Keep an eye on your hands: on the role of visual mechanisms in processing of haptic space

The present paper reviews research on a haptic orientation processing. Central is a task in which a test bar has to be set parallel to a reference bar at another location. Introducing a delay between inspecting the reference bar and setting the test bar leads to a surprising improvement. Moreover, offering visual background information also elevates performance. Interestingly, (congenitally) blind individuals do not or to a weaker extent show the improvement with time, while in parallel to this, they appear to benefit less from spatial imagery processing. Together this strongly points to an important role for visual processing mechanisms in the perception of haptic inputs.     

The effective time course of preparation

In reaction time (RT) research on nonspecific preparation, the preparation period is often identified with the foreperiod (FP), the interval between the offset of a neutral warning stimulus (S1) and the onset of the reaction stimulus (S2). However, the “effective preparation period” may be longer than FP: nonspecific preparation may start prior to FP (e.g., at the onset of S1) and/or continue after it (i.e., in parallel with the reaction process). In four experiments, we factorially varied FP and an additional factor (S1-duration; S2-luminance; stimulus–response compatibility) that probed the effective preparation period outside the bounds of FP. By examining how equivalent RT–FP functions obtain at the different levels of the additional factor, we showed that nonspecific preparation (1) starts at the onset of S1 for brief FPs but at its offset for longer FPs and (2) continues in parallel with S2-encoding but stops prior to response selection.     

Development and validation of the childhood narcissism scale

In this article, we describe the development and validation of a short (10 item) but comprehensive self-report measure of childhood narcissism. The Childhood Narcissism Scale (CNS) is a 1-dimensional measure of stable individual differences in childhood narcissism with strong internal consistency reliability (Studies 1-4). The CNS is virtually unrelated to conventional measures of self-esteem but is positively related to self-appraised superiority, social evaluative concern and self-esteem contingency, agentic interpersonal goals, and emotional extremity (Study 5). Furthermore, the CNS is negatively related to empathic concern and positively related to aggression following ego threat (Study 6). These results suggest that childhood narcissism has similar psychological and interpersonal correlates as adult narcissism. The CNS provides researchers a convenient tool for measuring narcissism in children and young adolescents with strong preliminary psychometric characteristics.     

Bilingualism in the World of Health and Illness

The movement of peoples across linguistic boundaries means the existence of individuals who speak, to a greater or lesser extent, more than one language. How such individuals have in the past and can in the present serve as mediators within the health care system is described and the need for closer attention to such resources stressed.     

Backward affective priming: Even when the prime is late, people still evaluate

It is well-established that affective stimuli can prime congruent evaluations if they precede the target within a short time interval, i.e., forward affective priming. The present research examines whether similar effects occur if affective primes succeed target presentation, i.e., backward affective priming. Experiments 1 found short-lived, yet reliable backward affective priming. Experiment 2 found parallel forward affective priming in the same paradigm. Experiment 3 found forward and backward affective priming in a within-subjects design. Comparison with neutral primes suggested that the observed effects were mainly due to interference. Backward affective priming is a robust phenomenon that may reflect a rapid and continuous evaluation of environmental stimuli.     

Putting Self-Regulation Theory into Practice: A User's Manual

Cervone, Shadel, Smith, and Fiori (2006 ) propose that theories of personality architecture may provide an integrative theoretical framework for self-regulation research. Building further on this argument, the present paper considers one comprehensive modern approach to personality architecture, personality systems interactions (PSI) theory. The authors provide a brief overview of PSI theory and discuss a simple, three-step "user's manual" that has guided applications of the theory to real-life behavior. Work on PSI theory highlights some of the integrative potential of personality science in the field of self-regulation. The authors conclude that theories of personality architecture may improve the quality and precision of the counselling, coaching, and training that psychologists in many diverse areas provide.     

The Unhappy Marriage of Care Ethics and Virtue Ethics

The proposal that care ethic(s) (CE) be subsumed under the framework of virtue ethic(s) (VE) is both promising and problematic for feminists. Although some attempts to construe care as a virtue are more commendable than others, they cannot duplicate a freestanding feminist CE. Sander‐Staudt recommends a model of theoretical collaboration between VE and CE that retains their comprehensiveness, allows CE to enhance VE as well as be enhanced by it, and leaves CE open to other collaborations.     

Detection of emotional expressions in rapidly changing facial displays in high- and low-socially anxious women

Facial information and attention to facial displays are distributed over spatial as well as temporal domains. Thus far, research on selective attention to (dis)approving faces in the context of social anxiety has concentrated primarily on the spatial domain. Using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm, the present study examined the temporal characteristics of visual attention for happy and angry faces in high- (n=16) and low-socially anxious individuals (n=17), to test whether also in the temporal domain socially anxious individuals are characterized by threat-confirming attentional biases. Results indicated that presenting angry faces as the first target (T1) did not aggravate the detection of the emotional expression of the second target (T2). Yet, participants generally showed superior detection of the emotional expression of T2, if T2 was an angry face. Casting doubt on the role of such attenuated attentional blink for angry faces in social anxiety, no evidence emerged to indicate that this effect was relatively strong in high-socially anxious individuals. Finally, the presentation of an angry face as T2 resulted in a relatively hampered identification of a happy-T1. Again, this "backward blink" was not especially pronounced in high-socially anxious individuals. The present anger superiority effects are consistent with evolutionary models stressing the importance of being especially vigilant for signals of dominance. Since the effects were not especially pronounced in high-anxious individuals, the present study adds to previous findings indicating that socially anxious individuals are not characterized by a bias in the (explicit) detection of emotional expressions [Philippot, P., & Douilliez, C. (2005). Social phobics do not misinterpret facial expression of emotion. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43, 639-652].     

That baby caught my eye... attention capture by infant faces

An alternative to the view that during evolution the human brain became specialized to preferentially attend to threat-related stimuli is to assume that all classes of stimuli that have high biological significance are prioritized by the attention system. Newborns are highly biologically relevant stimuli for members of a species, as their survival is important for reproductive success. The authors examined whether the Kindchenschema (baby schema) as described by Lorenz (1943) captures attention in the dot probe task. The results confirm attentional capture by photos of human infants presented to the left visual field, suggesting right hemisphere advantage. The magnitude of the attentional modulation was highly correlated with subjective arousal ratings of the photos. The findings show that biologically significant positive stimuli are prioritized by the attention system.