Impacts of Flooding on the Quality of Life in Rural Regions of Southern Slovakia

Human activity has significantly influenced energy flows in the landscape. Physical and geographical features of an area in the context of natural processes highlight their influence on the human lives in the affected regions of Slovakia. The paper aimed on the influence of the extraordinary flooding impact in June 2013 on the quality of life in Slovak rural regions. We have investigated the impact of the resulting damage on human activities in the rural municipality of Ch?aba. The case study of southern Slovakia can provide a more realistic view at regularly flooded areas in Slovak geographical conditions. The target of our research was to map and monitor the situation during the floods and shortly after them and to draw proposals leading to a more operative approach in the context of comprehensive flood protection in Slovakia. The added value of the research is a creation of such graphical supporting documents, which could be served as a basis for creating the plan of flood prevention management in rural territories, as a part of negative impacts of floods reduction on human activities.     

Working memory deficits in transgenic rats overexpressing human adenosine A2A receptors in the brain

Adenosine receptors in the central nervous system have been implicated in the modulation of different behavioural patterns and cognitive functions although the specific role of A(2A) receptor (A(2A)R) subtype in learning and memory is still unclear. In the present work we establish a novel transgenic rat strain, TGR(NSEhA2A), overexpressing adenosine A(2A)Rs mainly in the cerebral cortex, the hippocampal formation, and the cerebellum. Thereafter, we explore the relevance of this A(2A)Rs overexpression for learning and memory function. Animals were behaviourally assessed in several learning and memory tasks (6-arms radial tunnel maze, T-maze, object recognition, and several Morris water maze paradigms) and other tests for spontaneous motor activity (open field, hexagonal tunnel maze) and anxiety (plus maze) as modification of these behaviours may interfere with the assessment of cognitive function. Neither motor performance and emotional/anxious-like behaviours were altered by overexpression of A(2A)Rs. TGR(NSEhA2A) showed normal hippocampal-dependent learning of spatial reference memory. However, they presented working memory deficits as detected by performance of constant errors in the blind arms of the 6 arm radial tunnel maze, reduced recognition of a novel object and a lack of learning improvement over four trials on the same day which was not observed over consecutive days in a repeated acquisition paradigm in the Morris water maze. Given the interdependence between adenosinic and dopaminergic function, the present results render the novel TGR(NSEhA2A) as a putative animal model for the working memory deficits and cognitive disruptions related to overstimulation of cortical A(2A)Rs or to dopaminergic prefrontal dysfunction as seen in schizophrenic or Parkinson's disease patients.     

A tool for thought! When comparative thinking reduces stereotyping effects

Stereotypes have pervasive, robust, and often unwanted effects on how people see and behave towards others. Undoing these effects has proven to be a daunting task. Two studies demonstrate that procedurally priming participants to engage in comparative thinking with a generalized focus on differences reduces behavioral and judgmental stereotyping effects. In Study 1, participants who were procedurally primed to focus on differences sat closer to a skinhead - a member of a negatively stereotyped group. In Study 2, participants primed on differences ascribed less gender stereotypic characteristics to a male and female target person. This suggests that comparative thinking with a focus on differences may be a simple cognitive tool to reduce the behavioral and judgmental effects of stereotyping.     

Recall bias in emotional intensity ratings: investigating person-level and event-level predictors

Motivation and Emotion - Individuals’ recall of past emotions is often biased. Previous studies have focused on personality dispositions as predictors of such bias, but not yet on event-level...     

Why should we try to think like scientists? Scientific reasoning and susceptibility to epistemically suspect beliefs and cognitive biases

This paper examines whether scientific reasoning skills predict people's susceptibility to epistemically suspect beliefs and cognitive biases. We used the recently developed Scientific Reasoning Scale (SRS) because it measures the ability to read and evaluate scientific evidence. Alongside the SRS, 317 participants aged 18–30 years completed measures of thinking dispositions and cognitive ability to ascertain whether the SRS contributes specifically to susceptibility to epistemically suspect beliefs and cognitive biases. Scientific reasoning correlated positively with dispositions towards analytic thinking and cognitive ability and negatively with dogmatism, epistemically suspect beliefs, and susceptibility to cognitive biases. Most importantly, it emerged as a significant predictor, contributing to susceptibility to both cognitive biases and epistemically suspect beliefs over and above the other cognitive predictors. These results provide the first empirical evidence that scientific reasoning ability is an important factor in protecting against epistemically suspect beliefs and in aiding better decision making among the non-scientific population.     

Place‐value understanding in number line estimation predicts future arithmetic performance

In multi‐digit numbers, the value of each digit is determined by its position within the digit string. Children's understanding of this place‐value structure constitutes a building block for later arithmetic skills. We investigated whether a number line estimation task can provide an assessment of place‐value understanding in first grade. We hypothesized that estimating the position of two‐digit numbers requires place‐value understanding. Therefore, we fitted a linear function to children's estimates of two‐digit numbers and considered the resulting slope as a measure of children's place‐value understanding. We observed a significant correlation between this slope and children's performance in a transcoding task known to require place‐value understanding. Additionally, the slope for two‐digit numbers assessed at the beginning of grade 1 predicted children's arithmetic performance at the end of grade 1. These results indicate that the number line estimation task may indeed constitute a valid measure for first‐graders' place‐value understanding. Moreover, these findings are hard to reconcile with the view that number line estimation directly assesses a spatial representation of numbers. Instead, our results suggest that numerical processes involved in performing the task (such as place‐value understanding) may drive the association between number line estimation and arithmetic performance.     

The Influence of Paratext on Narrative Persuasion: Fact,Fiction, or Fake?

The present research examined the role of personality factors and paratextual information about the reliability of a story on its persuasiveness. Study 1 (N = 135) was focused on recipients' explicit expectations about the trustworthiness/usefulness and the immersiveness/entertainment value of stories introduced as nonfiction, fiction, or fake. Study 2 (experimental, N = 186) demonstrated that a story was persuasive in all three paratext conditions (nonfiction, fiction, or fake versus belief‐unrelated control story) and that its influence increased with the recipients' need for affect. Participants' need for cognition increased the difference in persuasiveness of a nonfictional versus a fake story. Additional mediation analyses suggest that fiction is more persuasive than fake because readers of fiction get more deeply transported into the story world.     

Apparitions and possessions as boundary objects: an exploration into some tensions between mental health care and pastoral care

Apparitions and possessions can be taken as genuine spiritual events or as symptoms of psychopathology. We focus upon occasions when the two seemingly conflicting “interpretations” co-exist in order to explore these phenomena as kinds of boundary objects—polymorphous realities stable and graspable enough, yet belonging to different worlds at once. Related diagnostic knowledge is often uncertain and always incomplete. Yet it enables authoritative and effective professional interventions. We conclude by discussing the relevance of such a view for contemporary efforts to validate patients’ spiritual experiences within mental health care.