Goal-relevant situations facilitate memory of neutral faces

Emotional situations are typically better remembered than neutral situations, but the psychological conditions and brain mechanisms underlying this effect remain debated. Stimulus valence and affective arousal have been suggested to explain the major role of emotional stimuli in memory facilitation. However, neither valence nor arousal are sufficient affective dimensions to explain the effect of memory facilitation. Several studies showed that negative and positive details are better remembered than neutral details. However, other studies showed that neutral information encoded and coupled with arousal did not result in a memory advantage compared with neutral information not coupled with arousal. Therefore, we suggest that the fundamental affective dimension responsible for memory facilitation is goal relevance. To test this hypothesis at behavioral and neural levels, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study and used neutral faces embedded in goal-relevant or goal-irrelevant daily life situations. At the behavioral level, we found that neutral faces encountered in goal-relevant situations were better remembered than those encountered in goal-irrelevant situations. To explain this effect, we studied neural activations involved in goal-relevant processing at encoding and in subsequent neutral face recognition. At encoding, activation of emotional brain regions (anterior cingulate, ventral striatum, ventral tegmental area, and substantia nigra) was greater for processing of goal-relevant situations than for processing of goal-irrelevant situations. At the recognition phase, despite the presentation of neutral faces, brain activation involved in social processing (superior temporal sulcus) to successfully remember identities was greater for previously encountered faces in goal-relevant than in goal-irrelevant situations.     

Acculturative stress in Latin-American immigrants: an assessment proposal

The aim of this paper was to develop an instrument to assess levels of stress experienced by Latin-American immigrants in their acculturative process in Spain. A sample of 692 immigrants from Latin America, aged 20 to 63 years, took part on this study (54.9% males and 45.1% females). A 24-item questionnaire with high reliability (.92) was elaborated. Six factors related to acculturative stress were found: 1) discrimination and rejection; 2) differences with the out-group (native Spaniards); 3) citizenship problems and legality; 4) problems concerning social relationships with other immigrants; 5) nostalgia and longing; and 6) family break-up. Our findings show that participants have a high level of stress related to nostalgia and longing, family break-up, and the perception of discrimination and rejection by natives. The usefulness of the instrument and its applications and restrictions are discussed.     

The semantic organization of the animal category: evidence from semantic verbal fluency and network theory

Semantic memory is the subsystem of human memory that stores knowledge of concepts or meanings, as opposed to life-specific experiences. How humans organize semantic information remains poorly understood. In an effort to better understand this issue, we conducted a verbal fluency experiment on 200 participants with the aim of inferring and representing the conceptual storage structure of the natural category of animals as a network. This was done by formulating a statistical framework for co-occurring concepts that aims to infer significant concept-concept associations and represent them as a graph. The resulting network was analyzed and enriched by means of a missing links recovery criterion based on modularity. Both network models were compared to a thresholded co-occurrence approach. They were evaluated using a random subset of verbal fluency tests and comparing the network outcomes (linked pairs are clustering transitions and disconnected pairs are switching transitions) to the outcomes of two expert human raters. Results show that the network models proposed in this study overcome a thresholded co-occurrence approach, and their outcomes are in high agreement with human evaluations. Finally, the interplay between conceptual structure and retrieval mechanisms is discussed.     

Relationship between dispositional optimism/pessimism and stress coping strategies

Recent studies confirm that dispositional pessimism is related with a worse state of physical health, in comparison with dispositional optimism . The efficacy of stress coping strategies has been considered as a mediating mechanism in this relationship. The aim of the present study is to analyze in a sample of university students (n = 200) the association between dispositional optimism/pessimism and different categories of self-reported somatic symptoms , and evaluate the possible mediation of the stress coping strategies in this relationship. The results indicate that: 1) pessimism is positively related with the report of physical symptoms, whereas optimism is negatively associated to somatic complaints; and 2) this relationship can be mainly explained by the differential utilization of the coping strategy denominated self-criticism (characteristic of pessimism).     

Validation of a questionnaire for measuring psychosocial factors associated with pharmaceutical care in Spanish community pharmacists

Pharmacotherapy follow-up (PTF) is the professional practice in which the pharmacist takes charge of the needs of the patients related to their drugs. OBJECTIVE: To validate a questionnaire to measure the ASE psychosocial determinants (attitude, social influence, self-efficacy) of PTF and the Prochaska & DiClemente's stage of change in Spanish community pharmacists. METHOD: Postal survey to 482 Asturian community pharmacists (test and retest). Validity was estimated in 134 pharmacists answering the test. Stability was estimated in 85 pharmacists answering the test and retest. Exploratory factorial analysis was used to investigate construct validity and produced 4 factors and 104 items. Those factors had high reliability (Cronbach's a between 0,87 and 0,96). DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY: Pharmacists in extreme stages of change showed significant differences of attitude, motivation and self-efficacy. Repeatability was good and the questionnaire appears valid and reliable.     

A Chilean version of the Efficient Personality Questionnaire for Adolescents

This investigation aims at adapting the test for Efficient Personality in educational contexts to Chilean reality. This instrument measures the construct efficient personality , made up of four levels of the self: strengths, requests, challenges and relationships. The original version has 58 items. In order to adapt it to our reality, 30 items were modified. The instrument was applied to a sample of 594 third and fourth secondary level students from four educational institutions of Vi?a del Mar. The new version of the instrument (23 items) presents a .85 reliability coefficient. The factorial analysis shows a structure of four basic factors which explain 50.42 % of the total variance. These factors, which are very similar those proposed in the original instrument, are named as academic self realization, social self realization, solving efficiency, and self steem. The second order factors analysis reveals a single factors structure that explains 43,28 % of the total variance, thus confirming the presence of the only factor that would correspond to the efficient personality construct presented.     

Bryant's Empathy Index for children and adolescents: psychometric properties in the Spanish language

The present study investigated the following issues: (1) the structure of Bryant's Empathy Index for children and adolescents in a Spanish sample of 408 boys and 424 girls (M age=14.4 yr.), and (2) sex differences, including effect sizes and internal consistency of the scale. A principal components factor analysis with oblimin rotation showed that 20 of the index's 22 items load on three robust factors, related to Feelings of Sadness, Understanding Feelings, and Tearful Reaction with regard to the emotions of others. The 3-factor structure obtained an adequate fit to the data in the confirmatory factor analysis. Coefficients alpha ranged between .72 and .78. The 3 factors accounted for 42% of variance. As expected, girls scored higher than boys. It was concluded that the Spanish version of Bryant's Empathy Index has an acceptable reliability and construct validity, making it useful for research.     

Exposure to novelty enhances retrieval of very remote memory in rats

Rats were trained in a one-trial step-down inhibitory avoidance task at the age of 3 months and tested for retention 1 day later, or 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 19 months later, i.e., when the animals were 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, or 22 months of age. Retrieval performance declined with time and was undetectable in the last two age groups. Exposure to an unrelated novel environment (a square box lined with black plastic) 1 h before retention testing enhanced retrieval at all ages, regardless of the decline in the level of test session performance. The effect cannot be explained by an anxiogenic effect of the novelty box, or by an influence of novelty on locomotion or exploration, or by a nonspecific influence of exposure to novelty on step-down latency in the inhibitory avoidance apparatus.     

Are students' perceptions of parental acceptance of academic dishonesty associated with its occurrence?

The study explored the association between the perceptions 175 Chilean business students held about their parents' acceptance of academic dishonesty and their self-reports of academic dishonesty. Regressing scores for parental acceptance onto self-reported academic dishonesty indicated it accounted for a small (2.2%) but significant amount of variance beyond demographic and academic performance variables. Effect size analysis based on structure coefficients indicated that parental acceptance was the second best predictor in the equation, suggesting that parental acceptance is a correlate that merits further study.