The Association between Childhood Abuse and Labor Force Outcomes in Young Adults: Results from the Ontario Child Health Study

We examined the associations between childhood physical and sexual abuse and labor force outcomes in young adults and the possible mediating effects of educational attainment, current mental health, and physical health. Data from the Ontario Child Health Study (N = 1,893), a province-wide longitudinal study were analyzed. Controlling for childhood and demographic variables, severe childhood physical abuse was significantly associated with reduced income with small mediating effects. There was a sex difference in the association between child abuse and employment. Severe childhood physical abuse was significantly associated with lower likelihood of employment only among males; mediators partially reduced this association. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms linking exposure to child abuse and economic vulnerability in young adults.     

Longitudinal tests on the influence of achievement goals on effort and intrinsic interest in the workplace

This study investigates whether four types of achievement goals—mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance—influence effort and intrinsic interest at work. Cross-lagged panel analyses were applied to data from a two-wave survey conducted on 57 newly hired Japanese police officers. The results showed that performance-approach goals had significant positive influences on effort and intrinsic interest. In contrast, performance-avoidance goals had significant negative impacts on the abovementioned two outcome variables. Longitudinal effects were observed when the influence of competence expectancy was controlled. These results highlight the benefits of performance-approach goals and the costs associated with performance-avoidance goals in the workplace.     

Development of Recognition of Face Parts from Unfamiliar Faces

The present study examined developmental changes in the ability to recognize face parts. In Experiment 1, participants were familiarized with whole faces and given a recognition test with old and new eyes, noses, mouths, inner faces, outer faces, or whole faces. Adults were above chance in their recognition of the eye and mouth regions. However, children did not naturally encode and recognize face parts independently of the entire face. In addition, all age groups showed comparable inner and outer face recognition, except for 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds who showed a recognition advantage for outer faces. In Experiment 2, when participants were familiarized with eyes, noses, or mouths and tested with eyes, noses, or mouths, respectively, all ages showed above‐chance recognition of eyes and mouths. Thirteen‐ to 14‐year‐olds were adult‐like in their recognition of the eye region, but mouth recognition continued to develop beyond 14 years of age. Nose recognition was above chance among 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds, but recognition scores remained low even in adulthood. The present findings reveal unique developmental trajectories in the use of isolated facial regions in face recognition and suggest that featural cues (as a class) have a different ontogenetic course relative to holistic and configural cues. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anxiety and heart rate variability before sleep indicate chronic stress in students

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of chronic stress on the first-night effect in terms of autonomic nervous system activity and anxiety. Participants (N = 11; M age = 20.3 yr., SD = 0.47) included six with high stress (High stress group) and five with low stress (Low stress group), for whom all EEG data were available from three consecutive nights. Heart rate variability was calculated using the MemCalc method. The ratio of low to high frequency of heart rate variability before sleep onset in the High stress group on the first night indicated significantly higher activities than the ratio before sleep onset in the Low stress group. No significant difference in sleep latency was found between the two groups. However, the High stress group was more aware of anxiety than was the Low stress group, and the former estimated more subjective difficulty in falling asleep. These results suggest that measuring LF/HF before sleep may constitute a new way to assess chronic stress.     

The influence of monetary reward and punishment on psychological, physiological, behavioral and performance aspects of a golf putting task

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine kinematic characteristics and force control during a golf-putting task under a pressure condition. The secondary purpose was to provide an exploratory investigation of the relationship between changes in behavior (kinematics and force control) and performance on the one hand, and psychological (attention and affect) and physiological (arousal level) changes on the other hand. Twenty male novices performed 150 acquisition trials, followed by 10 test trials during a pressure condition induced by performance-contingent distracters: a cash reward or punishment. A three-dimensional motion analysis revealed that, during the pressure test, angular displacements of rotational movements at the horizontal plane and movement time of the arms and club during the backswing and downswing phases all decreased, while acceleration of the elbows during the downswing phase increased. Mean performance indices in all participants’ were unchanged in spite of the kinematic changes under the pressure condition. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the decrement in performance, as well as increased variability of movement time and speed, were more likely to increase when participants shifted their attention to movements. Furthermore, changes in heart rate and negative affect were related to both the increase in movement acceleration and a decrease in grip force. These findings suggest that performance and behavioral changes during golf-putting under pressure can be associated with attentional changes, along with the influences of physiological-emotional responses.     

Relative influences of lightness and facial morphology on perceived race

In a recent study (Brooks and Gwinn, 2010 Perception 39 1142-1145), the lightness contrast illusion was employed to study the influences of skin tone and facial morphology on race perception. The findings were rather counterintuitive: they suggested that skin tone does not play a major role in racial categorisation. To investigate this further, we used a parametric paradigm including five lightness levels, five morphing levels, and two face orientations. In accordance with Brooks and Gwinn, we found that race categorisation of African-American and Caucasian faces by Caucasian participants relied mainly on morphological cues. However, the relative influence of lightness increased when morphological information was ambiguous and when the faces were upside down. Overall, the results point to a flexible multicue-based mechanism underlying race perception.     

Controlling low-level image properties: The SHINE toolbox

Visual perception can be influenced by top-down processes related to the observer’s goals and expectations, as well as by bottom-up processes related to low-level stimulus attributes, such as luminance, contrast, and spatial frequency. When using different physical stimuli across psychological conditions, one faces the problem of disentangling the contributions of low- and high-level factors. Here, we make available the SHINE (spectrum, histogram, and intensity normalization and equalization) toolbox for MATLAB, which we have found useful for controlling a number of image properties separately or simultaneously. The toolbox features functions for specifying the (rotational average of the) Fourier amplitude spectra, for normalizing and scaling mean luminance and contrast, and for exact histogram specification optimized for perceptual visual quality. SHINE can thus be employed for parametrically modifying a number of image properties or for equating them across stimuli to minimize potential low-level confounds in studies on higher level processes.     

Why does selective attention to parts fail in face processing?

One hallmark of holistic face processing is an inability to selectively attend to 1 face part while ignoring information in another part. In 3 sequential matching experiments, the authors tested perceptual and decisional accounts of holistic processing by measuring congruency effects between cued and uncued composite face halves shown in spatially aligned or disjointed configurations. The authors found congruency effects when the top and bottom halves of the study face were spatially aligned, misaligned (Experiment 1), or adjacent to one another (Experiment 2). However, at test, congruency effects were reduced by misalignment and abolished for adjacent configurations. This suggests that manipulations at test are more influential than manipulations at study, consistent with a decisional account of holistic processing. When encoding demands for study and test faces were equated (Experiment 3), the authors observed effects of study configuration suggesting that, consistent with a perceptual explanation, encoding does influence the magnitude of holistic processing. Together, these results cannot be accounted for by current perceptual or decisional accounts of holistic processing and suggest the existence of an attention-dependent mechanism that can integrate spatially separated face parts.     

Preservation of mouth region processing in two cases of prosopagnosia

Although most adults are considered experts in face recognition, brain trauma can produce a selective loss in this ability, a condition referred to as prosopagnosia. This study examined the processing strategies of prosopagnosic patients LR and HH using the Face Dimensions Test. In this test, featural and configural information in the upper and lower halves of the face was parametrically varied and sensitivity to these changes measured. We found that relative to age‐matched control participants, LR and HH exhibited an impaired ability to discriminate differences in the eye region, but a preserved ability to detect featural and configural differences in the mouth region. This pattern of impairment and sparing was demonstrated in tests of direct perception and immediate memory. The obtained findings demonstrate that prosopagnosia does not necessarily cause a global impairment to face perception, but a selective impairment to the perception of information in the upper half of the face.