Dimensional overlap between time and space

Several pieces of evidence suggest that our mental representations of time and space are linked. However, the extent of this linkage between the two domains has not yet been assessed. We present the results of two experiments that draw on the predictions of the dimensional overlap model (Kornblum, Hasbroucq, & Osman, Psychological Review 97:253–270, 1990). The stimulus and response sets in these reaction time experiments were related to either time or space. The obtained stimulus–response congruency effects were of about the same size for identical stimulus–response sets (time–time or space–space) and for different stimulus–response sets (time–space or space–time). These results support the view that our representations of time and space are strongly linked.     

Discriminating Clinical From Nonclinical Manifestations of Test Anxiety: A Validation Study

Test anxiety, although being a very common, severe, and impairing psychological disorder, is not coded as a separate diagnosis in the DSM or ICD. In the present study we investigated whether the Test Anxiety Inventory can be used to discriminate clinical and subclinical levels of test anxiety by comparing patients who seek treatment for their test anxiety in an outpatient clinic with carefully matched students with normal test anxiety. The data from 47 test-anxious patients as well as 41 healthy university students were examined. Results show that a cutoff score of ≥ 80 in the Test Anxiety Inventory can discriminate the clinical group from the control students. The symptom pattern of test anxiety was very consistent in the clinical group regardless of the principal diagnosis allocated by the treating clinician. Comorbid depression did not affect the severity of test anxiety. The motivation to avoid failure was one of the most important differences between patients who sought help for their test anxiety and students with nonclinical levels of test anxiety.     

Motivation-focused thinking: Buffering against stress-related physical symptoms and depressive symptomology

Developmental transitions are experienced throughout the life course and necessitate adapting to consequential and unpredictable changes that can undermine health. Our six-month study (n = 239) explored whether selective secondary control striving (motivation-focused thinking) protects against the elevated levels of stress and depressive symptoms increasingly common to young adults navigating the challenging school-to-university transition. Path analyses supplemented with tests of moderated mediation revealed that, for young adults who face challenging obstacles to goal attainment, selective secondary control indirectly reduced long-term stress-related physical and depressive symptoms through selective primary control and previously unexamined measures of discrete emotions. Results advance the existing literature by demonstrating that (a) selective secondary control has health benefits for vulnerable young adults and (b) these benefits are largely a consequence of the process variables proposed in Heckhausen et al.’s (2010) theory.     

Pro-criminal attitudes,intervention, and recidivism

We review the recent research literature on pro-criminal attitudes (PCAs) as a causal factor of recidivism with a focus on studies on the effectiveness of offender treatment programs targeting PCAs to prevent recidivism. The main conclusions that can be derived from the literature are: (1) the evidence supports the hypothesis that PCAs are related to reoffending; (2) most investigated offender treatment programs tend to reduce PCAs, although the general lack of adequate control group designs does not rule out alternative explanations for this reduction; and (3) there is no conclusive empirical evidence that intervention programs designed to reduce PCAs are effective in reducing recidivism. Empirical research in this area lacks the theoretical and methodological rigor to test causal models of the influence of treatment on reducing PCAs, and effects of PCAs on recidivism. Limitations of the empirical evidence are related to inadequate research designs and/or suboptimal data analysis strategies. Recommendations concerning optimized research designs and data analysis strategies that are likely to provide more conclusive evidence on the relation of PCAs, PCA treatment, and recidivism are given.     

Assisting failure‐prone individuals to navigate achievement transitions using a cognitive motivation treatment (attributional retraining)

Transitions to novel achievement settings are often accompanied by unfamiliar learning conditions and unanticipated failure that undermine how individuals adapt to such situations. For first‐year students, the transition to college is imbued with adverse learning conditions that can result in decreased motivation and academic performance. This study examined the efficacy of a motivation‐enhancing treatment, attributional retraining (AR), to assist students who are at risk because of a high‐failure avoidance orientation (tendency to maintain self‐worth by avoiding failure). For high‐ (but not low) failure avoidance students, AR fostered an adaptive psychological mindset (course grade expectations, judgments of course responsibility) and better academic performance (course grade, grade point average). Findings suggest the utility of AR to offset the negative effects of a high‐failure avoidance self‐worth orientation.     

The facilitated processing of threatening faces: an ERP analysis

Threatening, friendly, and neutral faces were presented to test the hypothesis of the facilitated perceptual processing of threatening faces. Dense sensor event-related brain potentials were measured while subjects viewed facial stimuli. Subjects had no explicit task for emotional categorization of the faces. Assessing early perceptual stimulus processing, threatening faces elicited an early posterior negativity compared with nonthreatening neutral or friendly expressions. Moreover, at later stages of stimulus processing, facial threat also elicited augmented late positive potentials relative to the other facial expressions, indicating the more elaborate perceptual analysis of these stimuli. Taken together, these data demonstrate the facilitated perceptual processing of threatening faces. Results are discussed within the context of an evolved module of fear (A. Ohman & S. Mineka, 2001).     

Affect regulation and food intake in bulimia nervosa: emotional responding to food cues after deprivation and subsequent eating

Emotional responding to salient food cues and effects of food deprivation and consumption were investigated in 32 women with bulimia and 32 control women. One half of each group was food deprived before viewing unpleasant, neutral, pleasant, and food-related pictures. Then participants could eat from a buffet before viewing a parallel picture set. Women with bulimia showed a substantial potentiation of startle responses during viewing of food cues relative to control women. This startle potentiation was attenuated by food deprivation and augmented by increased food consumption. These data support the affective regulation model suggesting that food cues prompt negative affective states in women with bulimia, who are overwhelmed by fasting. The resulting deprivation increases the incentive value of food cues and may thus trigger binge eating.     

Perceptions of Married Women and Married Men with Hyphenated Surnames

A predominately European American sample of 197 middle-class college students rated married women and men with hyphenated surnames on the Big Five personality factors (R. Lippa, 1991), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1978), the adjectives masculine and feminine, and 12 adjective phrases reflecting different aspects of marriage. Both men and women perceived women and men with hyphenated last names as different from other married people. In comparison with the average married woman, the woman with a hyphenated name was perceived as more friendly, good-natured, industrious, and intellectually curious. She was also perceived as well educated and as more likely to have a career. Men with hyphenated surnames were also perceived as accommodating and good-natured, and viewed as being both nurturing and committed to their marriage. Women and men with hyphenated names were generally perceived as having higher levels of both instrumental and expressive traits than other married people. Women appear to have more positive perceptions than men, particularly of the man with a hyphenated name. The results suggest that college students have generally positive perceptions of married people with hyphenated names.     

Anterior-posterior beta asymmetries in dyslexia during lexical decisions

High-density EEG was recorded in 12 compensated dyslexics, 6 classified as dysphonetic and 6 as dyseidetic, and in 12 matched controls while they carried out a lexical-decision task. Relative to normal controls, dysphonetics showed higher beta power in anterior relative to posterior regions, while dyseidetics showed higher beta power in posterior relative to anterior regions. Further, controls (but not dyslexics) showed a positive correlation between performance on the task and the ratios of both left-to-right and anterior-to-posterior beta asymmetry. According to the dual-route theory of reading, there are two strategies that can be used in lexical decision: A visual strategy involving visual word identification and direct access to a visual lexicon, and a phonological strategy involving grapheme-to-phoneme conversion and access to a speech output lexicon. Our results therefore suggest compensation through weakness rather than strength, with phonological dyslexics focusing on a grapheme-to-phoneme strategy and dyseidetics focusing on visual word identification.     

A high density ERP comparison of mental rotation and mental size transformation

To compare mental rotation and mental size transformation, 128-channel EEG was recorded while subjects performed both tasks using random two-dimensional shapes as stimuli. Behavioural results showed significant linear effects of both size transformation and mental rotation on reaction times. Rotation ERPs showed experimental effects at two latencies: a bilateral component distributed over posterior parietal electrodes at a latency of approximately 232-300ms and a second component at approximately 424-492ms distributed over right anterior parietal electrodes. The latency and spatial distribution of this second effect is consistent with previous research indicating a functional connection between this component and mental rotation. ERPs for the size-transformation task showed an effect at 180-228ms distributed bilaterally over occipital-temporal electrodes. These results are consistent with previous hemodynamic imaging studies that show involvement of parietal cortex in mental rotation and also the involvement of BA 19 in size-transformation tasks. However, the superior temporal resolution of the present data indicates that BA 19 activation may occur at a latency that is more likely related to apparent motion than to the size-transformation operation per se.