Your own face is no more precious than others’: Evidence from the simultaneous–sequential paradigm

In the present study, we tested the dominant notion that the processing of familiar faces takes place in an automatic, capacity-unlimited manner. To do so, we had participants perform the task of detecting their own face among others’ nonfamiliar faces. Importantly, either all of the search stimuli were presented simultaneously or two different subsets of the stimuli were presented sequentially. The results showed that the search performance benefited from sequential presentation, indicating that detecting one’s own face depends on a capacity-limited process. A similar pattern of results was found when participants searched for someone else’s face, although there was a decline in the overall performance. These findings suggest that the processes of detecting familiar and unfamiliar faces suffer from the capacity limit of visual perception to similar extents, challenging the notion of the automaticity of familiar-face processing.     

Enhanced avatar design using cognitive map-based simulation.

With the advent of the Internet era and the maturation of electronic commerce, strategic avatar design has become an important way of keeping up with market changes and customer tastes. In this study, we propose a new approach to an adaptive avatar design that uses cognitive map (CM) as a what-if simulation vehicle. The main virtue of the new design is its ability to change specific avatar design features with objective consideration of the subsequent effects upon other design features, thereby enhancing user satisfaction. Statistical analyses of focus group interview results with a group of experts majoring in avatars and CM showed that our proposed approach could be used to effectively analyze avatar design in an adaptive and practical manner when the market situation is changing.     

The Moderating Effects of Age on the Relationships of Self‐Compassion,Self‐Esteem,and Mental Health

This study investigated the interactive effects of self‐compassion, self‐esteem, and age on mental health. Numerous previous studies have found that self‐compassion has a significant positive association with well‐being but most of these studies were conducted with young adults represented by college students. This study extended the previous findings by comparing its distinctive functions in different age groups. A total of 1,813 adults whose age ranged from twenties to fifties (M = 39.28 years, SD = 11.27) completed a questionnaire measuring self‐compassion, self‐esteem, subjective well‐being, and depression. The results of hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the positive relationship between self‐compassion and subjective well‐being was rendered stronger with older adults. In addition, self‐compassion moderated the relationship between self‐esteem and depression regardless of age. These results imply that self‐compassion may be complimentary to self‐esteem in improving mental health, especially for older adults.     

Resilience: A Meta‐Analytic Approach

This study investigated the relationship between psychological resilience and its relevant variables by using a meta‐analytic method. The results indicated that the largest effect on resilience was found to stem from the protective factors, a medium effect from risk factors, and the smallest effect from demographic factors.     

Teaching Engineering Ethics using BLOCKS Game

The aim of this study was to investigate the use of a newly developed design game called BLOCKS to stimulate awareness of ethical responsibilities amongst engineering students. The design game was played by seventeen teams of chemical engineering students, with each team having to arrange pieces of colored paper to produce two letters each. Before the end of the game, additional constraints were introduced to the teams such that they faced similar ambiguity in the technical facts that the engineers involved in the Challenger disaster had faced prior to the space shuttle launch. At this stage, the teams had to decide whether to continue with their original design or to develop alternative solutions. After the teams had made their decisions, a video of the Challenger explosion was shown followed by a post-game discussion. The students’ opinion on five Statements on ethics was tracked via a Five-Item Likert survey which was administered three times, before and after the ethical scenario was introduced, and after the video and post-game discussion. The results from this study indicated that the combination of the game and the real-life incident from the video had generally strengthened the students’ opinions of the Statements.     

Depression Moderates the Relationship between Body Image and Health-Related Quality of Life in Adolescent Girls

Body image can predict health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in adolescent girls through self-esteem and psychological well-being. Additionally, depression is a significant predictor of adolescents’ HRQoL and is associated with body image. Therefore, we investigated whether the relationship between body image and HRQoL in adolescent girls is moderated by depression. In this cross-sectional study, adolescent girls’ body image, depression, and HRQoL (n?=?385, age: 12–15 years) were measured through self-report questionnaires. Multiple regression and simple slope analyses were conducted to examine the moderating effect of depression. Body image was positively correlated with HRQoL, whereas depression was negatively correlated with body image and HRQoL. Body image, depression, and their interaction explained 44.9% of the variance in HRQoL. Simple slope analysis showed that a more positive body image was associated with higher HRQoL among adolescent girls without depressive symptoms, but was not significantly related to HRQoL for adolescents with depressive symptoms. The moderating effect of depression was confirmed. In conclusion, screening for depression is recommended for adolescent girls prior to implementing body image interventions in schools and the community that are aimed at improving HRQoL. Furthermore, health care providers in schools and the community should provide psychological support for depression along with body image interventions to improve the HRQoL of girls in schools and the community. In particular, for girls with depressive symptoms, depression management should be conducted beforehand.     

the role of career stress in the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and career attitude maturity in south korean undergraduates

Given the central role of career stress in college students' lives, this research examined whether career stress mediated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and career attitude maturity in a sample of 185 undergraduate students in South Korea. The results indicated that career ambiguity stress, as measured by a career stress inventory, fully mediated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and career attitude maturity. That is, maladaptive perfectionism correlated with greater levels of career ambiguity stress, and greater career ambiguity stress correlated with an unconstructive level of career attitude maturity. The authors discuss the findings' implications for career counselors in college settings.     

Visual working memory for line orientations and face identities

Previous studies have shown that the number of objects we can actively hold in visual working memory is smaller for more complex objects. However, complex objects are not just more complex but are often more similar to other complex objects used as test probes. To separate effects of complexity from effects of similarity, we measured visual memory following a 1-sec delay for complex and simple objects at several levels of memory-to-test similarity. When memory load was one object, memory accuracy for a face (a complex attribute) was similar to a line orientation (a simple attribute) when the face changed in steps of 10% along a morphing continuum and the line changed in steps of 5° in orientation. Performance declined with increasing memory load and increasing memory-to-test similarity. Remarkably, when memory load was three or four objects, face memory was better than orientation memory at similar changed steps. These results held when memory for line orientations was compared with that for inverted faces. We conclude that complex objects do not always exhaust visual memory more quickly than simple objects do.     

Visual search proceeds concurrently during the attentional blink and response selection bottleneck

It is well known that human information processing comprises several distinct subprocesses—namely, the perceptual, central, and motor stage. In each stage, attention plays an important role. Specifically, a type of attention—perceptual attention—operates to detect and identify a sensory input. Following this, another class of attention—central attention—is involved in working memory encoding and response selection at the central stage. While perceptual attention and central attention are known to be separate, distinct processes, some researchers reported findings that loading central attention postponed the deployment of perceptual attention needed to perform a spatial configuration search. We tested whether a similar pattern of results would emerge when a different kind of search task is used. To do so, we had participants perform a visual-search task of searching for a feature conjunction target, taxing perceptual attention while they are engaged in central processes, such as working memory encoding and response selection. The results showed that perceptual processing of conjunction search stimuli could be carried out concurrently with central processes. These results suggest that the nature of the concurrent visual search process is a determinant responsible for the dynamic relationship between perceptual attention deployed for visual search and central attention needed for working memory encoding and response selection.