Metacognitive monitoring of attention performance and its influencing factors

Metacognitive monitoring is a central element of metacognitive processing exerting widespread influences on information processing. Albeit being subject to numerous empirical investigations referring to memory performance, there is little research investigating metacognitive monitoring in other cognitive domains. The present study investigated in 45 healthy students whether factors that are known to influence monitoring of memory performance, i.e. task difficulty, time of assessment, and practice, also exhibit a significant impact on monitoring of attention performance. A multivariate analysis of variance with three within-subject repeated measures factors on two dependent variables (monitoring of (a) time, and (b) errors in an attention task) was conducted. Results showed that monitoring ability significantly decreased with increasing task difficulty, was significantly better for post than for pre-assessment, and significantly increased with practice. Therefore, results suggest that the examined factors influenced monitoring of attention performance equivalent to the influence of these factors found in metamemory research.     

Effects of Media Images on Attitudes Toward Tanning

Two experiments evaluated the effects of exposure to pictures of suntanned and untanned fashion models on attitudes regarding the importance of having a tan. In Experiment 1, 128 women were randomly assigned to view images of photographer's models that had been digitally altered to make it appear that the model either did or did not have a tan. Participants who viewed images of the models without a tan expressed significantly less positive attitudes toward tanning than did those who viewed the same models with a tan. In Experiment 2, 169 women were randomly assigned to view advertisements taken from fashion and beauty magazines that contained models who appeared to have suntanned skin, models who appeared not to have a tan, or no models at all. The results demonstrated that participants who viewed ads depicting models with untanned skin expressed less favorable attitudes toward tanning than did those who viewed control ads or those who viewed tan models. Given escalating skincancer rates, it is important to examine the role that media exposure may play in promoting risky behaviors.     

Mobbing

Bullying at the workplace and its negative effects on mental and physical health are a subject of avid public discussion with the mass media being part of this process. Often bullying at the workplace is assumed to result in somewhat specific consequences due to causal relationships. Contrarily, research suggests relatively complex interactions between bullying and negative health outcomes. Furthermore, the use of the term bullying is inflated, lowering the threshold for a conflict to be categorized in this way. This article reviews the bullying concept: what is the definition of bullying and how common is it in the work environment? What consequences of bullying are discussed in the literature and to what extent are they empirically confirmed? Which causes for bullying are accepted? Having answered these questions it will be discussed why the bullying concept is so popular and why this popularity might counteract more appropriate conceptualizations of the problem.     

Post-irradiation annealing behaviour of oxide dispersion strengthened Fe-Cr alloys studied by nanoindentation

ABSTRACT

To study the nature of irradiation-induced nanofeatures in oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) Fe-Cr alloys, post-irradiation isochronal thermal annealing up to 600°C was performed for ODS Fe-9%Cr and Fe-14%Cr alloys ion-irradiated at 300°C and 500°C. Nanoindentation indicated hardening for all as-irradiated alloys and complete hardness recovery upon post-irradiation annealing. Cross-sectional TEM indicated an irradiation-induced defect band near peak damage mainly consisting of dislocation loops. Candidate mechanisms of recovery were critically evaluated. Shrinkage of loops via capture of thermal vacancies was found to correctly reflect the annealing behaviour of ODS Fe-9Cr irradiated at 300°C.     

The role of the self‐fulfilling prophecy in young adolescents' responsiveness to a substance use prevention program

This research examined whether naturally occurring self‐fulfilling prophecies influenced adolescents' responsiveness to a substance use prevention program. The authors addressed this issue with a unique methodological approach that was designed to enhance the internal validity of research on naturally occurring self‐fulfilling prophecies by experimentally controlling for prediction without influence. Participants were 321 families who were assigned to an adolescent substance use prevention program that either did or did not systematically involve parents. Results showed that parents' perceptions about the value of involving parents in adolescent substance use prevention predicted adolescents' alcohol use more strongly among families assigned to the prevention program that systematically involved parents than to the one that did not. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Wilhelm Reich – Ein blinder Seher?

The authors examine the extent to which the development of Wilhelm Reich’s ideas that led from Freud’s understanding of libido through marxism to sex-economy, from character-analysis to vegeto-therapy, from the orgasm reflex to the cosmic life energy “orgone”, might possibly be supported by a logic other than the one that Reich understood as "scientific". In so doing the authors differentiate the latent content from its manifest version and argue that if one focuses on the manifest content of Reich’s ideas, it is obvious that Reich ideologically falls back on the position of the “true socialists”, that his orgone theory ultimately re-vitalised the “new, true religion” Feuerbach’s (Engels 1888, p. 34) and that even Reich’s fetishization of genital love as a natural binding agent of human society finds its counterpart in Feuerbach. However, if one adds the latent content of Reich’s considerations, the unfolding of Reich’s ideas also presents the increasing reification of the human subject in its natural disguise as it emerged – in the light of historical materialism – under the social circumstances within which Reich developed his ideas. The authors develop the thesis that Reich’s misunderstanding of social processes as natural laws was not by coincidence but was due to the natural veil those processes were deceptively encircled. For as long as people keep the inner structure of their society beyond their social consciousness, they do not know what they are doing, so that the results of their social activity take on the appearance of being brought about by practical constraints caused by natural laws.     

Publishing a Master’s Thesis: A Guide for Novice Authors

Publication of original research, clinical experiences, and critical reviews of literature are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field, delivery of genetic counseling services, and professional development of genetic counselors. Busy clinical schedules, lack of time and funding, and training that emphasizes clinical skills over research skills may make it difficult for new genetic counselors to turn their thesis projects into publications. This paper summarizes and elaborates upon a presentation aimed at de-mystifying the publishing process given at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors Annual Education Conference. Specific topics include familiarizing prospective authors, particularly genetic counseling students, with the basics of the publication process and related ethical considerations. Former students’ experiences with publishing master’s theses also are described in hopes of encouraging new genetic counselors to submit for publication papers based on their thesis projects.     

Medial temporal lobe memory in childhood: developmental transitions

The medial temporal lobes (MTL) support declarative memory and mature structurally and functionally during the postnatal years in humans. Although recent work has addressed the development of declarative memory in early childhood, less is known about continued development beyond this period of time. The purpose of this investigation was to explore MTL‐dependent memory across middle childhood. Children (6 –10 years old) and adults completed two computerized tasks, place learning (PL) and transitive inference (TI), that each examined relational memory, as well as the flexible use of relational learning. Findings suggest that the development of relational memory precedes the development of the ability to use relational knowledge flexibly in novel situations. Implications for the development of underlying brain areas and ideas for future neuroimaging investigations are discussed.     

Abwehr, Verdrängung und Ersatzbildung

The author investigates the relationship of defence, repression and substitutive formation as it presents itself in Freud’s writings. He shows that Freud gives at least four different meanings to the term “repression”: Freud uses it interchangeably with defence, as a consciously intended forgetting, as a specific unconscious mechanism of defence and to describe the consequence of defence mechanisms leading to substitutive formations. The inconsistencies in this relationship are discussed and clarified and Freud’s economic and linguistic attempts to justify repression are subjected to critique as well as the need of a primal repression as a necessary condition for repression proper. In developing Freud’s linguistic justification of repression further, the author presents defence as a semantic displacement. Ideas are excluded from the realm of the concepts which belong to them historically. These presentations become unconscious, i.e. repressed, in that they can no longer be identified as “cases” of these conceptual internal contents. At the same time they are displaced into the extensions of concepts whose internal contents do not belong to them originally. It is by virtue of the internal contents of these concepts that the displaced elements as substitutive formations once again attain consciousness, albeit a false one. It is suggested that repression as a specific defence mechanism of its own should be dismissed, to reverse Freud’s thesis that repression as a rule creates a substitutive formation into its opposite and to understand that the mechanisms used to build substitutes as a rule create repression.