Project DyAdd: Visual attention in adult dyslexia and ADHD

In this study of the project DyAdd, three aspects of visual attention were investigated in adults (18–55 years) with dyslexia (n = 35) or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, n = 22), and in healthy controls (n = 35). Temporal characteristics of visual attention were assessed with Attentional Blink (AB), capacity of visual attention with Multiple Object Tracking (MOT), and spatial aspects of visual attention with Useful Field of View (UFOV) task. Results showed that adults with dyslexia had difficulties performing the AB and UFOV tasks, which were explained by an impaired ability to process dual targets, longer AB recovery time, and deficits in processing rapidly changing visual displays. The ADHD group did not have difficulties in any of the tasks. Further, performance in the visual attention tasks predicted variation in measures of phonological processing and reading when all of the participants were considered together. Thus, difficulties in tasks of visual attention were related to dyslexia and variation of visual attention had a role in the reading ability of the general population.     

Parental influences on earliest memories

Recently, independent lines of research have indirectly supported the notion that social variables, especially parent-child relationships, have a significant impact on adults' memories of their early life. In order to directly assess this Italian students were asked to recall as many memories involving parents as they could from before the age of 6 in a 3-minute timed recall task (i.e., memory fluency). They also filled out assessments about parental involvement in their lives as well as the quality of their relationships with their mothers and fathers. We found that, for males, the more involved the parents and the warmer the relationships between sons and both their mothers and their fathers, the more early memories, the more positive early memories, and the more episodic memories men recalled. For women, the warmer the relationship with their mothers, the earlier their earliest memory. Results are discussed in terms of gendered parent-child interactions as well as McAdam's emergent life-story theory.     

Anger, Blame, and Dimensions of Perceived Norm Violations: Culture, Gender, and Relationships

From a social cognitive perspective on anger, we attempted to examine the structure of perceived norm violations and their relationships with anger. We asked 884 university students from 4 countries (United States, Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong) to rate their experiences of being harmed in terms of norm violations, angry feelings, blame, and relationship with the harm doers. We found 2 culturally common dimensions in perceived norm violations (informal interpersonal norms and formal societal norms), and these dimensions substantially increased both angry feelings and blame in almost all cultural groups. The violation of interpersonal norms generally evoked anger more frequently than that of societal norms, but there were interactions between culture and relationship closeness and between gender and relationship closeness.     

Is processing emotional signals necessary for performance on tasks requiring understanding a "theory of mind"

In this case study, HY had lived in a persistent vegetative state for 6 years after onset of encephalitis at age 10. His processing of emotionally and socially meaningful information was impaired by the age of 20, as it is in individuals with amygdala damage; however, his performance on tasks requiring understanding a "theory of mind" improved by age 22. A series of responses to photographs of facial expressions and to a gambling task were obtained to evaluate his functioning related to the amygdala. He was particularly impaired in recognizing fear. One may tentatively suggest that processing emotional signals, i.e., functioning related to the amygdala, may not play an important role in the neural systems supporting development of understanding a "theory of mind".     

Interpersonal patterns in close relationships: The role of sociotropy–autonomy

Sociotropy and autonomy are conceptualized as two personality dimensions that relate to an individual's vulnerability to depression. Sociotropy is characterized as an excessive investment in interpersonal relationships and autonomy is characterized as an excessive concern with personal achievement and control over the environment. The present research project consisted of two studies examining the relationships between sociotropy–autonomy and interpersonal patterns in close relationships. Data collected via self‐report and behavioural observations suggested that highly sociotropic individuals have a tendency to be high in control and low in affiliation towards individuals who are close to them. In contrast, the data suggested that highly autonomous individuals may be low in both control and affiliation towards people who are close to them. These findings are discussed in the context of the literature regarding the interpersonal characteristics of sociotropic and autonomous individuals.     

Development of hierarchical structures for actions and motor imagery: a constructivist view from synthetic neuro-robotics study

The current paper shows a neuro-robotics experiment on developmental learning of goal-directed actions. The robot was trained to predict visuo-proprioceptive flow of achieving a set of goal-directed behaviors through iterative tutor training processes. The learning was conducted by employing a dynamic neural network model which is characterized by their multiple time-scale dynamics. The experimental results showed that functional hierarchical structures emerge through stages of developments where behavior primitives are generated in earlier stages and their sequences of achieving goals appear in later stages. It was also observed that motor imagery is generated in earlier stages compared to actual behaviors. Our claim that manipulatable inner representation should emerge through the sensory–motor interactions is corresponded to Piaget’s constructivist view.     

Number of options in a movement sequence affects learners' behavior in a self-controlled practice condition

Self-controlling practice implies a process of decision making, which suggests that the options in a self-controlled practice condition could affect learners. The number of task components with no fixed position in a movement sequence may affect the way learners self-control their practice. A 200-cm coincident timing track with 90 light-emitting diodes (LEDs)--the first and the last LEDs being the warning and the target lights, respectively--was set so that the apparent speed of the light along the track was 1.33 m/sec. Participants were required to touch six sensors sequentially, the last one coincidently with the lighting of the target light (timing task). Group 1 (n = 55) had only one constraint, and were instructed to touch the sensors in any order, except for the last sensor which had to be the one positioned close to the target light. Group 2 (n = 53) had three constraints: the first two and the last sensor to be touched. Both groups practiced the task until timing error was less than 30 msec. on three consecutive trials. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in the number of trials needed to reach the performance criterion, but (a) participants in Group 2 created fewer sequences compared to Group 1, and (b) were more likely to use the same sequence throughout the learning process. The number of options for a movement sequence affected the way learners self-controlled their practice, but had no effect on the amount of practice to reach criterion performance.     

The Relationship Between Perceived Parenting Style and Emotion Regulation Abilities in Adulthood

Emotion regulation abilities are very important for psychological and social wellbeing during the whole course of life. By contrast, emotion dysregulation is a significant risk factor for several psychological disorders. According to developmental research, an optimal parenting style, described as warmth and affectionate, promotes the development of an adequate emotion regulation in children and adolescents. However, little research has examined the relationship between parenting style and emotion regulation in adulthood. In the present study, we tested the relationship between perceived experiences with parents, in terms of parental care and parental overprotection, during childhood, and emotion regulation abilities in a sample of adults. One hundred participants completed the Parental Bonding Instruments, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that perceived parental care was more related to emotion regulation abilities than perceived parental overprotection. In particular, perceived paternal care was strictly linked to several difficulties in emotion regulation. By contrast, perceived maternal care was negatively associated with the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, and a specific emotion dysregulation dimension, that is lack of emotional awareness. In summary, perceived parental care seemed to have a key role to protect individuals from emotion dysregulation. These results demonstrate that parenting styles still exert their influence on emotion regulation abilities also in adulthood. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Typ-Ken (an Amalgam of Type and Token) Drives Infosphere

Floridi’s infosphere consisting of informational reality is estimated and delineated by introducing the new notion of Typ-Ken, an undifferentiated amalgam of type and token that can be expressed as either type or token dependent on contingent ontological commitment. First, we elaborate Floridi’s system, level of abstraction (LoA), model, and structure scheme, which is proposed to reconcile ontic with epistemic structural reality, and obtain the duality of type and token inherited in the relationship between LoA and model. While we focus on the ontological commitment that can negotiate and emphasize the discrepancy between type and token, we show that most research focusing on different hierarchical layers (type and token) has converged onto the flattened perspective of type and token to clarify the role of ontological commitment. We propose the idea of Typ-Ken to avoid this flattening. In addition, we elaborate Taddeo and Floridi’s criticism of approaches to the symbol grounding problem and show that their criticism based on the zero semantical commitment condition is specific to the agents affected by the flattening. We then take bird flocks as a metaphor for the living infosphere as if it had one mind. The knowledge recently yielded by image analysis indicates that it is difficult for previous flock models based on agents equipped with the flattening of local (token) and global (type) to show the special feature of a flock of the scale-free proportion (SFP). We show here that agents based on the Typ-Ken can reveal the SFP, which is the essential characteristic of the living infosphere. In other words, Typ-Ken is an expression for informational reality (LoA and model with ontological commitment) that can reveal seamless local and global interactions in the functioning of a flock or infosphere.