Can discrepancies between impulsive and reflective processes be associated with movement behavior among the elderly? The facilitating role of inhibitory control

Physical activity participation remains a global public health challenge, with 8 out of 10 older adults failing to meet the minimum physical activity recommendations, and it is also associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, and mortality. Strategies to promote physical activity are primarily focused on socio-cognitive factors, and their effectiveness is limited. According to dual-process theories, physical activity is related with impulsive/implicit (i.e., emotions) and reflective/explicit (i.e., perceived advantage) processes; however, implicit-explicit discrepancy (IED) may impair movement behavior. In addition, cognitive inhibitory control may have r direct relationship with IED situations since it determines which of these processes predominates in the regulation of individual's behavior. Nonetheless, these outcomes in physical activity behavior among older adults have received little attention. In this study, we associate IED with physical activity and sedentary behavior as measured by accelerometers, and investigate the moderator role of inhibitory control in this association. In this cross-sectional study, 94 older adults were assessed for implicit and explicit attitudes, inhibitory control, and movement behavior using accelerometers over the course of seven days. A higher magnitude of the IED was linked to less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and daily steps. Interestingly, a higher light physical activity was associated with a direction of the IED with more positive explicit attitudes. Furthermore, in older adults with higher inhibitory control, a direction of the IED with more positive explicit attitudes than implicit attitudes was associated with higher MVPA. Our findings suggest that IED may be important factor in the physical activity behavior of older adults. Furthermore, a higher inhibitory control appears to override an impulsive negative response, enabling a more positive reflective assessment of physical activity to serve as the main driver of an active lifestyle.     

Memory and consciousness: trace distinctiveness in memory retrievals

The aim of this article was to provide experimental evidence that classical dissociation between levels of consciousness associated with memory retrieval (i.e., implicit or explicit) can be explained in terms of task dependency and distinctiveness of traces. In our study phase, we manipulated the level of isolation (partial vs. global) of the memory trace by means of an isolation paradigm (isolated words among non-isolated words). We then tested these two types of isolation in a series of tasks of increasing complexity: a lexical decision task, a recognition task, and a free recall task. The main result of this study was that distinctiveness effects were observed as a function of the type of isolation (level of isolation) and the nature of the task. We concluded that trace distinctiveness improves subsequent access to the trace, while the level of trace distinctiveness also appears to determine the possibility of conscious or explicit retrieval.     

Safety behaviors and judgmental biases in social anxiety disorder

Two experiments were conducted to examine the link between safety behaviors and social judgments in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Safety behaviors were manipulated in the context of a controlled laboratory-based social interaction, and subsequent effects of the manipulation on the social judgments of socially anxious participants (N = 50, Study 1) and individuals meeting diagnostic criteria for generalized SAD (N = 80, Study 2) were examined. Participants were randomly assigned to either a safety behavior reduction plus exposure condition (SB + EXP) or a graduated exposure (EXP) control condition, and then took part in a conversation with a trained experimental confederate. Results revealed across both studies that participants in the SB + EXP group were less negative and more accurate in judgments of their performance following safety behavior reduction relative to EXP participants. Study 2 also demonstrated that participants in the SB + EXP group displayed lower judgments about the likelihood of negative outcomes in a subsequent social event compared to controls. Moreover, reduction in safety behaviors mediated change in participant self-judgments and future social predictions. The current findings are consistent with cognitive theories of anxiety, and support the causal role of safety behaviors in the persistence of negative social judgments in SAD.     

An artificial opposition between grammaticality and frequency: comment on

In a recent Cognition paper (Cognition 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim “show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing” (p. B21). In this commentary we demonstrate that the posited contrast between grammatical principles and construction (in)frequency as sources of parsing problems is artificial because it is based on factually incorrect assumptions about the grammar of German and on inaccurate corpus frequency data concerning the German constructions involved.     

Framing the Lewinsky Affair: Third-Person Judgments by Scandal Frame

Recent studies have documented a “third-person effect” whereby people are found to judge others as more influenced than themselves by the mass media. Meanwhile, contemporary research on issue framing has demonstrated the powerful role of mass media in shaping people's political judgments. But are the perceptual judgments that define third-person effects sensitive to how the media frame an issue? Two studies investigated this question in the context of the Lewinsky-Clinton scandal, one in late August 1998 and the other during spring 1999. Several hundred undergraduates in each study were randomly assigned to one of two media frames. In the 1998 study, the political scandal was depicted as a matter of sexual indiscretion by the president or as legal wrongdoing; in the 1999 study, the recently concluded impeachment process was depicted as the consequence of partisanship or of Clinton's actions. The participants’ judgments of media influence on themselves and on the public were then recorded. The results show that third-person effects were sensitive to issue framing, but change occurred primarily in participants’ judgments about their own vulnerability to media influence.     

Preferences and Children's Use of Gender-Stereotyped Knowledge About Musical Instruments: Making Judgments About Other Children's Preferences

A developmental model of gender-stereotype acquisition (Martin, 1989) proposes that by the age of 8 years children draw upon information about gender-stereotyped interests as well as other children's sex when deciding how much other children would like different activities; younger children rely on sex only when making such decisions. We examined whether the judgments that children made about other children's preferences were different from those that they made about their own preferences for masculine and feminine musical instruments. Three hundred twelve children aged 8–9 years ranked 6 instruments in order of preference, and rated on a 4-point scale how much they would like to play each one. Children were then asked to decide how much other children would like to play each instrument. Only girls' own preferences for feminine instruments differed according to the gender-stereotyping of their most-preferred instrument. Judgments about how much other children would like masculine and feminine instruments did not differ according to those children's gender-stereotyped interest. Children made stereotypical predictions about the preferences of children of unknown sex who played either a masculine or feminine instrument. Implications for a theoretical account of the development of children's gender-stereotypes are discussed.     

情绪对个体判断和决策影响研究概述

情绪对个体判断和决策影响已经成为目前的一个研究热点。情感启发式、决策情感理沦等为研究情绪对个体判断和决策的影响提供了一定的理论基础．而近期提出的“风险作为情感”假设为研究提供了较为全面的理沦框架。此外,个体差异比较、时间压力以及信息激起为研究情绪在个体判断和决策中的作用提供了很好的研究思路。     

Predicting the directionality of probability words from their membership functions

Teigen and Brun have suggested that distinct from their numerical implications, most probability phrases are either positive or negative, in that they encourage one to think of reasons why the target event will or will not occur. We report two experiments testing our hypotheses that (a) the direction of a phrase can be predicted from properties of its membership function, and (b) this relation is invariant across contexts, and (c) —originally formulated by Teigen and Brun (1999)—that strong modifiers intensify phrase directionality. For each phrase, participants encoded membership functions by judging the degree to which it described the numerical probabilities 0.0, 0.1, …, 1.0, and also completed sentences including the target phrase. The types of reasons given in the sentence completion task were used to determine the phrase's directionality. The results support our hypotheses (a) and (b) regarding the relation between directionality and the membership functions, but we found only limited support for hypothesis (c) regarding the effects of modifiers on directionality. A secondary goal, to validate an efficient method of encoding membership functions, was also achieved. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

转移方式对基于劳动的物品所有权判断的影响

劳动在人们的所有权判断中起着重要作用。以往研究虽然考察了幼儿和成人基于劳动的所有权判断,但却忽视了原材料转移方式的作用,且大部分集中在西方国家。本研究以中国3～5岁的幼儿和成人为对象,考察了他们在拿和借两种转移方式下基于劳动的所有权判断。结果发现,4～5岁的幼儿及成人在两种转移方式下的所有权判断存在显著差异。相比于拿条件,他们在借条件下不太倾向于判断劳动者是新加工物品的所有者。4～5岁幼儿在拿条件下更倾向认为劳动者是新加工物品的所有者,而成人在两种条件下都倾向于支持原材料占有者是新加工物品的所有者。3岁幼儿在两种转移方式下的所有权判断不存在显著差异,且不支持任何一方。结果提示,转移方式会影响个体基于劳动的所有权判断,并且从4岁开始幼儿能够区分不同转移方式的作用。     

Using a multidimensional scaling approach to investigate the underlying basis of ease of learning judgments

Jönsson, F. U. & Lindström, B. R. (2009) Using a multidimensional scaling approach to investigate the underlying basis of ease of learning judgments. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 103–108. Before studying a material it is of strategic importance to first assess its difficulty, so called Ease of Learning (EOL) judgments. A multidimensional scaling (MDS) procedure was used to investigate the underlying basis of EOL judgments for 24 nouns, which to the authors’ knowledge has not been done before. In addition, Judgments of Learning (JOL) followed by a free recall test was performed. The MDS analysis indicated that EOL judgments for the nouns are based on multiple cues (dimensions), namely word length, frequency, and concreteness. Moreover, the concreteness values of the nouns, as judged by an independent group, were correlated with both the JOLs and the concreteness dimension from the MDS analysis. This indicates that EOLs and JOLs for single words are based, to some extent, on the same cues.