Attention maintains mental extrapolation of target position: irrelevant distractors eliminate forward displacement after implied motion

Observers' judgments of the final position of a moving target are typically shifted in the direction of implied motion ("representational momentum"). The role of attention is unclear: visual attention may be necessary to maintain or halt target displacement. When attention was captured by irrelevant distractors presented during the retention interval, forward displacement after implied target motion disappeared, suggesting that attention may be necessary to maintain mental extrapolation of target motion. In a further corroborative experiment, the deployment of attention was measured after a sequence of implied motion, and faster responses were observed to stimuli appearing in the direction of motion. Thus, attention may guide the mental extrapolation of target motion. Additionally, eye movements were measured during stimulus presentation and retention interval. The results showed that forward displacement with implied motion does not depend on eye movements. Differences between implied and smooth motion are discussed with respect to recent neurophysiological findings.     

Feelings of mental pollution subsequent to sexual assault

This paper describes an investigation of the phenomenon of mental pollution in a sample of 50 female victims of sexual assault. Feelings of mental pollution were assessed using an interview and a questionnaire. An experimental procedure was employed to determine if feelings of dirtiness and the urge to wash could be provoked by deliberate attention to the assault memory. Thirty (60%) of the 50 participants reported some feelings of mental pollution subsequent to the assault, and feelings of mental pollution were related to post-assault washing behaviour. Deliberate recall of the assault resulted in stronger feelings of dirtiness and the urge to wash than did deliberate attention to a pleasant memory or scene. Nine women reported washing their hands in response to deliberate recall of the assault. These findings suggest that feelings of mental pollution may be prominent in victims of sexual assault.     

Expanding the concept of birthparent loss to orphans: Exploratory findings from adolescents in institutional care in South Korea

Conservative estimates of the number of orphaned and abandoned children suggest there are approximately 132 million worldwide, of whom the majority reside in Asia followed by Sub-Saharan Africa. Research on alternative care for children in need of parental protection have largely been siloed by care setting (i.e. institutional care, adoption, foster care) without consideration of risk factors across care types. One factor specific to alternative care that occurs for all children across care settings is disruption and disconnection of birth parents as a consequence of out-of-home placement. Thus, the purpose of this cross-sectional study of 170 adolescents in institutional care in South Korea was to explore whether a common risk factor specific to the experience of family removal and placement in alternative care, cognitive appraisal of birth parent loss, was present and was a risk factor for more mental health and behavior problems. Findings affirmed the majority of adolescents in institutional care had thoughts about birth parents, but most did not express negative emotions towards birth parents. A more negative appraisal of birth parent loss was found to be a significant predictor of more depressive symptoms, PTSD symptoms, and internalizing behavior problems, but not more externalizing behavior problems. Findings suggest cognitive appraisal of birth parent loss may be a risk factor for more mental health and internal behavior problems for youth in institutional care and that systems of alternative care need to assist youth in having information about their birth parents regardless of contact.     

The stability of visual perspective and vividness during mental time travel

When remembering or imagining, people can experience an event from their own eyes, or as an outside observer, with differing levels of vividness. The perspective from, and vividness with, which a person remembers or imagines has been related to numerous individual difference characteristics. These findings require that phenomenology during mental time travel be trait-like—that people consistently experience similar perspectives and levels of vividness. This assumption remains untested. Across two studies (combined N = 295), we examined the stability of visual perspective and vividness across multiple trials and timepoints. Perspective and vividness showed weak within-session stability when reported across just a few trials but showed strong within-session stability when sufficient trials were collected. Importantly, both visual perspective and vividness demonstrated good-to-excellent across-session stability across different delay intervals (two days to six weeks). Overall, our results suggest that people dependably experience similar visual phenomenology across occurrences of mental time travel.     

The dynamic framework of mind wandering revisited: How mindful meta-awareness affects mental states’ constraints

The dynamic framework of mind wandering (Christoff, Irving, Fox, Spreng, & Andrews-Hanna, 2016) is reviewed and modified through integrating the construct of mindful meta-awareness. The dynamic framework maintains that mind wandering belongs to a family of spontaneous thought phenomena. The key defining feature of mind wandering is ‘spontaneity’ which characterizes the dynamic nature of thoughts in the framework. The argument is made that incorporating the mindful meta-awareness construct modifies the dynamic framework as follows: (1) the framework’s criteria for mind wandering do not hold anymore as meta-awareness changes the relationship between thoughts and constraints, and (2) lucid dreaming can be categorized as unguided thought while at the same time being dependent on deliberate constraints. Finally, the application of this modified framework will be discussed in terms of the treatment of mental disorders related to spontaneous thought alterations, in particular depression and nightmares.     

Sense of agency for mental actions: Insights from a belief-based action-effect paradigm

A substantial body of research has converged on the idea that the sense of agency arises from the integration of multiple sources of information. In this study, we investigated whether a measurable sense of agency can be detected for mental actions, without the contribution of motor components. We used a fake action-effect paradigm, where participants were led to think that a motor action or a particular thought could trigger a sound. Results showed that the sense of agency, when measured through explicit reports, was of comparable strength for motor and mental actions. The intentional binding effect, a phenomenon typically associated with the experience of agency, was also observed for both motor and mental actions. Taken together, our results provide novel insights into the specific role of intentional cues in instantiating a sense of agency, even in the absence of motor signals.     

Development and validation of a novel instrument to measure pedestrians’ smartphone use: The Smombie Scale

This study aimed to develop and verify the psychometric properties of the Smombie Scale, a new instrument to measure pedestrians’ smartphone use. The instrument development process comprised two phases: instrument development and psychometric evaluation. Data were collected from September to October 2020 using the “Invite” panel aggregator. The link to the online questionnaire was sent via smartphone text message to 400 young adults aged 18–39 years and yielded 398 valid responses. We randomly selected 200 participants for the exploratory factor analysis; the remaining 198 participants were selected for confirmatory factor analysis. The Smombie Scale comprises 15 items and four factors: (a) perceived risk; (b) stationary smartphone use, always on the smartphone; (c) pending instant message; and (d) smartphone dependency. Model fit was statistically significant (χ²/df = 2.20). The analyses indicated a sufficient goodness-of-fit index of 0.93, a comparative goodness-of-fit index of 0.95, a normed fit index and Tucker–Lewis index of 0.91, and a root mean square error of approximation of 0.07. The scale was also found to have sufficient reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.83). The newly developed Smombie Scale is valid and reliable in measuring pedestrians’ smartphone use among young adults. The Smombie Scale shows evidence of being suitable for evaluating smartphone-distracted pedestrians. Its results can provide data for drafting educational programs to prevent smombie behaviors and deal with potential risks.     

Modeling adaptive cooperative and competitive metaphors as mental models for joint decision making

In this paper, joint decision making processes are studied and the role of cognitive metaphors as mental models in them. A second-order self-modeling network model is introduced based on mechanisms known from cognitive and social neuroscience and cognitive metaphor and mental model literature. The cognitive metaphors were modeled as specific forms of mental models providing a form of modulation within the joint decision making process. The model addresses not only the use of these mental models in the decision making, but also their hebbian learning and the control over the learning. The obtained self-modeling network model was applied to two types of metaphors that affect joint decision making in different manners: a cooperative metaphor and a competitive metaphor. By a number of scenarios it was shown how the obtained self-modeling network model can be used to simulate and analyze joint decision processes and how they are influenced by such cognitive metaphors.     

Building Leadership,Capacity, and Power to Advance Health Equity and Justice through Community‐Engaged Research in the Midwest

The Health Equity Advancement Lab (HEAL) at the University of Iowa College of Public Health began in 2012 to support students, researchers, and community members interested in tackling persistent health inequities through a community‐based participatory research (CBPR) approach. Using concepts from critical consciousness theory, we developed an approach to building students’, faculty members’, and community partners’ capacity to engage in CBPR to promote health equity that involved immersion in developing CBPR projects. Our paper describes the evolution of HEAL as a facilitating structure that provides a support network and engages diverse stakeholders in critical reflection as they participate in research to advance health equity, and resulting political efficacy and social action. We describe one HEAL‐affiliated research project that employs a CBPR approach and has a strong focus on providing transformative learning experiences for students, faculty, and community members. We highlight challenges, successes, and lessons learned in the application of critical consciousness as a framework that engages diverse academic and community partners seeking to promote health equity. We argue that critical consciousness is a relevant theoretical framework to promote transformative learning among students, faculty, and community partners to promote health equity research in diverse communities.     

Co-occurring risk and protective factors and regulatory behavior of infants living in low-income homes

Early self-regulation is a foundation for lifelong wellness and can be shaped by the interplay among several vital exposures. In this study, we examined the emergence of reliable profiles based upon exposure to risk and protective factors in infancy, determined if sociodemographic resources predict profile membership, and determined if these profiles predict early regulatory behaviors in a sample of infants reared in low-income homes. Data were collected from a sample of primarily Black or White mother-infant dyads living in low-income homes in the Midwest (n = 222) during the infants’ first year of life (mean maternal age at enrollment: 26.29 years; range 18−43 years). Exposures included mother-infant interactions; father support; maternal depression, stress, and self-efficacy; home environment; food security; and breastfeeding duration. Sociodemographic resources included poverty status; economic hardship; maternal education, employment, and age; parental marital status; and infant race and sex. Infant regulatory behaviors were measured with the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised Very Short Form effortful control subscale (mean age 11 months; range 8.5−14.3 months). Latent profile analysis was used to profile infants by risk and protective exposures. Regression was used to differentiate profiles by sociodemographic resources and to predict infant regulatory behavior from profiles. Three profiles emerged: low father support, good maternal mental health, and poor maternal mental health. A married mother, less economic hardship, and working mothers predicted infant exposure to good maternal mental health. Infant regulatory behavior was best when the infant was exposed to the good maternal mental health profile. Implications for future research are discussed.