Family structure and functioning: Influences on adolescents psychological needs,goals and aspirations in a South African setting

This study aimed to determine the effects of family structure and functioning on basic psychological need fulfilment, life goals and aspirations of adolescents in a South African setting. Participants were 457 adolescent learners (M_age = 16.31, SD = 1.45, females = 54%, coloured = 56%) selected from four public schools in the Western Cape, South Africa. The adolescents completed the Family Assessment Device, Aspirations Index and Psychological Needs Scales. Results following multiple regression analysis suggested that a two-parent family structure predicted higher satisfaction of basic psychological needs and higher pursuit of extrinsic goals among adolescents than did a one-parent family structure. Family functioning determined pursuit of intrinsic goals by adolescents from one-parent families.     

Do monkeys compare themselves to others?

Social comparisons are a fundamental characteristic of human behaviour, yet relatively little is known about their evolutionary foundations. Adapting the co-acting paradigm from human research (Seta in J Pers Soc Psychol 42:281–291, 1982. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.42.2.281), we examined how the performance of a partner influenced subjects’ performance in long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). Using parallel testing in touch screen setups in which subjects had to discriminate familiar and novel photographs of men and women, we investigated whether accuracy and reaction time were influenced by partner performance and relationship quality (affiliate vs. non-affiliate). Auditory feedback about the alleged performance of the co-actor was provided via playback; partner performance was either moderately or extremely better or worse than subject performance. We predicted that subjects would assimilate to moderately different comparison standards as well as to affiliates and contrast away from extreme standards and non-affiliates. Subjects instantly generalized to novel pictures. While accuracy was not affected by any of the factors, long reaction times occurred more frequently when subjects were tested with a non-affiliate who was performing worse, compared to one who was doing better than them (80 % quantile worse: 5.1, better: 4.3 s). For affiliate co-actors, there was no marked effect (worse: 4.4, better: 4.6 s). In a control condition with no auditory feedback, subjects performed somewhat better in the presence of affiliates (M = 77.8 % correct) compared to non-affiliates (M = 71.1 %), while reaction time was not affected. Apparently, subjects were sensitive to partner identity and performance, yet variation in motivation rather than assimilation and contrast effects may account for the observed effects.     

Spirituality in African-American Breast Cancer Patients: Implications for Clinical and Psychosocial Care

Journal of Religion and Health - Spirituality has been shown to be important to many individuals dealing with a cancer diagnosis. While African-American breast cancer survivors have been reported...     

Generalization of equivalence relations from photos to objects by preschool children

Generalized equivalence classes are stimulus classes that consist of equivalent stimuli and other physically similar class‐member stimuli. The present study evaluated whether preschool children would form equivalence classes among photos of abstract objects (2D) and show equivalence generalization to the corresponding objects (3D), printed photos (2D stimuli), and to black‐and‐white drawn pictures (2D stimuli). Six typically developing children were taught arbitrary relations to establish three 3‐member equivalence classes with 2D stimuli presented on a computer screen. AB‐AC baseline relations (for half of the participants) and AB‐BC relations (for the other half) were taught using a multiple‐probe design to assess taught and tested relations. After class formation, three types of generalization probes were conducted: generalization to 3D stimuli, generalization between 2D (printed photos) and 3D stimuli, and generalization to drawn pictures (2D). All of the participants formed the equivalence classes. Two participants met the criterion for all three generalization probe types. Two participants presented mixed results across tests, and two participants did not exhibit equivalence generalization. The results demonstrated equivalence generalization from 2D to 3D stimuli in preschool children, although the variability across participants suggests that such generalization cannot be assumed a priori.     

Mapping the apetitive and aversive systems with emotional pictures using a block-design fMRI procedure

Negative emotional pictures from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) have been successful in mapping brain areas related to the aversive system. However, the capacity of positive emotional pictures to study the brain areas related to the appetitive system (i.e., nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex) is less established. In this study, we used a block fMRI design to investigate this issue, including emotional pictures as background while participants performed a vowel-consonant discrimination task. Importantly, participants were heterosexual males and all positive pictures were related to erotic couples, opposite-sex erotica, or romantic scenes. Negative pictures were similar to those used in previous studies. Results were consistent with previous studies using event-related designs, showing activation of amygdala, lateral prefrontal cortex, and occipito-temporal areas, but positive pictures showed a significant activation in the left nucleus accumbens. These findings provide evidence of the utility of block designs in emotional research (positive emotional pictures).     

How many locations can be selected at once?

The visual system uses several tools to select only the most relevant visual information for further processing, including selection by location. In the present study, the authors explored how many locations can be selected at once. Although past evidence from several visual tasks suggests that the visual system can operate on a fixed number of 4 objects or locations at once, the authors found that this capacity varies widely in response to the precision of selection required by the task. When the authors required precise selection regions, only 2-3 locations could be selected. But when the selection regions could be coarser, up to 6-7 locations could be selected. The authors discuss potential mechanisms underlying the selection of multiple locations and review the evidence for fixed limits in visual attention.     

Carving up space at imaginary joints: can people mentally impose arbitrary spatial category boundaries?

Empirical attempts to understand connections between abstract cognition and sensori-motor processes have pointed toward an embodied view of cognition, where cognitive activity is strongly tied to sensori-motor activity. Here the authors test the ability of the cognitive system to impose structure on the world using a well-established phenomenon in spatial cognition--biases near spatial category boundaries. Results from 5 experiments suggest that participants were unable to mentally impose a spatial category boundary without perceptual support, even when explicitly instructed to do so. The authors conclude by considering the implications of these findings for abstraction within other domains of cognition.     

Multimodal Ternus: visual, tactile, and visuo-tactile grouping in apparent motion

Gestalt rules that describe how visual stimuli are grouped also apply to sounds, but it is unknown if the Gestalt rules also apply to tactile or uniquely multimodal stimuli. To investigate these rules, we used lights, touches, and a combination of lights and touches, arranged in a classic Ternus configuration. Three stimuli (A, B, C) were arranged in a row across three fingers. A and B were presented for 50 ms and, after a delay, B and C were presented for 50 ms. Subjects were asked whether they perceived AB moving to BC (group motion) or A moving to C (element motion). For all three types of stimuli, at short delays, A to C dominated, while at longer delays AB to BC dominated. The critical delay, where perception changed from group to element motion, was significantly different for the visual Ternus (3 lights, 162 ms) and the tactile Ternus (3 touches, 195 ms). The critical delay for the multimodal Ternus (3 light-touch pairs, 161 ms) was not different from the visual or tactile Ternus effects. In a second experiment, subjects were exposed to 2.5 min of visual group motion (stimulus onset asynchrony = 300 ms). The exposure caused a shift in the critical delay of the visual Ternus, a trend in the same direction for the multimodal Ternus, but no shift in the tactile Ternus. These results suggest separate but similar grouping rules for visual, tactile, and multimodal stimuli.     

Adrenergic enhancement of consolidation of object recognition memory

Extensive evidence indicates that epinephrine (EPI) modulates memory consolidation for emotionally arousing tasks in animals and human subjects. However, previous studies have not examined the effects of EPI on consolidation of recognition memory. Here we report that systemic administration of EPI enhances consolidation of memory for a novel object recognition (NOR) task under different training conditions. Control male rats given a systemic injection of saline (0.9% NaCl) immediately after NOR training showed significant memory retention when tested at 1.5 or 24, but not 96h after training. In contrast, rats given a post-training injection of EPI showed significant retention of NOR at all delays. In a second experiment using a different training condition, rats treated with EPI, but not SAL-treated animals, showed significant NOR retention at both 1.5 and 24-h delays. We next showed that the EPI-induced enhancement of retention tested at 96h after training was prevented by pretraining systemic administration of the beta-adrenoceptor antagonist propranolol. The findings suggest that, as previously observed in experiments using aversively motivated tasks, epinephrine modulates consolidation of recognition memory and that the effects require activation of beta-adrenoceptors.     

An introduction to hearing loss and screening procedures for behavioral research

Hearing loss is a confounding variable that is rarely addressed in behavioral research despite its prevalence across the life span. Currently, the most common method of experimental control over hearing acuity is through self report of perceived impairment. We argue that this technique may lack sensitivity and that researchers should more commonly utilize standardized hearing screening procedures. Distinctive patterns of hearing loss are reviewed with attention to populations that commonly participate in behavioral research. We explain standard techniques for conducting pure tone hearing screening using a conventional portable audiometer and outline a procedure for how researchers can modify a conventional laptop computer for audiometric screening when a standard audiometer is unavailable. We offer a sample hearing screening program that researchers may use toward the development of their own protocol. This program is freely available for download at www .psychonomic.org/archive.