Emotional intelligence,cognitive ability and information search in tactical decision-making

Emotional intelligence (EI) may promote more effective decision-making under stress. In the present study, 167 participants completed a situation judgment test for EI, and performed a decision-making task based on an Antarctic rescue scenario. Participants were assigned to either a negative or neutral feedback group. Negative feedback significantly increased distress and impaired decision-making. EI failed to moderate the impacts of negative feedback, but higher EI was associated with greater information-search activity irrespective of feedback condition. It is concluded that ability EI may have a motivational component that may support more exhaustive analysis of both social and non-social stimuli.     

The role of response readiness in subliminal visuomotor processes

The present study aims to examine the impact of response readiness on visuomotor processes triggered by subliminal stimuli using a mixed paradigm involving the masked prime paradigm and a foreperiod paradigm. Experiment 1 ensured that response readiness was successfully manipulated in the mixed paradigm. Importantly, Experiment 2 found that the negative compatibility effect (NCE; a behavioral indicator of subliminal visuomotor processes) disappeared and that response time lost its power to modulate the compatibility effect (CE) with reduced response readiness (due to temporal uncertainty). These results of CEs both independent of response latency and across different levels of response latency indicate that response readiness is a prerequisite for obtaining the NCE. The findings suggest that automatic processing of subliminal stimuli is susceptible to top-down control for reducing the interference of irrelevant information, which ensures a high degree of adaptability and flexibility of our cognitive system in interactions with the changing environment.     

EFFECTS OF IMMEDIATE SELF-CORRECTION,DELAYED SELF-CORRECTION,AND NO CORRECTION ON THE ACQUISITION AND MAINTENANCE OF MULTIPLICATION FACTS BY A FOURTH-GRADE STUDENT WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

This study compared the effects of immediate self-correction, delayed self-correction, and no correction on the acquisition and maintenance of multiplication facts by a fourth-grade student with learning disabilities. Data from daily and maintenance tests indicated that both correct response rate and accuracy were higher when self-correction was immediate rather than delayed or absent.     

Learning to Teach: The Acquisition and Maintenance of Teaching Skills

We reviewed 49 studies which used direct observation procedures to provide data on the effects of pre-service and inservice training in practical classroom teaching behaviors and skills. We found stronger effects for training packages which included classroom practice with performance feedback. The research provided conflicting evidence regarding the value of modeling, role-play, cueing systems, and contingency management components in practical skills training. The weakest training effects were those produced by microteaching, Minicourse, and protocol training packages. Twenty of the evaluations also provided follow-up data but the design of these studies did not permit any conclusions to be drawn regarding the training conditions which are necessary for the maintenance of newly acquired classroom teaching skills. We concluded that identification of the training conditions which are necessary for the maintenance of new teaching skills will require more thoughtful conceptualizations of maintenance and its measurement, and more carefully designed component analyses of those factors suggested by basic research as being necessary for maintenance.     

Positive priming: Locations containing relevant information are labeled accordingly

Individuals engaged in a location task where the relevancy status [relevant (stimulus) vs irrelevant (distractor) information] of these locations was reversed from one trial (prime) to the next (probe). The results produced by these reversals (Distractor-to-Stimulus and Stimulus-to-Distractor) indicated that both stimulus and distractor items are given relevancy status labels which participate in the future processing at the labeled locations. These findings support the view that selective processing involves both `facilitatory' and `inhibitory' components. Further, unlike identity tasks, the data indicated that neither the formation nor the subsequent use of these `location' labels (stimulus or distractor) is related to the presence of a response conflict.PsycINFO classification: 2330; 2340     

Maternal reflective functioning as a multidimensional construct: Differential associations with children’s temperament and externalizing behavior

Maternal reflective functioning (RF) has been associated with children’s behavioral development. This study examined maternal prenatal and postnatal RF, as measured by the Pregnancy Interview and Parent Development Interview, as multidimensional constructs. It was also examined whether the RF-dimensions were associated with children’s temperament and externalizing behavior, as assessed by several questionnaires. The sample consisted of 123 first-time mothers (M age = 22.85 years, SD = 2.21) and their children (M age = 19.97 months, SD = 0.85, 56% male). Two related but distinct dimensions were found for prenatal RF, termed self-focused and child-focused mentalization. Three dimensions were observed for postnatal RF, termed self-focused, child-focused, and relation-focused mentalization. Results showed that prenatal RF negatively related to reported child physical aggression. Postnatal self-focused RF was positively linked to externalizing behavior and negative emotionality in offspring, while relation-focused RF scores were negatively associated with child physical aggression. Findings show that it is important to also look at the specific RF-dimensions when examining the effects of maternal RF on children’s behavioral development, as differential associations with behavioral outcomes exist. Discussion further focuses on the importance of these findings in prevention and clinical practice, and suggestions are being made to further improve the measurement of maternal RF-dimensions.     

Memory of pain induced by physical exercise

The aim of this study was to assess the memory of pain induced by running a marathon and the factors that influence it. Sixty-two marathon runners participated in the study, which comprised two phases. Immediately after a participant had reached the finishing line of the marathon, they were asked to rate the intensity and the unpleasantness of their pain and the emotions they felt at that time. Either three or six months later they were asked again to rate the intensity and the unpleasantness of the same pain experience. Regardless of the length of recall delay, participants underestimated both recalled pain intensity and unpleasantness. The pain and negative affect reported at the time of the pain experience accounted for 24% of the total variance in predicting recalled pain intensity and 22% of the total variance in predicting recalled pain unpleasantness. Positive affect at the time of pain experience was not a significant predictor of both the recalled pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. It is concluded that pain induced by physical exercise is not remembered accurately and the pain and negative affect experienced influence recall. Further research is needed on the influence of positive affect on the memory of pain.     

Negative mood disrupts self- and reward-biases in perceptual matching

There are established effects of self- and reward-biases even on simple perceptual matching tasks [Sui, J., He, X., &; Humphreys, G. W. (2012). Perceptual effects of social salience: Evidence from self-prioritization effects on perceptual matching. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 38, 1105–1117]; however we know little about whether these biases can be modulated by particular interventions, and whether the biases then change in the same way. Here we assessed how the biases alter under conditions designed to induce negative mood. We had participants read a list of self-related negative or neutral mood statements [Velten, E. (1968). A laboratory task for induction of mood states. Behavior Research and Therapy, 6, 473–482] and also listen for 10?min to a passage of negative or neutral music, prior to carrying out perceptual matching with shapes associated to personal labels (self or stranger) or reward (£12 or £1). Responses to the self- and high-reward-associated shapes were selectively slower and less sensitive (d′) following the negative mood induction procedures, and the decrease in mood correlated with decreases in the reaction time bias across “high saliency” (self and high-reward) stimuli. We suggest that negative mood may decrease self- and reward-biases through reducing attention to salient external stimuli.     

Normative and idiosyncratic measures of positive and negative affect in sport

Objectives: The purposes of the study were to: (a) ascertain the degree of similarity amongst normative and idiosyncratic measures of affect; (b) test the notion of reversal effects on the functional impact and the hedonic tone of emotions; (c) analyse the differences on the intensity of facilitating-positive, facilitating-negative, inhibiting-positive, and inhibiting-negative performance emotion content categories, and (d) test whether competitive trait anxiety intensity could predict pre-performance normative or idiosyncratic negative affect intensity.Design: A cross-sectional study design was employed using normative and idiosyncratic measures of affect.Methods: Experienced male soccer and volleyball players (N =124) were individually assessed. Normative scales were the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) used as a sport-specific trait measure of competitive affect, and the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS) administered for the assessment of competitive trait anxiety. Idiosyncratic affect occurring prior to or during optimal and poor competitions was identified in the conceptual framework of the Hanin's Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF) model (Hanin, Y.L. (1997). Emotions and athletic performance: Individual zones of optimal functioning model. European Yearbook of Sport Psychology, 1, 29–72).Results: Findings revealed low overlap amongst the PANAS items and the idiosyncratic items, reversal effects on the functional impact and the hedonic tone of emotions, higher level of positive affect associated with optimal performance when compared with all other affect categories, and lower levels of facilitating-negative category when compared with the facilitating-positive. Moreover, sport trait anxiety intensity was found to predict negative affect intensity as assessed by the PANAS normative scales and by the idiosyncratic items. For idiosyncratic affect, however, significant differences emerged only when comparing individuals with very high or very low anxiety symptoms.Conclusions: Idiosyncratic affect scales together with normative scales are recommended for research and applied purposes. The functional impact as well as the hedonic tone of emotion items need to be examined according to individual perception.