Genetic Modulation of Neurocognitive Development in Cancer Patients throughout the Lifespan: a Systematic Review

Neuropsychology Review - The rise in cancer survival rates has raised concerns about the long-term adverse effects of cancer treatment, including neurocognitive impairment. Neurocognitive deficits...     

Predicting the Personal Appeal of Marketing Images Using Computational Methods

Images play a central role in digital marketing. They attract attention, trigger emotions, and shape consumers’ first impressions of products and brands. We propose that the shift from one‐to‐many mass communication to highly personalized one‐to‐one communication requires an understanding of image appeal at a personal level. Instead of asking “How appealing is this image?” we ask “How appealing is this image to this particular consumer?” Using the well‐established five‐factor model of personality, we apply machine learning algorithms to predict an image's personality appeal—the personality of consumers to which the image appeals most—from a set of 89 automatically extracted image features (Study 1). We subsequently apply the same algorithm on new images to predict consequential outcomes from the fit between consumer and image personality. We show that image‐person fit adds incremental predictive power over the images’ general appeal when predicting (a) consumers’ liking of new images (Study 2) and (b) consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions (Study 3).     

Is egocentric space automatically encoded?

Using the criteria defined by Hasher and Zacks [Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1979). Automatic and effortful processes in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108(3), 356-388], three studies examined the effects of intent of memorization, dual task interference, old age, practice and individual differences on memory for egocentric positions. Results showed that dual task interference and old age slightly influenced memory for egocentric positions. Small but significant individual differences were also observed. However, intent of memorization and practice had no influence on accuracy. The findings demonstrate that encoding of egocentric space works rather automatically but nevertheless requires minimal attentional resources.     

Putting the partner within reach: a dyadic perspective on felt security in close relationships

The authors argue that felt insecurity in a partner's positive regard and caring stems from a specifically dyadic perception--the perception that a partner is out of one's league. A cross-sectional sample of dating couples revealed that people with low self-esteem feel inferior to their partner and that such feelings of relative inferiority undermine felt security in the partner's regard. Three experiments examined the consequences of reducing such perceived discrepancies by pointing to either strengths in the self or flaws in the partner. Low, but not high, self-esteem participants reacted to new strengths in the self or faults in the partner by reporting greater felt security in their specific partner's positive regard and commitment and more positive, general feelings about their own interpersonal worth. Thus, putting the partner more within the psychological grasp of low self-esteem people may effectively increase felt security in the partner's regard.     

Sense of Community in Clubhouse Programs: Member and Staff Concepts

Psychological sense of community within psychosocial rehabilitation clubhouse programs was examined using concept mapping with 18 members and 18 staff from 10 programs. Members identified four concepts: Recovery, social connections, membership, and tasks and roles. Members described hope and healing as aspects of recovery. Members' views on sense of community focused on the rehabilitation and social nature of the program. Staff also identified four concepts: Affiliation and support for members, shared experiences, clubhouse organization, and task and roles. The staff concept of clubhouse organization, which incorporated the ideas of leadership and organization of physical space and the concept of task and roles, was based on ideas of shared responsibility and clubhouse procedures. Staffs' views on sense of community strongly reflected their formal training in clubhouse principles. The relation of these concepts to McMillan and Chavis' theoretical framework for sense of community is discussed and recommendations for practice provided. Sandra E. Herman is now an independent program evaluation consultant. Catherine Ferguson is now an independent consultant on psychosocial programs.     

Evidence for dissociable neural mechanisms underlying inference generation in familiar and less-familiar scenarios

In this study, we investigated whether the left and right hemispheres are differentially involved in causal inference generation. Participants read short inference-promoting texts that described either familiar or less-familiar scenarios. After each text, they performed a lexical decision on a letter string (which sometimes constituted an inference-related word) presented directly to the left or right hemisphere. Response-time results indicated that hemisphere of direct presentation interacted with type of inference scenario. When test stimuli were presented directly to the left hemisphere, lexical decisions were facilitated following familiar but not following less-familiar inference scenarios, whereas when test stimuli were presented directly to the right hemisphere, facilitation was observed in both familiar and less-familiar conditions. Thus, inferences may be generated in different ways depending on which of two dissociable neural subsystems underlies the activation of background information.     

Hemispheric processing of anaphoric inferences: the activation of multiple antecedents

This research investigates the hemispheric processing of anaphors when readers activate multiple antecedents. Participants read texts promoting an anaphoric inference and performed a lexical decision task to inference-related target words that were consistent (Experiment 1) or inconsistent (Experiment 2) with the text. These targets were preceded by constrained or less constraining text and were presented to participants' right visual field-left hemisphere or to their left visual field-right hemisphere. In Experiment 1, both hemispheres showed facilitation for consistent antecedents and the right hemisphere showed an advantage over the left hemisphere in processing antecedents when preceded by less constrained text. In Experiment 2, the left hemisphere only showed negative facilitation for inconsistent antecedents. When readers comprehend text with multiple antecedents: both hemispheres process consistent information, the left hemisphere inhibits inconsistent information, and the right hemisphere processes less constrained information.     

Metrical categories in infancy and adulthood

Intrinsic perceptual biases for simple duration ratios are thought to constrain the organization of rhythmic patterns in music. We tested that hypothesis by exposing listeners to folk melodies differing in metrical structure (simple or complex duration ratios), then testing them on alterations that preserved or violated the original metrical structure. Simple meters predominate in North American music, but complex meters are common in many other musical cultures. In Experiment 1, North American adults rated structure-violating alterations as less similar to the original version than structure-preserving alterations for simple-meter patterns but not for complex-meter patterns. In Experiment 2, adults of Bulgarian or Macedonian origin provided differential ratings to structure-violating and structure-preserving alterations in complex- as well as simple-meter contexts. In Experiment 3, 6-month-old infants responded differentially to structure-violating and structure-preserving alterations in both metrical contexts. These findings imply that the metrical biases of North American adults reflect enculturation processes rather than processing predispositions for simple meters.