Development of Multiple Movement Representations With Practice: Specificity Versus Flexibility

The question addressed in the present experiment was whether an individual who practices a task under different conditions of afferent information develops different movement representations, each of which is based on the most accurate source of afferent information for movement control. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 23) performed a manual aiming movement in a target-only condition for 520 trials before performing in a normal vision condition for an equivalent amount of practice. Control groups performed all practice trials in either a normal vision or a target-only condition. The results revealed that the movement representation developed in the initial (target-only) practice phase remained accessible for movement planning and control. The results of Experiment 2 indicated, however, that participants did not maintain such a representation when their initial practice in the target-only condition was reduced (40 or 160 trials) before they had extensive practice in normal vision. Those results indicate that extensive practice in a target-only and then in a normal vision condition enables an individual to plan and control his or her movement on the basis of the most efficient source of available afferent information. Because visual afferent information provides optimal information for ensuring movement accuracy, however, if initial practice in the target-only condition is only modest or moderate it is likely that that information source will progressively dominate all other sources of afferent information for movement planning and control.     

framing of prenatal screening test results and women's health-illness orientations as determinants of perceptions of fetal health and approval of amniocentesis

Abstract

Framing effects of medical test results and interactions of these effects with personal perspectives were investigated in the context of prenatal screening. Hundred and Thirty-three pregnant women undergoing the ‘triple-test’ were assessed as having health or illness orientations, and were randomly presented with reassuring/moderate/severe diagnoses framed in normal/abnormal terms, forming a 2 × 3 × 2 between subjects design. Evaluations of fetus' health and recommendations to perform amniocentesis were assessed. Findings showed healthier evaluations of the fetus and weaker recommendations to perform amniocentesis in normal versus abnormal framings. An interaction was found between framing, diagnosis, and personal orientations: women with health orientations receiving a moderate diagnosis framed in abnormal terms were significantly more inclined to recommend amniocentesis than illness-oriented women given the same diagnosis; the normal/abnormal framing of severe diagnoses yielded opposite effects on health-oriented versus illness-oriented women. The influences of framing effects and health/ illness orientations on health perceptions and behavioral intentions were discussed.     

When happiness makes us selfish, but sadness makes us fair: Affective influences on interpersonal strategies in the dictator game

Does temporary mood influence how fair or selfish we are in interpersonal situations? These three experiments predicted and found that when people have the power to allocate scarce resources between themselves and others in the dictator game, positive mood increased selfishness, and sad mood produced greater fairness. In a public setting (Experiment 1), happy persons kept more raffle tickets to themselves when making allocations, and Experiment 2 confirmed this effect in the laboratory. Experiment 3 showed that mood effects on selfishness were strongest when the external norms for fairness were relaxed. The results are discussed in terms recent affect-cognition theories, suggesting that positive mood recruits more assimilative, internally focused processing, while negative affect promotes more externally oriented, accommodative processing and thus greater concern with social norms. The implications of the findings for everyday interpersonal decisions are considered.     

Neural correlates of affective influence on choice

Making the right choice depends crucially on the accurate valuation of the available options in the light of current needs and goals of an individual. Thus, the valuation of identical options can vary considerably with motivational context. The present study investigated the neural structures underlying context dependent evaluation. We instructed participants to choose from food menu items based on different criteria: on their anticipated taste or on ease of preparation. The aim of the manipulation was to assess which neural sites were activated during choice guided by incentive value, and which during choice based on a value-irrelevant criterion. To assess the impact of increased motivation, affect-guided choice and cognition-guided choice was compared during the sated and hungry states. During affective choice, we identified increased activity in structures representing primarily valuation and taste (medial prefrontal cortex, insula). During cognitive choice, structures showing increased activity included those implicated in suppression and conflict monitoring (lateral orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate). Hunger influenced choice-related activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results show that choice is associated with the use of distinct neural structures for the pursuit of different goals.     

Reference-dependent sympathy

Natural disasters and other traumatic events often draw a greater charitable response than do ongoing misfortunes, even those that may cause even more widespread misery, such as famine or malaria. Why is the response disproportionate to need? The notion of reference dependence critical to Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) maintains that self-utility, or benefit to self, is not absolute level of wealth but rather gain or loss relative to a reference point. Four studies show that sympathy (Study 1), dictator offers (Study 2), and judgments of deservingness (Study 3a) are reference-dependent: people respond greater to victims of loss than to victims of chronic conditions. This tendency goes away when people evaluate victims in comparison (Study 3b) and when evaluating affect-poor “statistical victims”, as compared to affect-rich “identifiable victims” (Study 4). Together, these results shed light on seemingly irrational patterns of humanitarian aid.     

Future time perspective and career decisions: The moderating effects of affect spin

This study investigated the impact of future time perspective on two career decision-making variables and the role of affect spin as a moderator. 98 Korean undergraduate students completed questionnaires of future time perspective, career decision-making self-efficacy, and career choice anxiety. Using experience sampling method (ESM), we also collected students' affective experiences during 7 consecutive days and computed affect variability, namely affect spin. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that career decision-making self-efficacy and career choice anxiety were positively predicted by future time perspective and that affect spin moderated the relationship between future time perspective and both career decision-making self-efficacy scale and career choice anxiety respectively. We discussed the implications of the moderating role of affect spin, advantages of the ESM method, and practical suggestions for career counseling and supervision.     

Acculturation and Psychological Adjustment of Vietnamese Refugees: An Ecological Acculturation Framework

Acculturation to the culture of the host society as well as to one’s heritage culture have been shown to impact immigrants’ adjustment during the years following resettlement. While acculturation has been identified as an important factor in adjustment of Vietnamese immigrants (Birman and Tran in Am J Orthopsychiatr 78(1):109–120. doi:10.1037/0002‐9432.78.1.109, 2008 ), no clear pattern of findings has emerged and too few studies have employed an ecological approach. The purpose of this paper is to contextualize the study of acculturation and adjustment by taking an ecological approach to exploring these relationships across several life domains, using a bilinear scale, and examining mediators of these relationships for adult Vietnamese refugees (N = 203) in the United States. We call this approach the Ecological Acculturation Framework (EAF). Results of a structural equation model (SEM) showed that job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between American acculturation and psychological distress, demonstrating that this relationship was specific to an occupational domain. However, while Vietnamese acculturation predicted co‐ethnic social support satisfaction, it did not predict reduced psychological distress. Implications for a life domains approach, including domain specificity, are discussed.     

Parallels in Preschoolers' and Adults' Judgments About Ownership Rights and Bodily Rights

Understanding ownership rights is necessary for socially appropriate behavior. We provide evidence that preschoolers' and adults' judgments of ownership rights are related to their judgments of bodily rights. Four‐year‐olds (n = 70) and adults (n = 89) evaluated the acceptability of harmless actions targeting owned property and body parts. At both ages, evaluations did not vary for owned property or body parts. Instead, evaluations were influenced by two other manipulations—whether the target belonged to the agent or another person, and whether that other person approved of the action. Moreover, these manipulations influenced judgments for owned objects and body parts in the same way: When the other person approved of the action, participants' judgments were positive regardless of who the target belonged to. In contrast, when that person disapproved, judgments depended on who the target belonged to. These findings show that young children grasp the importance of approval or consent for ownership rights and bodily rights, and likewise suggest that people's notions of ownership rights are related to their appreciation of bodily rights.     

Reprint of “Unruly grasses: Affective attunements in the ecological restoration of urban native grasslands in Australia”

This paper explores affect as an ’angle of approach’ for re/considering the work of ecological restoration in urban spaces. My focus is on the more-than-human affective dimensions of the reintroduction of native grasses in Melbourne’s (Australia) urban parklands. Sara Ahmed suggests that ’affect is what sticks or sustains or preserves the connection between ideas, values and objects’ (2010, 29), and here I extend this notion to think about the restoration of grasslands not as primarily material transformations (to which we might react), but as the recomposition of the ’ideas, values and objects’ that constitute urban park naturecultures. The paper highlights the role of affective relations in the inheritance of landscapes that do not attract widespread positive affection. It employs Sara Ahmed’s concept of the affect alien as a figure of nonconformity, to uncover how the affective resonances of grasslands might open new possibilities for attuning to the complex and multiple naturecultures of postcolonial lands.     

Replacing and representing patients: Professional feelings and plastic body replicas in nursing education

This article examines the intimate profession of nursing and the affective practices that bind bodies together into engagements that appear stable. However, once the bodies of patients are replaced with ‘plastic replicas’ for the purpose of clinical training within an educational setting, new affective relations emerge and underexplored aspects of professional engagements appear. Through theories of affectivity, I propose the notion of touchability as a theoretical device which focuses attention on the body and the sensory, affective and embodied vicissitudes that traverse it, while nonetheless attending to the difference between feeling patients and plastic. Sensuous ethnography is the method used for exploring these professional engagements. By engaging through bodily senses, I actively use bodies as tools of inquiry and sources of knowledge within nursing. I argue that the notion of touchability can illuminate how different bodies come to hold specific meanings and reveal distinct facets of a professional practice.