When preschoolers follow their eyes and older children follow their noses: visuo‐olfactory social affective matching in childhood

Recognition of emotional facial expressions is a crucial skill for adaptive behavior that most often occurs in a multi‐sensory context. Affective matching tasks have been used across development to investigate how people integrate facial information with other senses. Given the relative affective strength of olfaction and its relevance in mediating social information since birth, we assessed olfactory–visual matching abilities in a group of 140 children between the ages of 3 and 11 years old. We presented one of three odor primes (rose, fish and no‐odor, rated as pleasant or unpleasant by individual children) before a facial choice task (happy vs. disgusted face). Children were instructed to select one of two faces. As expected, children of all ages tended to choose happy faces. Children younger than 5 years of age were biased towards choosing the happy face, irrespective of the odor smelled. After age 5, an affective matching strategy guided children's choices. Smelling a pleasant odor predicted the choice of happy faces, whereas smelling the unpleasant or fish odor predicted the choice of disgusted faces. The present study fills a gap in the developmental literature on olfactory‐visual affective strategies that affect decision‐making, and represents an important step towards understanding the underlying developmental processes that shape the typical social mind.     

Reach tracking reveals dissociable processes underlying inhibitory control in 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds and adults

Researchers have proposed that two processes featuring distinct types of inhibition support inhibitory control: a response threshold adjustment process involving the global inhibition of motor output and a conflict resolution process involving competitive inhibition among co‐active response alternatives. To target the development of these processes, we measured the reaching behavior of 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds (Experiment 1) and adults (Experiment 2) as they performed an Eriksen flanker task. This method provided two key measures: initiation time (the time elapsed between stimulus onset and movement onset) and reach curvature (the degree to which a movement deviates from a direct path to the selected target). We suggest that initiation time reflects the response threshold adjustment process by indexing the degree of motoric stopping experienced before a movement is started, while reach curvature reflects the conflict resolution process by indexing the degree of co‐activation between response alternatives over the course of a movement. Our results support this claim, revealing different patterns effects in initiation time and curvature, and divergent developmental trajectories between childhood and adulthood. These findings provide behavioral evidence for the dissociation between global and competitive inhibition, and offer new insight into the development of inhibitory control.     

Early development of letter specialization in left fusiform is associated with better word reading and smaller fusiform face area

A functional region of left fusiform gyrus termed “the visual word form area” (VWFA) develops during reading acquisition to respond more strongly to printed words than to other visual stimuli. Here, we examined responses to letters among 5‐ and 6‐year‐old early kindergarten children (N = 48) with little or no school‐based reading instruction who varied in their reading ability. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure responses to individual letters, false fonts, and faces in left and right fusiform gyri. We then evaluated whether signal change and size (spatial extent) of letter‐sensitive cortex (greater activation for letters versus faces) and letter‐specific cortex (greater activation for letters versus false fonts) in these regions related to (a) standardized measures of word‐reading ability and (b) signal change and size of face‐sensitive cortex (fusiform face area or FFA; greater activation for faces versus letters). Greater letter specificity, but not letter sensitivity, in left fusiform gyrus correlated positively with word reading scores. Across children, in the left fusiform gyrus, greater size of letter‐sensitive cortex correlated with lesser size of FFA. These findings are the first to suggest that in beginning readers, development of letter responsivity in left fusiform cortex is associated with both better reading ability and also a reduction of the size of left FFA that may result in right‐hemisphere dominance for face perception.     

Perceiving high social mindfulness during interpersonal interaction promotes cooperative behaviours

Social mindfulness refers to individual's respect and protection of others’ options in interpersonal interaction. The object‐choosing task is a traditional paradigm to assess social mindfulness. Individuals with high social mindfulness would choose the nonunique object so that others would have more options; on the contrary, individuals with low social mindfulness would choose the unique object, which limits others’ choices. No prior study has examined whether perceiving people with different levels of social mindfulness affects one's cooperation. Based on this background, two experiments were conducted to address this question. In both experiments, a confederate participant's (Player A's) social mindfulness was manipulated by setting the frequency that Player A chose the unique and the nonunique objects. Then, participants were asked to interact with Player A in the public goods game (Experiment 1) or in the centipede game (Experiment 2). Convergent results showed that compared to those interacting with a socially unmindful person, participants interacting with a person perceived as socially mindful contributed more resources in the public goods game and chose to pass on more rounds in the centipede game. These findings suggest that perception of others’ high social mindfulness enhances one's own cooperative behaviour.     

The Ant and the Grasshopper: Adolescents’ Time Perspective,Satisfaction with Life and the Mediating Role of Hope

The present study examined the predictive role played by the three time perspective’s dimensions (Present-Hedonistic, Present-Fatalistic and Future) on the satisfaction with life and the mediational role of hope in adolescence, using cross-sectional data. Participants were 675 adolescents (333 males and 342 females), with a mean age of 17.4 years (SD = .84). Adolescents lived in Rome and its surroundings regions and attended the 3th or the 4th year of high school. A structural equation modeling was used. The results shown that Present-Hedonistic predicts directly and indirectly (through agency) the life satisfaction; Future and Present-Fatalistic predicts indirectly (through agency) the life satisfaction; the Present-Hedonistic and Future predicted the pathway, but it does not seem to play a role of mediator. This model is the same for males and females. These results offers new useful guidance to adolescents’ counsellors and educators that should endeavor to increase the hope of both Present and Future oriented adolescents.     

The rosy side and the blue side of emotional brand attachment

This paper examines the rosy side (positive emotion) and the blue side (negative emotion) of brand attachment in consumer–brand relationships and their distinct motivational triggers. Adopting attachment theory, self‐determination theory, and the relationship investment model, this paper provides a richer understanding of the positivity and negativity of emotional brand attachment in terms of consequential branding outcomes. Two hierarchical constructs—autonomous and controlled motivations—are proposed and examined using partial least squares path modelling. Data were collected through a 3‐stage survey to gain 507 samples of customers' brand attachments to 9 international car brands. This research reveals that customers' positive‐side (rosy‐side) emotional brand attachments are driven by autonomous motivations including satisfying the intrinsic motivation of pursuing pleasure and fulfilling needs for self‐determination and self‐congruence in the car brand consumption context. Customers' negative‐side (blue‐side) emotional brand attachment reflects feelings of separation distress, anxiety, and sadness that are triggered by their controlled motivations in car brand consumption contexts. The results indicate that positive emotions (the rosy side) of brand attachment are a more effective predictor of brand repurchasing intentions and word‐of‐mouth behaviours than are negative emotions (the blue side) of brand attachment. This study applies Deci and Ryan's autonomous and controlled motivations to explain the positivity and negativity of consumers' emotional brand attachment in brand–consumer relationships.     

TMS over the superior temporal sulcus affects expressivity evaluation of portraits

When viewing a portrait, we are often captured by its expressivity, even if the emotion depicted is not immediately identifiable. If the neural mechanisms underlying emotion processing of real faces have been largely clarified, we still know little about the neural basis of evaluation of (emotional) expressivity in portraits. In this study, we aimed at assessing—by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)—whether the right superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the right somatosensory cortex (SC), that are important in discriminating facial emotion expressions, are also causally involved in the evaluation of expressivity of portraits. We found that interfering via TMS with activity in (the face region of) right STS significantly reduced the extent to which portraits (but not other paintings depicting human figures with faces only in the background) were perceived as expressive, without, though, affecting their liking. In turn, interfering with activity of the right SC had no impact on evaluating either expressivity or liking of either paintings’ category. Our findings suggest that evaluation of emotional cues in artworks recruit (at least partially) the same neural mechanisms involved in processing genuine biological others. Moreover, they shed light on the neural basis of liking decisions in art by art-naïve people, supporting the view that aesthetic appreciation relies on a multitude of factors beyond emotional evaluation.     

Does prism adaptation affect visual search in spatial neglect patients: A systematic review

Prism adaptation (PA) is a widely used intervention for (visuo‐)spatial neglect. PA‐induced improvements can be assessed by visual search tasks. It remains unclear which outcome measures are the most sensitive for the effects of PA in neglect. In this review, we aimed to evaluate PA effects on visual search measures. A systematic literature search was completed regarding PA intervention studies focusing on patients with neglect using visual search tasks. Information about study content and effectiveness was extracted. Out of 403 identified studies, 30 met the inclusion criteria. The quality of the studies was evaluated: Rankings were moderate‐to‐high for 7, and low for 23 studies. As feature search was only performed by five studies, low‐to‐moderate ranking, we were limited in drawing firm conclusions about the PA effect on feature search. All moderate‐to‐high‐ranking studies investigated cancellation by measuring only omissions or hits. These studies found an overall improvement after PA. Measuring perseverations and total task duration provides more specific information about visual search. The two (low ranking) studies that measured this found an improvement after PA on perseverations and duration (while accuracy improved for one study and remained the same for the other). This review suggests there is an overall effect of PA on visual search, although complex visual search tasks and specific visual search measures are lacking. Suggestions for search measures that give insight in subcomponents of visual search are provided for future studies, such as perseverations, search path intersections, search consistency and using a speed–accuracy trade‐off.     

A review of social disinhibition after traumatic brain injury

Acquired social disinhibition refers to a debilitating behavioural syndrome commonly reported after a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and is characterized by inappropriate social behaviour, often described as immaturity and insensitivity towards others. These behaviours can have enduring effects on the social capability of the individual and their relationships with others. However, research into socially disinhibited behaviour after TBI has been thwarted by a lack of consensus in the literature on definition and measurement. This review provides an overview of our current understanding of the definition, measurement, prevalence, associated outcomes, neuropathology, and underlying mechanisms of social disinhibition after TBI. In addition, suggestions are made for future research to further our understanding of this syndrome with the eventual aim of rehabilitating problematic behaviours. It is concluded that an improved understanding of what causes disinhibited behaviour after TBI will be necessary for the development of effective treatment strategies aimed at the rehabilitation of underlying impairments.     

Alive after death: An exploratory cultural artifact analysis of the Merry Cemetery of Săpânţa

The paper uses insights from several Social Psychological theories to study the cultural artifacts of the Merry Cemetery (MC) of S?pân?a (Romania). In the first study we have content analysed the epitaphs written on the painted crosses of the MC and the results show that the epitaphs reflect personal as well as social identity (in which individuals are described as members of both the family and the community) and play two important roles for the community members: they serve as a message to the dear ones and as an external memory of the community's social norms and shared worldview. The second study explored the social representation of the MC in the local community. The results show that the social representation of the MC clusters around three main themes: its symbolic, economic and local identity value. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.