Motor interference does not impair the memory consolidation of imagined movements

The present study aimed to investigate whether an interference task might impact the sleep-dependent consolidation process of a mentally learned sequence of movements. Thirty-two participants were subjected to a first training session through motor imagery (MI) or physical practice (PP) of a finger sequence learning task. After 2 h, half of the participants were requested to perform a second interfering PP task (reversed finger sequence). All participants were finally re-tested following a night of sleep on the first finger sequence. The main findings revealed delayed performance gains following a night of sleep in the MI group, i.e. the interfering task did not alter the consolidation process, by contrast to the PP group. These results confirm that MI practice might result in less retroactive interference than PP, and further highlight the relevance of the first night of sleep for the consolidation process following MI practice. These data might thus contribute to determine in greater details the practical implications of mental training in motor learning and rehabilitation.     

Individual Differences in Emotional Mimicry: Underlying Traits and Social Consequences

Mimicry, the imitation of the nonverbal behaviour of others, serves to establish affiliation and to smoothen social interactions. The present research aimed to disentangle rapid facial reactions (RFRs) to affiliative emotions from RFRs to nonaffiliative emotions from a trait perspective. In line with the Mimicry in Social Context Model by Hess and Fischer, we expected that only the former are mimicry responses indicative of underlying social relating competence and predictive of social satisfaction, whereas the latter superficially resemble mimicry responses and are driven by social relating incompetence and have opposite effects on social satisfaction. Further, we assumed that social relating competence would moderate the relationship between stable individuals' tendencies to show (mal)adaptive RFRs and social satisfaction. To test these hypotheses, 108 participants first completed scales measuring social relating competence, then participated in a mimicry laboratory task and finally evaluated their naturally occurring social interactions for 10 days. Affiliative RFRs to sadness were related to proximal indices of social relating competence and predicted positive social interactions, whereas nonaffiliative RFRs to disgust were related to social relating incompetence and predicted negative social interactions. By contrast, neither affiliative RFRs to happiness nor nonaffiliative RFRs to anger were linked to proximal indices of social relating competence, and both RFRs were only (dys)functional for interaction quality in less social relating‐competent individuals. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Myopic perception of having a deadline in negotiations: An anchoring effect due to question order

In negotiations, people tend to perceive a deadline as more detrimental to themselves than to their opponents. This phenomenon is termed myopic perception. The present research proposes that myopic perception can be understood as a result of an anchoring effect due to the question order used in probing the perception of a deadline. When people estimate deal prices before rating the influence of a deadline, their judgements are anchored on their negotiation outcomes, making their perception egocentric, which leads to myopic perception. As a result, myopic perception was hypothesized to be reduced by reversing the above question order to change the respondents' judgement anchor from negotiation outcomes to negotiation procedures. In Study 1, myopic perception disappeared when participants rated the general influence of a deadline before estimating deal price in a negotiation scenario. In Study 2, pairs of participants negotiated under a tight deadline. Myopic perception of a deadline was manipulated before the negotiation. Dyads without myopic perception had a smaller discrepancy in reservation price. However, myopic perception had no effect on impasse rates or final deal prices. The results are discussed with respect to behavioural forecasting and practical implications of myopic perception.     

The bidirectional relation of emotion perception and social judgments: the effect of witness’ emotion expression on perceptions of moral behaviour and vice versa

The present research tested the notion that emotion expression and context perception are bidirectionally related. Specifically, in two studies focusing on moral violations (N?=?288) and positive moral deviations (N?=?245) respectively, we presented participants with short vignettes describing behaviours that were either (im)moral, (in)polite or unusual together with a picture of the emotional reaction of a person who supposedly had been a witness to the event. Participants rated both the emotional reactions observed and their own moral appraisal of the situation described. In both studies, we found that situational context influenced how emotional reactions to this context were rated and in turn, the emotional expression shown in reaction to a situation influenced the appraisal of the situation. That is, neither the moral events nor the emotion expressions were judged in an absolute fashion. Rather, the perception of one also depended on the other.     

Predicting Compliance in Group CBT Using the Group Therapy Questionnaire

This study examined the clinical applicability of the Group Therapy Questionnaire (GTQ) for identifying individuals at risk of poor attendance in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) groups for depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Participants (n = 80) completed the GTQ prior to their involvement in one of five types of CBT groups. Participants’ attendance was recorded by the group therapists. Findings revealed that patients’ expectations of group were associated with attendance. Level of interpersonal difficulty, health issues, and drug and alcohol use—as assessed by the GTQ—were not associated with attendance. A shorter version of the GTQ with questions tapping expectations of group participation would provide a valuable screening tool to aid clinicians in identifying clients at risk for low attendance.     

Perceived responsibility for learning,self-efficacy,and sources of self-efficacy in mathematics: a study of international baccalaureate primary years programme students

The purpose of this study was to assess the interrelationship of elementary students’ perceived responsibility for learning, self-efficacy, and sources of self-efficacy in mathematics, and differentiation as a function of gender and grade level. Participants in this study included 442 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students from U.S. International Baccalaureate schools. Self-report measures were used to assess key study variables. Students in grade five reported higher levels of mathematics self-efficacy and perceived responsibility for learning than those in grade three. Grade four students also reported higher levels of perceived responsibility than grade three students. In addition, regression results revealed that mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and physiological state accounted for a significant amount of variance in students’ mathematics self-efficacy, with social persuasion being the strongest predictor. Educational implications for practice within the context of International Baccalaureate schools are discussed.     

An investigation of detection biases in the unattended periphery during simulated driving

While people often think they veridically perceive much of the visual surround, recent findings indicate that when asked to detect targets such as gratings embedded in visual noise, observers make more false alarms in the unattended periphery. Do these results from psychophysics studies generalize to more ecologically valid settings? We used a modern game engine to create a simulated driving environment where participants (as drivers) had to make judgments about the colors of pedestrians’ clothing in the periphery. Confirming our hypothesis based on previous psychophysics studies, we found that subjects showed liberal biases for unattended locations when detecting specific colors of pedestrians’ clothing. A second experiment showed that this finding was not simply due to a confirmation bias in decision-making when subjects were uncertain. Together, these results support the idea that in everyday visual experience, there is subjective inflation of experienced detail in the periphery, which may happen at the decisional level.     

Anxiety and Depression in Medically Ill Older Adults

Anxiety and depression are extremely common in the elderly with medical problems. They can manifest not only as symptoms of a primary psychiatric illness, but also as physiologic sequelae of medical illnesses and medical treatments. Recognition and treatment of depression and anxiety in the medically ill is especially difficult. If these states go untreated, they result in higher morbidity and mortality, higher health care costs and utilization, and poorer functional status and outcomes. Three of the most common medical illnesses that afflict geriatric patients, cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, and rheumatoid arthritis, will be presented to illustrate the difficulty in recognizing depression and anxiety and the impact of treating these symptoms in the medically ill elderly. Multidisciplinary approaches combining optimal medication regimens and psychosocial interventions can be effective for treatment of anxiety and depression in the medically ill elderly.     

Vertical and Horizontal Transcendence

Transcendence is explored from two perspectives: the traditional concept wherein the origination of the sacred is "out there," and the alternate concept wherein the sacred originates "here." Each is evaluated from the perspectives of aesthetics and hierarchy. Both forms of transcendence are viewed as essential to the full religious life.