Daily variation of multiple behaviors in Aplysia fasciata: integration of feeding, reproduction, and locomotion

Daily variations in feeding, reproductive behaviors, and activity level were examined under three conditions: (1) animals had access to food and mates; (2) there was access only to food; (3) neither food nor mates were present. Behaviors differed in amplitude of variations from their daily mean value. Egg-laying had the strongest tendency to be clustered. Amplitude of variations in courtship and swimming was larger than those of immobility, crawling, and feeding, while moving in place was the least clustered behavior. Changes in state affected the tendency to be clustered. When food and mates were present, amplitude of variations became progressively larger for immobility, moving in place, crawling, and swimming. Behaviors differed in the degree to which variations were patterned as a 1/day oscillation. Relatively little of the variability in crawling, moving in place, courtship, and egg-laying was due to a 1/day oscillation under any condition. By contrast, a large proportion of the variability of immobility, swimming, mating, and eating was modulated by a 1/day oscillation in at least one condition. The contribution of a 1/day oscillation to variability differed in the conditions examined. For immobility and swimming, when food and mates were present, the 1/day component of variability became smaller. By contrast, presence of mates led to an increase in the 1/day component of variability modulating feeding. Daily peaks of swimming and feeding were in phase with one another, and out of phase with mating and feeding. The ratio of locomotion to inactivity is constant, independent of change in external conditions. However, this ratio varied throughout the day. When food and mates were absent, variations of immobility and swimming were strongly related to variations in the inactivity ratio. When food and mates were added, this tendency decreased. The data suggest that daily variations in occurrence of behaviors can be accounted for by interactions between oscillators affecting Aplysia behavior and motivational variables. A 1/day oscillator has strong effects on mating, swimming, and immobility. The effect of the oscillator is modified by changes in motivational state.     

Attention and interpretation processes and trait anger experience,expression, and control

This study explored attention and interpretation biases in processing facial expressions as correlates of theoretically distinct self-reported anger experience, expression, and control. Non-selected undergraduate students (N?=?101) completed cognitive tasks measuring attention bias, interpretation bias, and Spielberger’s State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2). Attention bias toward angry faces was associated with higher trait anger and anger expression and with lower anger control-in and anger control-out. The propensity to quickly interpret ambiguous faces as angry was associated with greater anger expression and its subcomponent of anger expression-out and with lower anger control-out. Interactions between attention and interpretation biases did not contribute to the prediction of any anger component suggesting that attention and interpretation biases may function as distinct mechanisms. Theoretical and possible clinical implications are discussed.     

The effects of learned helplessness on the processing of a persuasive message

The current study examines the effects of exposure to unsolvable problems on the processing of a persuasive message. Participants exposed to either unsolvable failure or no-feedback tasks were presented with one of four versions of an advertisement about a hair shampoo and rated their attitude towards this product. Two aspects of the message were manipulated: the quality of arguments (strong, weak) and the attractiveness of the communicator (attractive, non-attractive). In addition, participants rated their anxiety and the frequency of off-task thoughts during the experiment. Attitude towards the target product of participants in the failure condition was less affected by the argument’s quality and more influenced by communicator attractiveness than the attitude of participants in the no-feedback condition. Participants exposed to failures reported more anxiety and task-related worries than those exposed to no-feedback, and these ratings were found to mediate the effects of failure on the processing of a persuasive message. Results were discussed in terms of Learned Helplessness theories and the Elaboration Likelihood Model.     

Experiments in digital literacy.

Having digital literacy requires more than just the ability to use software or to operate a digital device; it includes a large variety of complex skills such as cognitive, motoric, sociological, and emotional that users need to have in order to use digital environments effectively. A conceptual model that was recently described by the authors suggests that digital literacy comprises five major digital skills: photo-visual skills ("reading" instructions from graphical displays), reproduction skills (utilizing digital reproduction to create new, meaningful materials from preexisting ones), branching skills (constructing knowledge from non-linear, hypertextual navigation), information skills (evaluating the quality and validity of information), and socio-emotional skills (understanding the "rules" that prevail in cyberspace and applying this understanding in online cyberspace communication). The present paper presents results from a performance-based pioneer study that investigated the application of the above digital literacy skills conceptual model among different groups of scholars. Results clearly indicate that the younger participants performed better than the older ones, with photo-visual and branching literacy tasks, whereas the older participants were found to be more literate in reproduction and information literacy tasks. Research results shed light on the cognitive skills that users utilize in performing with digital environments, and provide educators and software developers with helpful guidelines for designing better user-centered digital environments.     

Attachment style and individual differences in leadership perceptions and emergence

The authors examined whether individuals' approaches to relationships, expressed in terms of attachment styles, was related to how they viewed ideal leadership and to their degree of tendency to emerge as team leaders. Specifically, the authors hypothesized that attachment styles, or cognitive representations of orientation to others, would explain individual differences in leadership perceptions and emergence. Participants were 127 American students in college teams. The authors found that securely attached individuals (n = 81) perceived themselves as more effective team members than did insecurely attached individuals (n = 46) and that fellow team members saw securely attached team members as emerging team leaders significantly more often than they did insecurely attached team members.     

Inconsistency as an interactional problem: a lesson from political rhetoric

The classical theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that when two related cognitions are mutually inconsistent, one of them will change to restore consistency. However, Billig suggests that inconsistency is primarily an interactional problem between subjects and not a cognitive problem within a subject. In the current paper, we adopt Billig's rhetorical approach to inconsistency and study inconsistency as an interactional problem in the context of political rhetoric. More specifically, we use Action-Implicative Discourse Analysis to identify the discursive strategies the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, used to cope with the inconsistency between his national ideology and his contradictory behavior during his short term in office.     

Auditory hallucinations in acute stroke

Auditory hallucinations are uncommon phenomena which can be directly caused by acute stroke, mostly described after lesions of the brain stem, very rarely reported after cortical strokes. The purpose of this study is to determine the frequency of this phenomenon. In a cross sectional study, 641 stroke patients were followed in the period between 1996-2000. Each patient underwent comprehensive investigation and follow-up. Four patients were found to have post cortical stroke auditory hallucinations. All of them occurred after an ischemic lesion of the right temporal lobe. After no more than four months, all patients were symptom-free and without therapy. The fact the auditory hallucinations may be of cortical origin must be taken into consideration in the treatment of stroke patients. The phenomenon may be completely reversible after a couple of months.     

Attentional bias in anxiety: a behavioral and ERP study

Accumulating evidence suggests the existence of a processing bias in favor of threat-related stimulation in anxious individuals. Using behavioral and ERP measures, the present study investigated the deployment of attention to face stimuli with different emotion expressions in high-anxious and low-anxious participants. An attention-shifting paradigm was used in which faces with neutral, angry, fearful, sad, or happy expressions were presented singly at fixation. Participants had to fixate on the face cue and then discriminate a target shape that appeared randomly above, below, to the left, or right of the fixated face. The behavioral data show that high-anxious participants were slower to respond to targets regardless of the emotion expressed by the face cue. In contrast, the ERP data indicate that threat-related faces elicited faster latencies and greater amplitudes of early ERP components in high-anxious than in low-anxious individuals. The between-group pattern in ERP waveforms suggests that the slower reaction times in high-anxious participants might reflect increased attentional dwelling on the face cues, rather than a general slowing of response enacting.