How Reliably Do Eye Parameters Indicate Internal Versus External Attentional Focus?

Eye behavior is increasingly used as an indicator of internal versus external focus of attention both in research and application. However, available findings are partly inconsistent, which might be attributed to the different nature of the employed types of internal and external cognition tasks. The present study, therefore, investigated how consistently different eye parameters respond to internal versus external attentional focus across three task modalities: numerical, verbal, and visuo-spatial. Three eye parameters robustly differentiated between internal and external attentional focus across all tasks. Blinks, pupil diameter variance, and fixation disparity variance were consistently increased during internally directed attention. We also observed substantial attentional focus effects on other parameters (pupil diameter, fixation disparity, saccades, and microsaccades), but they were moderated by task type. Single-trial analysis of our data using machine learning techniques further confirmed our results: Classifying the focus of attention by means of eye tracking works well across participants, but generalizing across tasks proves to be challenging. Based on the effects of task type on eye parameters, we discuss what eye parameters are best suited as indicators of internal versus external attentional focus in different settings.     

Effectiveness of an ACT‐based rehabilitation program for the treatment of chronic fatigue: Results from a 12‐months longitudinal study

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is potentially effective for treating chronic fatigue. Given the paucity of studies on this topic, we aimed to assess long‐term trajectories of primary (fatigue, quality of life and functional abilities) and secondary outcomes (anxious and depressive symptoms) of an ACT‐based rehabilitation program for patients with chronic fatigue. Further, we examined if changes in potential process variables (psychological inflexibility, metacognitive beliefs, and cognitive and behavioral responses to symptoms) during ACT predicted change in all outcomes across follow‐up. One‐hundred ninety‐five workers on sick leave (mean age: 43.61 ± 9.33 years; 80.5% females) with a diagnosis of chronic fatigue were enrolled in a manualized, 3.5‐week intensive return‐to‐work rehabilitation program based on ACT. All completed a battery of questionnaires at pre‐, post‐treatment, 6 and 12 months follow‐up. We found significant longitudinal changes in most primary and secondary outcomes from pre‐ up to 12 months follow‐up. All process variables significantly decreased from pre‐ up to 12 months follow‐up, and pre‐to‐post changes in fear avoidance beliefs were most often associated with a greater change in outcomes across follow‐up. Depressive symptomatology showed a similar trajectory of change to fatigue, meaning that scores were correlated at each time point and tended to converge over time. This suggests that both symptoms influence each other substantially over a year following the treatment. Concluding, results lend support to the effectiveness of an ACT‐based rehabilitation program for patients with chronic fatigue and provide preliminary evidence for the role of process variables and depressive symptomatology on subsequent change in outcomes.     

Mediation,moderation, and context: Understanding complex relations among cognition,affect, and health behaviour

Objective: Researchers have historically treated cognition and affect as separate constructs in motivating health behaviour. We present a framework and empirical evidence for complex relations between cognition and affect in predicting health behaviour.

Main Outcome, Design and Results: First, affect and cognition can mediate each other’s relation to health behaviour. Second, affect and cognition can moderate the other’s impact. Third, context can change the interplay of affect and cognition. Fourth, affect and cognition may be indelibly fused in some psychological constructs (e.g. worry, anticipated regret and reactance). These four propositions in our framework are not mutually exclusive.

Conclusion: Examination of the types of complex relations described here can benefit theory development, empirical testing of theories and intervention design. Doing so will advance the understanding of mechanisms involved in regulation of health behaviours and the effectiveness of interventions to change health behaviours.     

There is a 60% probability,but I am 70% certain: communicative consequences of external and internal expressions of uncertainty

Current theories of probability recognise a distinction between external (un)certainty (frequentistic probabilities) and internal (un)certainty (degrees of belief). The present studies investigated this distinction in lay people's judgements of probability statements formulated to suggest either an internal (“I am X% certain”) or an external (“It is X% certain” or “There is an X% probability”) interpretation. These subtle differences in wording influenced participants' perceptions and endorsements of such statements, and their impressions of the speaker. External expressions were seen to signal more reliable task duration estimates, and a lower degree of external than internal certainty was deemed necessary to advise a course of action. In conversations about football, internal expressions were perceived as signalling more personal interest, and were expected to be on the average 10% higher than corresponding external probabilities. Finally, people who reported their outcome expectations for two major sports events let their degree of interest in these events influence their internal but not their external certainty. These results have implications for the communication of uncertainty and probability.     

Travel behavior as a driver of attitude: Car use and car pride in U.S. cities

Individuals attribute social status and personal image to owning and using a car (‘car pride’), which may interact with their travel behavior in complex ways. This study explores the multi-directional relations among car pride, car ownership, and car use for a sample of 1236 adult commuters in New York City, NY and Houston, TX. Applying multivariate structural equation modeling and incorporating instrumental variables, we find evidence of a feedback loop among car pride, car ownership, and car use. Our results suggest that an individual with higher car pride is more likely to own a vehicle, and, enabled with this ownership, use it more frequently. And individuals who use their car more frequently are likely to feel more pride in owning and using their vehicle.This exploration of causal multi-directionality in transportation attitude-behavior relations has important implications for behavioral research, model development, and policy interventions. For researchers, potential bidirectionality must be anticipated from the outset of research design and accounted for appropriately in modeling to address underlying endogeneity. For policymakers, our results suggest that there are multiple intervention points within the reinforcing cycle of attitudes and car consumption. Policies could directly target car ownership and use or could consider influencing behavior through attitude change.     

国内外职业承诺研究述评

从职业与事业的区别入手,对国内外职业承诺的概念、常用的几种职业承诺量表、职业承诺形成过程以及相关模型、前因与后果变量等方面的已有研究进行回顾和分析。研究发现,职业承诺与一些重要的效果变量有比较显著的关系,如职业满意度、工作投入、工作绩效等。文章最后指出了目前存在的问题及今后努力研究的方向,如现有的职业承诺概念比较凌乱,测量工具虽然多数是参照国外的重新编制,但其适用范围比较狭窄,因此需要对职业承诺的概念进行重新整合,职业承诺量表也需要对其在信效度指标上进行深入探索     

罗夏测验在西方近10年的最新发展

近10年来, 罗夏综合系统不断发展, 新增了XA%与WDA%、知觉−思维指数PTI、GHR:PHR等多个指标, 修改了8个群变量, 删除了精神分裂SCZI指标。这些新调整虽然不是本质性的, 但使得罗夏综合系统内容更加完善, 信度和效度不断提高, 更加精确化和标准化, 成为西方不可或缺的心理测验工具。尽管罗夏综合系统不断发展, 但仍然存在着操作过于复杂、功能还需要进一步完善等问题。罗夏综合系统作为一个代表性的投射测验, 与其它客观测验组成了一个完整的心理测量体系, 会发挥越来越大的作用。     

《周易》与《黄帝内经》

中医学理论体系的形成,与中国古代哲学有密切的联系。尤其是《周易》的自然哲学对中医学理论的奠基之作《黄帝内经》影响巨大,自古即有医易同源之说。《周易》对《内经》之影响是多方面的,本文仅选择阴阳、变易、时位中、象数,来探讨二者之间的关系。阴阳导源于《周易》,《内经》在医学方面作了发展;《内经》对变易运动、时位中概念的吸收,使中医学呈现出有别于西医学的民族特色;象数是中医学建立理论体系的方法。     

Demands and capacities versus demands and performance

This article examines the proposed relabeling of “capacities” as “performance” in the Demands and Capacities Model of stuttering in terms of four issues involving the model's demands component, theoretical versatility, genetic potential, and current clinical uses. Although the proposed changes should resolve the measurement issues of concern, it is suggested that this change may not be of sufficient value or significance for a Demands and Performance Model to supplant the Demands and Capacities Model.     

The evolution of cognition—a hypothesis

Behavior may be controlled by reactive systems. In a reactive system the motor output is exclusively driven by actual sensory input. An alternative solution to control behavior is given by “cognitive” systems capable of planning ahead. To this end the system has to be equipped with some kind of internal world model. A sensible basis of an internal world model might be a model of the system's own body. I show that a reactive system with the ability to control a body of complex geometry requires only a slight reorganization to form a cognitive system. This implies that the assumption that the evolution of cognitive properties requires the introduction of new, additional modules, namely internal world models, is not justified. Rather, these modules may already have existed before the system obtained cognitive properties. Furthermore, I discuss whether the occurrence of such world models may lead to systems having internal perspective.