Movement variability and skill level of various throwing techniques

In team-handball, skilled athletes are able to adapt to different game situations that may lead to differences in movement variability. Whether movement variability affects the performance of a team-handball throw and is affected by different skill levels or throwing techniques has not yet been demonstrated. Consequently, the aims of the study were to determine differences in performance and movement variability for several throwing techniques in different phases of the throwing movement, and of different skill levels. Twenty-four team-handball players of different skill levels (n=8) performed 30 throws using various throwing techniques. Upper body kinematics was measured via an 8 camera Vicon motion capture system and movement variability was calculated. Results indicated an increase in movement variability in the distal joint movements during the acceleration phase. In addition, there was a decrease in movement variability in highly skilled and skilled players in the standing throw with run-up, which indicated an increase in the ball release speed, which was highest when using this throwing technique. We assert that team-handball players had the ability to compensate an increase in movement variability in the acceleration phase to throw accurately, and skilled players were able to control the movement, although movement variability decreased in the standing throw with run-up.     

Trait anxiety focuses spatial attention

Some findings suggest that trait anxiety impairs selective attention (e.g., Fox, 1993) while others suggest the opposite (e.g., Murray & Janelle, 2003). Both views may hold some truth if trait anxiety affects different levels of selective attention in opposite directions: trait anxiety might improve spatial attention, or perceptual selection, but weaken postperceptual selection. We used an adaptation of the flanker task (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973) which distinguishes between spatial attention and postperceptual selection (Caparos & Linnell, 2010) to test this hypothesis. Trait anxiety was found to improve spatial attention but not to affect post-perceptual selection. The latter null effect may have resulted from the relatively high perceptual load used in this study. The focusing effect of trait anxiety suggests that anxiety reduces perceptual resources or increases cognitive engagement.     

Ageing and secondary-distinctiveness-based effects: The orthographic distinctiveness effect is more robust than the bizarreness effect

Differences related to ageing were investigated in two cases of secondary-distinctiveness-based effects: the bizarreness effect and the orthographic distinctiveness effect. A secondary distinctiveness effect means that items that are unusual compared to one's general knowledge stored in permanent memory are better remembered than common items. Experiment 1 confirmed that ageing diminishes the facilitative effects of bizarreness in a mixed list design with equal numbers of bizarre and common images. We suggest that the impaired bizarreness effect in older adults (above age 70) may be due to reduced attentional resources, since no bizarreness effect was observed for younger adults in the divided attention condition. Experiment 2 studied the orthographic distinctiveness effect in ageing for the first time. Contrary to our expectations, an orthographic distinctiveness effect was observed for all participants including older adults and younger adults in a divided attention condition. Because reduced attentional resources due to normal ageing or to experimental manipulation did not impact the facilitative effects of orthographic distinctiveness, our findings suggest that the orthographic distinctiveness effect may be mediated by more automatic processing.     

What's in a name? access to information from people's names

Abstract

The processing of people's names is contrasted with face recognition and word recognition. The effects of the familiarity of initial and surnames and frequency of surnames (the number of people with the same surname) were investigated in several tasks. It was found that the effects of name familiarity and surname frequency were analogous to the effects of word frequency in tasks which did not require access to memory for individuals (a nationality decision and naming latency). In tasks which do require access to memory for individuals (familiarity decision and a semantic classification), the effect of surname frequency was analogous to the effect of distinctive-ness in face recognition. The results are discussed in terms of a functional model of name processing in which name recognition units mediate between the output of word recognition units and access to identity-specific semantics.     

Group Psychotherapy in France

This article discusses group therapy as part of a multidisciplinary approach to the management of the various psychological and physical rehabilitation concerns posed by kidney and liver transplant candidates and recipients at Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC. The group's history, format, intervention foci, and roles of clinicians and patients attending the group are described and evaluated. Given the relative paucity of research literature in this area, the authors offer recommendations for empirical evaluation of the benefits of multidisciplinary group psychotherapy in ameliorating physical and emotional suffering and prolonging life among transplant patients.     

Be Happy,don't Wait: The Role of Trait Affect in Job Search

In this study we developed and tested a self‐regulatory model of trait affect in job search. Specifically, we theorized that trait positive and negative affect would influence both motivation control and procrastination, and these mediating variables would, in turn, influence job search outcomes through job search intensity. Using longitudinal data from 245 graduating students who were searching for a full‐time position, we found that positive, but not negative, affect influenced the self‐regulatory variables of motivation control and procrastination, which in turn influenced the job search outcomes. Procrastination had direct effects on the number of first interviews, controlling for job search intensity, and on the number of second interviews, controlling for first interviews, suggesting the importance of timeliness of job search activities. We discuss the implications of such results for understanding the role of affect and self‐regulation in the job search process and for measuring the quality as well as quantity (i.e., intensity) of job search tactics.     

Relative category-specific preservation in semantic dementia? Evidence from 35 cases

Category-specific deficits have rarely been reported in semantic dementia (SD). To our knowledge, only four previous studies have documented category-specific deficits, and these have focused on the living versus non-living things contrast rather than on more fine-grained semantic categories. This study aimed to determine whether a category-specific effect could be highlighted by a semantic sorting task administered to 35 SD patients once at baseline and again after 2 years and to 10 Alzheimer’s disease patients (AD). We found a relative preservation of fruit and vegetables only in SD.This relative preservation of fruit and vegetables could be considered with regard to the importance of color knowledge in their discrimination. Indeed, color knowledge retrieval is known to depend on the left posterior fusiform gyrus which is relatively spared in SD. Finally, according to predictions of semantic memory models, our findings best fitted the Devlin and Gonnerman’s computational account.     

Recollection and Familiarity in Aging Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Literature Review

Memory impairment is a central cognitive symptom in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer Disease (AD). Recognition tasks are often used to characterize and define the nature of memory deficits. Dual-process theories posit that familiarity and recollection are independently involved in the recognition of previously encountered material and both contribute to successful recognition. Recent evidence indicates that there is a double dissociation in the neuronal substrates of those two processes. More precisely, it has been suggested that perirhinal and entorhinal areas are selectively involved in familiarity-based recognition, while the hippocampus is associated with recollection. Interestingly, these regions are among the first to be targeted by neurofibrillary tangles, one of AD’s neuropathological hallmarks. Impairment in recognition performance can occur in the very early stages of AD, such as MCI. To define the nature of recognition impairment in these clinical populations, we reviewed the current literature on familiarity and recollection performance in individuals with MCI and AD. Together with clinical features, methodological factors are taken into consideration in the interpretation of findings.