Emotional prosody effects on verbal memory in older and younger adults

Prosody, or the way things are said, can modify the meaning of utterances making qualitatively different affective prosodies useful for understanding how auditory affective information is processed and remembered. In this study, we collected behavioral data from 225 younger (M age = 20.8 years, SD = 2.5 years; 119 males) and 225 older adults (M age = 71.6 years, SD = 6.5 years; 119 males) in order to examine age differences in emotional prosody effects on verbal memory. Participants were randomly divided into three subgroups according to different prosody listening conditions (positive, negative, and neutral) and prosody effects on a yes–no recognition memory task were investigated. The results showed how older adults who listened to the story read with a neutral prosody remembered more words than those who listened to the same story with a positive or negative prosody. Younger adults showed no valence effects. Our findings highlighted an age and affective prosody interaction that affects remembering in older adults alone.     

Prenatal cocaine exposure and infant cognition

The present study examined the relationship of prenatal cocaine exposure to infant information processing in the first year of life.In a prospective, longitudinal study of 177 cocaine-exposed and 175 non-exposed infants, the Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence (FTII) was used to measure attention, visual recognition memory and information processing speed at 6.5 and 12 months of age. Groups were compared over time using mixed linear model analyses.Prenatal cocaine exposure predicted poorer visual recognition memory at 12 months, with exposed infants obtaining lower mean scores and a higher percentage of scores in the risk range. Across exposure groups, information processing speed increased with age, demonstrating a developmental effect. Tobacco and marijuana exposures were related to faster looking times, which did not relate to visual recognition memory.Cognitive deficits and attentional problems noted in prior studies of cocaine-exposed children at later ages may be detectable in infancy.     

Effet du genre sur la relation humain-technologie : importance du sentiment de maîtrise

This research focuses on gender differences in perceived relationship with technology in particular for professional use. It aims to show at which levels the differences between men and women are focused, using the theory of technosymbiosis to highlight gender differences’. With a questionnaire, 155 workers of half of both genders were asked about their relationship with technology through 6 cross dimensions (functionality, usability, regulations, technology, human and context). It appears that it is not the technological features that are put in default by the women but their feeling to control these technologies.     

Rejected and excluded forevermore, but even more devoted: irrevocable ostracism intensifies loyalty to the group among identity-fused persons

When people are ostrasized (i.e., rejected and excluded) by either an outgroup or an ingroup, they may either withdraw or engage in compensatory activities designed to reaffirm their social identity as a group member. The authors proposed here that individual differences in identity fusion (an index of familial orientation toward the group) would moderate the tendency for people to display such compensatory activity. Consistent with this reasoning, the results of four experiments showed that irrevocable ostracism increased endorsement of extreme, pro-group actions (fighting and dying for the ingroup) among fused persons but not among nonfused persons. This effect emerged when an outgroup ostracized fused individuals due either to their nationality (Experiment 1) or their personal preferences (Experiment 2). Similarly, ostracism by the ingroup amplified the tendency for fused persons to both endorse extreme pro-group actions, refuse to leave the group (Experiment 3), and donate money to an ingroup member (Experiment 4). Finally, compensatory activities emerged even when ostracism was based on being "too good" for the group, suggesting that a desire for self-enhancement does not mediate such activities (Experiment 4).     

Trait social anxiety and physiological activation: cardiovascular threat during social interaction

Physiological activation is thought to be a part of the constellation of responses that accompany social anxiety, but evidence regarding the nature of such activation is mixed. In two studies, the relationship between trait social anxiety and responses during social interaction was explored using on-line cardiovascular indexes of threat. Across Studies 1 and 2, women higher in trait social anxiety exhibited cardiovascular responses consistent with greater threat during the social interaction than those lower in social anxiety. Retrospective self-reports (Studies 1 and 2), as well as partner ratings and interaction behavior (Study 2), also revealed consistent differences as a function of trait social anxiety. Study 2 added male participants, among whom a divergence emerged between results for physiological measures and other responses. These findings have implications for understanding physiological as well as psychological processes among people with social anxiety during social interaction.     

Handwriting in patients with Parkinson disease: effect of L-dopa and stimulation of the sub-thalamic nucleus on motor anticipation

The present research focused on how patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) produce handwriting sequences. PD patients who were on/off medication or deep brain stimulation treatments had to write lll and lln trigrams. We evaluated their ability to anticipate on-line the last letter in the trigram. The results revealed that in PD patients, contrary to healthy participants, the percentage of time taken by the down-stroke of the second l did not vary as a function of the spatial constraints of the following letter (l or n). In other words, the handwriting of the PD patients did not exhibit any sign of motor anticipation. However, under treatment, PD patients exhibited similar results to healthy participants despite no improvement in movement variability. Taken together these results do not seem consistent with the hypothesis that PD patients do not anticipate future movements because of their movement variability. They are more in agreement with theories that postulate that PD patients have a general deficit in the parallel processing of the components of a motor sequence.     

Effects of Training Volume on Hormones and Mood in Basketball Players

Mood and basal hormone levels were measured before and after a 4-month training period in 20 professional basketball players on 2 different teams. Training volume was daily quantified by intensities, showing that Team 1 trained nearly twofold the volume of Team 2. Apart from the lack of differences between teams in anthropometric and physical variables, results showed mood improvements in the total sample without differences between teams. However, cortisol levels decreased in Team 1 and increased in Team 2, while the free testosterone–cortisol ratio, free testosterone, prolactin, and luteinizing hormone did not show significant changes. Changes in cortisol were positively related to depression and negatively related to training volume. Results suggest that differences exist in sensitivity and/or timing of both psychological and hormonal responses to 2 given volumes of training.     

Flexible use of recent information in causal and predictive judgments

Associative and statistical theories of causal and predictive learning make opposite predictions for situations in which the most recent information contradicts the information provided by older trials (e.g., acquisition followed by extinction). Associative theories predict that people will rely on the most recent information to best adapt their behavior to the changing environment. Statistical theories predict that people will integrate what they have learned in the two phases. The results of this study showed one or the other effect as a function of response mode (trial by trial vs. global), type of question (contiguity, causality, or predictiveness), and postacquisition instructions. That is, participants are able to give either an integrative judgment, or a judgment that relies on recent information as a function of test demands. The authors concluded that any model must allow for flexible use of information once it has been acquired.     

Do attributions change over time when the actor's behavior is hedonically relevant to the perceiver?

The tendency for observers to overattribute others' behavior to dispositional variables and, correspondingly, to underestimate the importance of situational variables has been well documented. Yet, the strength of this so-called fundamental attribution error has been challenged by J. M. Burger (1991), who showed that this bias disappeared over time. But does time cause an attribution shift when the other's behavior is negative and hedonically relevant to the observer (e.g., the former is attacked by the latter)? In an exploratory study, the authors showed that even in this case, attributions to dispositional variables tended to diminish overtime.