Response mode does not modulate the space–time congruency effect: Evidence for a space–time mapping at a conceptual level

Previous studies reported a space–time congruency effect on response time, supporting the notion that people's thinking about time is grounded in their spatial sensorimotor experience. According to a strong view of metaphoric mapping, the congruency effect should be larger for responses that differ in their spatial features than for responses that lack such differences. In contrast, a weaker version of this account posits that the grounding of time is based on higher-level spatial concepts. In this case, response mode should not modulate the size of the space–time congruency effect. In order to assess these predictions, participants in this study responded to temporal stimuli either manually or vocally. Response mode did not modulate the space–time congruency effect which supports the weaker view of metaphoric mapping suggesting that this effect emerges at a higher cognitive level.     

The positive eating scale: relationship with objective health parameters and validity in Germany,the USA and India

Objective: The prevailing focus regarding eating behaviour is on restriction, concern, worry and pathology. In contrast, the purpose of the present studies was to focus on a positive relationship with eating in non-clinical samples from Germany, the USA and India.

Design: In Study 1, the Positive Eating Scale (PES) was tested and validated in a large longitudinal sample (T1: N = 772; T2: N = 510). In Study 2, the PES was tested in online samples from the USA, India and Germany (total N = 749).

Main Outcome Measures: Health risk status was measured in Study 1 with objective health parameters (fasting serum glucose, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, waist circumference, BMI).

Results: Study 1 revealed acceptable psychometric properties of the PES, internal consistency (α = .87), as well as test–retest reliability after six months (r = .67). Importantly, a positive relationship with eating was associated with decreased health risk factors six months later. In Study 2, the structure of the PES was confirmed for German, Indian and US-American adults, suggesting validity across remarkably different eating environments.

Conclusion: A positive relationship with eating might be a fruitful starting point for prevention and intervention programmes promoting physical and psychological health.     

Assessment of apathy in neurological patients using the Apathy Motivation Index caregiver version

Apathy is a common, disabling neuropsychiatric syndrome that occurs across many brain disorders and may be associated with diminished motivation in behavioural, cognitive, emotional and social domains. Assessment is complicated by the variability of symptoms across apathy domains and self-report from patients, which can be misleading due to their lack of insight. Independent evaluation by clinicians also has limitations though if it has to be performed with limited time. Caregiver reports are a viable alternative, but current assessments for them either do not distinguish between different apathy domains or are interview-based and take long to administer. In this study, we developed a brief caregiver questionnaire version of the recently developed Apathy Motivation Index (AMI), which is a self-report tool. We confirmed three apathy factors in this new caregiver measure (AMI-CG) that were also present in the AMI: Behavioural Activation, Emotional Sensitivity and Social Motivation. Furthermore, we validated the scores against more extensive caregiver interviews using the established Lillle apathy rating scale as well as patient self-reports of apathy, measures of depression, anhedonia, cognition, activities of daily living and caregiver burden across four different neurological conditions: Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, subjective cognitive impairment and limbic encephalitis. The AMI-CG showed good internal reliability, external validity and diagnostic accuracy. It also uncovered cases of social apathy overlooked by traditional instruments. Crucially, patients who under-rated their apathy compared to informants were more likely to have difficulties performing everyday activities and to be a greater burden to caregivers. The findings provide evidence for a multidimensional conceptualization of apathy and an instrument for efficient detection of apathy based on caregiver reports for use in clinical practice.     

System justifying functions of myths that exaggerate the emotional rewards of parenthood

Popular beliefs exaggerate the emotional rewards of caring for children. These beliefs may persist because they provide ideological legitimacy for policies that otherwise might appear to exploit parents' contributions to the public good. Studies 1a and 1b tested whether information suggesting that parents' labor is unjustly exploited by society motivates people to exaggerate the emotional rewards of parenthood. Study 2 manipulated participants' exposure to parenthood idealizing myths to test whether these myths reduce support for expanding government assistance to parents. Across these studies support was found for the hypothesis that exaggerating the emotional rewards of children functions to legitimize and maintain low public assistance to parents. Theoretical insights into system justifying ideologies and practical implications for social justice movements are discussed.     

With the past behind and the future ahead: Back-to-front representation of past and future sentences

Several studies support the psychological reality of a mental timeline that runs from the left to the right and may strongly affect our thinking about time. Ulrich and Maienborn (Cognition 117:126–138, 2010) examined the linguistic relevance of this timeline during the processing of past- and future-related sentences. Their results indicate that the timeline is not activated automatically during sentence comprehension. While no explicit reference of temporal expressions to the left–right axis has been attested (e.g., *the meeting was moved to the left), natural languages refer to the back–front axis in order to encode temporal information (e.g., the meeting was moved forward). Therefore, the present study examines whether a back–frontal timeline becomes automatically activated during the processing of past- and future-related sentences. The results demonstrate a clear effect on reaction time that emerges from a time–space association along the frontal timeline (Experiment 1). However, this activation seems to be nonautomatic (Experiment 2), rendering it unlikely that this frontal timeline is involved in comprehension of the temporal content of sentences.     

Interactions between apparent motion rivalry in vision and touch

In multistable perception, the brain alternates between several perceptual explanations of ambiguous sensory signals. It is unknown whether multistable processes can interact across the senses. In the study reported here, we presented subjects with unisensory (visual or tactile), spatially congruent visuotactile, and spatially incongruent visuotactile apparent motion quartets. Congruent stimulation induced pronounced visuotactile interactions, as indicated by increased dominance times for both vision and touch, and an increased percentage bias for the percept already dominant under unisensory stimulation. Thus, the joint evidence from vision and touch stabilizes the more likely perceptual interpretation and thereby decelerates the rivalry dynamics. Yet the temporal dynamics depended also on subjects' attentional focus and was generally slower for tactile than for visual reports. Our results support Bayesian approaches to perceptual inference, in which the probability of a perceptual interpretation is determined by combining visual, tactile, or visuotactile evidence with modality-specific priors that depend on subjects' attentional focus. Critically, the specificity of visuotactile interactions for spatially congruent stimulation indicates multisensory rather than cognitive-bias mechanisms.     

Impact of patient suffering on caregiver well-being: the case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients and their caregivers

The impact of patient suffering on family caregivers is an understudied but important topic. This study of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and their caregivers examined the associations of two components of patient suffering: patient physical symptoms, and mental distress, as well as the patient's support for the caregiver, with caregiver well-being. The sample consisted of 52 patients with ALS and their caregivers. Patients and caregivers each completed a structured survey assessing multiple domains including demographics, health, and well-being. Specifically, patients rated their own physical symptoms and mental distress. Caregivers rated their own daily affect, and the extent to which they perceived the patient as supportive. Caregivers also reported whether or not they had found any benefit in dealing with the patient's illness. Regression analyses yielded significant associations of patient distress with caregiver negative affect; patient support was associated with greater caregiver positive affect, and patient symptoms and support were associated with greater likelihood of caregiver benefit finding. There was a significant two-way interaction of patient symptoms by support, namely, benefit finding was not only more likely with greater physical suffering and patient support, but it was also the case that caregivers who perceived the care recipient as unsupportive could only find benefit when this person experienced intense physical suffering. Support interventions for ALS patients and their caregivers should devote particular attention to how caregivers may be affected by witnessing their loved one's sufferings, as well as identify and address challenges in support exchanges between caregivers and patients.     

Long-term adherence to a physical activity intervention: The role of telephone-assisted vs. self-administered coping plans and strategy use

Objective: This study investigated the role of coping plans and the use of selection, optimisation and compensation (SOC) strategies within an experimental evaluation of a 26-week physical exercise intervention.

Methods: Older women (N?=?86, M _age?=?73.7 years) were randomly assigned to a telephone-assisted or a self-administered coping planning intervention after 6 weeks’ participation in an exercise programme. The number of different coping plans formulated, exercise-specific SOC strategy use and their interaction were used to predict objectively measured long-term adherence to the intervention.

Results: The number of coping plans formulated (β?=?0.28) and goal-pursuit strategies reported (sum score of optimisation and compensation strategies, β?=?0.39) predicted adherence to the exercise programme over 20 weeks. The predictive strength of coping plans increased with decreasing numbers of goal-pursuit strategies (β?=??0.21). Women supported via telephone reported significantly more coping plans than did women in the self-administered coping planning group, F(1,80)?=?9.47, p?=?0.003.

Conclusion: Coping plans have a buffering effect on adherence levels when use of SOC strategies is low. Older women's adherence to physical activities may be improved if they are given direct support in generating coping plans involving strategies of selection, optimisation and compensation.     

Classic Stroop Negative Priming effects for children and adults diverge with less-conflicting and nonconflicting conditions

Negative priming indexes an inhibition process that aids target selection by reducing distractor interference. To date, children have produced negative priming only in tasks where distractor response tendencies are consistently greater than or equal to targets and not in tasks containing a substantial proportion of low-conflict distractors. To establish the exact parameters under which children's negative priming attenuates relative to adults, we varied processing demands across 2 experiments involving children and adults. Negative priming was comparable when 100% high-conflict conditions were encountered (Experiment 1) and was intact in adults but not children when a ratio of 50:50 high- to low-conflict conditions was encountered (Experiment 2). Compared with adults, children seem induced to divide attention more generally when low-conflict attentional conditions are included, attenuating negative priming.