Stimulus- and response-conflict-induced cognitive control in the flanker task

Recently, several studies have been conducted to investigate the top-down adjustments made after incongruent trials during conflict tasks. In the present study, we investigated conflict monitoring with different types of conflict. In a modified version of the flanker task, a distinction was made between stimulus—stimulus conflict and stimulus—response conflict. Six colors were mapped to three responses in order to exclude all sequences in which a relevant or an irrelevant stimulus- or response-related feature was repeated from trialn−1 to trialn. An analysis of the effect of the congruency of the previous trial demonstrated that conflict adaptation was present. The stimulus congruency effect was reduced after both a stimulus-incongruent trial and a response-incongruent trial. The response congruency effect did not vary as a function of previous congruency. These findings are discussed in relation to the distinction between conflict detection and conflict regulation.     

The Stroop color-word test: influence of age, sex, and education; and normative data for a large sample across the adult age range

The Stroop Color-Word Test was administered to 1,856 cognitively screened, healthy Dutch speaking participants aged 24 to 81 years. The effects of age, gender, and education on Stroop test performance were investigated to adequately stratify the normative data. The results showed that especially the speed-dependent Stroop scores (time to complete a subtest), rather than the accuracy measures (the errors made per Stroop sub-task), were profoundly affected by the demographic variables. In addition to the main effects of the demographic variables, an Age Low Level of Education interaction was found for the Error III and the Stroop Interference scores. This suggests that executive function, as measured by the Stroop test, declines with age and that the decline is more pronounced in people with a low level of education. This is consistent with the reserve hypothesis of brain aging (i.e., that education generates reserve capacity against the damaging effects of aging on brain functions). Normative Stroop data were established using both a regression-based and traditional approach, and the appropriateness of both methods for generating normative data is discussed.     

The mental representation of ordinal sequences is spatially organized

In the domain of numbers the existence of spatial components in the representation of numerical magnitude has been convincingly demonstrated by an association between number magnitude and response preference with faster left- than right-hand responses for small numbers and faster right- than left-hand responses for large numbers (Dehaene, S., Bossini, S., & Giraux, P. (1993) The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122, 371-396). Because numbers convey not only real or integer meaning but also ordinal meaning, the question of whether non-numerical ordinal information is spatially coded naturally follows. While previous research failed to show an association between ordinal position and spatial response preference, we present two experiments involving months (Experiment 1) and letters (Experiment 2) in which spatial coding is demonstrated. Furthermore, the response-side effect was obtained with two different stimulus-response mappings. The association occurred both when ordinal information was relevant and when it was irrelevant to the task, showing that the spatial component of the ordinal representation can be automatically activated.     

Priming reveals differential coding of symbolic and non-symbolic quantities

Number processing is characterized by the distance and the size effect, but symbolic numbers exhibit smaller effects than non-symbolic numerosities. The difference between symbolic and non-symbolic processing can either be explained by a different kind of underlying representation or by parametric differences within the same type of underlying representation. We performed a primed naming study to investigate this issue. Prime and target format were manipulated (digits or collections of dots) as well as the numerical distance between prime and target value. Qualitatively different priming patterns were observed for the two formats, showing that the underlying representations differed in kind: Digits activated mental number representations of the place coding type, while collections of dots activated number representations of the summation coding type.     

Social value related response latencies: Unobtrusive evidence for individual differences in information processing

While much research concerning decision-making in interdependency situations concentrates on the influence of social values or different preferences for certain distributions of outcomes for self and other (McClintock, 1978), little attention has been paid to the cognitive processes underlying the expression of these different social values. The present research focuses on the cognitive processes by examining the influence of the dominant social values on decision-makers' response latencies (RLs) in interdependency situations. Using the Ring Measure of Social Values (Liebrand 1984), three experiments were conducted to assess these RLs. Experiment 1 examines the reliability of the social value construct and the RL effect. Experiments 2 and 3 investigate the generality of the RL effect across presentation of combinations of own and other's outcomes (all positive versus all negative). As predicted, RLs were shorter for individualists than for cooperators and competitors. Further, regardless of values, shorter RLs occurred across experiments when own outcomes are positive rather than negative. More important, the predicted interaction between social value and outcome distribution was observed, reflecting increasing RLs for cooperators as their joint outcomes decreased, longer RLs for individualists when own outcomes were negative rather than positive, and longer RLs for competitors when they were outcome disadvantaged rather than advantaged relative to other. These findings are consistent with the expectation that (I) the transformations associated with different social values require different cognitive processes, and (2) subsequent to the value transformations of outcomes, RLs increase when the utility of the transformed outcome distributions decreases.     

Discrimination of 3-D shape and 3-D curvature from motion in active vision

We examined the ability of human observers to discriminate between different 3-D quadratic surfaces defined by motion, and with head position fed back to the stimulus to provide an up-to-date dynamical perspective view. We tested whether 3-D shape or 3-D curvature would affect discrimination performance. It appeared that discrimination of 3-D quadratic shape clearly depended on shape but not on the amount of curvature. Even when the amount of curvature was randomized, subjects’ performance was not altered. On the other hand, the discrimination of 3-D curvature clearly depended linearly on curvature with Weber fractions of 20% on the average and, to a small degree, on 3-D shape. The experiment shows that observers can easily separate 3-D shape and 3-D curvature, and that Koenderink’s shape index and curvedness provide a convenient way to specify shape. These results warn us against using just any arbitrary 3-D shape in 3-D shape perception tasks and indicate, for example, that emphasizing 3-D shape in computer displays by exaggerating curvature does not have any effect.     

The Development of Delinquency and Perceived Friendship Quality in Adolescent Best Friendship Dyads

The present study examines both the unique and the combined role of best friends' delinquency and perceived friendship quality in the development of adolescent delinquency. Questionnaire data were gathered from 435 Dutch adolescent best friends (mean age at first wave = 12.97) over a period of 5 years with annual assessments. Results showed that mean levels of delinquency and perceived friendship quality increased over time. Adolescent best friends were highly similar in both mean levels and changes in delinquency over time. For boys, similarity in mean level delinquency between best friends was higher than for girls. In addition, only for boys, friends' delinquency is associated with increases in adolescent delinquency over time, and adolescents' delinquency is associated with increases in friends' delinquency over time. No bidirectional longitudinal associations were found between perceived friendship quality and adolescent delinquency. No interaction effects between friendship quality and friends' delinquency on adolescent delinquency were found. Thus, findings were more in support of the differential association theory than of the social control theory.     

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy Targeting Fear of Progression in an Interdisciplinary Care Program: A Case Study in Systemic Sclerosis

People living with chronic illness often report uncertainty about the future, fear of disease progression, fear of becoming physically disabled, and a reduced life expectancy as important sources of stress. However, little is known about psychological interventions targeting these concerns. The aim of this study is to illustrate an intervention to reduce emotional distress and concerns about the future in a patient with systemic sclerosis (SSc), a rare chronic rheumatic disease with serious consequences for most patients, and to present a preliminary report on its effectiveness using a single-case study design. Because of the complexity of symptoms and complaints due to SSc, the psychological intervention was embedded in an interdisciplinary care program also consisting of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and specialized nurse care.     

New visuospatial associations by training verbospatial mappings in the first language

We investigated whether verbospatial and visuospatial information share a common representation. We demonstrate that when the associations from spatial words to spatial responses are altered, so that the word left becomes associated with a right response and the word right with a left response, the associations from the spatial locations left and right to the spatial responses also change. This effect was only observed for first-language spatial words (Dutch) and not for second-language spatial words (French), and it did not increase when these languages were combined. The findings argue for shared spatial representations for different types of spatial input.     

On the notion of home and the goals of palliative care

The notion of home is well known from our everyday experience, and plays a crucial role in all kinds of narratives about human life, but is hardly ever systematically dealt with in the philosophy of medicine and health care. This paper is based upon the intuitively positive connotation of the term “home.” By metaphorically describing the goal of palliative care as “the patient’s coming home,” it wants to contribute to a medical humanities approach of medicine. It is argued that this metaphor can enrich our understanding of the goals of palliative care and its proper objectives. Four interpretations of “home” and “coming home” are explored: (1) one’s own house or homelike environment, (2) one’s own body, (3) the psychosocial environment, and (4) the spiritual dimension, in particular, the origin of human existence. Thinking in terms of coming home implies a normative point of view. It represents central human values and refers not only to the medical-technical and care aspects of health care, but also to the moral context.