Affective responses to 10-minute and 30-minute walks in sedentary,overweight women: Relationships with theory-based correlates of walking for exercise

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to examine affective responses to 10-min and 30-min walks among sedentary, overweight women. Secondary purposes were to: a) examine differences in theory-based correlates of future participation in walking for exercise; and b) determine if the affective responses were related to these correlates.Design/MethodsTwenty-three sedentary, overweight women (M age = 26.62 years; BMI = 33.53 kg/m²) completed 10-min walk, 30-min walk, and quiet rest (QR) control conditions. Affective responses were assessed prior to, during, and following each condition. Self-efficacy and intention for regular participation in multiple 10-min walks or single 30-min walks for exercise during the next month were also assessed post-exercise.Results/ConclusionsAnalyses revealed that improvements in affective responses (p < 0.05) emerged during and following both walking sessions while no benefits were observed with QR. Self-efficacy (p < 0.01) and intention (p < 0.01) to walk for exercise in the future were significantly higher for multiple 10-min walks. Correlation analyses demonstrated that affective responses were most strongly and consistently correlated with intention and self-efficacy for future participation following the 10-min walk. These findings demonstrate that, while both walks resulted in similar affective benefits, sedentary, overweight women reported greater intention and self-efficacy to participate in multiple brief walks for exercise in the future.     

Affectivity: Regulation,Identity Formation,and Metaphorical Thought

ABSTRACT

Understanding affects, and their multiple roles in all aspects of the human condition and development, has more and more become a focus of study for contemporary psychoanalysis. Psychodynamic personality theories have always regarded affective life as pivotal to developmental experiences, the evolving structures of the personality, identity formation, and clinical processes. The centrality of emotion in development and affect regulation, as a maturational theme in the adolescent stage, are explored through the views afforded by object relations theory and ego psychology, intersubjectivity, the second separation individuation process, and unconscious metaphorical thought in the dream states of two clients and their therapist.     

The dynamics of intermodal matching: Seven- and 12-month-olds' intermodal matching of affect

The purpose of this experiment was to examine whether and how a common methodological difference frequently employed within the intermodal matching procedure affects infants' intermodal matching. Specifically we examined the effects of incorporating or excluding silent control trials on seven- and 12-month-olds' intermodal matching of affect. Results revealed that seven-month-olds showed reliable matching when presented all in-sound trials whereas 12-month-olds showed reliable matching when half of the trials were presented silently and half of the trials were presented in-sound. Results are discussed in terms of the dynamics of infant attention and those conditions where the inclusion of silent trials may be appropriate.     

Segmentation by lexical subtraction in Hungarian speakers of second-language English

Using cross-modal form priming, we compared the use of stress and lexicality in the segmentation of spoken English by native English speakers (L1) and by native Hungarian speakers of second-language English (L2). For both language groups, lexicality was found to be an effective segmentation cue. That is, spoken disyllabic word fragments were stronger primes in a subsequent visual word recognition task when preceded by meaningful words than when preceded by nonwords: For example, the first two syllables of corridor were a more effective prime for visually presented corridor when heard in the phrase anythingcorri than in imoshingcorri. The stress pattern of the prime (strong–weak vs. weak–strong) did not affect the degree of priming. For L1 speakers, this supports previous findings about the preferential use of high-level segmentation strategies in clear speech. For L2 speakers, the lexical strategy was employed regardless of L2 proficiency level and instead of exploiting the consistent stress pattern of their native language. This is clear evidence for the primacy and robustness of segmentation by lexical subtraction even in individuals whose lexical knowledge is limited.     

Generation difficulty and memory for source

The role of the word predictability from sentence context for reality monitoring and external source monitoring was examined in two experiments. In a reality-monitoring task, discrimination of an internal source was better in the hard than in the easy condition. It is probable that extra cognitive operations engaged during word generation in the hard condition were effective cues for reality-monitoring judgements. In contrast, in an external source-monitoring task (recognition memory of item's colour), the hard condition resulted in worse source memory for generated words than did the easy condition. This result is consistent both with an item–context trade-off hypothesis and a processing hypothesis. Greater effort involved at the time of generation might limit resources available for encoding of an external source. It is also possible that for generated words, the hard condition promoted conceptual processing instead of perceptual processing; therefore the item's colour was not effectively encoded.     

Licking and liking: The assessment of hedonic responses in rodents

Affective processes are a key determinant of behaviour: At its simplest, liked stimuli are approached while disliked stimuli are avoided. Although assessing hedonic responses in nonverbal animals can be difficult, one relatively tractable approach relies on detailed analyses of rodents' consummatory behaviour. Rodents typically produce rhythmic sets of licks that can be grouped into clusters on the basis of the intervals between licks. The mean number of licks in a cluster (cluster size) is directly related to the concentration of palatable and unpalatable solutions. These relationships suggest that lick cluster size might be a useful index of an animal's hedonic reaction to the solution being consumed. I begin by reviewing studies of conditioned flavour preference and aversion that support the idea that lick cluster size can provide useful information about rats' hedonic reactions. I then describe how this methodology has been used to address previously intractable issues in the investigation of contrast effects as well as revealing an analogue of effort justification effects that, in humans, are commonly explained in terms of cognitive dissonance reduction. Finally, I consider how lick analysis might provide information about hedonic responses in animal models of human psychiatric disorders. In all these cases, how an animal did something was particularly informative about why it was doing it.

     

Heurísticos en la representación del conocimiento: Estrategias de clasificación de categorías difusas y bien definidas

Resumen

La hipótesis que establece que el sistema ajusta sus descripáones a una transformación lineal de las propiedades que resultan del análisis perceptivo no está justificada y es evidente que la formación de categorías o conceptos es posible, aun tratando con categorías que no aceptan un modelo monotónico de representación. En esta investigación se analizan en dos experimentos las estrategias que permiten describir un cierto dominio de conocimiento en términos de un sistema binario de categorías difusas o bien definidas. Las descripciones que los sujetos efectúan suponen la formación de un sistema no monotónico de reglas de inferencia que permite distribuir los estímulos en clases complementarias, según contribuyan al proceso de decisión. Esta distribución no lineal de los estímulos en términos de las alternativas de respuesta es la que determina frente a los modelos de categorización propuestos hasta la fecha del proceso de categorización.     

Acción y conciencia. In/determinismo,autocontrol y responsabilidad

Resumen

Para investigar las ideas de los niños sobre el aprendizaje, entrevistamos a 26 niños de 4, 5 y 6 años individualmente. Se les presentaron tareas verbales y gráficas relativas a los siguientes componentes del aprendizaje del dibujo: condiciones, procesos y resultados. Se describen las categorías de respuesta más relevantes, que aluden a factores que intervienen en los diferentes componentes del aprendizaje del dibujo y se analizan las relaciones entre las respuestas dadas para las diferentes preguntas.

Los resultados muestran diferentes formas de priorizar y vincular ideas en los niños, que pueden entenderse en términos de tres teorías implícitas sobre el aprendizaje: la teoría directa, teoría de la agencia del entorno y teoría de la agencia del aprendiz. Estas teorías muestran una progresión en una doble dimensión: complejidad e internalización. Por otra parte, los niños entrevistados expresaron de varias maneras que para ellos aprender a dibujar es adquirir un conocimiento convencional.     

La influencia de las creencias causales en la construcción de inferencias predictivas y diagnósticas

Resumen

En este artículo se investiga la habilidad de los sujetos para evaluar el impacto de los datos dentro de un contexto causal. Las investigacion es realizadas sobre el razonamiento humano han mostrado que las teorías causales que las personas poseen sesgan con frecuencia su evaluación de la evidencia. En este experimento se analizan los juicios que emiten los sujetos sobre datos cuando tienen un esquema de razonamiento causal implícito (Cheng y Holyoak, 1985; Kuhn, Amsel y O'Loughlin, 1988) en contextos predictivos y diagnósticos (o abductivos). Para ello, se manipuló el tipo de información presentada a los sujetos, presentá ndole, a un grupo, datos consistentes con sus creencias causales previas y, a otro, datos inconsistentes con sus creencias causales. Los resultados obtenidos señalan que las teorías implícitas de los sujetos no fueron substancialmente modificadas por las condiciones experimentales, aunque sí fueron sensibles a la evidencia. Se discuten estos resultados desde un modelo de interacción creencias causales y datos en el ámbito de las inferencias predictivas y diagnósticas.     

Las teorías de la percepción del habla: un análisis crítico

Resumen

En este trabajo se revisan las distintas teorías prupuestas para resolver los problemas de la percepción del habla. Las teorías se agrupan en cuatro categorías conceptualmente diferentes: teorías articulatorias (teoría motora y teoría realista directa), teorías auditivas (teoría auditiva de Fant y teoría cuantica de Stevens), teorías acústicas (teoría de la invarianza acústica y LAFS) y teorías conexionistas (modelo TRACE). Se exponen los principios fundamentales de cada una de ellas y se realiza un análisis crítico de los mismos.