Prospective and Concurrent Affective Dynamics in Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors: An Examination in Young Adult Women

Affective dynamics, assessed using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), provide a nuanced understanding of within-person fluctuations of negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA) in daily life. NA and PA dynamics have been associated with psychopathology and response to psychological treatments. NA and PA dynamics have been rarely studied concurrently in association with self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB), transdiagnostic difficulties encountered regularly in clinical and community settings. Here we present EMA data from a large, diverse sample of young adult women with high rates of SITB to examine NA and PA dynamics (mean intensity, variability, and inertia). Specifically, we considered the prospective associations between past-year suicidal thoughts and past-year nonsuicidal self-injury and affective dynamics, as well as the concurrent associations between affective dynamics, EMA-reported suicidal thoughts, and EMA-reported urges for nonsuicidal self-injury. Results demonstrate that elevated mean NA and NA variability are robustly associated with all types of SITB assessed prospectively or concurrently. Interestingly, these associations were weakest for past-year nonsuicidal self-injurious behaviors, relative to past-year and concurrent suicidal or nonsuicidal self-injurious thoughts. Past-year suicidal thoughts further predicted increased NA inertia. Decreased PA inertia was associated with past-year nonsuicidal self-injury behavior, as well as concurrent EMA suicidal thoughts. We found no associations (prospective or concurrent) between SITB and mean PA intensity or PA variability. These results highlight the importance of understanding affective processes to develop real-world interventions to prevent nonsuicidal self-injury and suicidal behavior in daily life.     

Empirical Evidence for Extended Cognitive Systems

We present an empirically supported theoretical and methodological framework for quantifying the system-level properties of person-plus-tool interactions in order to answer the question: “Are person-plus-tool-systems extended cognitive systems?” Nineteen participants provided perceptual judgments regarding their ability to pass through apertures of various widths while using visual information, blindfolded wielding a rod, or blindfolded wielding an Enactive Torch—a vibrotactile sensory-substitution device for detecting distance. Monofractal, multifractal, and recurrence quantification analyses were conducted to assess features of person-plus-tool movement dynamics. Trials where people utilized the rod or Enactive Torch demonstrated stable “self-similarity,” or indices of healthy and adaptive single systems, regardless of aperture width, trial order, features of the participants’ judgments, and participant characteristics. Enactive Torch trials exhibited a somewhat greater range of dynamic fluctuations than the rod trials, as well as less movement recurrence, suggesting that the Enactive Torch allowed for more exploratory movements. Findings provide support for the notion that person-plus-tool systems can be classified as extended cognitive systems and a framework for quantifying system-level properties of these systems. Implications concerning future research on extended cognition are discussed.     

The Role of Emotional Content and Perceptual Saliency During the Programming of Saccades Toward Faces

Previous studies have shown that the human visual system can detect a face and elicit a saccadic eye movement toward it very efficiently compared to other categories of visual stimuli. In the first experiment, we tested the influence of facial expressions on fast face detection using a saccadic choice task. Face-vehicle pairs were simultaneously presented and participants were asked to saccade toward the target (the face or the vehicle). We observed that saccades toward faces were initiated faster, and more often in the correct direction, than saccades toward vehicles, regardless of the facial expressions (happy, fearful, or neutral). We also observed that saccade endpoints on face images were lower when the face was happy and higher when it was neutral. In the second experiment, we explicitly tested the detection of facial expressions. We used a saccadic choice task with emotional-neutral pairs of faces and participants were asked to saccade toward the emotional (happy or fearful) or the neutral face. Participants were faster when they were asked to saccade toward the emotional face. They also made fewer errors, especially when the emotional face was happy. Using computational modeling, we showed that this happy face advantage can, at least partly, be explained by perceptual factors. Also, saccade endpoints were lower when the target was happy than when it was fearful. Overall, we suggest that there is no automatic prioritization of emotional faces, at least for saccades with short latencies, but that salient local face features can automatically attract attention.     

Looking at remembering: Eye movements,pupil size,and autobiographical memory

To examine the relationship between visual imagery and autobiographical memory, eye position and pupil size were recorded while participants first searched for memories and then reconstructed the retrieved memories (Experiment 1), or only searched for memories (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we observed that, although recollective experience was not associated with the number of fixations per minute, memories that took longer to retrieve were linked to increased pupil size. In Experiment 2, we observed that directly retrieved memories were recalled more quickly and were accompanied by smaller pupils than generatively retrieved memories. After correcting for response time, retrieval mode also produced an effect, showing that decreased pupil size is not simply due to directly retrieved memories being recalled more quickly. These findings provide compelling evidence that objective measures, such as pupil size, can be used alongside subjective measures, such as self-reports, to distinguish between directly retrieved and generatively retrieved memories.     

Refuting the unfolding-argument on the irrelevance of causal structure to consciousness

The unfolding argument (UA) was advanced as a refutation of prominent theories, which posit that phenomenal experience is determined by patterns of neural activation in a recurrent (neural) network (RN) structure. The argument is based on the statement that any input–output function of an RN can be approximated by an “equivalent” feedforward-network (FFN). According to UA, if consciousness depends on causal structure, its presence is unfalsifiable (thus non-scientific), as an equivalent FFN structure is behaviorally indistinguishable with regards to any behavioral test. Here I refute UA by appealing to computational theory and cognitive-neuroscience. I argue that a robust functional equivalence between FFN and RN is not supported by the mathematical work on the Universal Approximator theorem, and is also unlikely to hold, as a conjecture, given data in cognitive neuroscience; I argue that an equivalence of RN and FFN can only apply to static functions between input/output layers and not to the temporal patterns or to the network’s reactions to structural perturbations. Finally, I review data indicating that consciousness has functional characteristics, such as a flexible control of behavior, and that cognitive/brain dynamics reveal interacting top-down and bottom-up processes, which are necessary for the mediation of such control processes.     

Processus d’élaboration et de validation d’un questionnaire portant sur le développement des compétences émotionnelles lors du mentorat

Objective and methodThe aim of this article is to provide a portrait of the emotional competencies developed by school principals (n = 359) in a mentoring context by developing a seven-step questionnaire by Frenette et al. (2019) presenting various proofs of validity.ResultsThe analyses conducted support a factorial structure with two correlated aspects of emotional competencies (self and others). School principals in Quebec develop more emotional competencies related to the aspect of others than for themselves during mentoring. A further analysis indicates that school principals develop more two dimensions of Emotional competencies: Identification and Understanding. The results also show that 77.26 % of respondents indicated that they developed emotional skills during mentoring.ConclusionThe results provided an understanding of the importance of emotional competencies in education, and specifically in school management. It also revealed the importance of emphasizing the role of mentoring in their development. To our knowledge, the questionnaire developed in this study is one of the first to measure the development of emotional competencies during a mentoring relationship.     

Dynamiques représentationnelles et identitaires au cours de la socialisation professionnelle de jeunes recrues LGBT

This article examines the ways in which representational and identity transformations work during the socialization in the workplace of young LGBT hires, linked to discrimination perceived in their workplace environment as well as their impact on professional goals. Working within the theoretical framework of active socialization, the study is based on the IMIS method and proposes a detailed analysis of two cases recently entering the transportation workplace. The results show that, depending on how severe the perceived discrimination is in the workplace, previous experiences of homophobia encountered in other environments and already built self-image are reactivated in different ways, leading to a more or less important reconstruction of professional and identity representations, as well as the future goals of the individual. These elements are discussed from the point of view of interactions between environments and possible interventions by valuing diversity and accompanying the integration of young hires into organizations.     

Collective memories,emotions, and spatial tactics in social movements: The case of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

Recent studies have increasingly acknowledged the dynamic relationship between emotions and space in social movements. They, however, have seldom tied emotions and space to time when discussing activists’ emotions and their tactical choices. This paper studies the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and explores how collective memory and generational experiences—two intertwined notions of time—shaped how activists felt and how they designed and deployed a spatial tactic. The Umbrella Movement was characterized by miscellaneous emotions and intense disputes among activists regarding how to best use spatial occupation to fight for democratization before and during the struggle. Using a qualitative dataset that contains textual and interview data, I argue that while emotions and the political-cultural characteristics of contentious space were two factors in informing tactical choices, collective memory and generational experiences were key to understanding the rise of the movement and its characteristics. Experiencing different political events in their years of early adulthood, young and veteran activists felt differently in the context of 2013–2014, which led them to embrace disjunctive views on the pace, sequence, and bodily action for the same tactic of spatial occupation and dissimilar emotional management strategies. This created ongoing internal clashes before and during the movement.