prevalence estimation using single-stage design was 6.2%, and 3% using the two-stage design; however, these differences were not significant (p = .067). No significant differences between the two procedures were found either in population at risk or in weekly frequency of reported self-vomiting. Reported binge eating episodes were higher in the one-stage design. The use of a two-stage procedure with clinical interview (vs. questionnaire) leads to a better understanding of the items (specially the most ambiguous ones) and thus, to a more accurate prevalence estimation.     

Telepsychology and Self-help: The Treatment of Fear of Public Speaking

This work presents a self-help, Internet-based telepsychology program for the treatment of public speaking fears. The system is comprised of 3 parts: The assessment protocol gives the patient information about his or her problem (i.e., amount of interference it creates in his or her life, severity, degree of fear and avoidance). The system also includes a structured treatment protocol, organized into separate blocks, reflecting the patient’s progress. This ensures that the patient does not skip any steps in the treatment (something quite common in traditional self-help manuals), which provides more control over the process. The treatment protocol is a cognitive-behavioral program that provides exposure to the feared situation using videos of real audiences. Finally, the control protocol assesses treatment efficacy, not only at closure, but also at every intermediate step. Efficacy data from 12 social phobia patients are presented from pretreatment to posttreatment and at 1-month follow-up. These preliminary data support the efficacy of our telepsychology program for the treatment of fear of public speaking. This is a preliminary work in a promising research path that examines the possibility of using the Internet for the treatment of psychological disorders.     

Knowledge alters visual contrast sensitivity

Research has shown that the visual system’s sensitivity to variations in luminance (visual contrast) within a particular area of the retina is affected in a bottom-up fashion by the ambient contrast levels in nearby regions. Specifically, changes in the ambient contrast in areas surrounding the target area alter the sensitivity to visual contrast within the target area. More recent research has shown that paying attention to the target or target area modulates contrast sensitivity, suggesting a top-down influence over contrast sensitivity that is mediated by attention. Here we report another form of top-down influence over contrast sensitivity that is unlikely to be mediated by attention. In particular, we show that knowledge and/or expectations about the levels of visual contrast that may appear in upcoming targets also affect how sensitive the observer is to the contrast in the target. This sort of knowledge-driven, top-down contrast sensitivity control could be used to preset the visual system’s contrast sensitivity to maximize discriminability and to protect contrast-sensitive processes from a contrast overload. Overall, our results suggest that existing models of contrast sensitivity might benefit from the inclusion of top-down control mechanisms.     

Enabling Interactive Exploration of Cultural Heritage: An Experience of Designing Systems for Mobile Devices

Interaction design of mobile systems is a complex activity because it requires considering new usability and user experience aspects in order to exploit the peculiar characteristics of mobile devices, such as their pervasive and ubiquitous nature. This paper discusses issues about designing, developing and evaluating mobile systems. Italy has a rich cultural heritage, and the focus in this study is on the design of systems that enable interactive exploration of historical sites, not only for enhancing the user experience but also for learning purposes. The experience of the researchers at the Interaction, Visualisation and Usability lab, University of Bari, Italy, in designing a mobile learning system, called Explore!, which supports young students learning ancient history during a visit to archaeological parks, is reported. The evaluation of Explore! through systematic field studies shows that the adopted approach is able to transform the visit to archaeological parks into a more complete and culturally rich experience.     

Genetic architecture of verbal abilities in children and adolescents

The etiology of individual differences in general verbal ability, verbal learning and letter and category fluency were examined in two independent samples of 9‐ and 18‐year‐old twin pairs and their siblings. In both age groups, we observed strong familial resemblance for general verbal ability and moderate familial resemblance for verbal learning, letter and category fluency. All familial resemblance was explained by genetic factors. There was significant covariance among the tests, which was stronger in magnitude in the adolescent cohort. The covariance was mainly explained by genetic effects shared by subtests, both in middle childhood and in late adolescence. In addition to a shared set of genes that influenced all phenotypes, there were also genetic influences specific to the different verbal phenotypes.     

Preferred Difficulty and Subjective Probability in Different Action Phases

Drawing on Gollwitzer's deliberative–implemental mindset distinction (P. M. Gollwitzer, 1990), it was predicted that people who are deliberating on different actions or goals would be more cautious or more realistic in their expectation of success in subsequent tasks than people who are going to implement a chosen action or goal. Participants were given a choice between different test-materials. They were interrupted before (deliberative) or immediately after decision-making (implemental). They then either had to choose between various levels of difficulty within one type of task (Experiment 1) or they had to predict their own future performance (Experiment 2). The results showed that deliberative participants preferred less difficult tasks and overestimated their probability of success less than implemental participants. In addition, deliberative participants referred more than implemental participants to their past performance when selecting levels of difficulty or predicting future performance; however, the two groups did not differ in actual performance. Taken together, the findings suggest that people are more realistic in a deliberative than in an implemental state of mind. The present studies extend prior research because for the first time they document mindset effects on peoples' estimates concerning their future performance in the achievement domain.