The influence of inhibitory processes on affective theory of mind in young and old adults

The primary aim of this study was to examine the impact of an inhibition manipulation on the effect of age on theory of mind (ToM) in an ecologically valid, affective ToM task. Participants were 30 young and 30 old adults. The Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery was used to measure ToM; in addition, measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence were taken. Participants were subjected to three levels of inhibitory demand during ToM reasoning: emotional inhibition, non-emotional inhibition, and no inhibition. Old adults performed worse than young adults. The emotional and non-emotional inhibition conditions resulted in worse ToM performance compared to the no inhibition condition. There were no differences in the impact of the inhibition conditions on old and young adults. Regression analyses suggested that old adults’ crystallized intelligence was a significant predictor of ToM performance, whereas it did not predict young adults’ ToM performance. Results are discussed in terms of verbal ability as a possible compensatory mechanism in coping with verbal inhibitory load in ToM reasoning.     

Executive process training in young and old adults

There is a growing body of research on the modifiability of executive functions in different stages of life. Previous studies demonstrate robust training effects but limited transfer in younger and particularly in older adults. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a theoretically derived intervention for executive functioning, addressing several basic processes (updating, shifting, and inhibition), can induce transfer effects in early and late adulthood. Fifty-nine healthy adults, 29 young and 30 older adults, were randomly assigned to either training or no-contact control groups. The training groups received 15 sessions of executive process training for about 45 min/session during 5 weeks. A test battery including a criterion task and near, intermediate, and far transfer tasks was administered before and after training. Results showed pronounced age-equivalent gains on the criterion task. Near transfer was seen to non-trained updating and inhibition tasks for the young and older trained participants. However, only the young adults showed intermediate transfer to two complex working memory tasks. No far transfer effects were seen for either age group. These findings provide additional evidence for age-related constraints in the ability to generalize acquired executive skills, and specifically show that training of multiple executive processes is not sufficient to foster transfer beyond the very near in older adults.     

Intentional transaction

The second person is often set in contrast to the first person. And there is a contrast. It does not reside in a difference of what is thought as I from what is thought as you. For that is not different. The contrast is that of monadic and dyadic predication, action and transaction. It is the contrast, not of I and You, but of I and I–You. The second person does not add a You to an I. It divides the I and makes it a relation. We consider, first, the form of predication that is common to first- and second-person thought. Then, we define the second person as a species of this form of thought. Last, we find the source and condition of this form of thought in a thought of this very form. This thought, being the source of its own form, is one of which one cannot be conscious from outside it. It is a last word, or, better, a first word.¹1. Compare Thomas Nagel's notion of a last word (Nagel 2001 Nagel, Thomas. 2001. The Last Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). Nagel's development of the notion reveals no reason why he should call what is last a word. From what he writes in the book, one would think its title to be “The Last Thought”. (Indeed, chapter 2 bears the title “Why We Can't Understand Thought from the Outside”.) However, if the last thought is I–You, then the last thought is a word; indeed, it is the word. In reaching for “The Last Word”, Nagel may express an inchoate appreciation of this.     

A danger foreseen is a danger avoided: how chemical cues of different tadpoles influence parental decisions of a Neotropical poison frog

The protection of offspring against predators and competitors is especially important in organisms using spatially separated breeding resources, impeding the offspring’s chances to escape. One example of such isolated reproductive resources are phytotelmata (small water bodies in plant axils), exploited by the Neotropical poison frog Ranitomeya variabilis (Dendrobatidae) for both clutch and tadpole deposition. Because poison frog tadpoles are often cannibalistic, parents tend to avoid deposition with conspecifics. Previous studies have shown that this avoidance is based on chemical cues produced by conspecific tadpoles. Further, cues produced by phylogenetically less-related tadpoles (Bufonidae) were avoided for clutch but not tadpole depositions. We analyzed how the different responses to tadpole cues are triggered. We tested the reactions of parental R. variabilis to tadpole cues of species differing in two aspects: whether or not they are dendrobatids, and whether or not they reproduce in phytotelmata. We found that for clutch deposition, tadpole cues were always avoided, i.e., all tadpoles were treated by the frogs as if they pose a danger to the eggs. However, responses varied for tadpole depositions: while dendrobatid larvae living in phytotelmata were avoided, those breeding in streams were not. Non-poison frog tadpoles were ignored when associated with habitat other than phytotelmata, but they were preferred when living in phytotelmata. This suggests that both phylogeny and tadpole habitat are important triggers for the decisions made by R. variabilis. Only tadpoles using the same breeding resources are considered as relevant for the frog’s own larvae (i.e., as a potential danger or food resource), while further decisions are related to evolutionary relationship.     

Gaze-following behind barriers in domestic dogs

Although gaze-following abilities have been demonstrated in a wide range of species, so far no clear evidence has been available for dogs. In the current study, we examined whether dogs follow human gaze behind an opaque barrier in two different contexts, in a foraging situation and in a non-foraging situation (food involved vs. food not involved in the situation). We assumed that dogs will spontaneously follow the human gaze and that the foraging context will have a positive effect on dogs’ gaze-following behaviour by causing an expectation in the dogs that food might be hidden somewhere in the room and might be communicated by the experimenter. This expectation presumably positively affects their motivational and attentional state. Here, we report that dogs show evidence of spontaneous gaze-following behind barriers in both situations. According to our findings, the dogs gazed earlier at the barrier in the indicated direction in both contexts. However, as we expected, the context also has some effect on dogs’ gaze-following behaviour, as more dogs gazed behind the barrier in the indicated direction in the foraging situation. The present results also support the idea that gaze-following is a characteristic skill in mammals which may more easily emerge in certain functional contexts.     

Internal Deliberation Defending Climate-Harmful Behavior

Most people in countries with the highest climate impact per capita are well aware of the climate crisis and do not deny the science. They worry about climate and have climate engaged attitudes. Still, their greenhouse-gas emissions are often high. How can we understand acting contrary to our knowledge? A simple answer is that we do not want to give up on benefits or compromise our quality of life. However, it is painful to live with discrepancies between knowledge and action. To be able to avoid taking the consequences of our knowledge, we deal with the gap by motivating to ourselves that the action is still acceptable. In this article, we use topical analysis to examine such processes of motivation by looking at the internal deliberation of 399 climate engaged people’s accounts of their reasoning when acting against their own knowledge. We found that these topical processes can be described in at least four different ways which we call rationalization, legitimization, justification and imploration. By focusing on topoi we can make visible how individual forms of reasoning interact with culturally developed values, habits and assumptions in creating enthymemes. We believe that these insights can contribute to understanding the conditions for climate transition communication.

     

Assessing Fidelity to and Satisfaction with the “Adolescent Coping with Depression Course” (ACDC) Intervention in a Randomized Controlled Trial

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - This paper aims at describing the process for assessing the intervention fidelity of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of an...     

Dimensional Latent Structure of Callous-Unemotional Traits in German Adolescents: Results from Taxometric Analyses

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - A large amount of research has addressed the issue of the latent status of psychiatric disorders and related phenomena. We used a new taxometric...     

What Drives Happiness? The Interviewer’s Happiness

Journal of Happiness Studies - Interviewers in face-to-face surveys can potentially introduce bias both in the recruiting and the measurement phase. One reason behind this is that the measurement...     

Social Contact,Academic Satisfaction,COVID-19 Knowledge,and Subjective Well-being Among Students at Turkish Universities: a Nine-University Sample

Adverse effects of COVID-19 are seen not only on the physical health of infected individuals but also on their subjective well-being. Sudden changes in social lives, lockdowns, and shifts towards online education have had a negative impact on many people, especially university students. As part of an international study, the current study focused on the well-being of students at Turkish universities in relation to social contact, academic satisfaction, and COVID-19 knowledge. A total of 7363 students from nine universities (86.6% from state universities, 71.04% female, and 73.52% at bachelor’s level) participated in an online survey. Results revealed that females had lower levels of subjective well-being and academic satisfaction. According to a mediation model in the study, the relationship between social contact and well-being was mediated by academic satisfaction and COVID-19 knowledge. Our findings can guide future researchers, mental health professionals, universities, and policymakers to understand and improve subjective well-being of university students.