The relationship between color–object associations and color preference: Further investigation of ecological valence theory

Ecological valence theory (EVT; Palmer & Schloss, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107:8877–8882, 2010) proposes that color preferences are due to affective responses to color-associated objects: That is, people generally like colors to the degree that they like the objects associated with those colors. Palmer and Schloss found that the average valence of objects associated with a color, when weighted by how well the objects matched the color (weighted affective valence estimates: WAVE) explained 80% of the variation in preference across colors. Here, we replicated and extended Palmer and Schloss’s investigation to establish whether color–object associations can account for sex differences in color preference and whether the relationship between associated objects and color preference is equally strong for males and females. We found some degree of sex specificity to the WAVEs, but the relationship between WAVE and color preference was significantly stronger for males than for females (74% shared variance for males, 45% for females). Furthermore, analyses identified a significant inverse relationship between the number of objects associated with a color and preference for the color. Participants generally liked colors associated with few objects and disliked colors associated with many objects. For the sample overall and for females alone, this association was not significantly weaker than the association of the WAVE and preference. The success of the WAVE at capturing color preference was partly due to the relationship between the number of associated objects and color preference. The findings identify constraints of EVT in its current form, but they also provide general support for the link between color preference and color–object associations.     

Eye-contact perception in schizophrenia: relationship with symptoms and socioemotional functioning

Accurately perceiving self-referential social signals, particularly eye contact, is critical to social adaptation. Schizophrenia is often accompanied by deficits in social cognition, but it is unclear whether this includes gaze discrimination deficits. This study investigated whether eye-contact perception is preserved or impaired and if it is related to symptoms and broader socioemotional functioning in schizophrenia. Twenty-six participants with schizophrenia (SCZ) and 23 healthy controls (HC) made eye-contact judgments for faces in varying gaze direction (from averted to direct in ten 10% increments), head orientation (forward, 30° averted), and emotion (neutral, fearful). Psychophysical analyses for forward faces showed that SCZ began endorsing eye contact with weaker eye-contact signal and their eye-contact perception was less of a dichotomous function, as compared with HC. SCZ were more likely than HC to endorse eye contact when gaze was ambiguous, and this overperception of eye contact was modulated by head orientation and emotion. Overperception of eye contact was associated with more severe negative symptoms. Decreased categorical gaze perception explained variance of socioemotional deficits in schizophrenia after taking basic neurocognition into consideration, suggesting the relationship was not solely due to a general deficit problem. These results were discussed in relation to the nature of categorical gaze perception and its significance to clinical and functional presentations of schizophrenia.     

The Unseen Cost: A Discussion of the Secondary Traumatization Experience of the Clergy

The vocation of clergy life can be a hazardous journey. Stress and burnout are issues, which are increasingly reported by clerics. Burnout is defined by a constellation of work related symptoms (Doolittle, Mental Health, Religion & Culture,10(1), 31–38, 2007), with emotional exhaustion recognised as a core component. Despite this recognition the research has not focused on factors which lead to this state of emotional exhaustion in particular secondary traumatization. The purpose of this article is threefold. Firstly, it presents the theoretical framework of secondary trauma. Secondly it reviews the literature aligning clergy and trauma work and thirdly it discuses the emotional and physical toll upon clergy from this aspect of their role.     

Action-specific effects in a social context: others' abilities influence perceived speed

According to the action-specific account of perception, perceivers see the environment relative to their ability to perform the intended action. For example, in a modified version of the computer game Pong, balls that were easier to block looked to be moving slower than balls that were more difficult to block (Witt & Sugovic, 2010). It is unknown, however, if perception can be influenced by another person's abilities. In the current experiment, we examined whether another person's ability to block a ball influenced the observer's perception of ball speed. Participants played and observed others play the modified version of Pong where the task was to successfully block the ball with paddles that varied in size, and both the actor and observer estimated the speed of the ball. The results showed that both judged the ball to be moving faster when it was harder to block. However, the same effect of difficulty on speed estimates was not found when observers watched a computer play, suggesting the effect is specific to people and not to the task. These studies suggest that the environment can be perceived relative to another person's abilities.     

Prediction of foot clearance parameters as a precursor to forecasting the risk of tripping and falling

Tripping and falling is a serious health problem for older citizens due to the high medical costs incurred and the high mortality rates precipitated mostly by hip fractures that do not heal well. Current falls prevention technology encompasses a broad range of interventions; both passive (e.g., safer environments, hip protectors) and active (e.g., sensor-based fall detectors) which attempt to reduce the effects of tripping and falling. However the majority of these interventions minimizes the impact of falls and do not directly reduce the risk of falling. This paper investigates the prediction of gait parameters related to foot-to-ground clearance height during the leg swing phase which have been physically associated with tripping and falling risk in the elderly. The objective is to predict parameters of foot trajectory several walking cycles in advance so that anticipated low foot clearance could be addressed early with more volitional countermeasures, e.g., slowing down or stopping. In this primer study, foot kinematics was recorded with a highly accurate motion capture system for 10 healthy adults (25-32 years) and 11 older adults (65-82 years) with a history of falls who each performed treadmill walking for at least 10 min. Vertical foot displacement during the swing phase has three characteristic inflection points and we used these peak values and their normalized time as the target prediction values. These target variables were paired with features extracted from the corresponding foot acceleration signal (obtained through double differentiation). A generalized regression neural network (GRNN) was used to independently predict the gait variables over a prediction horizon (number of gait cycles ahead) of 1-10 gait cycles. It was found that the GRNN attained 0.32-1.10 cm prediction errors in the peak variables and 2-8% errors in the prediction of normalized peak times, with slightly better accuracies in the healthy group compared to elderly fallers. Prediction accuracy decreased linearly (best fit) at a slow rate with increasing prediction horizon ranging from 0.03 to 0.11 cm per step for peak displacement variables and 0.34 × 10(-3) - 1.81 × 10(-3)% per step for normalized peak time variables. Further time series analysis of the target gait variable revealed high autocorrelations in the faller group indicating the presence of cyclic patterns in elderly walking strategies compared to almost random walking patterns in the healthy group. The results are promising because the technique can be extended to portable sensor-based devices which measure foot accelerations to predict the onset of risky foot clearance, thus leading to a more effective falls prevention technology.     

Effects of an Internet-based intervention for subthreshold eating disorders: a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundWomen reporting initial eating disorder (ED) symptoms are at highest risk for the development of an eating disorder. Preventive interventions should, therefore, be specifically tailored for this subgroup.AimsTo adapt and evaluate the effects of the Internet-based prevention program “Student Bodies?” for women with symptoms of disordered eating and/or subthreshold eating disorder (ED) syndromes.Method126 women, reporting subthreshold ED symptoms (high weight and shape concerns and below threshold bingeing, purging, chronic dieting or several of these symptoms) were randomly assigned to a Student Bodies?+ (SB+) intervention or a wait-list control group and assessed at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 6-month follow-up. “Student Bodies?” was adapted to be suitable for subthreshold EDs. Main outcome measures were attitudes and symptoms of disordered eating. Pre-follow-up data were analyzed by ANCOVAS with mixed effects.ResultsAt 6-month follow-up, compared to participants in the control group, participants in the intervention group showed significantly greater improvements on ED-related attitudes. Intervention participants also showed 67% (95% CI = 20–87%) greater reductions in combined rates of subjective and objective binges, and 86% (95% CI = 63–95%) greater reduction in purging episodes. Also, the rates of participants abstinent from all symptoms of disordered eating (restrictive eating, binge eating and any compensatory behavior) were significantly higher in the intervention group (45.1% vs. 26.9%). Post-hoc subgroup analyses revealed that for participants with binge eating the effect on EDE-Q scores was larger than in the pure restricting subgroup.ConclusionThe adapted “SB+” program represents an effective intervention for women with subthreshold EDs of the binge eating subtype.     

Causal imprinting in causal structure learning

Suppose one observes a correlation between two events, B and C, and infers that B causes C. Later one discovers that event A explains away the correlation between B and C. Normatively, one should now dismiss or weaken the belief that B causes C. Nonetheless, participants in the current study who observed a positive contingency between B and C followed by evidence that B and C were independent given A, persisted in believing that B causes C. The authors term this difficulty in revising initially learned causal structures "causal imprinting." Throughout four experiments, causal imprinting was obtained using multiple dependent measures and control conditions. A Bayesian analysis showed that causal imprinting may be normative under some conditions, but causal imprinting also occurred in the current study when it was clearly non-normative. It is suggested that causal imprinting occurs due to the influence of prior knowledge on how reasoners interpret later evidence. Consistent with this view, when participants first viewed the evidence showing that B and C are independent given A, later evidence with only B and C did not lead to the belief that B causes C.